djw180 6,839 Posted February 20, 2022 Share Posted February 20, 2022 (edited) Paris Texas (1984) dir Wim Wenders A multi award winning (Palme D'Or, BAFTA) non-hollywood film. Harry Dean Staunton stars as Travis, a Texan who went missing 4 years ago and has just turned up apparently having walked through the desert from Mexico. A doctor traces his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) who takes Travis back to LA with him. Travis moves in with Walt and his wife Anne (Aurore Clement) and is reunited with his 7 year old son Hunter who he slowly gets to know again. We start to learn the back story slowly, but Travis does not want to talk about it at first. Hunter's mother Jane (Natassja Kinksi) has not been seen for years either but pays money into a Houston bank account for her son very month. So Travis takes Hunter and drives to Texas to find her. It's the sort of slow paced, story based film I often like. There's no action scenes, no thrills, no dramatic plot twists, it's all about the story and great acting with some wonderful camera work. There's many scenes set in places all GTA players will recognise, like when Travis and Hunter have there lunch under a road junction, the one mid way between Los Santos and Sandy Shores, with the Pink Dinosaur visible in a later scene. The name of film refers to an anecdote that we're told Travis and Walt's father used to say about how he met his wife in 'Paris, <pause> … Texas'. Travis has bought a plot of land there but never visited it. As Lime says (previous post) the best scene comes near the end when Travis finally finds Jane. She is working in a kind of peep-show / str*p bar where she talks (and presumably does more than that) to her clients through a one-way mirror she can not see through. So Travis can see her but she can not see him and does not recognise his voice at first. Without this scene I would have said this was good, but not award worthy. It really does make the entire film so much better. 9/10 Moulin Rouge! (2001) dir Baz Luhrmann Baz Luhrmann's lavish, spectacular musical set in decadent, risqué Paris theatre was my wife's choice for our Valentines day film this year, but one I love as well. It stars Ewan McGregor as young Scottish poet / author Christian, living in late 19th century Paris. Roped into writing a play for Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo) to be performed at the Moulin Rouge, run by Harold Zidlier (Jim Broadbent), he falls in love with the leading actress / singer / dancer / courtesan Satine, played by Nicole Kidman. The only problem is the play is being funded by a wealthy Duke who expects Satine to become his mistress. So it's a fairly basic story of poor boy meets girl who wants to be with boy but has to pretend to be in love with the wealthy other man. It's done with huge amounts of gloriously over-the top dancing, singing, lavish costumes and sets (which it won Oscars for as well as being nominated for best picture). Very s*xy and risqué at times, a little surreal at others, e.g Kyle Minnogue playing the green fairy on a bottle of Absinthe, coming to life and singing with Ozzy Osborne also providing some of the fairy's lines! I'm not a big fan of musicals but this works and I really like all of Baz Luhrmann's films, especially this and his first two (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet). I think what makes this different to standard musicals is it uses great actors who are not known as singers, but gives them well known songs that they can sing, rather than using better singers with specially written songs. They don't even sing entire songs all time, sometimes it's just a few lines that fit the story. So it's full of bits of recognisable modern pop songs. 10/10 Edited February 20, 2022 by djw180 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smurf 947 Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 (edited) Watched Dog 🐕 starring C. Tatum. Seeing that it's freshly out I'll leave it at a decent watch not to give spoilers away. 1st time in maybe a decade that I've been to the theater & now you have machines instead of cashier's, oh how times have speed by. Edited February 23, 2022 by Smurf 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted February 26, 2022 Share Posted February 26, 2022 (edited) What I Watched This Week #8 (Feb 19-25) Texas Chainsaw Massacre dir. David Blue Garcia/2022/1h21m Despite the title this is not a remake of the 1974 grindhouse classic, but rather a direct sequel to that film which ignores all others in the franchise, and it also seeks to act as a reboot with its obvious setup for another film at the end. The plot sees a bunch of social media influencers buy up a Texas ghost town which seems to have only a handful of residents; a couple of cops, a mechanic, a crazy old lady who lives in the orphanage she used to run and one of her former orphans who must be in his 80s by now, and who also used to have a fetish for chainsaws. There are a few things about this film that make me like it more than I should. It's a really well shot film with some great imagery, particularly the shots of a field of dead sunflowers. It also has a couple of lead performances that really elevate the pretty predictable material. Sarah Yarkin as one of the investors, Melody, and Elsie Fisher (who was amazing as the lead in Eighth Grade) as her sister Lila really give their all and actually make you invest in their characters. There's a scene of Melody hiding under the floorboards that was made actually tense and scary just because of her performance. There's also an enjoyable, if totally gratuitous, scene where Leatherface slices his way through about twenty hipster d*uchebags on a bus (“if you try anything bro, you're cancelled”). Completely unnecessary yet weirdly fun, which doesn't at all match the tone of the original, but I liked it anyway. 7/10 Rafiki dir. Wanuri Kahiu/2018/1h22m Rafiki is a Kenyan film that was banned by the government, a Romeo and Juliet style tale of star-crossed lovers, in this case two teenage girls, Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) and the free spirited Ziki (Sheila Munyiva), whose fathers are opposing politicians running for local office. This is a vibrant and loving film that doesn't shy away from the problems for LGBTQ people in very religious, conservative countries like this, but it also doesn't condemn the country as a whole, the ending giving us some hope for the future. But before we can get that hope we have to go through some pretty harrowing scenes, most notably for me the “exorcism” where Kena is dragged into church so that the priest and the entire community can “pray away the gay”. The two lead performances are brilliant, particularly Munyiva as Ziki, and it has a banging soundtrack. A great film that feels as fresh as it does timeless. 8.5/10 Out Of Nature dir. Ole Giaever/2014/1h20m A Norwegian existential comedy about a mid-30s family man who treks out into the woods to try and get away from it all, but his persistent, neurotic voice-over won't give him any peace, I'm pretty sure that writer/director/lead actor Giaever just wanted an excuse for people to watch him jerk off because that's my big takeaway from this film. His d*ck should've gotten a co-starring credit we see it so much. I think I would've enjoyed this more had the subtitles not been totally out of sync, despite watching it on MUBI and not some pirated copy. Apart from that, this is a pretty decent film, but the main character, Martin, gets a bit whiny for my tastes, he's the type of person who thinks that the grass is always greener and won't stop moping about it. The best thing about this film is the scenery, the gorgeous Norwegian forests looking like something out of a fairy-tale. The perfect place to masturbate behind a tree. 6/10 Knocking dir. Frida Kempff/2021/1h18m Molly (Cecilia Milocco) is discharged from a mental health facility and moves into a new flat where she is soon tormented by a constant knocking sound, the source of which she can't figure out. After being gaslit by her neighbours she starts to wonder if it's all in her head or if the woman in the flat upstairs is really in trouble. A nice tight psychological thriller, this simple premise is totally carried by Milocco's intensely stressful performance. There's one scene in particular where she confronts all of her neighbours and it is a masterclass in paranoid anxiety and, what looks like to an outsider, raving madness. Some great visual flourishes help sell her trapped feelings, but the script could've been stronger, maybe flesh out some of her neighbours, but I did like the subtle way the film hinted at her past trauma and the reason she was in a mental health hospital to begin with. Well worth a watch if you like thrillers. 7.5/10 Anaconda dir. Luis Llosa/1997/1h29m A documentary film crew, led by director Terri (Jennifer Lopez), sail into the heart of the Amazon rainforest in search of a never before seen tribe. However, they instead find a giant snake and John Voight's insane and terribly accented hunter, Serone. This is pulpy b-movie trash and I kinda dig it. Ice Cube, Owen Wilson and Danny Trejo feature amongst the rest of the odd cast (seriously, these people have no right to all be in the same film) and they're all great, especially Ice Cube as the crew's cameraman. The effects are pretty crap, it's either a goofy looking puppet or some ropey cgi, but they totally fit the tone of the film. This is worth watching for Voight's performance alone, he knows he's in crap so he just has fun with it, his character like a cross between Brando in Apocalypse, Now and Pacino's Scarface. Absolute nonsense, but fun for what it is. 6.5/10 Trading Places dir. John Landis/1983/1h56m A bet between two rich *ssholes sees one of their investment managers, Louis Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd), have his life destroyed and replaced with fast talking hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy). While Valentine thrives in his new environment Winthorpe soon spirals into a life of crime, surviving thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis's hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Ophelia. I found this funny for the most part but it did feel overlong, especially the ending which involves trading in a Wall Street stock market, which is totally incomprehensible. Seriously, does anyone actually understand what is happening in those places? It just looks like a bunch of *ssholes shouting at each other. There's also a scene with Aykroyd in blackface with the worst Jamaican accent I've ever heard. I'm not trying to cancel him, it was just pretty cringy and unfunny. Murphy is brilliant in this, and gets a chance to show off his versatility, and Denholm Elliot as as Winthorpe, and then Valentine's butler, steals every scene he's in. 7/10 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home dir. Leonard Nimoy/1986/1h59m An alien probe is evaporating all of the Earth's oceans, so obviously the crew of the Enterprise (using a Klingon ship since the actual Enterprise was destroyed at the end of the last film) time travel back to San Francisco in the mid 80's in order to kidnap a couple of Humpback Whales. This is such a weird left-turn tonally for this series and it works so well. Making a light-hearted comedy with a strong environmental message should be awful but I love everything about this. All of the fish out of water stuff is brilliant, Kirk teaching Spock about swearing (“double dumba** on you”), and Scotty trying to use a computer by voice activating it are two personal highlights. This film also gives more time to the rest of the crew, and as a big Sulu (George Takei) fan I'm down for that. There is a totally forgettable love interest in the form of Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks), a marine biologist or something, but not much time is wasted on it. Cheesy as hell but the most fun film in the series. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Hostel dir. Eli Roth/2005/1h34m A couple of American backpackers (Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson) in Europe get honey-trapped into a world of secret organisations who kidnap people and sell the right to torture them. As far as torture p*rn goes this is pretty middle-of-the-road. I hated pretty much all of the characters, so getting to see them get killed was pretty entertaining I guess. Some of the gore effects look pretty cheap, but the overall design of the torture chambers is decent with a suitably grimy aesthetic. It was just hard to feel any empathy or fear because the whole thing is so juvenile, this film really feels like it was made by a bunch of teenagers. I don't know why I watched this, and I don't have much to say about it. It's the best one in the series, so there's that. 4.5/10 Edited February 26, 2022 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted February 27, 2022 Share Posted February 27, 2022 (edited) Dune (2021) dir Denis Villneuve An adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic Sci-Fi epic novel, or rather the first half of that novel. The book is one of my favourites and I quite like David Lynch's 1984 adaption (although it has it's flaws). So this is a film I was keen to see. It's quite good, but I prefer Lynch's. The main problem for me is the length of the film. It's 2 ½ hours and, as stated right at the start, this is part 1. It does half of the book. You don't need 2 ½ hours to do that. David Lynch did the whole thing in a little less than this. His script rushed the middle third of the story so to me 3 hours should be about right for the whole thing. If you're doing it in 2 parts, like Villneuve (who co wrote the screenplay) is, you don't need such a long film to do half of it. I was actually starting to get a little bored by the end. Maybe that is because I know the story so well, but it just seemed too long for half the story. And as with the other version it is almost impossible for me to say how well the actual, very complex, story is conveyed when I know that story so well already. The plot itself has added a few minor things not it the book and missed out some others. I've no problem with that, the basic story is true to Frank Herbert's. It's got a good cast and Timothee Chalamet is very good as the central character, Paul Atreides. It looks very good with nice sets, costumes and effects without going over the top with all the CGI available these days. 6/10 Edited February 27, 2022 by djw180 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 (edited) What I Watched This Week #9 (Feb 26-Mar 4) 8 ½ dir. Federico Fellini/1963/2h19m Considered Fellini's masterpiece, 8½ is a semi-autobiographical film about a middle aged director, g*ido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) who has hit a creative block on his new sci-fi film. He retreats to a luxury resort to try and get some peace but he is constantly harassed by the production crew, his mistress, his wife and his own wandering mind. Fellini's eighth and a half film (yes, even the title is meta), this really marks a turning point in his career from the neorealism of his earlier films like I Vitelloni and La Strada to the more surreal, even avant-garde films of his late career. Technically this film is incredible with Fellini wielding his camera with supreme confidence, presenting us with bravado dream sequences that really give us an insight to his own mind. The one involving a harem who violently turn against Anselmi is excellent, and pretty telling. Mastroianni is, as always, brilliant in the lead, his performance full of frustration and impotence as well as a healthy dose of Italian cool. Seriously, Mastroianni is one of the coolest people ever committed to film. I prefer Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita, but 8½ is still a brilliant film about middle age and the creative process, this really deserves its reputation as one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. 9.5.10 Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight dir. Bartosz M. Kowalski/2020/1h42m Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight is a Polish slasher about a group of internet addicted teenagers at a technology detox camp. When they take a two day trek deep into the woods they find a cabin with a big scary monster in it. This is a really cliché film but I still found it enjoyable. It's very well directed with some real nice cinematography and a couple of great performances from Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz and Michal Lupa as Zosia and Julek, the two main teenagers. I also really like the design of the monster, a huge, boil infested brute, like a herpes-ridden Jason Voorhees. There's nothing really original here, there's even a speech about the rules of horror films like Scream, and at least one of the kills is lifted straight from Friday the 13th (the one involving a sleeping bag and a tree), but this is still a very competent, at times campy, film that I think horror fans would enjoy. 6.5/10 Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2 dir. Bartosz M. Kowalski/2021/1h37m This sequel picks up straight from the end of the last film and sees Zosia and the monsters both locked up in a small town jail while the police investigate the events of the previous day. When Zosia is taken back to the cabin to walk the cops through the events, she is transformed and becomes the monster herself. This is a decent premise for a horror film, the final girl becoming the killer in the sequel, but the execution is f*cking laughable. The tone of this film is all over the place, at times it wants to be a horror, other times a comedy. There are moments when it wants to be a serious drama, and times when it wants to be sensual and tender and those are the funniest of all. The whole final act of this film is like a Laurel and Hardy sketch, but with two monsters pratfalling around as they try to be scary. There is a new character, a no-confidence rookie cop, Adas (Mateusz Wieclawek) who I liked for the first half of the film, but then he becomes Zosia's comedy sidekick/love interest and I kinda hated it. I appreciate that the filmmakers wanted to try something different but this just ain't it chief. 3.5/10 Shoah dir. Claude Lanzmann/1985/9h27m Shoah is a documentary about the Holocaust, and what's incredible is that during its 9 and a half hour runtime (that's not a typo, this is a nine and a half hour long film) not a second of archive footage from the actual event is used. What we instead get are incredibly detailed eyewitness accounts from both survivors of the concentration camps and, in secretly filmed interviews as they only agreed to have the audio recorded, n*zi guards who worked at the camps. Lanzmann's gently probing questions build up a horrifyingly vivid picture of what happened to millions upon millions of people. Some of the things described here I will never forget; so many bodies in mass graves that the gases escaping from the corpses made the ground undulate like water, and when those graves had to be exhumed so that the n*zis could burn the evidence, the bodies at the bottom had been crushed flat from the weight of all the other corpses on top of them. Alongside these interviews we get eerily beautiful shots of the Polish countryside, abandoned train tracks leading to a clearing where monolithic stones have been er*cted in memory of the dead. The slowly tracking camera giving an ominous sense of inevitability to what's happening. There is some hope here though. About six hours in we see a man, a survivor of Auschwitz, pull a yellowed piece of paper out of his pocket. He's clearly been carrying it with him for years. On it is a picture of several pig *sses. He folds the paper in a specific way, which he has clearly done thousands of times considering the deep creases and tattered nature of the paper, and the *sses transform into Hitler's face, the only time we see him in the entire film, and the man smiles. This small, almost insignificant act of rebellion kept him alive, gave him hope for a future, and that smile is one of the most beautiful images I've ever seen. The greatest documentary ever made and the most important film I've ever seen, this should be required viewing, and maybe then we wouldn't have Florida n*zis holding a rally like they're the oppressed ones or idiotic Holocaust deniers like the one we used to have in this crew. f*ck those people. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Circumstantial Pleasures dir. Lewis Klahr/2020/1h5m Circumstantial Pleasures is an animated film made up of six parts and if there is a plot then it went right over my head. This is pure avant-garde experimentalism, a film made up of collages of such a random collection of materials, like a political jazz-pop art explosion. This is totally not for everyone, and I can imagine a lot of people hating this just because it is so artsy. I found it hypnotic, and once I stopped trying to make sense of it and let it wash over me I quite enjoyed it. It's worth watching just for the final segment which is set to one of the most bizarre songs I've ever heard. Go on Spotify now and check out SSDS1416+13B (Zercon: A Flagpole Sitter) by Scott Walker and then you'll get an idea of what this is like. 8/10 Rat Race dir. Jerry Zucker/2001/1h52m A bunch of strangers in a Las Vegas hotel engage in a race to New Mexico to find a stash of 2 million dollars hidden there by eccentric hotel owner Donald Sinclair (John Cleese) in this modern version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. By all accounts this is not a very good film; the humour is broad and predictable, the characters are all one dimensional, the production design is cheap, it has one of the worst title sequences in film history, and it ends with Smash Mouth performing All Star. However, it has an amazing cast (Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Seth Green, Amy Smart, Kathy Bates, Cuba Gooding Jr. Jon Lovitz and more) and they all look like they're having a blast, there are so many jokes that it doesn't matter if a lot of them are bad, the production design doesn't really matter because so many weird things happen that you won't notice, seriously this is the closest thing to a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, and it ends with Smash Mouth performing All Star. 8.5/10 The Two Killings of Sam Cooke dir. Kelly Duane de la Vega/2019/1h14m This documentary details the life and career of soul singer Sam Cooke up to his death and the suspicious circumstances around his shooting. This is a very standard talking heads documentary that really doesn't spend much time examining his death, despite what the title suggests. Instead we get a lot of discussion on his importance to the music industry and the civil rights movement, being friends with the likes of Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali (who said of his death “if this were Frank Sinatra or The Beatles the FBI would be investigating right now”). This relates to the two killings of the title, the killing of the man and the killing of his reputation, because he was killed in a seedy motel by a woman who claims that he was trying to assault her. This was an interesting documentary of someone who I only knew because of his music, but getting some knowledge about the man really gives some context to A Change Is Gonna Come, making it an even more powerful song, but the short runtime really feels you leaving short changed. This could've been twice as long and I'm sure we'd only be scratching the surface of this groundbreaking artist and the impact he had on the world. 7/10 The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography dir. Errol Morris/2016/1h16m This documentary focuses on portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman who works exclusively in giant format Polaroid, her huge camera producing 20x24 inch instant prints. Seriously, this thing is a beast and one of only four in the world. As she approaches retirement Dorfman reflects back on her life and career, from her 60's days with beat poets, becoming close friends with Allen Ginsberg, through to the present, her archive of pictures bringing back memory after memory, some happy, some sad. What I like about this film is Dorfman herself, she is such a warm and endearing presence, and also very fun, she seems like someone you want to go for a drink with. I also like her philosophy towards photography; she's all surface level. She isn't trying to bring out the inner soul of her subjects, she just wants to take a pretty picture that they will like and want to hang on their wall. She always takes two pictures when doing her portraits, letting the subject pick their favourite to take home. The other she keeps and calls the b-side, and she says that often in music the b-side is better then the a-side. There's a fantastic scene where she goes through a bunch of pictures wondering why the people didn't like them, saying how beautiful and happy they look, and you just know that that's how she sees the world. The only downside to this film, like the Sam Cooke documentary, is that it's too darn short. A great film about an endearingly quirky character. 7.5/10 The Duke dir. Roger Michell/2020/1h36m The Duke tells the incredible true story of the only theft in the history of the National Gallery in London. In 1961 an old aged pensioner from Newcastle, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), stole Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington and held it to ransom, demanding money from the government in order to help pensioners and war widows. Caught up in all this mess is his loving but weary wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren). This is a quintessential British film of a certain type, like a cozy old cardigan. It's well directed, with a nice use of split-screen at a few points, but there's nothing flashy here because it's not needed. There are no stand outs in the supporting cast but Broadbent and Mirren are as dependably great as usual and have fantastic chemistry together. This is the sort of film your dad would love, mine did. 7/10 Edited March 25, 2022 by LimeGreenLegend 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 Red Joan (2018) dir Trevor Nunn It states as the start that this was inspired by a true story, i.e. it's not a true story but the film makers based their central characters on real people and tell a story similar to what actually happened. In this case the real character this was based on was Melita Norwood; a scientist who worked on the British atomic weapons program during and after the Second World War. In the late 1940s she passed information to the Soviet Union that enabled them to develop their own atom bombs. But this went undiscovered until the late 1990s. In 1999 Norwood, by then in her 80s, publicly acknowledged what she had done. She was unrepentant, maintaining she was never paid for the information she gave away and only did so because if a nuclear deterrent was going to prevent a Third World War then both sides had to have that deterrent. No charges were ever brought against her, due to her age and so as not to effect other investigations. I don't know how much of the film is based on the real Norwood and how much is fiction. But the Joan in the film was certainly a remarkable character as a female physics graduate, fairly rare today, I would imagine was almost unheard of in the 40s. She is not portrayed as particularly political although she knew plenty of people who were, and some of them were Soviet spies. It's seeing what the atom bombs did to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that motivated her give the information away in the belief only that would prevent atom bombs being used again. The central character in the film, Joan, is played by Judi Dench in the 90s and Sophie Cookson in the 30s/40s. The former gives a great performance, as she always does, and the latter is pretty good as well. There's good support all round, It's a very interesting and well written story, although it does kind of have the feel of a BBC early evening drama rather than feature film. 7/10 The Lobster (2015) dir Yorgos Lanthimos This is a very strange film. It was interesting and I'm glad I have seen it, but it was hard to watch at times. It's very well made, got a great cast, has an interesting and very original story, but like the same director's 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' most of the actors deliberately deliver their lines in a very bland, wooden way. It's almost as if they can't act (but we know they can) and are just saying the lines. In this film that really started to get on my nerves about half way through. It's set in a strange world where everyone has to be in a couple, being single is not allowed. Anyone who finds themselves single, e.g. central character David (Colin Farrell) who's wife left him, is sent to a hotel where they have 45 days to couple-up or be turned into an animal of their own choosing; the title comes from David's choice of a lobster if he fails to find a partner. It's billed as a comedy, but not in the actually making you laugh much sort of way, more from the bizarre settings and situations. One thing I found odd was that not all the actors act in the bland, wooden way. Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz (who he meets and falls for after escaping the hotel) certainly do. But amongst the support, Olivia Coleman (hotel manager) and Ben Wishaw (fellow hotel guest) sometimes do and sometimes don't (maybe they are such good actors they found it hard not to act?), and Jon C Reilly (another guest, who seems certain to become an animal) never does. I found it very confusing; was this the director's intention or was just the actors acting more normally. The main irritation for me was because the main character does act this way it made him really unlikeable and I just could not care in the slightest what happened to him, and that really makes it hard for me to like a film that much. So as well made as it is, I'll give this 6/10. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 (edited) What I Watched This Week #10 (Mar 5-11) The Summit of the Gods dir. Patrick Imbert/2021/1h35m A photojournalist, Makoto Fukumachi (Damien Boisseau) in search of the truth about the Mallory expedition to the summit of Everest (as chronicled in the documentary The Epic of Everest) becomes obsessed with the contemporary mountain climber Joji Habu (Eric Herson-Macarel) and his own quest to conquer the top of the world. This French animated film perfectly captures the exhilaration of mountain climbing, sequences in this film gave me that gut dropping vertigo inducing feeling as well as any live action film. The parts of the movie set on the mountains are fantastic, the crisp, cold animation is a perfect match for the icy landscapes that dominate the film. Where this film drags are the scenes set in the city, following Fukumachi as he prepares for his expedition. I would have prefered to have this film entirely set in the Himalayan mountain ranges as that is where the animation, and the story, seems truly free. There are some well played emotional moments here, but nothing that eclipses the terrifying majesty of the natural world. 7.5/10 West Side Story dir. Steven Spielberg/2021/2h37m For his first musical Steven Spielberg chose to take on one of the giants of the genre and remake West Side Story. A 50s set Romeo and Juliet, two gangs, the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, clash in the streets of New York City. Amid all of this two star-crossed lovers, Tony and Maria (Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler) fall hard, despite the objections of their friends and family. I liked the original, I really like this. Firstly, the cinematography is incredible. Every forty five seconds I thought to myself “that is gorgeous”, this film has some of the best lighting I've ever seen. Secondly, the direction is Spielberg's best in a while, his camera is really swept along in the whirlwind romance at the heart of the story, but it also gets in rough and ready during the fight scenes. Finally, I think that the music and the acting are much better in this version. Yes, they're the same songs, but the performances really took them to the next level, particularly Ariana DeBose as Anita, who totally steals the film. Sure, Ansel Elgort is a creepy w*irdo, but this is the best performance of his career so far and he is totally carried by an amazing supporting cast, especially Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the original and here plays the owner of the store where Tony works. It was a great decision to give her the song Somewhere because she turns it into the emotional high point of the whole film. Y'all know I'm a sucker for a musical, and I think that this one is brilliant. Sharks for life daddy-o. 9/10 A Clockwork Orange dir. Stanley Kubrick/1971/2h17m Teenage tearaway Alex (Malcolm McDowell) leads his gang of droogs through a series of senseless acts of ultra violence and s*xual assault. After he kills a woman he is imprisoned, where after a couple of years he is given the opportunity at early release. All he has to do is submit to a radical, experimental new form of therapy. It works, but at the cost of his free will. Kubrick's most controversial film, banned in the UK at his own request until after his death in 1999, still retains its power to shock. The gleeful abandon of Alex as he rapes a woman while crooning Singin' in the Rain is violently uncomfortable to witness. This grotesque playfulness is mirrored in Kubrick's direction, scenes like the sped-up threes*me and Alex's dream of torturing Jesus come to mind. This is the most brash, loud, and frantic of Kubrick's films and that perfectly matches the mindset of the main character. What's most terrifying about this film is the conclusion that it makes you come to. The world is a better place with people like Alex in it if the alternative is a world where we can easily take away free will. The fact that Kubrick can make a film this good and it's not even in my top five of his filmography is a testament to the towering genius of the man. 9/10 Nobody Knows I'm Here dir. Gaspar Antillo/2020/1h31m Memo (Jorge Garcia) is a near mute recluse living on a sheep farm with his uncle. As a child he had a beautiful singing voice, but after his dreams were crushed in a heartbreakingly cruel way he closes off from the world. He becomes infatuated with Marta (Millaray Lobos), who is just as intrigued by him. After she secretly films him singing without anyone knowing they can hear she posts the video to YouTube and he is forced to come out and face the world. This Chilean drama, and a Netflix original, was a real delight and makes me wish they would advertise stuff like this over the latest Ryan Reynolds crapfest (am I the only one burnt out by his whole schtick now?). This is a beautifully shot, tender film with an incredible lead performance from Garcia, you know, Hurley from Lost! The only reason I watched this is because I saw he was in it and I thought “hey, it's Hurley from Lost” and I am so glad I did. It would be amazing if a bunch of you watch this and tell the Netflix algorithm overlords that stuff like this is worth some attention. 9/10 The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick dir. Wim Wenders/1972/1h41m During a football match the goalie Josef Bloch (Arthur Brauss) is sent off for arguing with the referee. He leaves the stadium and wanders around aimlessly before going to the cinema. After watching the film he takes the ticket girl home with him and in the morning, for no reason at all and with no emotion whatsoever, he kills her. Afterwards he travels to a different town to visit an old flame and basically bum around for a bit. But because we know he's a murderer even the most banal situation (and this film is full of them) becomes fraught with tension. This is a very deliberately paced film and a total deconstruction of the Hitchcock style thriller. There is pretty much zero police presence here, only a couple of headlines in the paper and a cop car driving by in the background of one scene. The crime goes unpunished and life goes on as normal. Brauss gives a very closed off performance, looking at him he could be bored out of his mind or plotting his next murder. This is a decent film, but Wenders would go on to make much better ones later in his career. I'd still recommend this though as it is a very unique thriller unlike anything I've seen before. 7/10 Gods and Monsters dir. Bill Condon/1998/1h45m In the late 50s retired director James Whale (Ian McKellen) of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man fame suffers a stroke and becomes housebound for a while as he recuperates. As he does the new gardener Clay (Brendan Fraser), hired by his housekeeper Hanna (Lynn Redgrave), catches his eye and the two form a friendship, sometimes strained by the s*xual tension between the openly gay Whale and the blue collar straight-as-a-die Clay. Because this is semi-fictional it's best to think of it not as a biography of Whale, but as a critique of Hollywood at the time, with Whale being pretty much blacklisted because of his sexuality. All despite the great successes of his horror films. That said, there is still a great amount of information about a filmmaker whose name is often left out in discussions about the great directors of history. McKellen is unsurprisingly perfect in this role, going from cheeky twinkle-in-the-eye playfulness to total despair and heartbreak often in the same scene. Fraser is okay when he's not trying to be dramatic, but when he does the gulf between him and McKellen becomes distractingly obvious. Whale's life ended tragically, but this film ends on an optimistic note that he was happy at times, and that's all we can hope for. 7/10 Guava Island dir. Hiro Murai/2019/55m Guava Island is a musical short set on the fictional titular island. Deni Maroon (Donald Glover) is a dock worker and musician on the island living with his girlfriend Kofi (Rihanna). He has a dream to put on a music festival, but that goes against the wishes of the de facto ruler of the island Red Cargo (Nonso Anozie) who owns all of the businesses on the island, including the dock and radio station where Deni works. More than anything this is a showcase for the many talents of the brilliant Donald Glover. All of the songs in the film are his and he performs them with real heart and gusto, I particularly loved the warehouse rendition of This Is America. He also has a hypnotic fluidity to his movements, the way he rolls his body and just generally moves through the frame is a joy to watch. There is decent support from Anozie and Letitia Wright who plays one of Kofi's friends at the factory. Sadly Rihanna is a bit of a let down, she's not a very strong actor and she doesn't even sing. In a musical. Seems like a waste to me. Aside from that I still really enjoyed this, it has gorgeous cinematography, you can really feel the warmth and vibrancy radiate out of the screen, and like I mentioned, Glover is always entrancing. 8/10 Songs From the Second Floor dir. Roy Andersson/2000/1h38m Songs From the Second Floor is another deadpan meditation on the human condition from Swedish auteur Roy Andersson. Shot in his trademark style, carefully composed static frames, long takes and a surreal yet sombre view of the world, this feels unlike any other comedy I've seen (apart from Andersson's other films of course). Like his later films this is made up of a series of vignettes, only some of them connected. This is more akin to a sketch show. We see a man pathetically beg for his job, holding onto the leg of his boss as he's dragged down a hallway, a man burn down his business in an insurance scam, a child sacrificed by the rich in order to bring good fortune. Throughout the film we see a procession of business men walking through the streets whipping themselves and each other in some public display of self-flagellation, a statement on the economic situation at the time. While this is still very good I enjoyed You, The Living and About Endlessness more than this. However, this is still well worth watching if you want a uniquely idiosyncratic comedy that manages to be both hilarious and profoundly sad all at the same time. 8/10 The Conversation dir. Francis Ford Coppola/1974/1h53m In between Godfathers Coppola quickly knocked out this minor masterpiece and it might just be my favourite film of his. Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, surveillance expert, hired to spy on a young couple, recording a conversation they have while walking around a public square. A fog of sweaty paranoia falls over the film as Caul tries to figure out if they're in danger, a tragic outcome of a past case haunting him. There's an atmosphere about these sweaty 70s paranoid conspiracy thrillers that I love, and that no other decade can match. There's a grimy sleaziness to everything that makes it all seem a little bit more uncomfortable. Hackman is brilliant here, his Harry Caul a sad, almost pathetic figure. A man whose paranoia has left him truly alone. He does seem to have a decent rapport with Stan (John Cazale), who he works with for a short while, but that soon falls apart. What I really love about this film is how we are slowly given more information that gives context to the conversation, and then hearing snippets of the conversation again where the whole meaning changes. The ending is also perfect, and truly symbolic as to who Caul is as a person. A totally different film to the two Godfathers that sandwich it, and all the more worth watching because of it. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Hail, Caesar! dir. Joel and Ethan Coen/2016/1h46m Hail, Caesar! Is a screwball comedy set in the early 50s from the Coen brothers which follows movie executive Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) as he tries to fix several problems around his studio, the most important being the kidnapping of the star of their big budget epic (also called Hail, Caesar!), Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), by a group of communist writers. This is a movie absolutely stuffed to the gills; there are about seven things going on at once pretty much all the time and there is an extensive cast, some of whom only appear for a few minutes (my favourite is Channing Tatum and his show-stopping song and dance number in a bar full of h*rny sailors). This is a fun film with some great performances (Tilda Swinton as twin gossip reporters is fabulous) but it never quite catches the spark like the great Coen comedies like Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski. That said this is still far from their worst offering and I still recommend it. 7/10 Edited March 27, 2022 by LimeGreenLegend 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 (edited) Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019) dir Quentin Tarantino Quite different to most Tarantino films in that there isn't that much violence, until the end, this tells the story of former star actor Rick (Leonardo Di Caprio) and his long time stunt double and friend Cliff (Brad Pitt). It's set in 1969 against a back drop of real life events that built up to the mass murders committed by Charlie Manson's cult. Margot Robbie plays actress Sharon Tate, one of the gangs actual victims, who (with husband Roman Polanski) lives next door to Rick in Hollywood. Except the ending isn't quite what happened in reality, and that ending is pure Tarintino at his over-the-top-kill-fest best. It's a very good script, as Tarantino's usually are, although a bit slow to get going, once it does it is great. It has a lot of film references, no surprise! The title is of course one those, referencing Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America plus Rick is being offered roles in spaghetti westerns by a producer played by Al Pacino. As well as Tate there are other members of the support cast playing real 60s Hollywood personalities such as Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Sam Wanamaker and I'm sure one of a group of people dancing at a party is meant to be Cass Elliot from the Mamas and the Papas. Brad Pitt is very good and well worth the Oscar he got for this. Margot Robbie is also very good and knowing what happened to Sharon Tate and seeing that the film is very obviously leading up to that makes her performance very poignant. Then when the actual ending departs somewhat from reality it is superb. 9/10 The Power of the Dog (2021) dir. Jane Campion Hotly tipped for this years Oscars (and making sure I wrote this before the ceremony) this is not really a western as such, unless any film set in the Western half of the USA is classed as a Western. It's simply a great drama that happens to be mainly set on a cattle ranch in Montana. It has a great cast and any of Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons, as brothers Phil & George Burbank, Kirsten Dunst, as Rose, or Kodi Smit-McPhee, as Rose's son Peter, could deservedly win one of the Oscars they have all been nominated for. It has some stunning cinematography and I guess could also win awards in a host of other technical categories. The story is quite slowly, but nicely paced. The Burbank brothers run the family ranch. Phil is clearly much, much more at home running the ranch than George, and Phil is constantly reminding his brother of the things they were taught by the late 'Bronco Henry'. Bronco clearly meant a lot to Phil. They meet Rose and Peter at a stop off on a cattle drive, and after Phil treats Peter horribly, George returns to apologise and that ultimately leads to him marrying Rose. Phil hates this and has no intention of treating his new sister-in-law with any respect, just dismisses her as only being after their money. The bulk of the film is then about Rose trying to fit in at the ranch, Phil ignoring her and getting on with being a cowboy and George seemingly unsure what to do and not exactly neglecting his wife, but certainly not really helping her settle in. Peter has gone off to college, but comes to the ranch in the summer holidays and Phil eventually takes a liking to him and tries to be to Peter what Bronco Henry was to him. The slight problem for me is that non of the characters are really likeable. Phil isn't meant to be liked and is somewhat of an anti-hero. George is just a fish-out-of-water, ought to be in an office not running a ranch. Rose starts off as very likeable (being played by Kirsten Dunst helps with that) but unable to fit in at the ranch becomes too miserable. Peter could be likeable but is a bit bland. I also find the ending a little confusing. Maybe it is meant to be a sort 'interpret this how you like' ending. Without giving any spoilers away; something very major happens and it's not clear to me if one of the other characters intentionally caused this or if it was just an accident. 8/10 Edited March 27, 2022 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 12 minutes ago, djw180 said: it's not clear to me if one of the other characters intentionally caused this or if it was just an accident. it's very much intentional. i've watched this a couple more times since december and there are a lot of signs leading up to it. cumberbatch using his banjo as a psychological weapon against dunst is still my favourite thing in the film 😄 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 (edited) What I Watched This Week #11 (Mar 12-18) Turning Red dir. Domee Shi/2022/1h40m Turning Red is the latest film from Pixar and the first feature length film from Domee Shi, director of the excellent short Bao. The film centres on thirteen year old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) who, when she gets her first period, is also hit by an ancient family curse that causes her to turn into a giant red panda whenever she gets over-excited. While not on the level of your Toy Stories or Wall-E this is a solid outing for the animation giants. As expected the quality of the animation is second to none, especially the fur on the panda. I remember being blown away by the fur on Sully in Monsters, Inc. but this blows that out of the water. This also has a beautiful bright pastel-like colour palette used for establishing shots that I really dug. The vocal performances are all solid, with Chiang great as the lead, really capturing the emotional mood swings of a hormonal teenager, and the always fantastic Sandra Oh as Mei's mother Ming is perfect as the overbearing but loving matriarch of the family. Not a top tier Pixar film but miles better than Cars. 8/10 Lamb dir. Valdimar Johannsson/2021/1h46m Ingvar and Maria (Hilmir Snaer Gudnasson, Noomi Rapace) are sheep farmers and a couple living in the desolate Icelandic countryside. One day one of their sheep gives birth to a half sheep/half human hybrid, which the two take into their home and start to raise as if it were their own. This rural idyll is threatened by the arrival of Ingvar's brother Petur (Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson). This reminded me a lot of the Nicholas Cage film Pig, in that it sounds like it has a wacky concept, but the execution is very muted and introspective. Unlike that film however, this doesn't quite deliver. There are some fantastic things here, Rapace's performance is gripping, especially the scene where she confronts the Lamb's birth mother, and the gorgeous Icelandic scenery is captured beautifully in the cinematography, but it's almost all let down by the ending which becomes even more fantastical, and doesn't quite work for me. I did like the minimalist use of dialogue, and the very slow burn nature of the second act, and would still recommend this, but I understand why people wouldn't like this. 7/10 Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another dir. Jessica Sarah Rinland/2019/1h7m This experimental documentary focuses primarily on an elephant's tusk and its cleaning and duplication by staff at a museum. Shot entirely in close-ups this is a film about tactility, each scene being basically a pair of hands doing something. There are sections where some of the ivory from the tusk is used to repair an antique jewellery box and at the start of the film there is footage of some monkeys being released into the wild. The dialogue in the film is incidental, conversations between the staff sometimes about the work they're doing, sometimes just idle gossip. I really wanted to like this but just found it tedious. At times it comes close to being hypnotic, which would make the entire thing more enjoyable, but for the whole it's a bit of a slog. I like how it tries something totally unique, and is certainly unlike any other documentary I've seen, but it just needed something, maybe an engaging soundtrack, to bring it all together. 4/10 Maradona's Legs dir. Firas Khoury/2019/24m This short film from Palestine is set during the 1990 World Cup and follows two young boys, brothers (Faris Abbas, Ameer Assadi) as they desperately try to complete their World Cup sticker album and win an Atari. The only sticker they need is the titular Maradona's legs, so we follow them as they hit up all the other kids and try to make a deal that will see their collection complete. I loved this short, and it really gave me a nostalgic feeling, I was one of those kids on the playground swapping my duplicates to try and finish my Premier League album each year. This film really captures the energy of youth and how invested they get supporting their favourite team, Brazil, and their rivalry with supporters of the hated Argentina. This also reminded me of Kenneth Branagh's Belfast, as in this is viewed through the eyes of a child, so the huge political upheavals are relegated to the background, and stuff like the chance to win an Atari, or talking to a girl you like, is the most important thing in the world. Short and sweet. 9/10 After Yang dir. Kogonada/2021/1h36m In the near future Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith are couple Jake and Kyra who live with their adopted daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) and their second hand android Yang (Justin H. Min). When Yang breaks one day Mika becomes heartbroken, so Jake goes on a quest to have him repaired, one which sees him learn about Yang's past and question what it means to be alive. This is a very tender and thoughtful sci-fi film with some great performances, particularly from Min as Yang. He remains robotic but is never cold, and he has flourishes of humanity that shine through in a beautifully subtle way. Farrell is solid in the lead, but Turner-Smith, who was fantastic in Queen & Slim, really doesn't get much to do here, as the film follows Farrell for the most part. She is pretty much relegated to a voice on the end of the phone after the first act. However, this is still a great film and well worth watching. 8/10 The Lavender Hill Mob dir. Charles Crichton/1951/1h18m Alec Guinness stars as mild-mannered bank clerk Henry 'Dutch' Holland who, after 20 years of being in charge of bullion deliveries, decides it's time to live and sets about planning a heist. To do so he enlists manufacturer of cheap souvenirs Albert Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) and common crook Lackery (Sid James). Ealing studios were famous for their comedies in the 40's and 50's, and to me this is just a notch below their greatest film, The Ladykillers, also starring Guinness. There's a fantastic momentum to the events in the film that the runtime just flies by, and the jokes, both slapstick physical comedy and witty one-liners, never stop coming. Guinness is perfect in the lead, his meek and softly spoken banker slowly coming out of his shell as he starts to enjoy his life of crime, and it's always great seeing Sid James being a big fan of the Carry On film series. I had a load of fun watching this great British comedy, and think most people would too. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Man in the White Suit dir. Alexander Mackendrick/1951/1h25m Another Ealing comedy from 1951 starring Alec Guinness, this time playing nerdy inventor Sidney Stratton who invents a fabric that doesn't get dirty. When the heads of the textile industry find out about it they want it destroyed as it will ruin them. This is a decent comedy, but it does live in the shadow of the great films of Ealing Studios. Guinness is again brilliant, but the script never quite delivers on the concept. I do like the ending, with Guinness chased through the dark streets, his bright white suit lit up like a torch, the mob baying for blood, but it felt like it took the long way to get there. Watching this right after The Lavender Hill Mob may have been a bad idea, watching it in isolation may have put it in a better light, but it's still entertaining and worth a watch. 7/10 Edited March 31, 2022 by LimeGreenLegend 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 5, 2022 Share Posted April 5, 2022 (edited) What I Watched This Week #12 (Mar 19-25) The Battle of Algiers dir. Gillo Pontecorvo/1966/2h Ali La Pointe (Brahim Hadjadj) is recruited into the Algerian liberation front while in prison for theft, and from that point we follow him as he fights a guerilla war against the occupying French forces. The French forces are led by the calm, level headed Col, Mathieu (Jean Martin), who is forced to use increasingly lethal tactics, soon realising that these people would rather die than give up their freedom. This is a nerve-shatteringly tense film with one sequence that stands out, three young women on the side of the rebels head out to the French district and plant bombs amongst innocent people in cafes and stores. The documentary style that the film is shot in, along with the non-professional actors used for a lot of the lead roles and the location shooting, add an unnerving sense of realism to the action, and the fact that Pontecorvo specifically makes sure that he doesn't take sides, both the French and the Algerians are shown to do both decent and abhorrent things, shows how complicated these situations really are. A finely crafted war film that doesn't shy away from the effects of colonialism. 9/10 Iris dir. Richard Eyre/2001/1h30m Iris is a biopic of the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch and her relationship with her husband, also an author, John Bayley. The movie cuts between their meeting in the 50's at Oxford University and the 90's where Iris struggled with Alzheimer's before her death in 1999. As a young woman (Kate Winslet) she is a free and open person, ready to share her love, and the fact that she chose to share it with the reserved Bayley (Hugh Bonneville) is a surprise to everyone, even him. As an elderly lady (Judi Dench) she is a stately figure, erudite and intelligent at first, but the battle with her disease destroys her mentally, and Bayley (Jim Broadbent) struggles to care for both her and himself, his frustration exploding into anger at times, but impotently so as Iris soon forgets everything that happens. Iris Murdoch is my favourite writer of all time. I've read more of her books than anyone else, lived through the incredible experiences that she imagined and met rich and nuanced characters with relationships that are so well defined that they could be real people. She wrote so beautifully that I would re-read whole paragraphs over and over again when reading her books, and that made seeing her reduced to a shell of a human being break my heart more than I could imagine. This may be the best performance of Dench's career, on a par with Anthony Hopkin's performance in The Father, and it was so hard to watch. What made it bearable was Broadbent; even though he gets angry with her his love shines through so strongly. This is covered somewhat in the film, but Murdoch and Bayley had a very strange relationship, she was very open sexually, while he was a v*rgin when they met. Throughout their loving marriage she would take other lovers, but only sexually, and she would reserve her love for him, something he was happy with because he loved her so much. This love, that knew no jealousy, is the abiding feeling you're left with from the film, thankfully. I may be biased because I love Murdoch so much, or maybe that makes me a harsher critic, but I loved this. All of the performances are perfect, Broadbent is Dench's equal in this, and Winslet and Bonneville are delightful as the younger Murdoch and Bayley. As a film it does nothing special, but with a subject as rich as this you don't need to. Watch this then read some Murdoch; I recommend The Philosopher's Pupil, The Flight From the Enchanter, The Unicorn and The Time of the Angels. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Mandabi dir. Ousmane Sembene/1968/1h31m This Senegalese film follows poor villager Ibrahim (Makhouredia Gueye) who one day receives a cheque from his nephew in Paris. When he takes it to the bank to cash it he is told he needs some ID, which he doesn't have. And so he embarks on a devastatingly frustrating battle against bureaucratic red-tape and everyone else in the village who all come begging when they learn about his windfall. I've been looking to get into more African cinema and this is one of the most acclaimed films from the continent and it did not disappoint. This is a film that really carries you along with a character, and even if they're not the nicest person you still root for them because you've gone through everything they have. By the end I was begging them to just give the man his money. This is another film with a mainly non-professional cast, and Gueye really nails it in the lead, his sense of frustration and anger comes through so naturally, and I really love the sense of self-importance with which he carries himself. The original Uncut Gems. 9/10 Just a Gigolo dir. David Hemmings/1978/1h45m David Bowie plays a German WWI officer who, after the war, finds himself at a loose end with no plan for his future. After a series of dead end jobs he becomes a gigolo for Baroness von Semering (Marlene Dietrich) and starts courting elderly women, with Helga von Kaiserling (Kim Novak) taking a particular liking to him. When he is killed in a riot between communists and the nascent n*zi party his body is taken by the n*zis and used as a prop to further their cause. This is a strange film where the tone can change drastically from one scene to the next. It starts quite light-hearted, with Bowie's stiff, awkward performance really standing out and not always in a good way. Once he actually becomes a gigolo the film seems to find its footing, but a lot of this is played as a comedy and lacks weight because of it. I only watched this because it stars David Bowie, and he's not that great here, but his sheer force of personality carries him through the film. I still enjoyed this despite the disjointed tone, Novak and Dietrich are both great, and it does seem to have something to say about the emptiness left after a big war, but there are better choices if you want to watch Bowie act rather than sing. 6/10 Belle de Jour dir. Luis Bunuel/1967/1h41m In the second film about prostitution I watched this week Catherine Deneuve plays Severine, a woman in a dull, sexless marriage. After learning about a local brothel she decides to start working there during the days under the name Belle de Jour (beauty of the day) while her unsuspecting husband is at work. This could have been a straight drama, but Bunuel's surrealist touch (he co-directed his first film, An Andalusian Dog, with Salvador Dali) really made this a much darker film, almost Lynchian, especially the scene where a client brings a buzzing box with him which seems to scare everyone. We never find out what's inside, or what he did with it, but it adds a real keen sense of danger to what Severine is doing, like Little Red Riding Hood walking through the forest. Severine also has several violent s*xual fantasies, adding to the dangerous feeling of her actions, but may also go some small way to explain them. There's also a twist ending that's not so much a twist but another unanswered mystery for us to ponder. Deneuve is brilliant here, her performance going beyond the sexually frustrated woman trope and becoming something more subversive. Well worth a watch. 8.5/10 A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn dir. Daisuke Goto/2003/1h1m In this film widower Noriko (Ryoko Asagi) lives with her father in law Syukichi (Horyu Nakamura) on his farm. He is senile and believes his favourite cow is still alive. In order to keep up this ruse and keep his heart from breaking Noriko strips naked and pretends to be the cow, waiting on her hands and knees in the barn each morning to get milked. This relationship is threatened when Syukichi's daughter turns up. This is at times bittersweet and at others very uncomfortable, particularly the milking scenes. There is a sweetness in the relationship between Noriko and Syukichi but at times it does come across as exploitative. The performances are good but no one really stood out, perhaps the short run time is a factor there, there's not enough time to really develop anything fully. There are some beautiful shots of the Japanese countryside here, and if you're looking for a strange er*tic drama then you could do far worse, but overall I wasn't very engaged. 5/10 j*cka** Forever dir. Jeff Tremaine/2022/1h36m Johnny Knoxville and most of the j*cka** crew return after over ten years for more stunts and pranks that range from childishly ridiculous to violently dangerous. The tone is set from the start where Chris Pontius' p*nis is made up to look like Godzilla and it trashes a city before being defeated by a snapping turtle (ouch). Steve-O gets a beard of bees – on his p*nis, one of the new cast members, Poopies, gets bitten in the face by a rattlesnake several times while he tries to kiss it, and there's lots of fun with pig s*men. In my opinion the j*cka** films are the purest expressions of cinematic comedy since the silent era of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. I had a smile on my face for the duration of this film, and was saddened to see the end credits. While I love the other j*cka** films there are parts of them that just seem mean spirited, but there's none of that here. There's such a wholesome feeling that permeates this film. You can see how much these guys really care about each other, and are enjoying being together again after so long. I'd love them to do one of these every year, but that would probably kill them. I just hope I don't have to wait another decade for the next one. 9/10 Audible dir. Matthew Ogens/2021/39m This documentary short follows high-schooler Amaree McKenstry-Hall who is getting ready to play his last football game for the Maryland School for the Deaf. As well as the pressures of growing up he is also dealing with the suicide of a friend and his newly formed relationship with his father, who left when he was very young. There's so much to unpack with this young man that the 40 minute runtime really doesn't do him justice. The relationships he has with his friends aren't given much time at all and as such feel a bit forced in. This is shot really well, the scenes of the football game have a real cinematic feel to them, but at the end I felt a little short changed. This is still an excellent short film, and if you're left wanting more then it must have done something right. 8/10 Three Songs for Ben*zir dir. Elizabeth Murzaei, Gulistan Murzaei/2021/22m This second documentary short focuses on young couple Shaista and Ben*zir who live in a camp for displaced persons in Kabul. Shaista dreams of becoming the first person from his tribe to join the Afghan army, but that would mean leaving behind his beloved wife, who he sings sweet improvised songs for. This is another beautifully shot film with a compelling subject that is too short. I think my problem may be with documentary shorts. With fiction shorts you have total control over the narrative and can tie things up nicely, but with real people there is just too much depth to be fully conveyed in less than an hour. However, I still enjoyed this, and it is easily worth twenty minutes of anyone's time. 7/10 We Love Moses dir. Dionne Edwards/2016/15m 12 year old Ella (Danae Jean Marie) becomes infatuated with her older brother's new best friend Moses (Jerome Holder), but her relationship with both of them is changed forever when she sees something she shouldn't one night. This is a decent little fiction short from a first time director that has some great ideas packed into fifteen minutes. I like the narration from an older Ella recounting the events of that night and the long lasting repercussions, and the film is well written all round. What lets it down are the performances, none of them are outright bad, just amateurish. With a more experienced cast this could be great, as it is it's just rather good. 7.5/10 Edited April 5, 2022 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fido_le_muet 5,197 Posted April 5, 2022 Share Posted April 5, 2022 Moonfall Watched this flick this afternoon while working from home and it was as expected : somewhat entertaining and stupid. sh*tty dialogues, bad acting and ridiculous action which is exactly what a roland Emmerich is supposed to be. To be fair, I only watched it because it's kinda space sci-fi and that part was interesting but under-exploited. There's another better story there waiting to be told. VFX were subpar and that is unacceptable, even for an independent movie (independent but still with a 150+ millions budget...) Some geek in his basement can easily do better. 3.5/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Con 5,703 Posted April 5, 2022 Share Posted April 5, 2022 4 hours ago, Fido_le_muet said: Moonfall Watched this flick this afternoon while working from home and it was as expected : somewhat entertaining and stupid. sh*tty dialogues, bad acting and ridiculous action which is exactly what a roland Emmerich is supposed to be. To be fair, I only watched it because it's kinda space sci-fi and that part was interesting but under-exploited. There's another better story there waiting to be told. VFX were subpar and that is unacceptable, even for an independent movie (independent but still with a 150+ millions budget...) Some geek in his basement can easily do better. 3.5/10 Nice to have you back at the film club! Missed hanging with you bro. 2 RSC FILM CLUB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 Yeah @Fido_le_muetits good to hear from you again 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 (edited) The Lost Daughter (2021) dir Maggie Gyllenhaal I noticed this on Netflix and wasn't sure it was for me but not finding any other film I really wanted to watch I decided to give it a go knowing it had multiple Oscar nominations. I'm glad I did. It's a good film with a good cast. Olivia Coleman plays the lead role as Leda, a divorced, middle aged literature professor on a working holiday in Greece. Jessie Buckley plays Leda as a young women in multiple flash back scenes. Ed Harris plays Lyle, the American ex-pat who owns the apartment Leda rents and Dakota Johnson plays Nina, a young mother in a group of rowdy American and Greek tourists who turn up and spoil the tranquillity Leda had been enjoying. I won't spoil the plot too much. There is a clue in the film's title, but this is not a crime thriller. The lost little girl is found un-hurt but it brings back memories for Leda of her relationships with her own daughters when she was younger and she can see Nina experiencing similar issues to those she had. It's a well pace story, well acted, nicely shot. Both Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley were deservedly Oscar nominated, I'd say the latter was better, as was Maggie Gyllenhaal for the script. 7/10 The French Dispatch (2021) dir Wes Anderson If you'd seen other Wes Anderson films you will know what to expect from this. It's a film in his usual humerus, quirky, slightly surreal style with a great ensemble cast including regulars like Bill Murray and Owen Wilson plus Frances McDormand, Benicio del Toro, Adrian Brody, Tilda Swinton and Timothee Chalamey plus brief appearances from Henry Winkler and Willen Defoe. For me though this is not one of Anderson's better films. The story is, intentionally, a bit disjointed as it is essentially 4 short films linked together, and I did find it a little un-interesting at times. I think that was kind of deliberate as all four stories are set in the fictional French town of Ennui – a word that means 'a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement'. It just doesn't quite come together as well as his plots usually do for me. The title comes from the name of a magazine, published in Kansas, about various aspects of French life. The 4 parts are the submissions for the final edition of the magazine from four of it's correspondents. It is very well made, and the acting is what you would expect from such a cast. Some scenes are exquisitely shot with the actor's movements very precisely choreographed and like works of fine art they are very nice to look at, just not maybe for 1 hour and 40 minutes. 6/10 Edited April 10, 2022 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 @djw180I loved The Lost Daughter, especially the stuff with the doll and how unhinged and almost threatening it made Coleman's character. And I agree with you about The French Connection, even though I enjoyed it more than you. It feels like plot threads cut from the superior Grand Budapest Hotel. I did love the story about Jeffrey Wright's food critic, and would happily watch a whole film of that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 14, 2022 Share Posted April 14, 2022 What I Watched This Week #13 (Mar 26-Apr 1) Memento dir. Christopher Nolan/2000/1h53m Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, searching for the man who r*ped and murdered his wife, but the problem is he has severe short-term memory loss. To help with this he has turned his body into a notebook, tattoos all over him contain important information for his search. He is being helped by his friend Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), but why does he have a Polaroid of him that calls him a liar? All of Nolan's films have a gimmick, usually involving the manipulation of time, and in my opinion this is his best one. In colour we follow a timeline moving forward as Shelby tracks down his wife's murderer and in black and white we go backwards in time, flashbacks giving new information that totally changes our experience of the colour timeline. This all ties up beautifully in a fantastic ending that sent shivers down my spine. There are the usual Nolan tropes here, like the dead wife as motivation, but that can be forgiven because this is a brilliantly constructed, intricate little puzzle box of a film. 9/10 Trans-Europ-Express dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet/1966/1h30m A film director (played by the film's actual director Robbe-Grillet) and his producers board the train the Trans-Europ-Express and agree that it would be a good setting for a film. They then see the actor Jean-Louis Trintignant in the station and immediately cast him as a drug smuggler. The film follows him as the filmmakers continually re-write scenes and improvise the plot of the film on the fly. I was expecting a straight thriller when I started watching this, so it was pretty jarring when the film opened in such a self-aware meta way, but the playfulness of it all really has a charm to it. Seeing the construction of the film play out alongside the actual film is something I've not seen before, and the way the film plays with the conventions of the genre adds another layer to this film that makes it all the more fun to watch. There are some things that don't play as well, like the main character's s*xual obsessions, which ultimately leads to his downfall, but on the whole this is a fun ride well worth taking. 8.5/10 Peeping Tom dir. Michael Powell/1960/1h41m Peeping Tom is a horror so shocking and controversial for the time that it basically ended the career of director Michael Powell, one of the most respected British filmmakers of the 40's and 50's who, along with his directing partner Emeric Pressburger, made Martin Scorsese's favourite film, The Red Shoes. It stars Karlheinz Bohm as Mark, a quiet, unassuming young man who works at a film studio. He also has aspirations of being a director himself, and at night works on his documentary about fear. The subjects of which are the young women he films as he murders them. I say it was shocking for the time, but it's genuinely still shocking today, especially the ending which is so dark that I couldn't believe it. This is expertly directed by Powell, with an especially brilliant use of lush primary colours and expressionistic lighting that gives the film almost a classic romantic feel. Bohm's performance is decent, but what he plays the best is the sympathetic side of his character. We get some backstory about his childhood and his relationship with his father which is just as dark and tragic as the rest of the film and it really does make you feel some empathy for him. This was released the same year as Psycho, but in my opinion this is the more disturbing, scarier film that deserves just as much recognition as Hitchcock's classic. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Blood Simple dir. Joel Coen/1984/1h37m The debut film of the Coen brothers and Frances McDormand, Blood Simple is a neo-noir crime film starring John Getz as Ray, a bartender having an affair with his boss Marty's (Dan Hedaya) wife Abby (McDormand). Marty then hires a private detective, Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh), to kill them. As you would expect from the Coens, things don't quite go to plan. I love watching debut films from directors who I admire, and it's even better when that film contains all of the elements that would go on to become their trademarks. This is similar in tone to Fargo and No Country for Old Men, desperate people caught up in violently escalating situations all undercut with a sardonic sense of humour. McDormand is great as expected, and she really does the heavy lifting in her scenes with Getz, who I don't think is very good here. He's not bad, and there are a few times where he really becomes the character, but he's the weak link in a very strong cast. The best performance here is by Walsh who is perfect as the slimy, sleazy scumbag who'll do anything for the right payout. A real tight thriller that is a big indication of things to come. 8/10 The 10th Victim dir. Elio Petri/1965/1h32m In the near future the biggest entertainment on the planet is The Hunt, a show where people are selected at random to be either hunter or prey. If you can survive ten rounds of this, five as hunter and five as prey, then you win one million dollars. King of Italian cool Marcello Mastroianni plays Marcello Polletti, prey to the hunter Caroline Meredith who is on her tenth hunt, and who is played by the original Bond girl, Ursula Andress, The tone for this film is set right at the start where a man is killed by a beautiful woman with a machine gun bra (surely an influence for Austin Powers' Fembots). This film never takes itself seriously, which is sometimes to its detriment. It seems to have a serious point to make about violence and the media, and there are some nice satirical moments in here, like the way Caroline has sold off the advertising rights for her tenth kill, but that kinda gets lost under the insane 60's kitchiness of everything. But that doesn't really matter because this film is still a load of fun, like a pop-art Death Race 2000. Also, the more I see of Marcello Mastroianni the more I kinda wanna be him. 7/10 Election dir. Alexander Payne/1999/1h43m Reese Witherspoon plays over-achieving high-schooler Tracy Flick who is running unopposed for class president. Matthew Broderick plays teacher Jim McAllister who resents how perfect and peppy tracy is, so he convinces popular Jock Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against her. And so starts a chain of events that will destroy Jim's life. This is a very sharp political satire that contains the entire democratic process in a midwest high school and is both hilarious and at times shocking. Witherspoon is eminently hateable as Flick with her Sandra Dee bob and perfect smile, and Broderick is great as a petty and pathetic man in the midst of a mid-life crisis, but the star for me is Klein as Paul Metzler (you bet-zler), the only genuinely nice person in the film. His affable, goofy charm just made me smile whenever he was on screen. This is a fantastic film that is probably the most realistic depiction of politics ever put to film. 9/10 David Lynch: The Art Life dir. Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes/2016/1h29m This documentary covers the early life of one of my favourite directors of all time, David Lynch, from his childhood through to the making of his first film, Eraserhead. As someone who has spent hours on YouTube watching interviews with him, I was quite happy to hear the man talk about his youth and the relationship with his parents, which was surprisingly quite normal and wholesome. There's still that twisted Lynchian twist though, my favourite is the story where he shows his dad some dead animals he was using for a project and his dad immediately tells him to never have children. Later that day his girlfriend called to tell him that she's pregnant. I also liked how they showed so many of his paintings, which are these nightmarish, scratchy, surreal works exactly like what you would expect David Lynch to paint. This is more conventional than any film about Lynch should be, and I really wish the filmmakers experimented more. My score for this is probably inflated because I just plain love the man, but for someone not familiar with him this could be a bit of a slog. If you want to know about David Lynch just watch his films. 7/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fido_le_muet 5,197 Posted April 14, 2022 Share Posted April 14, 2022 The Batman I had my doubts about Pattinson before watching this movie but I also heard that this Batman movie was the best Batman movie so I went in with mixed expectations. And I was right cause my doubts were confirmed 😁 I'm not convinced by Pattinson. He's a good Batman but a lame Bruce Wayne. Doesn't bring anything to this side of the character. He's just standing around being a late emo teenager. The Batmobile was kinda awesome but still not as good as the 1989. The music was pretty boring and for much of the film, i thought about the Batman theme being a lesser copy of the beginning of the Imperial March. Brought me out of the movie everytime. The plot was very good. Very grounded, a real detective story. Was a nice change from previous movies. Secondary characters (Gordon, Alfred...) were very good and perfectly cast IMO. The vilains were also very good. Looking forward to seeing more of them. All around, a very good movie. Not the best Batman movie but a very good take on the caped crusader. Still prefer Batman 1989 and The Dark Knight. 8/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 What I Watched This Week #14 (Apr 2-8) Boiling Point dir. Philip Barantini/2021/1h32m Andy Jones (Stephen Graham) owns and is head chef of a high end London restaurant, This film follows him as he arrives at work with the worst shift in the world awaiting him. He is having personal problems with his estranged wife and young son, and several professional issues at work, chief among them the visit from his former boss and now celebrity television chef Alastair Skye (Jason Flemyng) who has bought a food critic along with him. This is a brilliant, stressful film with an incredible lead performance from the always reliable Graham. As soon as he arrives at work there is tension and conflict, but he's not a Gordon Ramsay type caricature just screaming at everyone, he's really trying to keep everything under control, it's a beautifully nuanced performance. There isn't just conflict centred around Graham's character but there a dozens of micro-dramas happening throughout the entire film, some resolved in minutes, some covering the length of the film, and they are all written with a real sense of authenticity, with every character, even the ones we see once, having a real depth to them. But the most amazing thing about this film is that it's shot in one take, the handheld camera moving through the restaurant and the kitchen like a member of staff catching snippets of conversation. This one-shot style isn't just there to show off but it really adds to the film, perfectly conveying the pressure that Andy is under because we're there with him shoulder to shoulder for the worst hour and a half of his life. I have a small problem with the last ten seconds of the film, but other than that this is a marvel. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Bubble dir. Judd Apatow/2022/2h6m The cast and crew of action franchise Cliff Beasts attempt to shoot the fifth sequel in the series during the COVID pandemic, having to quarantine in a hotel for the length of the shoot. The cast of the film-within-a-film are led by Karen Gillan, Pedro Pascal, Keegan-Michael Key and David Duchovny while the crew is led by director Fred Armisen and producer Peter Serafinowicz. The standout though is Maria Bakalova, last seen as Borat's daughter, who plays the receptionist at the hotel constantly rebuffing the advances of Pascal's h*rny actor. There is some good stuff in here, Duchovny is great, and British comedian Guz Khan is hilarious as the comic relief of Cliff Beasts who succumbs to cabin fever very quickly, and the scenes of them shooting Cliff Beasts is silly fun. However the rest of the film is very flat and really labours the same point over and over again. Yes, lockdown sucks and no, no one wants to hear celebrities complaining about it from their mansions, but you don't need over two hours to do that. This is the same problem with a lot of Apatow films, it seems like he lets his cast improv for way too long and he thinks it's all too good to cut, and you end up with this bloated mess, which is a general problem for most mainstream American comedy films since the success of Anchorman. It also feels like there's about ten minutes of TikTok dances in this, which is about ten minutes too much, but maybe that's just me being old. 5/10 Dave Made a Maze dir. Bill Watterson/2017/1h20m Dave (Nick Thune) is a frustrated artist and serial procrastinator who one day decides to make a cardboard maze in the living room of his flat. When his girlfriend Annie (Meera Rohit Kumbhani) gets home she finds that Dave has become lost in the maze and can't find his way out because, like the TARDIS, it's bigger on the inside. Annie and some of his friends enter the maze to try and rescue him, but find that it is full of deadly traps, and the only way to get out is for Dave to finally finish something he started. The best thing about this film, by a long shot, is the maze itself. It is a gorgeously surreal cardboard construction just bursting with creativity and invention. It reminded me at times of a cross between a Terry Gilliam film and Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind where Jack Back and Mos Def make cheap DIY versions of classic films. There are moments in this film that are just pure genius in filmmaking terms so it's a real shame that the characters are bland or annoying. I honestly think this would be a better film if you put it on mute, put on some good music and have a few drinks or get a little high. Worth watching for the breathtaking creativity on show, just try to ignore all the human shaped things making noise. 6.5/10 On The Silver Globe dir. Andrzej Zulawski/1988/2h45m This is an unfinished sci-fi epic from Poland which was filmed in the late 70s and seized by the communist government for nearly a decade before it could be completed, and so the director inserted scenes of everyday life with narration over it describing what would be happening in the film at the time in place of all the scenes he couldn't film. The story sees a group of astronauts, escaping a dystopian Earth, crash on a planet and form a new society. When the last of the astronauts is an old man, and seen as a god by this new society, he sends a message back to Earth before he dies. Years later another astronaut reaches the planet and finds a world of strange cult like tribes who see him first as a messiah sent to save them, then as an outcast from Earth whom they crucify in order to appease their gods. Because of the fragmentary nature of the film I found it hard to follow at times, but I was always engaged thanks to the incredible costume design. This reminded me a lot of Dune but with an arthouse European bent to it. The direction and production design is also great, really making alien landscapes out of the simplest setups. This is frustrating to watch more than anything because it feels like it has a lot of potential, and if it was completed the way the director intended then I think it may have a greater reputation in the world of sci-fi. As it is, this is a fascinating exploration of what ifs. 7/10 Burning dir. Lee Chang-d*ng/2018/2h28m Burning is a South Korean thriller about a young man, Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in), who agrees to feed the cat of a childhood friend he recently reconnected with, Haemi (Jeon Jong-seo), while she's on a trip to Africa. When she returns it is with Ben (Steven Yuen), a rich, confident man with an ambiguous job and a strange hobby of burning down greenhouses. When Haemi goes missing Jongsu is convinced Ben has something to do with it. This is a real slow burn of a film, pun very much intended, with the entire film quietly building to an incendiary finale. This is more of a character study than a thriller, with the questions left unanswered, but there is still a satisfaction in the film from the depth of the lead and his slow unravelling. The director isn't really interested in the thriller aspects, well done as they are, but in the emotional relationships of his characters, and the scene in which the three of them just hang out and smoke weed encapsulates this perfectly. A haunting film with an ending that will stay with you long after the film is over. 8.5/10 Ladyworld dir. Amanda Kramer/2018/1h33m After an unspecified disaster eight older teenage girls are trapped in a house with no electricity and food and water running low. It doesn't take long for groups to form and things to get a bit Lord of the Flies. What this film does best is convey the feeling of madness that soon overcomes the girls, it's manic at times and threatening at times, and at times it's just plain juvenile, which may be the scariest of them all. Halfway through one of the group go missing, and there's soon talk of “The Man” who's going to come and get them all, and this sharp edged paranoia starts to cut through everything. This film also has great sound design, adding to the tension of the piece perfectly. Like Burning, this isn't interested in answering questions about what happened but in the characters and their relationships, which are well done for the most part. I also really like the ending of this, which is as ambiguous as the opening. That may be unsatisfying for some, but I like it. What this really reminded me of the most though is a reality show that was on TV here in Britain a while back where they put a group of young children in a house for a week to see what would happen. It never ends well. 8/10 Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood dir. Richard Linklater/2022/1h38m Stan (Milo Coy) is a ten year old living an idyllic life in Texas where his dad works an administrative role for NASA. This film depicts the period and the excitement around the Apollo 11 mission. This also uses rotoscoped animation, like Linklater's earlier film A Scanner Darkly, giving it a very distinctive look, although at times is does look like a video game cut scene. Also, most of the dialogue in the film is narration, by Jack Black as the older Stan, making the film feel like home movie footage. There are some moments of fantasy where Stan imagines he is recruited by NASA to do a test run of the Moon landing (the Apollo 10½ of the title) but the vast majority of the film is rose tinted reminiscences and member-berries. While this film is well made it just feels very bland. Stan has a normal middle-class life with normal parents and a nice group of friends and it's all very boring. If you were a kid during the late 60's you'll probably get a lot more out of this than I did. 6/10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 What I Watched This Week #15 (Apr 9-15) Metal Lords dir. Peter Sollett/2022/1h37m Metal Lords is a high-school comedy about two outsiders, Hunter (Adrian Greensmith) who is devoted to metal and is lead guitarist in the band Skullf*cker along with drummer Kevin (Jaeden Martell) who is there mostly because he just wants a friend. With battle of the bands coming up (of course) they need a bass player, but their only option is Emily (Isis Hainsworth), a Scottish girl with severe anger and anxiety issues and, as Hunter points out, girls aren't metal. This could've been awful but there are a few things that make it really enjoyable. Firstly it looked to me that these kids are actually playing the instruments that they're supposed to be playing, which adds a lot if you play an instrument yourself. It may be a small thing but it takes me out of a film if it's clear that they have no idea what they're doing. Secondly the performances are solid, but the chemistry is great, particularly between Hunter and Kevin. It feels authentic both when they're friends and when they have a more antagonistic relationship. Thirdly, even though this film could've been full of cliches they actually avoid most of them to surprising degrees. I think the best example of that is their main competition at the battle of the bands, a band of pretty boy popular kids who play Ed Sheeran covers. In a lesser film they would just be one dimensional d*uchebags, but here they're actually pretty solid dudes, which I found very refreshing. There are some little problems I have with this, like how Hunter is a proclaimed black/death metal fan but the soundtrack consists of more mainstream thrash like Metallica, and how Emily's mental health problems are so glibly handled, but overall I had a rocking good time with this (yeah that was pretty cringe, sorry). 7.5/10 The Magnificent Ambersons dir. Orson Welles/1942/1h28m How do you follow up the greatest film of all time? With this, the story of the decline of a rich family at the turn of the 20th century. Tim Holt plays George, son and heir to the family fortune. His mother, Isabel (Dolores Costello) married the boring Wilbur Minafer (Don Dillaway) after being embarrassed publicly by Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton) whom she truly loves. Time passes, and so does Wilbur, and the newly wealthy, thanks to the brand new invention the automobile, Eugene starts to court Isabel, which George does his best to stop. This is a frustrating film to watch because it's been so butchered by the studio. Nearly an hour of footage was cut, and some scenes directed by other people were inserted in (the worst example of this is the ending which is just awful). But there is so much good stuff here that verges on greatness, there is an extended scene set at a ball and parts of it are breathtakingly directed. That's not saying much, it's a Welles film, but that just makes the differences between the scenes not directed by him even more jarring. My score for this may be more for what could have been than what is actually on film, but, as I said, what is there is still incredible, even the end credits are done in a totally original way which I've never seen before, and makes me sad that the full over two hour long version doesn't exist. 8/10 The Blues Brothers dir. John Landis/1980/2h13m Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd) are on a mission from god to raise some money in order to save the orphanage in which they were raised. When Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman) refuses their dirty money they're left with one option, reform their band and put on a show. I love a musical, and this is one of the best ones ever made. Even people who don't like musicals love this. Not only does it have an amazing rhythm and blues soundtrack, but it features legends like Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. The story is insane, featuring Carrie Fisher as a homicidal ex of Jake's, Illinois n*zis, the angry mob of The Good Ole Boys country band and the biggest car chase in film history. And throughout all of this Jake and Elwood never once lose their cool. Even when a building collapses around them they just dust themselves off and carry on. From a filmmaking point of view there is nothing amazing here, but that doesn't matter at all because this is a film that runs on pure energy, and it is burning white hot. The first film based on a SNL skit, and still the best. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Pirates dir. Reggie Yates/2021/1h20m British people will recognise Reggie Yates as a television presenter, usually stood next to Fearne Cotton, but after a few shorts he now makes his feature debut with Pirates. Three friends, Cappo (Elliot Edusah) Kidda (Reda Elazouar) and Two Tonne (Jordan Peters), trying to break into the music businesses through their pirate radio station, have a series of misadventures as they try to get, and hold on to, tickets for the hottest Millenium party in London. The best thing about this is the playfulness in both the performances and the direction. Yates has a pretty decent eye for composition that shines through in a few scenes. Sadly a lot of the film feels like the pilot for a tv show, which is a bad thing usually, but here it's worse because it reminded me of a specific show, the brilliant People Just Do Nothing, which is also about a group of inept emcees trying to make it big through pirate radio (Kurupt FM represent). This is a comparison that was never gonna be favourable for Pirates. This is also meant to be a comedy, but a majority of the jokes fell flat for me. I also didn't really like any of the main characters, with Kidda being especially hard to put up with. There are a few side characters in here that I found much more interesting, like Tosin Cole's barber character Clips, and would have liked to see more of them. There is promise here, and I'll watch Yates's next film, but I really can't recommend this as a must-watch. If you like late 90's jungle then the best thing about this film will be the soundtrack. 5.5/10 Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance dir. Park Chan-wook/2002/2h9m Deaf-mute Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun) has just been laid off by his boss Mr. Park (Song Kang-ho), which sucks for him because his sister (Im Ji-eun) needs a kidney transplant and they can't afford it. To that end, Ryu and his girlfriend (Bae Doona) kidnap Mr. Park's young daughter (Han Bo-bae) and hold her for ransom, but things go horribly wrong and Mr. Park sets out on a violent quest for revenge. The first part in director Park's vengeance trilogy (followed by Oldboy and Lady Vengeance), this is a slickly made film with layer upon layer of revenge that makes up nothing but a sadly predictable cycle of violence with no winners. The performances are solid all round, with Song Kang-ho being his usually brilliant self (since seeing Parasite he has become one of my favourite actors), but I did feel a slight detachment from Ryu. This may be on purpose, with the film isolating him in a lot of scenes to reflect his deaf-mute state and how that makes a barrier between himself and the world, or it may be that his performance was just lagging behind everyone else. If you've seen the much more well known Oldboy then you know what you're in for here. This is quieter and not as stylised as that film, but still just as brutal and compelling to watch, like a spectacular car crash. 9/10 Zift dir. Jazor Gardev/2008/1h32m This Bulgarian neo-noir stars Zahary Baharov as Moth, imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit during a botched robbery. When he is released he finds that his accomplice in the robbery is now a powerful member of the communist party and his femme fatale ex is now his woman. Meanwhile, they're all searching for the black diamond that went missing during the robbery. Shot in a dirty grey black and white, with characters that match the visual style of the film, this is a grim watch at times, impotent masculinity threatening to explode into pointless violence at any moment. Our main character has been hardened in prison, turned into a tool for revenge, and he makes his way through the film with a real urgency to get the job done. That grimness can get a bit hard to bear at times, but they always manage to have a moment of levity at just the right time to keep things from getting too miserable. The story also unfolds in a non-linear way, which is really well executed and keeps you gripped. If you're looking for a real gritty film then you could do a lot worse than this. 7/10 Mean Streets dir. Martin Scorsese/1973/1h52m Scorsese's third film, after Who's That Knocking at My Door and Boxcar Bertha, Mean Streets is his big breakthrough film, and his first collaboration with Robert De Niro. Harvey Keitel stars as Charlie, low-level gangster in Little Italy who's looking to move up the ladder, but is being held down by his unpredictable and reckless best friend Johnny Boy (De Niro). This is what you would call Scorsese's first film, in that it introduces themes he would revisit time and again in the years to come; toxic male relationships, violence and Catholic guilt. A lot of Catholic guilt. The first line in this film could be the mission statement for half of Scorsese's films, “you don't make up for your sins in church, you do it in the streets”. But alongside this is the strong sense of family, the opening credits are shot like home-movie footage, and a real keen eye for setting up time-and-place. This is mostly done through the fantastic soundtrack which Scorsese uses to its fullest (the pool hall beating set to The Carpenter's song Please Mr. Postman is quintessential Scorsese). The performances throughout are great. Keitel is really a man being pulled in many directions, his faith and his violence, his family (Johnny Boy) and his career. De Niro is explosive as Johnny Boy, his introduction sees him blow up a mailbox for no reason, really sums up his character perfectly. This does feel a little scrappy at points, and the end just kind of peters out, but this is still a brilliant film, and you can really see Scorsese finding his feet. 8.5/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted April 24, 2022 Share Posted April 24, 2022 (edited) The Scapegoat (2012) dir Charles Sturridge Based on a Daphne du Maurier novel this is nice film but does rather strike me as something more suited to a mini-series for Sunday early evening BBC1. The director, who I had never heard of before, is it seems more well known for his TV work. It's well made and acted without being anything spectacular. The plot is a little far-fetched, but we should allow some artistic license. In 1952 England two men bump into each other in a pub and realise they are identical. They are completely unrelated but both are called John. One is an out of work teacher, the other a wealthy aristocrat. The latter gets the former drunk, leaves him asleep in the pub and disappears. The next morning rich-John's chauffeur assumes the other John is his employer and despite protests drives him 'home'. There rich-John's wife, daughter, mother, brother and sister also see no reason to believe this John is not their relative and he does not make too much effort to persuade them of his true identity. He soon realises rich-John was a bit of a b*stard, treated his wife appallingly, was having an affair with at least two other women and miss-managed the factory that provide his wealth putting the jobs of the people who worked there at risk. John decides to stay and try to right rich-John's wrongs. So it is quite a nice story of someone realising he has an opportunity to do some good and taking it, but hard to believe that no one, other than rich-John's dog, ever notices he isn't actually their husband / father / brother / son. 6/10 Edited April 24, 2022 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 25, 2022 Share Posted April 25, 2022 What I Watched This Week #16 (Apr 16-22) The Thing From Another World dir. Christian Nyby/1951/1h27m Most famously remade as The Thing by John Carpenter in 1982, The Thing From Another World is a sci-fi horror film about a group of scientists who unearth a spaceship, and its less than friendly occupant, in the frozen Arctic wastes. The humans are led by Captain Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) who is willing to sacrifice human lives in order to examine the alien. The other main character in the film, and my favourite, is Carrington's secretary and Hendry's love interest Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheriden). Her flirtingly antagonistic relationship with Hendry is great, particularly the scene where she engages in some light bondage with him. Like most 50s sci-fi films this is mainly people standing around talking in about three different locations and, apart from when Sheriden is on screen, pretty dry. Also, even though the characters start off scared of the alien when it's trapped in a block of ice, talking about its deformed hands and its eyes which keep staring as if they can see, that soon stops and it seems like more of an inconvenience than anything else. The actual creature design isn't that great, looking more like Frankenstein's monster than a creature from another world, but there is one amazing scene where it's set on fire and then has buckets of kerosene thrown over it, the flames spraying out all over the walls. Very awesome, very dangerous, I hope that stuntman got a few extra bucks that day. The shots of the frozen Arctic wastes look great, really emphasising the desolation and loneliness of the situation, and the scene where we see the creature get attacked by, then kill, some dogs is genuinely creepy. I only watched this because I love Carpenter's The Thing and I wasn't blown away – this is a case of the remake being much better than the original – but there was still enough here for me to enjoy. 6/10 Choose or Die dir. Toby Meakins/2022/1h25m College dropout Kayla (Lola Evans) and her friend, programmer Isaac (Asa Butterfield) discover an old text adventure game, Curs<r, and decide to play it to win the unclaimed prize money. However, the game is cursed and able to interact with reality, and soon they are fighting for their lives. This film starts out strong. It's bookended by two scenes featuring the brilliant British actor Eddie Marsan who, at the start, is forced to make copies of the game to save his family. At the end Kayla must fight him, the unique twist here is that any damage they do to the other person hurts themselves, so they have to injure themselves to hurt the other person, it's a really interesting scene, and an idea I've only seen used once before in an episode of Red Dwarf. There is also a really creepy scene set in a diner where Kayla first discovers the power of the game. This is shot very well with a great use of colour, and the pulsating synthy soundtrack really matched the retro tone of the film. However, the film really loses its way after the diner scene, with the way the game works becoming more and more outlandish. There's also a backstory about the makers of the game which feels like it's there just to set up a sequel. It's blunt world-building delivered by a talking head in one big block and it's really clumsily done. This is a film with a good idea but execution that doesn't live up to it. 5/10 The Batman dir. Matt Reeves/2022/2h56m In his second year of crime-fighting The Batman (Robert Pattinson) is faced with a crazed serial killer targeting corrupt politicians and cops, The Riddler (Paul Dano). He is helped in this by cat-burglar Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) who works in a club run by The Penguin (an unrecognisable Colin Farrell) and owned by crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). We don't need another Batman film, but I'm glad we got one because this is f*cking fantastic. This is a 40's style gritty noir thriller that, if you changed the names and gave Bruce Wayne a trench-coat instead of a batsuit, could be totally separate from the world of superheroes. It even has the noir style narration, with Wayne giving us an insight into his thoughts and emotions, something that really fleshes out this young version of the world's greatest detective. The detective part of Batman is something that this film leans heavily into, and some of my favourite scenes are to do with the investigation rather than the action, of which there is plenty and it is all awesome. The car chase, and the new Batmobile in general, are f*cking badass. The performances are excellent all round, Pattinson, who has come a long way since his sparkly vampire days, is suitably brooding, but he also has a great arc and by the end of the film is a much more mature Batman. He has electric chemistry with Kravitz, whose Catwoman is a real highlight of the film. Farrell is channelling Al Capone as Penguin and is having a lot of fun with it. Even the smaller roles are given depth and weight in this film. The standouts there being Geoffrey Wright as Jim Gordon and Andy Serkis as Alfred. There's even a tease of The Joker, who is played by the always creepy Barry Keoghan (if you've seen Killing of a Sacred Deer you know how threatening he can be). I've been suffering superhero burnout for a while now, so it's good that this isn't a superhero film. This is closer to Seven than anything in the MCU, and it's all the better for it. The only way this could be better is if it were in black and white. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! How I Won the War dir. Richard Lester/1967/1h49m This British anti-war satire stars Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer in TV comedy Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em) as a pathetically inept upper-class officer who is given a morale boosting mission to lead his troops behind enemy lines in North Africa in order to construct a cricket pitch. Among his men are Clapper (Veruca Salt's dad from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Roy Kinnear) who suspects his wife of stepping out on him while he's away, insane philosophy spouting Juniper (Jack MacGowran) who goes into battle dressed as a clown with blackface, and cynical klepto in NHS specs Gripweed (John Lennon, yeah, that John Lennon) who has a name straight out of a Terry Pratchett novel. In the same vein as M*A*S*H, this is a film so angry at the war machine that all it can do is ruthlessly mock every aspect of it. It has a real contempt for its main character, the incompetent officer class who fails upwards on the backs of their dead troops, in this film represented as anonymous brightly coloured soldiers who wordlessly follow th troop around. The revelation that in his memories he gives the same names and faces to all of the troops he has commanded because he has no respect for them as people is a real sting in the tail. The supporting cast are all good, but the main reason I watched this was because of John Lennon. His performance isn't that far away from his real life persona, just turned up a notch. He's not a brilliant actor, but, like David Bowie in Just a Gigolo, he gets by on sheer power of personality. It's also telling that this blackly cynical anti-war comedy is the type of film he's want to be in. This is a strange film whose light tone belies its dark heart. A wonderful British oddity. 8.5/10 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier dir. William Shatner/1989/1h47m While negotiating a kidnapping on the planet of intergalactic peace the Enterprise is stolen by rogue Vulcan Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill) who intends to use it to find God. Really. This was intended as the final film for the original crew, and they wanted to go out with a bang and a huge concept, and while it does have a great sense of scale it falls flat on most levels. I think that comes down to Shatner as a director, helming his first film. If you know anything about his ego you know it's huge, and he wanted his chance to be in charge after Leonard Nimoy directed the last couple, and he hated being upstaged by Spock. His ego isn't all bad, I think that's what led to the scale of the film being so big, and you can feel it from the great opening scene in a desert where we meet Sybok, the way he fleshes out the world outside of Starfleet – the scene in the dingy bar where Kirk gets to fight a three breasted pole dancing cat woman is a perfect example of that – and the overall plot about the search for God, but his inexperience as a director means that it never reaches the levels it could. Also, the idea of a God goes against the ideas of Star Trek as a franchise. This isn't totally without merit, but it is the worst Star Trek film so far. I'm glad it was a critical flop though as it led to the much, much better Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. 6/10 Dr. No dir. Terence Young/1962/1h50m And so the longest running franchise in film history begins. British secret agent James Bond (Sean Connery) is dispatched to Jamaica in order to investigate the mysterious scientist Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) who plans to sabotage the US space programme from his island base. Sometimes it takes a series a few attempts before it finds its style, but the Bond series seems to have been born fully formed. A few things are missing – no Q, no title song – but the rest is pretty much in place. Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder is still the iconic Bond girl, and watching her introduction scene it's easy to see why. The music is full of bombastic brass, and that theme is still the coolest in film history, and the production design by Ken Adams set the standard of what a Bond film looks like. Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell are fully formed from the get go as M and Moneypenny, It goes without saying that Connery is perfectly cast as Bond. He's believable as both the suave tux wearing spy and the brutal bare-f*sted badass. There are also some decent supporting turns from John Kitzmiller as local fisherman Quarrel and Jack Lord as CIA operative Felix Leiter. There are some pacing issues, and while visually Dr. No is a good villain, and Wiseman gives a solid performance, his whole evil scheme is instantly forgettable. This is still a brilliant start for the series though, and I'm looking forward to going through all of them now they're all on Amazon Prime. 7/10 Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies dir. Danny Leiner/2004/1h28m Introverted office drone Harold (John Cho) and slacker med student dropout Kumar (Kal Penn) get stoned one evening in order to forget about their sh*tty days and soon get the munchies. They decide that the only thing that will satisfy them is White Castle burgers, so they set out on an epic quest to find the fast food franchise. I only watched this because it was April 20th, and I had fond memories of watching this with a bunch of friends when it first came out getting high and drunk. Watching this critically, as an adult, and with a much higher tolerance for marijuana, it wasn't as fun. It felt like the last of a dying breed of comedy film, dated even for the time it came out. Cho is a great actor, and he totally elevates the material, by Penn was just annoying the whole way through. Every time he started to talk I wanted him to stop. I did enjoy the Neil Patrick Harris and Ryan Reynolds cameos, and the montage of them eating the burgers at the end really captures wll the satisfaction of eating just the right food when you're stoned, but if you're looking for a stoner comedy there are so many better options out there. 5/10 Suspicion dir. Alfred Hitchcock/1941/1h39m Young, wealthy and naive Lina (Joan Fontaine) is swept off her feet by the charming rouge John Aysgarth (Cary Grant). Despite warnings from her friends and family she marries him, but he soon starts getting into gambling and dodgy businesses dealings, all the while lying to her and gaslighting her. She soon starts to worry that he intends to kill her for her money, her paranoia hitting critical levels when one of his business partners turns up dead. Hitchcock is called the master of suspense for a reason, and he is flexing hard here. The film starts out like a romantic drama, with Grant playing to type as the fast talking romantic lead, but slowly things start to turn, and little red flags pop up. By the end of the film even a scene of Grant carrying a glass of milk upstairs is made nerve-shatteringly tense. Grant is brilliant here, really coming across as a threat, which is something I've not seen from him before, and Fontaine, in an Oscar winning performance, is fantastic as a woman who doesn't know if she can trust the man she loves. This isn't top tier Hitchcock like Rear Window or Vertigo, and I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, but it's still very good. 8.5/10 From Russia With Love dir. Terence Young/1963/1h55m Secret crime organisation SPECTRE plan to steal a decoding device from the Russians, using using Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) as a honey-pot for James Bond (Sean Connery) and thus framing the British. This is a tighter and more thrilling movie than Dr. No, and it feels more like a spy film, the action here is few and far between, but it is great when it does happen. The fist fight on a train between Bond and SPECTRE henchman Grant (Robert Shaw, Quint in Jaws!) is really hard hitting. This film also introduces Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and a real theme song from Matt Monroe, though it only plays over the end credits, so the pieces aren't quite there yet. This is one of the more realistic and grounded films in the series, and it really stands out to me because of that. Tatiana is a stronger character than Honey Ryder, and there's some more great support, especially from Pedro Armendariz as Kerim Bey, Bond's man in Istanbul. This is a Bond film that people who don't like Bond films could enjoy. 8/10 Da Kath & Kim Code dir. Ted Emery/2005/1h30m (no trailer for this so here's a scene featuring The Wiggles) In this feature length film based on the Australian comedy show Kath (Jane Turner) and her husband Kel (Glenn Robbins) are stressing out over being backing dancers for Michael Buble's Christmas concert while also being stalked by an albino monk to whom they owe 44 Euros after walking out on a Da Vinci Code tour in Paris. Meanwhile, Kath's daughter Kim (Gina Riley) has split from her cheating husband Brett (Peter Rowsthorn) and her best friend Sharon (Magda Szubanski) has found love online. You'll need to be a fan of the show to watch this as there is no introduction or set up at all. If you do like the show you'll like this, it does nothing different and is still shot like the TV show, nothing cinematic was bought to this, which seems a bit of a waste. It also really dragged in places, like this really could've been a 45 minute Christmas special on TV. If you're a fan of the show then you'll probably enjoy this, everyone else can give it a miss. 6/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted May 1, 2022 Share Posted May 1, 2022 What I Watched This Week #17 (Apr 23-29) Goldfinger dir. Guy Hamilton/1964/1h50m Probably the most iconic film in the series, this is also, in my opinion, the first fully formed Bond film. Dr. No and FRWL put most of the pieces in place, but with Goldfinger the picture is completed. The first truly memorably baddie in Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) along with his lethally-hatted henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata), our first visit to Q-Branch where all of the gadgets are made, not the best Bond girl, but the one with the most Bond girl name, p*ssy Galore (Honor Blackman), the Aston Martin DB5, and the bold, brassy banger of a theme tune sung by Shirley Bassey. I think my favourite thing about this is the amount of interaction between Bond and Blofeld throughout the whole film. Right from the start, where Bond ruins his card game and the fantastic round of golf between the two to the brilliant “no Mr. Bond, I expect you to die” scene, there is a great ramping up of antagonism that is well paid off in the plane set finale. There are some pacing issues here, especially after Bond gets captured, but that's easily forgivable in a film punctuated with so many legendary moments. There are some problematic things here, as with most Bond films before the Craig era, and it would be ignorant to ignore those things, but I'm not one to judge older films by modern standards too harshly. One of my favourites in the series and well deserving of its reputation. 9/10 The Harder They Come dir. Perry Henzell/1972/1h43m Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff plays Ivanhoe Martin, fresh back in Kingston and with no other goal than to be a singer. He is robbed on his first day, and later brutally whipped by the police after defending himself in a fight. He does manage to record a song, the title track, but soon falls into a life of crime, becoming a cop-killing outlaw. Meanwhile, his song is climbing the charts, turning him into a sort of folk hero, an image he accepts with open arms. So the best thing about this film is the soundtrack. Along with the title track you have the other Cliff classics, You Can Get It If You Really Want and the transcendental Many Rivers to Cross, one of my favourite songs of all time. This is a film of two halves, the first hewing close to neorealism, while the second half becomes a full on exploitation film. This may seem jarring, but there is a scene in the first half, after he's been robbed, where he goes to see the spaghetti western Django, and the action contained within seems to have infected Ivanhoe, inspiring him in his bloody rampage. Cliff is a great lead, but like John Lennon and David Bowie, who I've recently seen in film roles, he gets by mostly on his charisma. I did also find a lot of the dialogue hard to understand because these guys are speaking authentic Jamaican Patois, not that easy-to-understand-for-the-white-folks accents of Cool Runnings, but that's a me problem and not a slight on the film. I only mention it because Amazon had no subtitle options for this at all, which was annoying. Despite that it's a fairly easy to follow film, and even if I couldn't I would've kept watching just for the killer soundtrack. 7/10 Metropolis dir. Fritz Lang/1927/2h29m Metropolis is a silent sci-fi film on an epic scale; set in a dystopian super-city of the future where the workers are confined to the lower depths while the rich live it up in gleaming skyscrapers, it stars Gustav Frolich as Freder, son of the architect of the city, who falls in love with the working class Maria (Brigitte Helm), and becomes determined to unite the two classes and bring harmony to the city. But a problem arises when Freder's father learns of the inventor Rotwang's (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) new creation, a robot. Freder's father wants to give it Maria's likeness and use it to discredit her among the workers, as she has now become a revolutionary figure, but Rotwang has ideas of his own, and wants to use it to destroy Metropolis for good. The scale of this film is incredible, I marvelled at some of the sets from huge Gothic cathedrals and a crumbling Tower of Babel to towering skyscrapers with raised motorways weaving in between, but my favourites are the underground sets where the workers toil, imposing machinery that seems to feed on the life blood of the trudging working classes. The special effects are also just that, very special. It's amazing to see what was possible almost 100 years ago. The design of the robot is also impeccable, and instantly recognisable to anyone who has consumed any visual media in the last century. The story is quite simple and naive, especially the ending, but it's always engaging, especially visually. 9/10 Sympathy for Lady Vengeance dir. Park Chan-wook/2005/1h55m The final part of director Park's revenge trilogy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance stars Lee Young-ae as Lee Guem-ja recently released from a 13 year prison sentence for the kidnapping and murder of a young child. Now that she is free she sets out to find the person actually responsible and to reconnect with her daughter Jenny (Kwon Yea-young), who was adopted by an Australian couple when she was an infant. This is a more subtle film than the previous two, and simpler too. Its story is more straightforward, though not without nuance. But Park's direction is still slick with gorgeous photography. This is a film that slowly builds towards its climax, in which Guem-ja has captured the real child-murderer Mr. Baek (Choi Min-sik, the lead of Oldboy) and brings in the parents of other children he has murdered in order to torture and kill him. That whole sequence is perfectly executed, showing off Park's skill for showing us just enough and letting our imagination do the rest. While I prefer the other two, just slightly, this is still a brilliantly made film and a fitting end to one of the most intense trilogies I've seen. 8.5/10 Thunderball dir. Terence Young/1965/2h10m Bond is back, and this time he's underwater! Terence Young directs his third and final Bond film in which a criminal organisation led by Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) steal some nukes and hold the world to ransom, pretty standard stuff. 007 (Sean Connery) is sent to the Bahamas to try to find the nukes before they are launched. He is assisted by this film's Bond girl Domino (Claudine Auger) who really doesn't have much to do, and is pretty bland, but she does get the kill shot on Largo at the end of the film which I found pretty brave, taking that away from Bond himself. The theme, by Tom Jones, is good, but it feels too much like a copy of Goldfinger. Having two similar songs back to back really detracts from the second one, even if it is a good song. The problem with this film is that it really drags. You feel the over two hour runtime when it's over. The numerous underwater action sequences are what makes this film feel so slow, because they're so slow. One big underwater sequence would've been cool and a nice change from the usual Bond action scene, but by the third one you just notice how it feels like it's in slow-motion. In my opinion the weakest film in the franchise so far. 6/10 Three Days of the Condor dir. Sydney Pollack/1975/1h57m Robert Redford plays CIA analyst Joe Turner, code name Condor, who works at a small office in Ney York. After going out for lunch one day he returns to find everyone dead, assassinated by a group led by Joubert (Max von Sydow). It soon becomes clear that he can't trust anyone, so he kidnaps innocent bystander Kathy (Faye Dunaway), using her apartment as a base of operations as he tries to figure out just what is going on. This is another tight 70's conspiracy thriller in the vein of The Conversation, but I do have a couple of problems with this. Firstly, Redford is a great actor and his performance here attests to that, but his character is supposed to be this bookish nerd and looks anything but. I would've bought it more if an actor like Jack Nicholson were in the role, but Redford is just too damn good looking. Secondly, I really dislike his whole relationship with Dunaway's character. It's borderline r*pey and all of their interactions together give no indication that she's coming around to his side, but she does anyway. This is still a great film though, with good performances all round, von Sydow is a standout here, and it is fantastically directed. 7/10 Bloodbath at the House of Death dir. Ray Cameron/1984/1h31m Eighteen years after a bloody massacre at Headstone Manor, a group of scientists led by Dr. Lukas Mandeville (Kenny Everett) and his assistant Dr. Barbara Coyle (Pamela Stephenson) convene there to investigate some paranormal activity. At the same time, a group of devil worshippers led by the centuries old high priest (Vincent Price) are there to raise the dark lord himself. This is a spoof film with its tongue firmly in cheek. There are references to films like Alien, Carrie and An American Werewolf in London as well as some ridiculous deaths splattered in bright red blood and guts. If you know Kenny Everett then you know the tone of this film, silly, campy and anarchic. I was a huge fan of his show when I was a kid and it's a shame that this is his only film role, he really could have had a great film career. Some of the material here has dated, but like Airplane! and other spoof films, there are so many jokes that it doesn't matter if you don't like one, there'll be another in a few seconds. Everett is good as the lead, playing it pretty straight-faced for the most part, but the star is Vincent Price as the satanic priest. His withering exasperation at his inept cabal of satanists is always hilarious. His monologue after being told to p*ss off is brilliant. The way he ended it with “you p*ss off” had me cracking up. Not a brilliant film but a fun time nonetheless. 6.5/10 You Only Live Twice dir. Lewis Gilbert/1967/1h57m Bond is back, and this time he's Japanese! After an American spaceship is swallowed up by a much bigger ship, in the best pre-title sequence of the Connery era, the USA and Russia come to the brink of war. Bond is sent to Japan in order to discover the real villain behind this plot, Blofeld (Donald Pleasance), whose face we see for the first time in the series and it's a great payoff. After the slow and rather serious Thunderball this goofy adventure is a breath of fresh air. Maybe having Roald Dahl writing the screenplay helped with that. The theme, by Nancy Sinatra, is fantastic and a nice departure from the big brassy numbers of the previous films, and Blofeld's volcano lair is still the best evil lair in film history, Ken Adams design here is just perfect. The whole sequence with Little Nelly, the portable one man helicopter is pure Bond, a silly idea but pulled off in a spectacular and cool way. Like I mentioned in an earlier Bond review there are some problematic things here, particularly when Bond has to disguise himself as a Japanese man and it just amounts to him having some fake tan and combing his hair forward. It's pretty cringeworthy but none of it is mean spirited. This film seems quite maligned these days, reading reviews online, but this has always been one of my favourites and I think it's a lot of fun. 8/10 JFK (Director's Cut) dir. Oliver Stone/1991/3h26m Oliver Stone's epic political thriller about the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy stars Kevin Costner as New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison. Several years after the assassination and the subsequent murder of his supposed assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) Garrison reopens the case, but he and his team of investigators face considerable pushback from several government branches. The film culminates with the trial of Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) for conspiracy to kill the president, the only trial ever bought forward in relation to the case. He was found innocent after less than an hour of deliberation. This is f*cking brilliant. I was gripped for the entire three and a half hour runtime. Like all of the best legal dramas, this is so well made that I was getting excited for every new revelation, no matter how small. Seeing all of the pieces fall into place was thrilling, and Stone's trademark guerilla style really bought tension and danger to a lot of the film. The performances are excellent across the board. This is the best I've seen of Costner, whose wholesome, all-American persona perfectly fits the crusading Garrison. The supporting cast is packed with big names bringing their a-game. The already mentioned Oldman and Lee Jones are joined by the likes of John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Jack Lemmon, Donald Sutherland, Michael Rooker and, perhaps the best of them all, Joe Pesci, whose hairpiece and eyebrows threaten to steal the whole show. This is a masterfully made political thriller that is also one of the most terrifying films that I've recently seen. 10/10 Bad Luck Banging or Loony p*rn dir. Radu Jude/2021/1h46m Teacher Emi (Katia Pascariu) makes a s*x tape with her husband which ends up on the internet. It is discovered by children at her school and has been summoned to a meeting of parents and teachers who will decide whether she can keep teaching. This is a film of three parts (and a prologue). The prologue is the s*x tape which we see in its entirety and this is not simulated s*x, this is real and it is graphic. The first act sees Emi during the morning before the meeting as she wanders around generally wasting time until she has to go. This reminded me of Agnes Varda's film Cleo from 5 to 7, which follows a woman around as she waits for results of a medical test. Not much happens but it's all undercut with a simmering nervousness. The second act is a montage of thoughts on a wide range of subjects. These are both humorous and serious, some of them again involving real s*x acts. This part reminded me of a Roy Andersson film, very deadpan commentary on modern life. The final act is the meeting itself, set outside and bathed in sickly green light. Here the film becomes a discussion about s*x and morality and a whole host of other subjects. The end of the film takes a page from Wayne's World by having three endings. The first sees her keep her job. The second sees her lose her job. The third sees her lose her job, transform into Wonder Woman, trap everyone in a giant net and throatf*ck them to death with a giant, glowing d*ldo. I loved this. This is everything I want from a film. It's confrontational, it's funny, it's thought provoking, it's ridiculous, and it's superbly made with excellent performances from the entire cast, particularly Pascariu in the lead role. Close to perfect. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Surge dir. Aneil Karia/2020/1h45m Ben Whishaw plays Joseph, a security guard at a London airport who is an invisible nobody who lives a lonely life. When he doesn't have enough money to buy a HDMI cable he snaps and robs a bank, feeling liberated by the action. He goes through a real serious mental health breakdown throughout the rest of the film, becoming more unhinged but feeling free and alive. This was a stressful watch in the same way as Uncut Gems or Falling Down; a man at his lowest ebb who just stops giving a f*ck. Whishaw gives an incredible physical performance, twitching and running, always on the move like if he stops he'll die, and maybe he will. There are also little things he does that adds to the anxious, uncomfortable tone of the film, the way he bites down on the prongs of his fork or the rim of his glass, the way he watches Michael McIntyre voluntarily without changing the channel. The handheld camerawork in this film matches the tone, wildly swinging around as we run after Joseph, getting too close to him as he picks glass out of his mouth, a fly on the wall of his awkward meetings with his parents. If you wanna be stressed out for an hour and three quarters then you should check this out, a real tense little film. 8/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted May 1, 2022 Share Posted May 1, 2022 The Invisible Man (2020) dir Leigh Whannell I would describe this as inspired by rather than based on the classic HG Welles novel of the same name. It has a modern day setting, in San Francisco, and the story is from the point of view of Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) who is being stalked by an invisible, abusive, control-freak ex. That is a nice twist and it has a couple of homages to earlier film / TV versions with Cecilia seeing what looks like the classic Invisible Man covered in bandages or in a Trilby hat and coat. Elizbeth Moss is good in the lead role, though she is essentially playing it as OfFred from The Handmaid's Tale. Apart from those points though this is a pretty average thriller and seemed to be dragged out about half and hour too long. It also ought to have been quite scary at times, like when she first notices impossible things happening, but it wasn't and I am easily scarred. 5/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 (edited) Annihilation (2018) dir Alex Garland Impressive looking sci-film but with a plot that is quite lacking at times. Natalie Portman plays Lena, a former soldier turned biologist who ends up volunteering for a group of scientists who investigate a strange phenomenon of presumed extra-terrestrial origin. The military have been studying it for a year, various teams of soldiers have gone in and no one has returned other than Lena's husband who is fighting for his life. The team Lena joins is all female, something that is never really explained other than 'all the other teams were men-only so we're trying something different'. It's got elements of a number of other films in it; Aliens, Predator, 2001, Contact and at the end Under the Skin. The problem for me is that it doesn't seem to know what sort of film it is. At times it appears to be going in the action based direction, but then doesn't have much action. At others time it seems to be of the more serious-plot based type, but then gets confusing. I got bored about half way though and came close to stopping watching it. As scientist I want a sci-film that either sticks to at least plausible science or if based on things totally beyond actual science does not even attempt to explain what it can not explain This does neither, coming up with silly explanations for what happens. I'm glad I did stick with it though because the ending, when Lena finds the alien, is good and visually impressive. 4/10 Edited May 8, 2022 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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