djw180 6,839 Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (edited) Builders of Ancient Mysteries (2020) dir Patrice Pooyard Badly made, pseudo-science “documentary”, but slightly entertaining to watch none-the-less. The film-makers believe that a relatively advanced human civilisation existed around 10,000 BC. That's at least a few thousand years older than the earliest accepted civilisations. This advanced civilisation was supposedly wiped out by rapidly rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age, and apart from some clues hidden in the layout of various ancient, and some not so ancient, sites; The Pyramids, Machu-Pichu, Easter Island, Ankhor Wat, etc, all trace of them has gone. But a few survivors toured the world, passing on their knowledge of agriculture, construction and astronomy to stone-age peoples in different continents. The academic establishment refuses to accept all this because they are allegedly “biased”. It features Graham Hancock, who has a series promoting similar content on Netflix. I have not seen that but have seen a documentary he made for Channel 4 in the mid 90s. That at least offered some dissenting views. This one does not. You can not make what purports to be a serious documentary on a controversial topic, not give any time to those who disagree, and expect to be taken seriously. That is basically why these ideas are not accepted by the academic establishment. Nothing to do with any bias. You have to present evidence to support a hypotheses that stands up to peer-review. Pooyard, Hancock et al either don't try to do that or can't, because they don't actually have such evidence. So I call bull-sh*t on this so called documentary. It's very repetitive. I think I fell asleep watching it, but it was hard to tell because I didn't seem to have actually missed much when I woke up. The narrator (the director?) keeps going on and on about the similarities in building style of the various sites, thousands of km and in some cases thousands of years, according to generally accepted dates, apart. I don't see how those similarities prove they must have all got their knowledge from the same earlier, advanced, civilisation. Instead I think the generally accepted explanation is the more likely. i.e. that given enough time, people in different parts of the world, faced with the same problems and with the same sort of materials to work with, independently discovered very similar solutions to those same problems. I don't deny that there could have been human communities living in coastal cities ~10,000 BC that are now well below sea level (sea levels did indeed rise a lot after the last ice age as the vast amounts of ice that covered a lot of the Earth's land masses melted). I just don't think there is any evidence to prove it, or even seriously suggest it. What is interesting is the amazing detail and preciseness of some of the work at these ancient sites. I think we should just credit ancient Incans, Egyptians etc with knowing some things we do not know today and having worked that out for themselves, rather than assume they had to have been taught those techniques by a more advanced civilisation, that despite being so advanced only left us rather cryptic clues to their existence. I've gone on enough about a film I think is not very good. But as a scientist and someone with an interest in history, I feel I have to point how unfounded the claims made in this film are. 2/10 Edited March 23, 2023 by djw180 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 (edited) What I Watched This Week #59 (Feb 12 – 18) Rhapsody in August dir. Akira Kurosawa/1991/1h38m This is a late film from Akira Kurosawa that centres on an elderly woman, Kane (Sachiko Murase), whose husband was killed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. She discovers that her long-lost brother is alive and living in Hawaii and wants her to visit him before he dies. Her four grandchildren, as well as her American nephew Clark (Richard Gere), try to convince her, but her prejudices against America, as well as her failing memory and health, hold her back. This is a deeply personal film from Kurosawa about generational trauma and the danger of forgetting your past, as represented by the grandchildren who start the film ignorant of what their grandmother went through during the war. This is a very gentle, poetic film with a brilliant lead performance from Murase – the sight of her alone in a storm, her tiny umbrella offering no protection, is so powerful – that shows that even in his eighties Kurosawa was still a master of the craft. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Black Panther: Wakanda Forever dir. Ryan Coogler/2022/2h42m Wakanda Forever is the second of Marvel's Black Panther franchise, and it opens with the tragic early death of King T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), mirroring the even more tragic real life death of Boseman, who thankfully doesn't appear as a plastic looking CGI model. This death leaves a power vacuum in the country of Wakanda, which is exacerbated by the sudden attack of Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejia), King of Atlantis, who also possess the incredibly rare and strong mineral, vibranium. The first hour of the film is rather directionless, with a lot of time dedicated to T'Challa's younger sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), angry and guilt ridden over the fact that she couldn't help her brother. And while Wright is an excellent actress this just goes on too long. The introduction of Namor, and later on the character of Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) really help give the film some momentum. I loved the design of Atlantis and all of the Atlantans, and also Williams's Mega Man style Ironheart armour. Overlong but solid MCU film which is helped by some great supporting performances from the likes of Angela Bassett, Winston Duke and Martin Freeman. 7/10 Peter Pan dir. Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson, Clyde Geronimi/1953/1h17m Peter Pan (Bobby Driscoll), the boy who never grew up, whisks Wendy Darling (Kathryn Beaumont) and her brothers off to Neverland – second star on the right and straight on till morning – where they battle the dastardly pirate Captain Hook (Hans Conried) with the help of the Lost Boys and some unfortunately dated depictions of Native Americans. This is a lot of fun, with a fantastic villain in Hook, but I found Peter himself to be really annoying, and there aren't any good songs in this. It is fantastically animated, particularly the scene where Peter wrestles with his shadow, trying to reattach it, but for me it doesn't come close to being top-tier Disney. 7/10 Stagecoach dir. John Ford/1939/1h36m A group of disparate strangers travelling on a stagecoach from Arizona to New Mexico find themselves under threat from Geronimo and his band of Apache warriors in this classic western from master of the genre John Ford. Among the group is Dallas (Claire Trevor), a prostitute run out of town by a group of Karens, and The Ringo Kid (John Wayne), an outlaw with a heart of gold seeking revenge on the men who killed his brother. This is a brilliantly crafted film that can rely on both well rounded characters and fantastic action. Wayne, who had been the lead in a few previous films but wasn't yet a star is excellent as the tough but principled outlaw and Ford knew it. The zoom in on him that introduces his character is just screaming “look at this film star”. Trevor is his equal as the stereotypical hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold who has been hurt too many times, a role that she makes three dimensional thanks to her performance. The climactic battle when the Apache warriors attack the stagecoach is thrilling with some really dangerous looking stunts. Again, like Peter Pan, the Native Americans are portrayed here as the typical “noble savages”, but that aside this is still one of the best westerns I've ever seen. 9/10 Carry On Again Doctor dir. Gerald Thomas/1969/1h25m This entry of the Carry On series sees Dr. Nookie (Jim Dale) sent to a medical mission on a remote island after he is caught in a compromising position at his hospital. There he finds Gladstone Screwer (Sid James), a local medicine man, and his miraculous weight loss potion, with which Nookie hopes to make a fortune and win over film star Goldie Locks (Barbara Windsor). This is like Carry On on autopilot at this point. All the pieces are there, including the regular cast like Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Charles Hawtrey, and it has all of the innuendo and cheeky humour, but it just doesn't have the charm of the earlier films. I don't know if it's the fact that the films are getting cheaper and cheaper, so you don't get the lavish sets and costumes of the likes of Cleo and Screaming, or that the cast is getting older and creepier as they hit on much younger women, but it just doesn't have that classic Carry On spark. 5/10 Hue and Cry dir. Charles Crichton/1947/1h22m Hue and Cry is the first of Ealing Studios run of classic comedies. The plot sees a group of criminals planning robberies via hidden messages in a Boy's Own style comic book. A group of schoolboys discover this secret code and attempt to foil the crooks. I wasn't expecting this to be as targeted towards children as much as it is, what with their other films being quite dark, but this is essentially the Goonies in post-war London. The performance of the main boy, Joe (Harry Fowler) is pretty solid, and there's nice support from Alastair Sim as the writer of the comic str*p who is ignorant of how it's being manipulated but I didn't find the film to be particularly funny, however it does have a charm to it. The film makes great use of real locations in London, which was still bearing the wounds of WWII, with the children playing on rubble heaps, and the final chase being set in a bombed out building. For children of the time I can see this film being a much needed bit of escapism from the horrors of reality. This is a good start for Ealing, but they'll go on to make much better films. 6.5/10 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder/1974/1h33m Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a German drama about Emmi (Brigitte Mira), a widow in her sixties who falls in love with the much younger Moroccan immigrant Ali (El Hedi ben Salem, also Fassbinder's long term lover), much to the chagrin of her children and neighbours. This is a beautifully tender film that also doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of relationships, even without people judging you on the difference in your age, race and religion. The two leads are so natural that it hurts when things go bad. The direction is great, framing Emmi and Ali in the distance and sperate from other people to show how they are being rejected by society. 9/10 Edited March 26, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Con 5,703 Posted March 27, 2023 Share Posted March 27, 2023 (edited) Infinity Pool (2023) It’s best to watch this without knowing too much. I had no idea what it was about, I watched it because it was on a horror film list. All I knew was that a couple go on vacation and at the resort , things go wrong. This is probably the best way to go into this film because had someone explained it to me conceptually, I probably would have given it a soft pass. This film is set in a fictional country where rich folks go to vacation, but the resort is massively fenced in to keep the vacationers away from the local population for what seems at all costs and this is the first clue something is a bit odd. Unfortunately for our unhappy couple, they make a huge mistake which leads them to having the truth of the resort revealed to them and this is when the film takes you on a wild ride with its concept. I was curious as to how this film was going to keep me interested once the gimmick gets repetitive and this is where I have to mention the acting and supporting characters, I thought they all were very good and helped me immerse myself into the story but more importantly kept me wanting to at least see how everything was going to end. An acting ensemble with less acting skills would have made this film somewhat painful and mediocre, but thankfully it wasn’t that, mainly thanks to Mia Goth, who is a phenomenal presence on screen. Her character is super delicious and I’m not even talking in a physical way, she was the glue that kept it all together for me once I had lost interest in the concept because, it kind of becomes a purposeful gag, so by the third act, I was engaged exclusively by the performances only. In general, I enjoyed the concept because it’s one of those films you should watch with as many people as you can so you can discuss until your faces turn blue or you pass out from drinking and debating. When you watch this film, afterwards you probably won’t be talking about what was on screen and more about what the ramifications of the film’s concepts mean to you. Who should watch this? People that like disorienting films like Midsomar and body sci-if or body horror, although it’s not body horror in the traditional manner, you know, characters having extra heads growing and stuff like that, it’s body horror at a different level. The film is shot beautifully and the edit and design of the or*y scene was gorgeous. Some people will complain that they wanted the mechanisms to be explained but this is set in a fictional country, making it a fictional world and universe where anything is possible and explaining the hows and what’s, would make this a different story. The film is about the main character and not about trying to discover the origins of the mechanisms. Final Verdict…3/5…Cool concept with great acting performances by everyone except Mia Goth, she was phenomenal, and she became the only reason I stayed engaged once I felt the gimmick wearing off. This is probably a good film to watch before going on vacation or holiday. The main concept is interesting and the discussions you may have afterwards regarding what you witnessed may very well be worth giving this a chance. Because there is a ton to unpack after the credits roll, some good and some bad. Edited March 29, 2023 by Con 2 RSC FILM CLUB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 (edited) @Con Infinity Pool is on my watchlist so I didn't fully read your review, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on his previous film, Possessor, which I thought was really good. What I Watched This Week #60 (Feb 19 – 25) Somers Town dir. Shane Meadows/2008/1h11m Tomo (Thomas Turgoose), a runaway teenager from the north of England, is mugged on his first night in London, but he soon forms a friendship with Marek (Piotr Jagiello), a Polish immigrant who lives with his father. The two spend the summer hanging out and chasing after the cute French waitress at the local café, Maria (Elisa Lasowski). This film starts out like a typical gritty Meadows film, Dead Mans Shoes, This Is England etc, but it soon reveals itself to be a thoroughly charming story about friendship that will melt your heart. The two leads have brilliant chemistry together, Turgoose is a charming little sh*t who you can't help but love, and Jagiello really holds his own even though he is a non professional and this is his only acting credit. Even though there is no plot here you'll enjoy just spending time with the characters. Shot mostly in gorgeous black and white, it bursts into colour for a wonderfully affirming ending that left me grinning from ear to ear. 9/10 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown dir. Pedro Almodovar/1988/1h28m This Spanish black comedy stars Carmen Maura as Pepa, an actress who has just been dumped by her older lover, Ivan (Fernando Guillen). She resolves to kill herself by mixing a load of sleeping pills in some gazpacho soup – that always reminds me of Red Dwarf – but before she can drink it she is interrupted by a series of escalating events involving her best friend Candela (Maria Barranco), Ivan's son Carlos (Antonio Banderas), and a terrorist cell intent on blowing up a plane to Stockholm. I've only seen a couple of Almodovar films – All About My Mother and The Human Voice – which I both loved, and this makes it three for three. He has a vibrancy about his direction that gives life and energy to every scene, and his use of the colour red really helps with that. I also love how he is a male director who can make films about women without ever once slipping into the “male gaze” or coming close to objectifying anyone, not to get into feminist film theory or anything. The script is razor sharp and all of the performances are fantastic. Watching this just makes me want to watch all of his films. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Lady and the tr*mp dir. Hamilton Luske, Wildred Jackson, Clyde Geronimi/1955/1h16m Lady (Barbara Luddy), a well groomed Cocker Spaniel crosses paths with stray mongrel tr*mp (Larry Roberts) after she runs away from home thinking her owners won't want her now they're expecting a baby. The two, of course, fall in love and end up back in Lady's home with some puppies of their own. This is a very simple but sweet film from Disney that doesn't have much substance to it, but is gorgeously animated. Plus I'm a sucker for dogs. I love how Lady refers to her owners as Jim Dear and Darling, because that's what she hears them call each other. And how could you not love the moonlit dinner scene where they share a plate of spaghetti. There is some more racial stereotyping here with the evil Siamese cats, but I do have to admit that their song is pretty catchy. I wouldn't put this in the same league as Pinocchio but I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. 8/10 Whisky Galore! dir. Alexander Mackendrick/1949/1h22m During WWII the locals of the Scottish island of Todday aren't affected by rationing until, horror of horrors, they run out of whisky. As luck would have it, a ship carrying 50,000 cases of whisky wrecks in a storm just off the coast and the locals scramble to recover as much as they can. When stuffy English Home Guard officer Captain Waggett (Basil Radford) and customs officer Farquharson (Henry Mollison) arrive to search the island the locals have to come up with ingenious ways to hide it. This Ealing comedy is, amazingly, based on a true story. This is a great comedy that exemplifies the best of Ealing studios at the time, politely subversive and anti-establishment in the most British way. There are some sweet romantic subplots in the film, I particularly liked the one with Gordon Campbell (Gordon Jackson) defying his controlling mother to woo Catriona (Gabrielle Blunt). This is a fun film that will warm you up almost as well as a nice double scotch. 8.5/10 Can You Ever Forgive Me? dir. Marielle Heller/2018/1h47m Another film here that is amazingly based on a true story, Can You Ever Forgive Me? stars Melissa McCarthy as Lee Israel. She was an author who wrote biographies of celebrities from Hollywood's golden age. But she fell on hard times because those kinds of books fell out of fashion. Quite by accident she stumbled on the idea of forging personal, and very provocative, letters by those same stars she wrote about. Helped by smooth talking slime ball Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant) she starts to make some real money by selling them to collectors, but that brings with it more attention. I am not a fan of McCarthy, like, at all. So, to my great surprise, I loved her in this. Her performance as Israel is astonishingly good. She is a total *sshole for pretty much the entire film and you can't help but root for her the whole time. The same can be said of Grant's Hock. These are two totally unlikeable characters who you want to succeed. And that is all down to the performances. The direction and the script are also really good, especially the script which is just full of acerbic wit. This is a film that got some awards recognition at the time but seems to have slipped off of everyone's radar, including mine. And that is a damn shame because this is brilliant. If you let this one pass you by you won't be able to forgive yourself. 9/10 Pickpocket dir. Robert Bresson/1959/1h15m Pickpocket is a French film that follows Michel (Martin LaSalle), a pickpocket who, after being caught at the start of the film, spends time practicing his craft, falling in with a group of fellow theives. This is a very sparse film, more of a character study than a narrative. We spend a lot of time watching Michel practicing alone in his apartment before he heads out to find some unsuspecting mark. The choreography of these scenes is somewhat over the top and theatrical, making it feel more like a dance or precision clockwork, and is something I liked. It's quite a cold film, even the scenes with Michel and his love interest Jeanne (Marika Greene), but that matches the overall tone of the film, quite detatched, almost as is Michel is above all of this. In some scenes he does debate with a police inspector that some men who are superior should be unshackled from the bonds of law, so that does fit his character. I do prefer this Bresson film to Au Hasard Balthazar, even though this doesn't star any donkeys. 7/10 The Goose Steps Out dir. Basil Dearden, Will Hay/1942/1h19m This WWII mistaken-identity comedy stars Will Hay – who also co-directed – as a bumbling schoolteacher, William Potts, who happens to be the exact double of a n*zi spy the British have just captured. They send him back to Germany to uncover plans for a new secret weapon, but when he gets there he is put in charge of a group of young n*zi spies – including a young Charles Hawtrey from the Carry On series – to whom he purposely gives wrong information, just like how they did my boy Wimp Lo dirty in Kung Pow. This is very silly stuff that was made to stick one to old Adolf during the war, showing him that he's a laughing stock, and while it is leagues away from Chaplin's The Great Dictator, this is still very enjoyable stuff. Hays is likeable in the lead as the clueless hero, and there are some pretty funny jokes in here, like how he teaches the spies that flicking the v's is a sign of respect, so they all end up doing it to a portrait of Hitler. A charming example of the British wartime spirit. 8/10 Edited March 28, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Con 5,703 Posted March 29, 2023 Share Posted March 29, 2023 @LimeGreenLegendI have to rewatch Possessor cause I watched it when I was half asleep. I didn't spoil the main concept in my review, but it will be more fun if you watch it raw. I cannot wait to discuss Infinity Pool with you. 1 RSC FILM CLUB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Con 5,703 Posted March 29, 2023 Share Posted March 29, 2023 Deadstream (2023) Found footage spookiness that really has a fun first and second act and then it kinda crumbles, doesn't fall completely apart, in the last act. The film is about a once popular influencer, a Twitch streamer if you will, except the platform is called Livid. We begin with learning he is returning to posting after he served a suspension and demonitization of his channel and also seems that the public had also cancelled him thanks to his pranks and antics going too far. It is implied that he hurt someone in one of his pranks and that is when the public and his sponsors pulled the plug on his popularity. What the film does excellent at is convincing us that this guy is a legit streamer. The intro to the film are clips of his streams and videos and they are done extremely well, I instantly bought into the main characters lifestyle and persona. That helps tremendously in this sort of film. So to serve as punishment, his sponsors have proposed a challenge to him in exchange of him regaining his channel's monetization, he must stay and stream a full night at a haunted house where multiple deaths have occurred. Our Mr. Beast Lite, agrees and we get the usual ghost hunting walkthroughs as we get the exposition as to why the house has such a creepy reputation. Being a found footage film, we see everything through his streaming cameras and we also see clips of other ghost hunting streamers capture paranormal activity in the house in the past. Those older clips really add authenticity to the feel of the film since I myself indulge in ghost hunting video rabbit holes all the time and they did a real good job with that part of the setup. Then the film becomes this combination of Evil Dead 2 (1987) meets REC (2007) and while it stays interesting, the film gets to the edge of becoming a slapstick comedy as our main character does his best to remain trapped in the house and property. Doesn't help that he throws his spark plugs in the woods at his arrival in an attempt to force him to stay the entire night without the ability to just drive away, yeah, exactly, how idiotic. And yes, those spark plugs come into play in the final act but anyone that had experienced what he has would have surely ran as far as possible. Not our guy, his desire to make a comeback supercedes his survival instincts. What makes this a little different from other ghost hunting films is that the guy is streaming the entire time on the internet and I had to question why his sponsors didn't pull the plug on the event once they saw that his life was in danger, since only the sponsors know of the location, but they don't even send the police. The last act is filled with decisions that were kind of far fetched and they include one of my biggest pet peeves in these type of films, wrestling with the evil, I mean that literally, hand to hand combat. That is about the time when I just found myself waiting for the ending, hoping something would bring me back to how I felt during the first two acts that contained all the tension. The strength of this film is the setup and Shawn (Joseph Winters) who does a great job, he is entertaining but most importantly, he is convincing as the popular streamer. For a found footage film, it works because we get a variety of angles and clips from the past that give us a break from being with Shawn the entire running time. While I expected the Shawn character to be silly most of the film, I did expect the horror to be more grown up but it gets broken up by moments of comedy thanks to Shawn's personality. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I wish the film had gotten more consistent with the scares towards the end. There are moments when I want to laugh and then there are moments when I should be nothing but terrified. I also think that my opinion for this film is a bit tainted thanks to just recently have watched another found footage film called Hell House, LLC (2015), that film also starts with a light and fun setup but when the evil arrives, the tone shifts and makes the horror more relentless and terrifying. I think I will rewatch Hell House, LLC before I rewatch Deadstream. Final Verdict...3/5...Don't get me wrong, I was entertained by this found footage offering, at no time was I bored, just a bit disappointed at the tone not shifting all the way in the last act, they do try but I didn't fully like the way they handle the evil elements as it felt like the writers lacked ideas by that point. If you are a found footage hound, this is a must watch because it is entertaining and would consider it a "fun" entry in the genre, even with its moments of predictability, especially the ending, I feel you will still have an interesting time with the Deadstream. 1 RSC FILM CLUB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 6, 2023 Share Posted April 6, 2023 What I Watched This Week #61 (Feb 26 – Mar 4) Sleeping Beauty dir. Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, Les Clark/1959/1h15m On the day of Princess Aurora's (Mary Costa) birth, evil witch Maleficent (Eleanor Audley) puts a curse on her, that on her 16th birthday she will pr*ck her finger and fall into a death like sleep, only true love's kiss able to wake her. To that end, her parents send her off to live in hiding with the three good fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather (Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allan, Barbara Luddy), hoping that that will keep her safe. This is one of the most gorgeous animated films ever. Not only are the backgrounds lush and detailed but it also has a very distinctive style unlike any other Disney films to date. Even the way all the trees and bushes are so geometrical is totally unique. This film also has one of the best villains in the Disney canon. Maleficent is pure evil in every way and it's delightful to watch. From putting a hex on an infant child to turning into a fire breathing dragon she does nothing half-assed. The rest of the cast are all well drawn too, in both senses of the word. Even the Prince Charming character, in this case Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley), has depth, unlike his counterpart from Cinderella. My only small negative for this film is, apart from Once Upon A Dream, that it doesn't have many memorable songs. But that's a tiny blemish on what is a magical film and one of the best since the golden age of Disney. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Holiday dir. Isabella Eklof/2018/1h33m Sascha (Vic Carmen Sonne), the girlfriend of a drug lord, Michel (Lai Yde), is on holiday with him in a beautiful resort in Turkey. There she meets Tomas (Thijs Romer), a friendly backpacker, and the two develop a friendship, but the life she has been trapped in makes things complicated and dangerous for the both of them. This is a confrontational and brutal film that at times is hard to watch, specifically the incredibly disturbing r*pe scene that is maybe the most graphic I've ever seen. This film is more of a character study than a narrative, as we watch Sascha become more and more powerless until she finally breaks. But even then this is not a revenge thriller with a satisfying ending where the heroine walks off to a better life. The cycle of abuse she finds herself in has no way out that she can see, and the smile she gives at the end of the film is a heart-breaking resignation to that life. This is a fantastically shot film, the sun drenched locations giving a stark juxtaposition to the dark events, and all of the performances are spot on, especially Carmen Sonne in the lead role. 8/10 The Pleasure Garden dir. Alfred Hitchcock/1925/1h15m The Pleasure Garden is the first film from Alfred Hitchcock and it concerns the relationship between two chorus girls, Jill (Carmelita Geraghty), who is new in London, and Patsy (Virginia Valli), a dancer at The Pleasure Garden music hall. Starting off as friends, Jill soon becomes a star and too good for Patsy and her former fiancée Hugh (John Stuart). Of course, being a Hitchcock film, there is a murder, and blondes in peril and voyeurism, and even at this early stage in his career he had an eye for a good shot. Even the very first shot of his career, a bevy of beautiful blondes descending a spiral staircase, is packed full of symbolism. Despite that, this is quite a boring film with none of his trademark suspense. His film The Lodger, from a couple of years later, is much better in that regard, and in every other regard to be honest. The only reason I'd recommend this is if you want to see the beginnings of one of the greatest directors of all time. Otherwise it's not really worth your time. 4/10 A Day's Pleasure dir. Charlie Chaplin/1919/18m Charlie Chaplin plays the father of a family – the wife played by Chaplin stalwart Edna Purviance, and the youngest son by Jackie Coogan who would play the kid in The Kid, one of Chaplin's greatest films - who endeavour to go out for a picnic, but they run into all sorts of problems involving a car that won't start, a ferry that gives everyone seasickness and some hot, sticky tar. This is classis slapstick executed with the greatest precision by the master of the craft and will have you smiling for the entire length. This is a straight out comedy without the heart or social consciousness of his best films, so it never quite reaches those heights, but even a mid-tier Chaplin film is funnier than most comedies ever made. Plus, he has a fight with a dude's *ss. 7.5/10 Lord of the Flies dir. Peter Brook/1963/1h32m Based on the classic novel, Lord of the Flies sees a plane full of schoolboys crash on a desert island during an unspecified war. With no adults to guide them the boys think themselves in paradise, but they soon splinter into two groups – one led by the more sensible Ralph (James Aubry) the other by the hard-line head choirboy Jack (Tom Chapin) - and things become much more savage as all the rules of society are thrown out the window. This is a great adaptation of one of my favourite books that doesn't shy away from the brutality of these boys. This is also a great exploration of the class divide with the group of posh schoolboys led by Jack assuming authority automatically and the working class boys having to literally fight to survive. Some of the performances aren't the best, but the three leads, Aubry. Chapin and Hugh Edwards who plays the hapless Piggy, are solid enough. Some great direction here, especially the scenes where they go hunting, adds to the fear of the unknown – and the known - and the mounting threat really well. A great reason to never have kids. 8/10 One Hundred and One Dalmatians dir. Hamilton Luske, Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi/1961/1h22m Disney enter the 60s with a brand new style that feels much more modern compared to the classic style that harkens all the way back to Snow White. Now we have a scratchy, sketchbook style bordered with thick black lines, and coming off of Sleeping Beauty it's a big change, and one that I really like. The plot sees Dalmatians Pongo and Perdita (Rod Taylor, Cate Bauer) have their puppies kidnapped by the twisted Cruella De Vil (Betty Lou Gerson), who plans on turning them into a coat, so they set out to rescue them, and the dozens and dozens of other Dalmatian puppies she has stolen. In terms of Disney villains Maleficent was always going to be a hard act to follow, and they nailed it here. De Vil is another iconic bad guy who is just pure evil and so much fun to hate. She also has a banging theme tune that was stuck in my head for days afterwards (...if she doesn't scare you...damn it). This feels so fresh, being set in contemporary times, not based on a fairy-tale, new animation style etc, and like I said in my Lady and the tr*mp review, I'm a sucker for dogs, so I couldn't help but love this. One of my favourites as a child that still holds up now I'm an adult. 9/10 Smithereens dir. Susan Seidelman/1982/1h34m This film stars Susan Berman as Wren, a wannabe star in the punk scene who heads to New York to make it big. But when there she finds the punk scene dead, now centred in LA, so she ends up splitting her time between being a groupie for a one hit wonder punk Eric (Richard Hell, who was in several big early punk bands) and having a relationship with Paul (Brad Rinn) who is on a road trip through the country and lives in the back of his van. Wren, a whiny, narcissistic character, goes from being manipulated to the one manipulating others, and her every action is self serving with no consideration for other people. And still, Berman's open and honest performance makes her a sympathetic character, a dreamer, who you'll want to find success. But this isn't that kind of film, like Berman's performance this is open and honest and raw and spits in the eye of every story of someone making it big in the big city. The aesthetics of the film match the punk sensibility, all handheld and grainy, at times almost documentary like, but there is also beauty there in those dirty NY streets. 8.5/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 (edited) One Deadly Summer (1983) – dir Jean Becker An unusual, French, revenge film. It's set in the 1970s in rural Provence. 19 year Elle (Isabelle Adjani, very good in this) moves into a village with her parents. She is stunningly beautiful, the sort of young woman many man can not help but stop what they are doing and just gaze longingly at. Eventually she starts dating Florimond (Alain Souchon), the eldest of 3 brothers who live with their mother and her sister in an old farm house just outside the village. Up to this point the film has been like a romantic comedy. But when Florimond announces Elle is moving in, she starts to narrate the next scene and tells us her plan is working. That plan, it emerges, it to take revenge on three men who 20 years ago r*ped her mother; one of whom she believes must be her biological father. She suspects one of them was Florimond's father, who died some years earlier, so her revenge on him will be passed on to his family. But this is not a simple story. Elle's detective skills are not great, and she knows that. She takes her time to find the other two men and make sure she does have the true culprits. It begins to feel like it is building up to a bloodbath, especially given the film's title, but it does not work out like that. I knew nothing about this before watching it. It's just one of those Amazon Prime suggested based on other films I have watched, and I often find those recommendations a bit weird and wonder why. So I was very pleasantly surprised by this. 8 / 10 Edited April 9, 2023 by djw180 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted April 15, 2023 Share Posted April 15, 2023 Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) dir Pedro Almodovar Antonio Banderas stars as Ricky, recently released from a secure psychiatric hospital, obsessed with former p*rn star and recovering drug addict Marina (Victoria Abril), he decides to take her hostage inside her own Madrid home, and wait for her to fall in love so they can live happily ever after. Ricky clearly still has mental health problems and Marina is not yet over her drug habits. So he often leaves here tied up in the flat while he goes out to get supplies, hence the films title. It's pretty average, sort of a comedy without anything really that funny. The acting isn't great, neither is the script. There is a lot of hearing characters thinking, which to me is quite a cheap way of progressing a story. How it eventually unfolds is just not plausible to me. It does have quite a good score by, of course, Ennio Morriocone. That has some trumpet solo pieces like in the Untouchables, and some of the big, melodic, emotional orchestral pieces like Cinema Parridisso or Once Upon a Time in America. The problem for me is the music doesn't really fit a story of a mentally ill stalker and his kidknap victim. 5/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omarcomin71 3,837 Posted April 15, 2023 Share Posted April 15, 2023 On 1/7/2023 at 9:37 AM, djw180 said: Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) dir George Miller Tilda Swinton plays Alithea, a '”narratologist” (someone who academically studies stories and story telling). While at a conference in Istanbul she buys a small glass bottle from the bazaar. Back at her hotel room she opens the bottle and a Djinn (genie) appears, played by Idris Elba. Most of the rest of the film is conversations between Alithea and the Djin as the latter narrates his story. He tells how he spent 2500 years locked in a bottle, then after a brief spell of freedom spent another couple of hundred years invisible and powerless after the woman who freed him from the bottle failed to ask for the three wishes he is bound by the laws of his nature to grant. The two leading actors are great. It's modern fantasy, obviously. I won't spoil the story further but just say it features some very good special effects and great sets as we see the story the Djinn is narrating. 8/10 I recently watched this movie and really enjoyed it. To be honest, I didn’t know it existed. I’m not sure how it didn’t get more attention. Thank you to our movie club, and @djw180 for his review. 🙂 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 (edited) What I Watched This Week #62 (Mar 5 – 11) A Grand Day Out dir. Nick Park/1989/23m The Wrong Trousers dir. Nick Park/1993/29m A Close Shave dir. Nick Park/1995/30m A crackpot, cheese-obsessed inventor from Yorkshire and his exasperated dog don't seem like the best choices for film stardom, but thanks to the genius of Nick Park and the animators at Aardman, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and Gromit are now two of the most recognisable, and beloved, faces in British film history. Their introduction, A Grand Day Out sees our heroes taking a trip to the moon because they've run out of cheese for their crackers, and as we all know, the moon is made of cheese. What makes these films brilliant is that they play out like a classic silent comedy, with the vast majority of the jokes being visual. When we do hear dialogue it's the warm comforting voice of Sallis being hilariously bamboozled by the slightest inconvenience. Sallis is perfect in this role – no one says “cheese” quite like him. The hand crafted claymation is quite rough in this first film, it really does look like it was made in a shed, but it is packed full of charm. The Wrong Trousers is a film noir style thriller involving a pair of mechanical slacks, a diamond heist and a sinister penguin and it may be the most perfect half hour of animation ever made. It still has that hand made style, because it is hand made, but you can tell they have a budget now as everything is more uniform and clean. But the film still retains all of its charm despite being all cleaned up now. The script is so tight and packs so much in without feeling stuffed that it's actually amazing that it's only half an hour long. And it ends with one of the best chase scenes ever. What more could you want? The third Wallace and Gromit short, A Close Shave, does something amazing by being almost as good as The Wrong Trousers. This time Wallace falls in love with Wendolene (Anne Reid) who owns the local wool shop, but she's hiding a dark secret involving sheep rustling, dog food and her menacing dog Preston. I love how the Wallace and Gromit universe has been expanding so slowly over these three films, and now we finally have another human character for Wallace to talk to. The relationship between him and Wendolene is very sweet, so it's a real shock when the film basically turns into The Terminator. And it works! In my opinion these original three Wallace and Gromit shorts are up there with the greatest works of art in British history and despite having seen them dozens upon dozens of times I am still delighted every time I watch them. A Grand Day Out 8/10 The Wrong Trousers 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! A Close Shave 9/10 The 39 Steps dir. Alfred Hitchcock/1935/1h26m Robert Donet plays roguish cad Richard Hannay who finds himself wanted for a murder he didn't commit when gets inadvertently involved with a secret spy organisation. He then sets off on a quest to the Scottish highlands to find out who's trying to kill him, picking up the strong willed Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) on the way. This is a classic thriller with many of Hitchcock's signature traits – innocent man on the run being the main one, a fear that Hitchcock had since childhood. Donet is great in the lead, he's never quite the hero and has much more depth because of that. Carroll is also good, getting much more to do than most Hitchcock heroines. The film does come unstuck somewhat at the ending, which is a bit far fetched but it works well enough. One of the more celebrated films from Hitchcock's British period, before he moved to America in 1940, this is an entertaining thrill ride that still holds up today. 8.5/10 The Sword in the Stone dir. Wolfgang Reitherman/1963/1h19m Disney's adaptation of Arthurian legend, based on the novel of the same name, this film follows young orphan Arthur (Rickie Sorensen) – nicknamed Wart – who is a knight's squire. One day he meets the wizard Merlin (Karl Swenson) who takes him under his wing as he can sense great things about his future. His tutelage mostly involves turning Wart into various animals to teach him different things – learning about gravity by turning into a squirrel etc. This takes up the majority of the film and honestly becomes quite tedious. The exciting bit involving the sword in the stone takes up maybe the last five minutes, which I found disappointing, as that is the only bit I remember from watching it as a child – I don't know why but the image of Merlin busting in wearing a Hawaiian shirt has always stayed with me. This is still a wonderfully animated film with a few great scenes – the wizard's duel between Merlin and Madame Mim (Martha Wentworth) being the best of them – there's just not much substance here which is a travesty considering the source material. 6/10 Creed II dir. Steven Caple Jr./2018/2h10m Creed II – or Rocky VIII – continues the story of Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), son of Apollo Creed. Johnson is now a star in the boxing world but may be getting too cocky, so he sees no problem when he is challenged by Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lungdren), the man who killed his father in the ring. However, his trainer Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is worried about history repeating itself. As much of a Rocky fan as I am, I was dismissive of the first film before it even came out, thinking that a film about the son of Creed would be awful. I was very wrong and loved the first one. And somehow they've managed to do it again. I was still worried about this one because bringing in the son of Drago seems like such a cheap B-movie move, but again those fears were very quickly put to rest. A lot of that is down to Johnson in the lead role, he just exudes charisma and is a perfect fit for this character. Like Stallone in the early Rocky films he has a pure physical presence but is also unafraid to show his more vulnerable, emotional side. This comes out in his relationships with His girlfriend and aspiring musician Bianca (Tessa Thompson), his mother Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) and Rocky himself. What's surprising about this film is the emotional depth given to the antagonists. Unlike Rocky IV here the Drago's aren't just mute meatheads who live to punch things into a pulp. This may be a little overlong, and honestly the boxing scenes aren't as good as in the previous film, but when has Rocky been about boxing anyway? 8/10 Seven Psychopaths dir. Martin McDonagh/2012/1h50m In this black comedy from the director of In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin Colin Farrell stars as alcoholic screenwriter Marty who is struggling with his latest script for which he has a cool title – Seven Psychopaths – but no actual story. He gets caught up in the LA criminal underworld thanks to his friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) who has a racket stealing dogs then bringing them back for the reward. This bites him in the *ss when he dognaps the beloved shih tzu of gangland boss Charlie Costello (Woddy Harrelson). McDonagh is a master at pairing almost absurd comedy with real dark themes, sometimes more successfully than others. For me this is at the same level of Three Billboards where at times the comedy takes away from the severity of the situation, and again the main culprit is Rockwell's character. That's not saying it's a bad performance, it just feels like he's in a different film from everyone else at times. The cast are all great, including support from the likes of Christopher Walken as Rockwell's partner in canine crime and musician Tom Waits as one of the titular psychopaths. Walken in particular has a monologue near the end of the film that is genuinely beautiful. An unpredictable and outlandish film with real heart under its layers of violence and japery. 8/10 Last Round dir. Thomas Vinterberg/1993/34m Vinterberg's thesis film for film school stars Thomas Bo Larsen as Lars, a man with terminal cancer who decides to spend his last day with his friends Peter (Martin Brygmann) and Annika (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen). A humane and spontaneous feeling celebration of life, this is a film that doesn't waste a second. A couple of scenes stand out – Lars dancing and singing drunkenly as he runs down the middle of a road and a scene at the end where he and Annika are sat on a dock at the end of the day trying to figure out how long a minute is – two very small moments made monumental thanks to the careful direction and the natural performances of the actors, especially Bo Larsen who has collaborated with Vinterberg several times since. A profound and playful half hour of life. 8.5/10 Alive in Joburg dir. Neill Blomkamp/2005/6m This short documentary style film – later expanded into the feature District 9 – focuses on the arrival of a spaceship which hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa, and the response of the locals, the government and the media. Like District 9 this is a very on the nose analogy for the Apartheid – which was still in force at the time the film is set, 1990 - but no less effective for it. It's very well constructed, feeling like an actual news report, particularly the interviews. The interviews which don't specifically mention aliens were actually answers to questions about Zimbabwean refugees given by real South Africans, adding to the realism of the piece. 7.5/10 Shiva Baby dir. Emma Seligman/2018/8m Another short film later expanded to feature length, Shiva Baby stars Rachel Sennott as Danielle, a college student attending a shiva, a Jewish wake, for a distant relative when she is horrified to find her married sugar daddy there. Sennott, who also plays this role in the feature length version, is excellent in the lead, perfectly conveying the anxiety and awkwardness of that age. This short doesn't get to fully explore the themes like the feature length version does but the tone is the same. The feature length version is one of the most stressful, anxiety inducing films I've ever seen and this manages to capture that feeling in less than ten minutes. Seligman and Sennott worked together again for a film called Bottoms which is out this year and it already has amazing reviews. This is a powerful new voice in cinema and I can't wait to watch everything she makes. 8/10 Age of Bloom dir. Wong Kar-wai/2001/3m Age of Bloom is a collage of clips from vintage Chinese films - which were thought lost until rediscovered in the late 90s - set to the song Age of Bloom by Zhou Xuan – it's basically an arty music video. It was made as a mood board/companion piece to Wong Kar-wai's heartbreakingly bittersweet film In the Mood for Love, and most of the clips focus on the female characters in the films, many of whom are wearing costumes and make up similar to that of Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love. Like that film this is sensual and melancholic, like mourning for a lost love or the remembrance of times past. 7/10 Four Times That Night dir. Mario Bava/1971/1h23m Four Times That Night is an Italian s*x comedy starring Daniela Giordano as Tina who goes on a date with John (Brett Halsey), but when she returns home to her mother her dress is torn and she says that he tried to r*pe her. We then see the events of the evening from four different perspectives – Rashomon style – hers, his, the h*rny peeping tom doorman of John's apartment building, and an omnipotent scientist who concludes that the truth is hidden in all of the lies from all of their stories. This is real cheap and t*wdry stuff that's like a European Carry On film, and not one of the good ones. John is such an awful character with no redeeming features whatsoever, although I did laugh every time he appeared in his tiny, s*xy pants. The performances are all kind of flat, which is probably down to the script, which has no substance. 4/10 Edited April 20, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 22, 2023 Share Posted April 22, 2023 (edited) What I Watched This Week #63 (Mar 12 – 18) The Lady Vanishes dir. Alfred Hitchcock/1938/1h36m The Lady Vanishes is another espionage thriller from Hitchcock's British period. The plot sees a group of people on a train travelling through Europe, among them Iris (Margaret Lockwood) who becomes friendly with elderly Miss Froy (May Whitty). Upon waking after a nap Iris discovers that Miss Froy is missing, but all of the other passengers deny ever having seen her. She sets out to discover what the deal is with the help of the one person who believes her, Gilbert (Michael Redgrave). We all know Hitch is the master of suspense, and he deploys his skills in that regard to full effect here, but what really surprised me is how funny this film is. That comes in the form of my favourite characters, Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne). Two cricket obsessed Englishmen who are trying to get back home for the test match in Manchester. This remains their chief concern even when the bullets start flying and the bodies start dropping. They also make for an adorable couple and in my head they're married. An entertaining ride from start to finish full of twists and turns and a great ending. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Jungle Book dir. Wolfgang Reitherman/1967/1h18m Adapted from the Rudyard Kipling novel, The Jungle Book is the last film Walt Disney worked on before his death the same year, so it's a pretty important watershed moment for the company. The story follows young Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman) who was raised by wolves in the jungle. When the ferocious Tiger Shere Khan (George Sanders) returns he reluctantly decides to return to the man village for his own safety at the behest of Panther Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot). While the plot is paper thin what makes this film a blast are the characters and the songs. The Bear Necessities from Baloo the Bear (Phil Harris) and I Wanna Be Like You from King Louie the Orangutan (jazz legend Louie Prima) are two of the best songs in Disney's entire catalogue. 8/10 Chicken Run dir. Nick Park, Peter Lord/2000/1h24m From the same studio as Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run is a spoof of The Great Escape with a farmyard full of chickens replacing the allied POWs of that WWII classic. Led by Ginger (Julia Sawalha), the group are running out of time as the owners of the farm have just taken delivery of a pie making machine, but hope comes in the form of Rocky the Rooster (Mel Gibson), who can actually fly, and promises the chickens that he'll teach them his secrets. This was a bit of a test for Aardman Animation as it was their first feature length film, but they managed to bring the magic of Creature Comforts and Wallace and Gromit to the big screen. This is full of brilliantly choreographed physical gags as well a razor sharp script that gives depth to its cast of characters. The cast are all great. Sawalha as the lead is forthright and sincere without becoming preachy and Gibson is a front of Yankee bravado that plays really well in this very British film. 9/10 Carry On Up the Jungle dir. Gerald Thomas/1970/1h29m The Carry On team spoof the Tarzan story in the 19th film of the series. Sid James plays Bill Boosey, great white hunter and guide for the expedition whose members include Professor t*nkle (Frankie Howerd) who is in search of a rare bird, and Lady Bagley (Joan Sim), who is searching for her long lost son. While there, they run into the s*x obsessed Tarzan-like character Ugh (Terry Scott), and an all female tribe who require men in order to procreate. I had higher than usual hopes for this film as I really liked the earlier Carry On films that spoofed specific genres – Cowboy, Screaming, Cleo – but this doesn't come near the quality of those films and instead is reliant on s*x jokes and bouncy boobs. There are things I liked, Charles Hawtrey as the chief of the female tribe, Tonka the Great, and my favourite cast member from the earlier Carry On films, Kenneth Conner, makes a return and he hasn't lost a step. Aside from that, this feels like it's just going through the motions just to crank another film out for the series, while also being the most overtly racist entry to date. 4/10 It Always Rains on Sunday dir. Robert Hamer/1947/1h32m This kitchen sink drama crossed with a noir thriller stars Googie Withers as Rose Sandigate, a seemingly regular housewife. One miserable afternoon she discovers that her former fiancée Tommy Swann (John McCallum) has escaped from prison and is hiding out in her air raid shelter. Her feelings for him return and she helps conceal him from both the police and her family. Tight and economic with its script and full of camerawork that emphasises the realistically lived in sets this feels like a British take on Italian neorealism and for the most part it works. Withers is fantastic as the lead, a woman caught between two worlds, but the rest of the cast are fairly pedestrian. But this is still a very good drama that feels ahead of its time. 7.5/10 Captain v*yeur dir. John Carpenter/1969/7m This student short from John Carpenter stars Jerry Cox as an unassuming office worker who transforms at night, superhero style, into Captain v*yeur. He then stalks around his apartment building peeping in various windows. So there's not much to this but you can see the beginnings of Halloween – the heavy breathing POV shots being the most obvious. There's also a twisted sense of humour in the reveal of Captain v*yeur's costume. Cheap and charming, in a twisted kinda way, but still only worth seeking out if you're a Carpenter superfan. 5/10 Buffy the Vampire Slayer dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui/1992/1h26m Buffy (Kristy Swanson) is a typical airheaded high school cheerleader whose life changes forever when she is informed by a creepy old man – Merrick (Donald Sutherland) – that she is from a long line of vampire slayers and is the only one capable of destroying the evil vampire lord Lothos (Rutger Hauer). I loved the TV series of this when I was a kid, so was quite disappointed with this earlier film version. The script is annoying or obnoxious for the most part, coming off like a middle aged man's idea of how teenage girls talk – Clueless would nail it perfectly a couple of years later – and the main characters are bland as all get out. Swanson is never believable as a vampire slayer, and her love interest, played by Luke Perry, is a bland nothing of a character. Sutherland just looks bored. What makes this film watchable is the supporting cast. Hauer is hamming it up as the big bad, and p*e Wee himself, Paul Reubens, is hilarious as his henchman – the biggest laugh comes from his death scene. My favourite though is David Arquette who starts off as Luke Perry's friend but is then turned himself. The scene where he tries to convince Perry to become a vampire too got another big laugh from me. This is a good idea – the success of the series attests to that – but here the execution is a bit toothless. 5/10 Edited April 22, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 What I Watched This Week #64 (Mar 19 – 25) Gregory's Girl dir. Bill Forsyth/1980/1h31m This Scottish coming of age film stars John Gordon Sinclair as the titular Gregory, an awkward gangly teenager who plays for his school's awful football team. When the team holds try-outs for new players Dorothy (Dee Hepburn) turns up and is better than anyone else, replacing Gregory up front and relegating him to goalie. But instead of being pissed off he falls instantly in love. This film is like its main character, sweet, charming and totally loveable. Gordon Sinclair is brilliant, utilising his lanky form to great effect for some really funny physical comedy. Hepburn is also great, playing Dorothy as someone quite elusive and mysterious, which just adds to Gregory's infatuation with her. There's an innocence to this film that is totally endearing, Gregory isn't some horn-ball looking to get laid, he just wants to go to the local chip shop with the girl he fancies. The supporting cast of Gregory and Dorothy's friend groups are all good, especially Gregory's mates who are even more inept with girls than he is, but the stand out is Allison Forster as Madeline, Gregory's precocious younger sister who's wise beyond her years and is there to offer him advice while also being exasperated with how useless he is at dating. A tender and relatable film that captures the feeling of teenage love in an almost painful way. 9/10 Salome dir. Pedro Almodovar/1978/10m Salome is a very early short from Pedro Almodovar in which the title character (Isabel Mestres) appears before the Biblical Abraham and Isaac (Fernando Hilbeck, Agustin Almodovar) and dances for them as a test from God. For an Almodovar film this is quite boring, with the most interesting thing about it being the opening credits. The dance scene has a slight surreal quality to it, and the music is pretty good but apart from that this is pretty plodding, even at ten minutes long. 4/10 Living dir. Oliver Hermanus/2022/1h42m Akira Kurosawa is best known for his samurai films – Yojimbo, Ran and of course Seven Samurai – but my favourite work of his is a quiet, gentle film about a mild mannered civil servant, Ikiru. It is a masterpiece of the soul and maybe the greatest film about what it means to live (“to live” is the literal translation of the Japanese title). So when I heard that there was going to be a remake I was honestly a little pissed off. It's like trying to remake Casablanca or The Godfather or Back to the Future, it's just not a good idea and it's going to look awful in comparison to the original. But then I read some very positive reviews, and Bill Nighy got several major awards nominations, including Best Actor at the Oscars, for his lead performance as Mr. Williams, so I had to check it out. Williams works as a bureaucrat in a council office, a job he's had all his life. He has a strict routine and no time for small talk with his co-workers. He spends his days pushing papers from one department to the next, passing the buck and not really doing anything. But one day he is diagnosed with a terminal illness and given a very short amount of time to live, so he decides that for once in his life he's actually going to do something. He's going to contribute something to his community and use his years of experience to cut through all the red tape. What makes this film truly beautiful is that his goal isn't something huge and dramatic that will make the front pages of all the papers. It's something seemingly small but is all the more important for it. Nighy is amazing in this, giving the best performance of his career. He is the equal of Takashi Shimura's turn as Mr. Watanabe in the original, and the final image of him in the snow is just as impactful here as it was there. An incredible film and proof that remakes aren't always a bad idea. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Audition dir. Martin Scorsese/2015/16m This Scorsese short film is basically a $70 million advertisement for a luxury Chinese casino. It stars Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio as themselves, invited to the hotel by Scorsese in order to audition for the same role. For such a short film with such a huge budget it's amazing how cheap some of these shots look. Some of it honestly looks like it was shot on green screen, it has this artificiality to it. And it's not like Scorsese doesn't know how to shoot in a casino, because he's shot in a casino before, for the film Casino. There are some funny good moments here – the clash of egos between De Niro and DiCaprio got a few laughs – and the cameo at the end was pretty funny, but you're always aware that you're watching an advertisement and it was only made for the money. 4/10 The Aristocats dir. Wolfgang Reitherman/1970/1h18m When Madame Bonfamille's butler Edgar (Roddy Maude-Roxby) learns that she intends to leave her fortune to her beloved cat Duchess (Eva Gabor) and her kittens instead of him he kidnaps them and dumps them far from home. Thankfully they meet street smart cat Thomas O'Malley (Phil Harris) who can help them get back. This is very similar to One Hundred and One Dalmatians with a few small tweaks, but the villain isn't nearly as memorable as Cruella De Vil. Edgar is a fairly good antagonist but he feels more like a henchman rather than a villain, what with all his bumbling. The two leads, Harris – who also played Baloo in The Jungle Book – and Gabor make a good pair, the rough and the refined. An entertaining start to a new decade for Disney, the first without their founder. 7/10 Murder by Decree dir. Bob Clark/1979/2h4m It's Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper in this thriller starring Christopher Plummer as the famed detective with James Mason as his faithful Watson. When the police hit a dead end in their investigations into the gruesome murders of several prostitutes they turn to the world's greatest detective who links the crimes to the Masons and a royal indiscretion that is trying to be kept secret. This is actually the most credible theory as to the identity and motives behind these crimes and is explored to their fullest in the exhaustively researched graphic novel From Hell (just don't watch the film based on it, it's terrible). This film however is more light in tone, which doesn't really mesh with the subject matter. Holmes and Watson here are played for laughs like a bickering married couple, and while I enjoyed it it does seem tasteless to do it in a film based on actual murders. 6/10 Fascination dir. Jean Rollin/1979/1h20m Fascination is a French Gothic horror film starring Jean-Marie Lemaire as Marc, a thief who double crossed his gang and is now on the run from them. He breaks into a chateau to hide out and finds two maids inside, Elisabeth and Eva (Franca Mai, Brigitte Lahaie), who don't seem frightened of him at all when he holds them hostage, waiting for their mistress to return. This is a sensual, dreamlike film with some startling imagery – the scene with the scythe in particular. I like how this reverses the horror film trope by having the male character being the subject of s*xual desire and violence, often at the same time. I also really like the ambiguity as to whether these women are actually vampires or just aristocrats with weird kinks. An ethereal and unnerving film that has a sting in its tail. 8/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 Mission to Mars (2000) dir Brian de Palma A fairly average sci-fi with decent score, from Ennio Morricone, that doesn't rescue this from mediocrity. It's got a good cast including Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, Connie Neilsen and Gary Sinise, and Brian De Palma is a good director. So I think for me it's the script that lets this down. The title obviously tells you what this is basically about, and clearly that mission is either going to find something they didn't expect on Mars or something is going to wrong on the way there – otherwise why would the film be made? In fact both happen. This is kind of like a cross between 2001 and Apollo 13 without being anywhere near the same league as those. The mission is actually the second mission to Mars, and is a rescue for the first. Contact was lost with the first a while after they arrived and started their 1 year exploration mission and just after they had reported a major discovery that they were going to investigate further. What they find on Mars is hardly a surprise for a sci-film, it's something that happens in many other sci-fi stories in slightly different ways. And whilst there is nothing wrong in doing a story similar to another one, you need to do something different that stands out, and this doesn't. The disaster part of the mission isn't that well done either, again it's been done before, this doesn't do it any notably different way. Some of the lines are a bit banal, some of plot elements not quite plausible. And I don't mean from a science point of view, I mean things that would be a little implausible in any genre of film. 4 / 10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Con 5,703 Posted April 24, 2023 Share Posted April 24, 2023 (edited) All spoiler free… Skinamarink (2022) - 1/5 - Great atmosphere and disorientation, but staring at walls and carpets at obtuse angles for obscene amounts of time while the same cartoons play in the background, was simply irritatingly boring. I like experimental things and this just needed one decent thing to happen, but nothing does. It’s basically watching paint dry in the dark. Horror movies are good because things happen in them, that is like a rule or something. Evil Dead Rise (2023) - 4/5 - Finally a film that made me feel horror movie scared! Loved the opening sequence but do wish they would have tied it in at the end. Like have the demon hitchhike to the lake. Alyssa Sutherland, damn, that peephole scene was better and scarier than the Pennywise clown from IT has ever made me feel. I love me some of that, the Catholics hiding the truth in secret vaults trope. The Deep House (2022) - 2/5 - Cool concept of underwater haunted house but that is precisely what dulls the film, trapped underwater in a house where you can only go from room to room, just became too repetitive. I did appreciate the ending for its truthfulness. Missing (2023) - 3/5 - Movie shown through laptop screen only, I don’t even know what to call the genre cause it’s found footage but it’s not. Anyhow, decent story, felt it had too many twists at one point. Haven’t bothered to really dissect how all the events worked out in order for all the secrets and misdirection to work but for now, it served it’s purpose. I did like the twist at the end and it only works because of how well the initial setup is since I am the one that came up with my own perception from the clues that aren’t what I thought they were. Storm Reid did an excellent job at being evasive and lightly mean towards her mother, which was essential in the story. If you like these found footage or live webcam films, you should watch this too. It didn’t suck, but does have too many twists that shouldn’t work, like the Attorney lady, f*ck was she doing. If you plan on watching this, don’t spoil it. Just dive in. Sicario (2015) - 2/5 - I like the concept of the agency taking its own path to dismantling the cartels because it’s does seem like the only real way to stop them, cause let’s face it, Americans are not going to stop doing drugs. I just lost faith in the main character when she volunteers to attend the last raid. And then we see Medellin enter the villain’s home and while I absolutely loved that he murders what are usually untouchable characters, it just felt silly how easy it was for him to infiltrate. I guess the violence was supposed to shock me but I’ve been watching cartel videos back when Blog del Narco was a bloody uncensored video archive. I think this movie works better for people who are oblivious to the cartel and how Americans keep them in business. Edited April 25, 2023 by Con 2 RSC FILM CLUB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted April 29, 2023 Share Posted April 29, 2023 Triangle of Sadness (2022) dir Ruben Ostlund A very stylish, modern comedy. At times the humour is very subtle or even non-existent, depending on your sense of humour I guess. But it's very good none-the-less. It's not the sort of film you need to be rolling about laughing at all the time. You can just enjoy the awkward and absurd situations. The main characters are played by two unknown, to me, actors. Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charbli Dean) a young couple, both models. Yaya is also a social influencer and her “job” has got them a free luxury cruise. The cruise is on a small ship, a bit bigger than the the luxury yachts in GTA. The captain; a drunk who hardly leaves his cabin, is played by Woody Harrelson. Amongst the mainly millionaire guests are a Russian “sh*t seller” (his description, he runs a fertilizer business) and very genteel elderly British couple, who turn out to be retired arms dealers. There is a very clear class structure on-board with the guests at the top, the customer-facing crew (mostly westerners) next and then the rest of the mainly east-Asian cleaners, mechanics, etc. at the bottom. Eventually following an incident I won't spoil, Carl, Yaya, the sh*t-seller and a couple of other crew and guests get stranded on a small island, and then there is big readjustment of the social order, with those who can actually do something useful at the top. The film does seem to be trying to make meaningful social comment, but without being too preachy. It may not suite everyone's style of humour and I should warn there is a scene a little reminiscent of Mr Creosote exploding in The Meaning of Life, but taken up a few levels. At the captain's banquet, in a storm, a lot people get seasick, it gets worse later and the ships plumbing can not cope. I was glad I was not eating when it got to that scene. It was hilarious though. 9 / 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 29, 2023 Share Posted April 29, 2023 @djw180I loved Triangle of Sadness, it was one of my favourite films from last year. If you enjoyed that you should check out The Menu starring Ralph Fiennes and a Welsh language slow burn horror film called The Feast, which isn't too gory 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted April 30, 2023 Share Posted April 30, 2023 What I Watched This Week #65 (Mar 26 – Apr 1) Cycling the Frame dir. Cynthia Beatt/1988/27m A year before the Berlin wall was torn down Cynthia Beatt made this short documentary in which Tilda Swinton rides a bicycle along the perimeter of the wall while giving a stream of consciousness narration that ranges from angry indignation about the separation of a nation - a whole continent - to the whimsically mundane musings of a wandering mind. This is a well shot film that really leans into the juxtaposition between the brutal, imposing wall and the beautiful city that it runs through. Swinton is always engaging, even when she's just riding a bike while rambling about bees or stopping for a picnic. She starts and ends her journey at the Brandenburg Gate, and the film reflects that in the fact that it doesn't really go anywhere. It has the feeling of “isn't this awful, oh well...”, and offers no solutions, not that they would be easy to come by. Strangely mesmerising, and quite interesting as an historical document, this plays better as a double feature with the sequel – see next review – as on its own I found it slightly insubstantial. 6.5/10 The Invisible Frame dir. Cynthia Beatt/2009/1h Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall Cynthia Beatt and Tilda Swinton returned to the city to retrace the route they took in Cycling the Frame. Like that film this is a beautifully shot, poetic geographic documentary with a stream of consciousness narration from Swinton as she rides her bike around the city. In the first film she found it strange how people living in Berlin seemed to just ignore the wall because it was such a part of their everyday lives, and here the same is true, but with its absence rather than its presence. A whole generation has grown up without it, life moves on. Like the first film this is a collection of thoughts that can feel insubstantial, but taken together as a feature length film it becomes greater than the sum of its parts. 6.5/10 Wanda dir. Barbara Loden/1970/1h43m Wanda is the only film made by Barbara Loden, who also stars in the title role, an unhappy housewife who decides to opt out of her life by leaving her abusive husband and giving up the rights to their children. She wanders aimlessly from one sh*tty situation to another before hooking up with the criminal Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins). But this isn't some romanticised Bonnie and Clyde story because he's even more abusive than her husband, but she clings to him because she has nothing else and society – especially at that time – has no place for a woman who doesn't want to conform to societal norms. This is a raw and honest film with a brilliant central performance from Loden who plays Wanda as someone detached and numb to the kicking that life constantly gives her, and that makes the ending – where she is welcomed in and accepted by a group of kind strangers at a bar – even more heart-breaking as we can see her surprise at their generosity. A fantastic film and it's a damn shame that Loden never got the chance to make another film. 9/10 Bao dir. Domee Shi/2018/8m Bao is an Oscar winning short film from Pixar, directed by Domee Shi who also made Turning Red. The plot sees a middle aged woman get a second chance at motherhood when one of the bao buns she's making comes to life. However, as it grows it wants more independence but she is unwilling to cut the apron strings. Of course this is all an allegory for her relationship with her real son, and the two have a heart-warming reconciliation at the end. Being a Pixar film it goes without saying that the animation is incredible, and there are some really funny gags in here, as well as a pretty shocking moment that took me by surprise. 8/10 Kung Pow: Enter the Fist dir. Steve Oedekerk/2002/1h21m Steve Oedekerk plays The Chosen One, the only person capable of defeating the evil Master Pain, a.k.a. Betty (Lung Fei), thanks to his unique gift in this kung-fu spoof. This is one of the stupidest films I've ever seen and it's absolutely brilliant. The genius here comes from the fact that this film is made up of footage from the film Tiger & Crane Fists from 1976 which Oedekerk has inserted himself into and also totally re-dubbed, doing all of the voices himself. This film is dirt cheap with an awful looking CGI cow and the humour is totally infantile and it's one of the funniest films ever made. Quotes from this have lived rent free in my head for the last twenty years and they're still funny to me today. This film is so good that it can rip off a joke from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and get away with it. Brainless nonsense and I mean that in the most complimentary way. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Long Goodbye dir. Aneil Karia/2020/12m The Long Goodbye is an Oscar winning short film starring the amazing Riz Ahmed – please watch Sound of Metal and Mogul Mowgli - set in a fascist Britain where government endorsed squads of skinheads round up and execute pretty much anyone who isn't white and Christian for the most spurious of reasons. This is a masterclass of tension building as Riz's family are preparing for a party while footage of a far-right march plays on the TV so that when the knock comes at the door you know exactly what's going to happen. What does happen is shocking and infuriating and sadly all to plausible in this age of a fascist Tory government in power here. What makes this short film amazing is the ending where Riz performs his powerful spoken word poem Where You From. The first verse sums up this film better than I ever could: They ever ask you “where you from?”/Like, “where you really from?”/The question seems simple but the answer's kinda long/I could tell 'em Wembley but I don't think that's what they want/But I don't wanna tell 'em more 'cause anything I say is wrong. 9/10 f*ck the Tories. The Cook dir. Vincent Bossel/2022/3m In this short film we watch a chef (I couldn't find any credits for this film, sorry dude) prepare a mysterious dish. This is all very nicely shot, glossy and high class, so when the punchline comes at the end it makes it even funnier. This is basically a very simple joke, quick setup and an ending that subverts expectations, which is something that you can do with short films. Well made and it does its job but it's not very memorable and won't stay with you for long. 6/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted May 4, 2023 Share Posted May 4, 2023 (edited) What I Watched This Week #66 (April 2 – 8 ) Five short films by Mark Jenkin: David Bowie is Dead 2018/17m The Essential Cornishman 2016/6m (no trailer) The Road to Zennor 2017/3m (no trailer) Hard, Cracked the Wind 2019/18m Enough to Fill Up an Eggcup 2016/36m (no trailer) This collection of shorts by the Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin exemplifies his unique style perfectly. The exception to that may be the first, David Bowie is Dead. In it, we see footage of London that Jenkin shot between the early 90's and 2018, focusing mainly on run down buildings, graffiti and industrial sites. Over this he gives a stream of consciousness monologue about the collision of the past and the present and his scattered memories of first moving to the city set to a propulsive dance beat that increases in intensity in parallel with the monologue. The death of David Bowie is barely mentioned, being used more as a launching point for his diatribe. Like his other films this was shot using a vintage 16mm camera from the 70's, and he developed the film himself by hand, so it has a real homemade feel to it along with fantastic texture. Where this film differs from the others in in its themes and subjects. The rest of the films are all shot in his home county of Cornwall in the south-west of England, and concern the traditions and folklore of the region. The Essential Cornishman presents footage of a fisherman going about his work while the narration has Jenkin read a poem about the erosion of Cornish traditions and the gentrification of the area, something he explores further in his debut feature film Bait (a 10/10 from me) and in the short Enough to Fill Up an Eggcup. The Road to Zennor is a gorgeous journey through the Cornish countryside on the titular road with more poetic narration, this time by Mary Woodvine. Hard, Cracked the Wind is the only fiction film here, the plot concerning a poet, Esme (Tamla Kari) who buys an old writing case from an antique shop and is then haunted by its previous owner Edward (Edward Franklin). With everyone speaking Cornish this is still strongly tied to Jenkin's identity not only as a filmmaker but as a person. That passion comes through strongly in every single one of these films, and that, combined with the nostalgic feel you get from the saturated colours and home-movie aesthetics, give them real character and personality. Mark Jenkin is a singular voice in the British film industry and all of his films are worth seeking out. David Bowie is Dead 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Essential Cornishman 7.5/10 The Road to Zennor 6.5/10 Hard, Cracked the Wind 8.5/10 Enough to Fill Up an Eggcup 8/10 Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life dir. Peter Capaldi/1993/23m Peter Capaldi is best known for playing the prolific swearer Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It and also my favourite incarnation of Doctor Who, but in the early 90's he won an Oscar for this surreal short film starring Richard E. Grant as the author Franz Kafka. It's Christmas Eve and he's got writer's block as he's working on The Metamorphosis. He knows his main character, Gregor Samsa (Crispin Letts), has to transform into something, he just can't figure out what. He is also constantly interrupted by a loud party downstairs and a sinister knife salesman (Ken Stott) who has lost his best friend, a cockroach. This is a very strange and Kafkaesque film full of nightmarish illogicality, but I was surprised by how genuinely sweet and wholesome the ending is – although the title of the film, a parody of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, should have given that away. Grant is great in the lead, becoming more and more paranoid and crazed as he makes no progress on his novel. A feel-good fever dream of a film. 7/10 Plane Crazy dir. Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks/1928/6m Steamboat Willie may have been the first Micky Mouse cartoon released to the public, but this film, Plane Crazy, was the first one produced and so marks the debut of the most iconic cartoon character/corporate logo of all time. The simple plot sees Micky build his own plane, inspired by Charles Lindbergh's recent crossing of the Atlantic, in order to impress Minnie. What is quite jarring is the characterisation of Micky who is a total *sshole here, the slapstick violence common to all cartoon characters of the time. He is also animated in an almost grotesquely elastic way that is a million miles away from what the standard Disney style would become. Originally produced to be a silent film, when it released after Steamboat Willie it had a fully synchronised soundtrack and Micky had a voice, provided by Walt himself. This innovation in the technical aspects of animation, more than the stories and characters, is what made Disney the biggest player in the game, and this historical importance is probably what I enjoyed the most about this film. 5/10 Carry On Loving dir. Gerald Thomas/1970/1h28m The twentieth Carry On film – in only 12 years, those are some Marvel numbers – sees Sid James and Hattie Jacques play Sidney and Sophie Bliss. the owners of the Wedded Bliss computer dating agency, but they're only pretending to be married because it's good for business. Sid spends most of his time leching after the choicest women in his database. The best thing about this film is the plot that sees Kenneth Williams playing an unmarried marriage guidance councillor whose job is on the line if he doesn't get hitched. When he's informed of this, his delivery of the line “but I don't know any women” was the only thing in the film that made me laugh out loud. This is 90 minutes of b*wdy humour and innuendo that is starting to feel tired, but it is better than the previous film, which is some achievement when you're this deep in such a one note series. 5/10 By The Sea dir. Charlie Chaplin/1915/15m This early Chaplin short sees him take a trip to the seaside where he flirts with other men's wives and gets into several fights. This was when he was still working out the character of the Little tr*mp, who here has none of the heart or humanity that he would later develop. This makes it feel like any other silent comedy of the time with basic slapstick with none of his ingenuity. That's not to say this isn't funny, and Chaplin is always delightful to watch, but this really doesn't measure up to his own high standards. 5/10 Edited May 4, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted May 8, 2023 Share Posted May 8, 2023 The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) dir Julius Onah A decent sci-fi for most of the film, somewhat spoilt by a silly ending. Set in the near future mostly aboard a space-station attached to a massive particle accelerator. The international crew need to get the accelerator up and running to bring an end to an energy crisis back on Earth that risks WWIII breaking out. Of course something goes wrong, on an apocalyptic scale, and the crew now have a much bigger problem to solve. So this is very much a disaster-movie-in-space type of sci-fi kept just about within the realms of what might be technologically possible. But then the very last part of the very last scene it switches to another sub-genre of sci-fi. And without saying more to avoid spoilers, that is what I find silly and it just seems a bit of cheap ending, almost as if the makers are expecting to make a follow up. It's well acted with a cast not including any major star. Relative newcomer Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays the main character, a British astronaut reluctantly leaving behind her doctor-husband to go on the vital mission. The cast also includes David Oleyowa (Selma) , Daniel Bruhl (Rush, Inglorious Basterds), Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and Chris O'Dowd. The latter I only knew as a sitcom actor and suspected he might be one of the first to get killed and just be making the numbers up, but he was definitely up to this more serious role. The special effects are just what I like, good without overpowering the rest of the film. A couple of the lines are a little corny, there was one I don't remember exactly but something like “It's just case of reversing the quantum entanglement ….. ”. Like the script writer had browsed the contents page of a physics text book but not actually read it. They also never explain how the energy crisis on Earth came about, just saying the Earth is running out of energy - how exactly could that ever happen? So long as the Earth keeps spinning we will have wind and as long as the Sun is there we'll have solar. 6 / 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted May 9, 2023 Share Posted May 9, 2023 What I Watched This Week #67 (April 9 – 15) I'm Going to Santiago dir. Sara Gomez/1964/15m This short documentary is a love letter to the city of Santiago in Cuba made by the country's first female filmmaker, Sara Gomez. As well as showcasing the life and vibrancy of the city and its people it also explores the history of the Black and Afro-Cuban population, who were bought there centuries earlier by Haitian sl*ve owners after the Haitian revolution. There's a real inventiveness to this film that is evident right from the opening credits which are painted on the walls of the city, symbolising how inextricably linked the film and the city is. That also counts for the direction, Gomez's handheld camera roams the streets and mingles with the people like a local, making you feel like you're a local. 8/10 The Feast dir. Lee Haven Jones/2021/1h33m This Welsh language horror film sees a wealthy couple, Gwyn and Glenda (Julian Lewis Jones, Nia Roberts), hosting a small dinner party at their luxury home in the countryside. To help cater the event they hire local girl Cadi (Annes Elwy), who is nearly mute and seems to resent the couple and their family. As the day progresses strange things start happening, culminating in a totally insane final act that left my jaw on the floor. What starts out as seemingly another eat the rich story slowly unfolds into a folk horror revenge of nature tale in a very deliberate way. This is a very well shot film with the editing and framing all lending to the hallucinatory feel, especially in the second half. The film isn't ambiguous about its feelings towards the characters – these rich *ssholes deserve what they get, and the performances by Lewis Jones and Roberts, as well as Steffan Cennydd and Sion Alun Davis who play their awful sons Guto and Gweirydd lean into that, there is no attempt whatsoever to make these people sympathetic in any way. That's not to say they are bad performances or one dimensional characters. Annes Elwy in the lead is brilliant. Right from the off there is something not quite right about her – the scene where she inserts a piece of broken glass in her v*gina was a bit of a red flag – and she always feels like a threat, even when she's not doing anything. An unsettling slow burn horror film that any fan of the genre should check out. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Aphotic Zone dir. Emilija Skarnulyte/2022/16m This hybrid documentary/kind-of-fiction takes us deep into the aphotic zone of the ocean, the depth at which no sunlight reaches. The camera roams through alien landscapes with strage creatures looming out of the darkness accompanied by an ambient soundtrack with scattered narration that hints at a lost civilisation. This is what they call a vibe. Depending on whether you have a fear of the deep sea or not this could be either very relaxing or intensely terrifying. There's not much more I can say about this, it's hypnotic and beautiful and and well worth a quarter of an hour of your time. 8/10 Pixar SparkShorts films: Kitbull dir. Rosana Sullivan/2019/9m Twenty Something dir. Aphton Corbin/2021/7m Smash and Grab dir. Brian Larsen/2019/7m Burrow dir. Madeline Sharafian/2020/6m The Pixar SparkShorts initiative was set up to give animators at the company a chance to make anything they wanted in any style with a small budget and six months to do it. This has resulted in a wonderfully diverse set of short films both stylistically and thematically, None of these four films look like the typical Pixar film, and nor do they look like each other. I hope this variety in animation styles is something that translates to their feature length films. Kitbull tells the story of the friendship between a stray kitten and an abused pitbull puppy and it broke my f*cking heart. The animation for the kitten is wonderful, it's like a ink spot come to life and the simple story of two victims of abuse finding strength and comfort in each other is perfectly executed without a word of dialogue. Twenty Something is about Gia (Aliya Taylor) who is going out to a club with her friend Nicole (Janelle Laselle) to celebrate her 21st birthday. However, Gia is scared about becoming an adult, which is wonderfully represented by her being occasionally shown as three younger versions of herself stood on each other's shoulders and wearing a trench coat, in the classic style. A very relatable theme that is shown in a totally original way. Smash and Grab tells the story of two robots, chained up in the engine room of a train working the engine, who only dream of freedom. This is the weakest of this selection but is still executed with real passion and care. The relationship between the two titular robots is very sweet. Burrow is similar to Twenty Something thematically in that it's about a young adult struggling with the responsibilities of adulting. Here a young rabbit is trying to set up a burrow of her own but faces constant problems until it finally breaks her. However, she finds that reaching out and asking for help isn't a sign of weakness but of strength. This is animated in a beautiful watercolour style that really sets it apart from every other Pixar film. This initiative really shows how much talent and creativity there is in the animation world and I look forward to all of these filmmakers getting the chance to show their stuff on the big stage, hopefully not just on another Toy Story sequel. Kitbull 10/10 Twenty Something 9/10 Smash and Grab 7/10 Burrow 8/10 Daughters of the Dust dir. Julie Dash/1991/1h52m Daughters of the Dust is the first film by a Black woman theatrically distributed in the US. It tells a cross generational story of the Peazant family who live on an island off the coast of Georgia in 1902. Because of its isolation, the tradtitional African traditions and language of their ancestors who were bought over as sl*ves, have endured, and this creates the conflict as the family are preparing to move to the mainland, the matriarch of the family, Nana (Cors Lee Day) not wanting to go. This is a lyrical, non linear film that is a real celebration of culture and family. In many ways it reminded me of the Kurosawa film Rhapsody in August with the focus being on the elderly matriarch of a family who is still struggling with past traumas. Often dreamlike and always beautiful, this is a fantastic film that deserves a lot more attention. 9/10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted May 14, 2023 Share Posted May 14, 2023 The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023) dir Mark Bazalgette Film spin off of the successful historical fiction action series The Last Kingdom, based on the novels by Bernard Cornwell set in 10th century Britain. In my experience most film spin offs that just try to put into a feature length format what they would otherwise have spread over a series of multiple episodes are rarely great, and this is no exception. I loved the TV series and have read all the books. The TV series ended before the they got to where the books ended. So I can understand the producers wanting to finish the story line. But why they decided to do it all in a ~2 hour film rather than 6 or so episodes, I do not understand. The story is rushed and I think anyone who had not seen the TV series would have been confused at times. The acting, sets, costumes and battle scenes are just as good as in the TV series though. It's not historically accurate, but it was never meant to be. The central character, Uthred (Alexander Drymon) existed but Bernard Cornwell has always made clear what his Uthred does is total fiction. The film builds up to the battle of Brunahburh, where following his victory King Athelstan of Wessex became the first king of single kingdom of England. The novels, to me, were always clearly building up to this as their culmination, they were about the formation of England. What happens in the build up and how the battle unfolds are again fiction, but then, as far as I am aware, the details of the battle and even it's location are simply not known. All we know is an Athlestan faced a coalition drawn from most the other Kingdoms that existed in the British Isles at that time (hence the films title). Anyway, brief history lesson over, mostly it's not that good. But in almost exact contrast to the last film I reviewed, this is saved from a very poor score by a very good ending. The battle is done really well; easy I suppose when there is no settled truth to follow or deviate from, but its done in very realistic feeling way. It's certainly not glamorised. You really feel the fear amongst the outnumbered English army before it starts and respect those who fought despite assuming they would die. And then the very final scene, which I can not go into specifics of without spoilers, is again very good and nicely finishes the entire Last Kingdom story off. I'm glad I watched it, but honestly, unless you are a fan of the TV series, I wouldn't bother with it. 5 / 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted May 15, 2023 Share Posted May 15, 2023 What I Watched This Week #68 (April 16 – 22) Fall dir. Scott Mann/2022/1h47m Two thrill-seeking best friends, Becky and Hunter (Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner), set out to climb a 2000ft tall radio tower in the middle of the desert in order to help Becky conquer her fears after a previous tragedy. However, they are left fighting for survival after being stranded on the top. This is a cheap and simple film that is elevated by some excellent direction that really emphasises the dizzying heights to which they're climbing. This isn't a horror film but there are moments here that are truly terrifying for someone with a fear of heights. It's also a testament to both the director and the two leads that the film remains interesting once they're trapped on a tiny platform way up in the sky. There are things about the characters that annoy me, Hunter's social media obsession – although it does come in helpful in a couple of instances – and just the fact of Becky being there in the first place, considering her backstory, but both actors do a good job in selling the peril they're in. A little overlong, but this is still a thrilling and inventive modern b-movie. 8/10 Steamboat Willie dir. Ub Iwerks/1928/7m The first Mickey Mouse film publicly released, this sees the famous Mouse piloting a steamboat down a river, turning various animals into musical instruments in order to impress Minnie. Like early Chaplin films, the character of Mickey Mouse hasn't been fully formed yet, and here he is kind of a violent jerk, with the way he manipulates the different animals being quite grotesque. A slight and simple short, but it was way ahead of any other animation of its time and is worth watching for historical value alone. 7/10 Kuroneko dir. Kaneto Shindo/1968/1h40m Kuroneko is a Japanese folk horror film, and a companion piece to the director's earlier film Onibaba. In feudal Japan a woman, Yone (Nobuko Otowa), and her daughter-in-law Shige (Kiwako Taichi) are r*ped and murdered by a marauding band of samurai. They return as vengeful cat spirits who have vowed to murder every samurai they can find, seducing them before savagely ripping their throats out with their teeth. Meanwhile, Shige's husband Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura) has been made a samurai for his deeds in battle, and is ordered to investigate the spirits who have been killing samurai, not knowing their true identities. This is a gorgeous looking film with some really striking visuals and compositions that give it a surreal, dream-like feel. There is also a Japanese Kabuki style theatricality to the film, particularly in the costumes/make-up and performances that add to the otherworldly tone. 9/10 Nobody dir. Ilya Naishuller/2021/1h32m Bob Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, an everyday, average Joe Schmoe who gets walked all over by everyone in his life. When theives break into his house and steal his young daughter's bracelet he cracks and takes the law into his own hands. This film was sold on the idea of a normal person kicking *ss and taking names, but the thing is, spoilers here by the way, he's not a normal everyday person, he's a highly trained former government assassin. This twist kind of took the wind out of the film for me, turning it into another John Wick knock off. Odenkirk is surprisingly good as the badass action hero as I only know him from his comedy series Mr. Show. Christopher Lloyd plays Odenkirk's former FBI agent father, and the sight of him taking out a warehouse full of goons with a shotgun is kinda ridiculous but might be my favourite part of the film. This is another standard modern action film where a guy's self worth is validated by acts of extreme violence, but it's carried by a couple of great fight scenes – the one on the bus is fantastic – and a solid lead performance. 6/10 The Brothers Grimsby dir. Louis Leterrier/2016/1h23m When MI6 assassin Sebastian Graves (Mark Strong) is framed and forced to go rogue he reconnects with his brother Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen), an idiotic football hooligan, in order to save the world. This is totally moronic gross out comedy that got a few big laughs out of me, but mostly felt like it's trying too hard. I feel like Baron Cohen's best films – Borat, Bruno – are the ones where he's improvising with oblivious members of the public, whereas his scripted films like this and Ali G Indahouse give him too much time and leeway to take things too far, to the point where the joke just isn't funny. Like I said though, some of the jokes do land, and when they do they land hard. The main thing I didn't like about this film is what they put poor Mark Strong through. I love Mark Strong, he's a brilliant actor and always gives a great performance. There are just a couple of things in this film that made me feel bad for him. Like, I wouldn't want any of these clips on my highlight reel. 5/10 Enys Men dir. Mark Jenkin/2022/1h30m In the latest feature length film from Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin – seriously, watch Bait – Mary Woodvine plays an unnamed volunteer stationed on a remote island off the Cornish coast in order to observe some rare flowers and record her findings. Her routines appear ritualistic, particularly the way she drops a stone down an abandoned mineshaft every day, but her routine is soon disturbed by ghosts of the island's past - she becomes obsessed by a giant standing stone and a strange moss starts growing out of a scar on her stomach. Shot with his trademark vintage 16mm camera, and processing the film by hand, Jenkin has made a film that feels like a 70s folk horror lost to obscurity and recently rediscovered, like a cinematic ghost from the past. This is a masterclass in tone and atmosphere that kept me gripped throughout, with the excellent editing and sound design playing a huge part in that. Woodvine is captivating in the lead despite having very little dialogue. Jenkin is one of the most exciting and unique filmmaker working today and this film shows exactly why. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! We Need to Talk About Kevin dir. Lynne Ramsay/2011/1h53m Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly play Eva and Franklin Khatchadourian, parents to the troubled Kevin (Jasper Newell, Ezra Miller). While Kevin has a good relationship with his father, he is cold and distant, almost antagonistic, towards his mother. Told in a non-linear way, we see Eva living alone, seeming like an outcast to society. We see flashbacks of her relationship with Kevin when he was a young child (Newell) and a teenager (Miller). All credit to Newell, he is excellent as the most awful child you could wish for, seriously, I've never wanted to see a kid get abducted as much as this one, he is a proper c*nt. Miller is a creep and a w*irdo in real life, so it was great foresight by Ramsay to cast him here, and he does a decent job. This is an infuriating film to watch because nothing ever goes right for Eva despite her best efforts. Swinton gives a brilliantly nuanced performance here, especially in the scenes where she questions if she is really to blame for the atrocity that Kevin commits. Reilly felt like a weird choice for this film, but he is perfectly cast as the everyman dad who can't see the problems in front of his eyes. The best advert for birth control I've ever seen. 8.5/10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted May 21, 2023 Share Posted May 21, 2023 Tár (2022) dir Todd Field. A drama that has the feel of a biopic, but is pure fiction. Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) is a leading orchestral conductor and the first women to conduct the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic. She also teaches at a leading New York music college. She lives in Berlin with her wife, the orchestra's principle violinist and their daughter. She is clearly admired by her PA, Francesca, also a conductor. Early on there are hints of wrong doing in her past, taking advantage of young, impressionable students and musicians. We see clear evidence of how manipulative and controlling she can be, but in way that is the kind of person a conductor surely has to be. It's a very slowly developing plot with respect to what she has or hasn't done wrong in the past and how she appears to be unable to resist temptation when an attractive young cellist bids to join the orchestra. It also seems deliberately ambiguous at times, with some things never fully explained. It's very good but not going to appeal to everyone. Cate Blanchet is outstanding and fully deserving of the awards and nominations she received for this. 8 / 10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted May 24, 2023 Share Posted May 24, 2023 What I Watched This Week #69 (nice...) (April 23 – 29) The Balcony dir. Anya Martin/2022/5m While waiting for a pizza to arrive, twentysomething Matt (Ty Wilson) goes out to his balcony for a smoke. Across the road a party is in full swing, and he makes a momentary connection with a girl on the balcony opposite. The ending is quietly devastating and totally relatable. This is a very simple idea executed so well, with a style to match. I'm sure everyone has had a time where you haven't had the courage or the confidence to try and answer the question “what if?”, and this short encapsulates that feeling perfectly. I really like the animation in this, it's warm and comforting, which might symbolise not wanting to step out of your comfort zone and into the unknown. 8/10 This House dir. Miryam Charles/2022/1h15m In this part biography/part fiction, director Miryam Charles explores the life and memory of her cousin Tessa, who seemingly hanged herself in 2008, but an autopsy report showed that she was abused and murdered beforehand. The crime went unsolved. In this dream-like, minimalist, poetic film Schelby Jean-Baptiste plays Tessa as she would have been had she lived, giving monologues about her life in Haiti before moving to America, and interacting with her mother Valeska (Florence Blain Mbaye). For a film that is so deeply personal, I was a little disappointed to find it a little cold at points. Maybe it was the elusiveness of the narrative, which is broken up and told in a fragmented way. There is also a lot of voiceover which is very poetic but at times quite obtuse with its meaning. What anchors this film is the performance of Blain Mbaye as the grieving mother. The scene where she breaks down after seeing her daughter's body, set in a totally black void, is heart-breaking. A haunting portrait of grief and memory. 7.5/10 The Platform dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia/2019/1h35m In a mysterious, dystopian future Goreng (Ivan Massague) agrees to be imprisoned for six months in exchange for a diploma. These prisons are huge towers with a hole in the middle leading all the way down. Every day food is lowered from the top of the prison on a platform, the lower it gets the less food there is left. This reminded me a lot of The Cube in that it's a very minimalist film that gives you the bare bones of what you need to know. The director does really well to keep the film engaging in such a limited setting and there are some really well executed scenes of sudden violence. The social commentary may not be very subtle but that doesn't detract from what is a surprisingly thrilling film. 7.5/10 Drive dir. Nicolas Winding Refn/2011/1h40m Drive stars Ryan Gosling as The Driver, stuntman by day, getaway driver by night. He starts to get close to his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan), but when her husband Gabriel (Oscar Isaac) gets out of prison and hires him for a job things go south very quickly. Winding Refn has a signature style and that's in full effect here. A pulsing, electronic soundtrack, sets bathed in neon light, a near mute lead who's proficient at doling out a bit of violence – this and Only God Forgives could be the same film bar a few plot details. It's a very cold style that keeps you at arms length, making it hard to care about the characters. It's strange to say but the most sympathetic character from any of his films is real life criminal, Britain's “most dangerous prisoner”, Charles Bronson, played by Tom Hardy in the excellent Bronson. Gosling is very good here, his boyish good looks helping to offset the coldness of his character. The supporting cast, whish includes Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman, are all very good as well. I know Winding Refn's style isn't for everyone, but I find it hypnotic and shocking in equal measure. 7/10 The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires dir. Roy Ward Baker, Chang Cheh/1974/1h29m In a bizarre move Britain's Hammer film studio, famous for horror films, and the Shaw Brother's studio of Hong Kong, purveyors of fine kung-fu, joined forces to produce this, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Peter Cushing stars as Professor Van Helsing, a character he has played many times before, usually opposite Christopher Lee's Dracula. He is lecturing in Chungking university when he learns of a rural village being tormented by the undead. With the help of Hsi Ching (David Chiang) and his six brothers he travels to the village in order to rid it from evil forever. This is a campy, cheesy film that works just because of how weird it is. It's a pure schlock fest full of giallo style lighting, boobs and blood. You can really see the difference between the two directors, Cheh who directed the fight scenes and Ward Baker who did the rest. The fight scenes are dynamic and exciting whereas the rest is fairly pedestrian. This isn't a great film but I still really enjoyed it for what it is. 8/10 Two Pixar SparkShorts: Wind dir. Edwin Chang/2019/8m Loop dir. Erica Milsom/2020/10m Two more shorts from the Pixar SparkShorts initiative here, and the first two I've seen that have the standard Pixar look. In Wind a young boy and his grandmother live on a floating rock deep down in a bottomless chasm, the only way out way, way above them. They scavenge enough trash to make a rocket, but escape may come at a high cost. Loop is about Renee (Madison Bandy), a non-verbal autistic girl at a summer camp who is teamed up for a canoe trip with the reluctant Marcus (Christiano Delgado), a typical, chatty kid. At first he feels like he's been burdened with Renee, but with a bit of patience and empathy he learns how to communicate with her. Wind is a fine film with some really nice moments, but Loop is special. I've never seen autistic representation in film done this well before. The way we're able to see how Renee sees the world in a totally sensory way is so well done, and the way they show how it may not be easy to communicate with people on the spectrum, but all it requires is patience and understanding and maybe changing the way you think and see the world is beautiful. I was in tears for pretty much all ten minutes of this remarkable film. Wind 7/10 Loop 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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