'As Bestas'
A slow builder with trip wire tension set in Galicia which centres on a Frenchman, Antoine, and his wife, Olga, who are trying to make a go at organic farming as a living, while also doing up regional houses on the side. Antoine is set against the idea of windfarms being set up in the area, as he believes that the profits will inevitably end up in foreign hands, while the small village population will be fobbed off with minimal reward. Antoine is on the opposite side of the table in this matter to many of the locals, who see it as a viable financial way out of their hardship. Foremost in opposition is Xan, a formidable and aggressive Galician who, together with his retarded brother and elderly mother live as neighbours to Antoine and Olga. Xan sees the money he'll receive from the windfarm company as a conduit to a better and more comfortable future for his family. Over the course of the story the atmosphere becomes more and more unstable, and while there's no side that's particularly in the wrong, their methods at achieving their desired outcome definitely differ until things come to a head.
8/10
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Its anachronistic cheer and jauntiness somewhat jarred against all the late-era British colonial hubris & pomp; it made the early years of Clive Candy a little hard to stomach, especially its glib circling of the Boer War. But then as the film went on and its character aged into unwitting obsolescence, the film morphed into something surprisingly poignant and reflective. Its last scene was an earned, melancholy little moment of an old man realising hadn't fulfilled a promise to a lost love.
Indeed, for a film produced in Britain during the height of WW2, its attitude towards Germans was quite inclusive and empathetic; rather than portrayed as some totemic evil for contemporary audiences to boo, Candy's lifelong friend was a sombre and serious individual, saddened by the fate of his country but gently angry some Britons would still think it'd all end with a jolly good dust-up. That, coupled with the aforementioned theme of its lead becoming unwittingly obsolete, left the film with the feel of a subtle rebuke against the generation who effectively germinated the Nazis in the first place. Brave stuff to produce while mainland Europe was still occupied; I can see why the government wasn't happy with it.
The WW1 segment was also interesting for being such a tonal outlier compared with the iconography we now come to associate with WW1 storytelling; All Quiet on the Western Front this was not. The mud and blasted landscapes were all there, but absolutely none of the thematic anguish & fatalism now standard. Now to be fair, that would have chafed against the spirit of the rest of the narrative, but it was hard not to find the whole segment a little bizarre. Here was our lead, now a Brigadier-General, goofing around the front-line, the aforementioned jauntiness completely at odds with subsequent fictions. Nowadays, the officer class is often portrayed as corrupt, arrogant and monstrous creatures who precipitated the pointless war - not some jolly soul just trying to get out of the rain.
Coraline (2009)
Odd to come back to a film you know you saw in the cinema, your scattered memories informing you enjoyed it ... but had absolutely zero recollection of scenes or moments.
There was a constant flourish to this that sometimes felt like Laika were showboating, like it was their last hurrah and intended to show just how far one could push the medium of stop-motion, to deconstruct any preconceived limitations the art-form might have. There's an argument that this remains the studio's best work to date - maybe even a toss-up over whether this is also the zenith of stop-motion itself? I saw Wendyll & Wild, and Mad God recently enough, yet neither had the dexterity and brio of this.
Even 13 years later the scale of ambition, the almost arrogant flourish of detail within every frame was something to behold. Some moments were the cause of genuine awe: beautiful and artful instances of macabre imagination, all watched knowing the sheer commitment and time demanded of the artists to craft each spectacular minute. The world is a better place for the presence of Laika, still doggedly flying the flag of that most time-consuming, and least profitable, arm of the animation genre.
Now, the last act turned into something of a slightly underwhelming Fetch Quest, but not so poor that the story preceding it was retroactively ruined. This had a surprisingly authentic heart to it; a smart, nuanced story of the whirling and sometimes bratty anxieties of the age we now call "tweens". I was happy to forgive the damp squib ending just because what came before built such a strong foundation in its lead character. It also threaded the needle (ohoho!) when it came to the tonal balance of PG horror, in being scary and creepy enough for all ages, without utterly horrifying the younger eyes.
Accused 2023
This is the American version of Jimmy Mcgoverns Accused of over ten years ago. Mcgovern writes the first episode on this one and then its US writers after that.
It really has the bones of being great like the UK series, the dark and grim frustration of the system and the disadvantaged people that get swallowed up by it, but ultimately this is for the US audience and so its been happy washed mostly to not traumatize the audience too much. The Uk episodes were so grim you would remember them for days afterwards. This is where Mcgoverns power as a writer is, and when it becomes happy endings for various reasons the sheer weight of his work becomes featherlike.
Great potential, sadly doesnt cut it, Jimmy needs a new one for the UK.
Mississippi Burning - 1989
I'd seen this before when I was in school, and it had always stuck with me as an incredibly visceral presentation of racism. Coming back it it now, it's a film that clearly plays with the underlying facts to tell a story it wants to tell, something I do not think would fly if the film was made now.
From a pure storytelling and performance point of view, it's a very compelling tale, and Hackman, Defoe, and the rest of the supporting characters are excellent. The criticism leveled at the film is that it doesn't really show a black perspective, and what you are really left with is a film where white characters talk to each other about racism.
Despite that, (and maybe because of the storytelling choices where they play fast and loose with the facts), it's still a very powerful film that arguably is even more thematically relevant today than it was when it was made.
Heist - 2001
Written and directed by David Mamet, this is a real "by the numbers" heist film. It's got Mamet's trademark dialogue, which either works for you or doesn't. Personally I find it grating, and some of the dialogue is so over the top it is hard to take it seriously. What really helps Mamet here is having actors like Hackman and Samuel l Jackson, who can really sell those lines.
Mamet is first and foremost a writer, so from a direction point of view, this is a very conventional story. On the writing side, there's no major suprises, the standard twists you would expect from a caper like this, but annoyingly there's a few plot threads that never seem to get resolved. There's not a lot of depth to these characters, and there's suspension of disbelief required for some of the plot points. Overall it's a decent watch, but could have been a much better film.
Coraline
Watched for the first time last night. Its fantastic stuff. Maybe a bit dark for younger kids but all in all a masterpiece that stands up well to Gaimans Graphic Novel.
9/10
28 Days Later (2002)
Man, those early days of digital video were ugly as sin, but this was a rare pearl that used that grainy & inherently lo-fi appearance to its advantage. Boyle's love for flourish represented by some choice moments that created unique and beautiful visuals (the highlight being a downright abstract, distorted image of a field of flowers as our heroes drove by).
The story itself hasn't really gotten better with age though during this first rewatch since its release: the introduction of the soldiers remained a crunching gear-change; like Alex Garland's lunch was burning at the time, so he hastily bashed out "uhh, suddenly rapey soldiers appeared" on his keyboard, pressed save, and never bothered coming up with something better.
Still. While some stories struggle to survive a bad ending, this was one whose prior acts remained so bristling with aggressive, anarchic energy, they saved the overall experience. Even after 20 years of the "fast zombie" becoming the norm, Danny Boyle's original recipe still feels like the standard by which the sub-genre can be judged. All that whirling, spasmodic chaos was still shocking, where the viewer had no time to process the so-called Infected's appearance before they were on their victims, screaming and beating them with rage. And if anything, the crappy digital image only enhanced the terror, the lack of clarity only feeding the viewer's discomfort; it left me more profoundly upset by the violence than Zombie films of this stripe generally manage.
But that last act. Hoo-boy, what a stinker.
True Romance (1993)
The narrative lasted a whole 3 minutes before Tarantino's script betrayed the writer's various obsessions: in this case, the martial arts movies that back in the early 90s, would still have been a curio. And before I finished chuckling at that particular idiosyncrasy... boom: the lead character started waxing lyrical about - while standing in his workplace, a store selling - comic-books.
The pacing on this was energetic to the point of puppy-dog hyperactivity. but Tony Scott never completely lost a handle on what might have otherwise been quite a rambling, disjointed feature. A focus that I might quietly suggest Tarantino's own direction has sometimes lacked when he filmed his own writing later on. And that focus served the film's cast really well; a cast that was ludicrously well stacked. Be they already established names like Walken or Hopper, or "before they were famous", single-scene roles from Pitt, L. Jackson or Gandolfini. Nearly every named character was someone a viewer would recognise; it was kinda nuts.
The longer the film went on though, the more I came to kinda hate Patricia Arquette's Alabama; she barely functioned as anything beyond that of a cipher. At first undoubtedly sweetly alluring, but the "dream" girl schtick kept going on and on ... to the extent I theorised it might all be a ruse? I started to believe perhaps her sensuality was ultimately a weapon, all so she could be the last one standing when the chickens came home to roost. Noppope. She really was just Tarantino's fantasy girl. It got a bit much.
Haven't been able to take The Monkey's Paw seriously since I saw this a few years ago
The Monkey's Paw (1948)
Decided to give this a look since it was only about an hour long and because I remember enjoying the spoof of this on The Simpsons. There's a prominent Irish character in it called Kelly who is every bit of the Irish stereotype you'd expect from a British film in the '40s. (The film features a flashback to Wexford with Kelly being helped to break into a property by a Garda who he shares a drink with) Disappointingly, there's very little time devoted to characters making their wishes. The final scene at least was pretty eerie and reminded me of a Stephen King story. Overall, a pretty dated film in more ways than one.
The Frighteners (1996)
Perhaps most famous now for being a flop, and Jackson's immediately prior work before the now legendary Hail Mary that was shooting 3 Lord of the Rings movies simultaneously. Would that kind of path even be possible now?
This was a film vibrating at a very distinct frequency: juggling a playful and balanced tone between goofy morbidity, a dash of theatricality in its characters, and the fun of a blood-spattered Amblin era adventure. You could tell in places this was a collaboration between Robert Zemeckis and Peter Jackson, both creatives' voices present but never at odds with each other. Then Jeffrey Combs walked onto set and blew it all to smithereens. I do like Combs, and always internally cheered when he would inevitably appear on any given iteration of Star Trek: but ye gods, his mugging performance was ramped up 5 steps above caricature. And presumably, neither he nor Peter Jackson had anything to say beyond, "let's keep doing that".
Was it enough to sully the overall experience? I don't think so, but it kept getting in the way of the otherwise engaging adventure headed by Michael J Fox being his usual effortlessly winning self - despite playing an utterly obnoxious boor - in what was probably his last headline vehicle. While the ambition of the FX perhaps sometimes outstripped the ability to convince, with some of its CGI ageing poorly here & there - but equally, what was attempted might have been excessively impractical or downright impossible otherwise. Why this opened in July and not Halloween though, is anyone's guess.
I've only watched about 5 seconds of Basic Instinct. I have actually watched that 5 seconds multiple times - normal speed, slo-mo, zoom in etc.
Very intriguing movie. 🤐 👌
Basic Instinct (1992)
This is a fairly infamous film that I'd never seen and honestly wasn't sure what to expect. It's a familiar enough setup, a detective (Michael Douglas), investigating a murder, becomes enraptured by a femme fatale (Sharon Stone).
There are two choices made in telling the story, that I assume must have come from Paul Verhoeven. The first is to make Douglas a hot-headed character and have that erupt at a few times during the story. The second is to really lean into the sexual side of the story, and this is what the film is really most famous for. The reason I've marked this as the second major choice is because I feel this probably would have worked a lot better if there was more of a build-up of tension, and if Douglas quite frankly wasn't always shouting his head off.
The result of both of these choices didn't really work for me, which is a shame, because I actually thought the underlying plot was quite good and complex. I did feel for some of the characters though, some of which (like Douglas's partner), seemed only to be there to give us plot information. Overall I thought it was a decent watch, certainly unique in its own way.
Night Moves (1975)
I recently rewatched The Conversation after reading this thread, and this made me lookup Gene Hackman films, and this was one that appeared on a few lists.
Hackman plays Harry Moseby who is a retired professional football player now working as a private investigator in Los Angeles. He discovers that his wife Ellen is having an affair with a man named Marty Heller. Harry is hired by Arlene Iverson to find her 16-year-old daughter Delly Grastner.
Harry is going through a lot of stuff, and it's about as vulnerable as I've seen Hackman be. In contrast to the film above, which cares a lot about sex, this film is more interested in intimacy and trust, and really it's Harry trying to find his own way through his own feelings as much as finding his way through the case.
There are a lot of beautiful scenes in this where Harry has some conversations which on the face of it are very simple, but have a lot of depth in terms of both character development and plot progression. The film's title is explained by a chess position, where one player had a chance to win with certain "Knight moves", but didn't see it, and ended up losing. This is very apt to the position where Harry finds himself in, where he has to question what his is told, and who he trusts.
For cinematography fans, there is a striking image towards the end of the film which will stay with you for a while.
An excellent film, and one of the best I've seen in a while.
'A Bridge Too Far'
A very long, very loud and very good war film from Richard Attenborough, and based on the non-fiction book by Cornelius Ryan, that details the failed allied attempt to seize a number of bridges that spanned the Rhine in a prelude to an invasion of Germany in September 1944. 'A Bridge Too Far' is a star studded epic that we'll probably not see the likes of again and it's attention to detail and commitment to getting it right was, and still is, a commendable and valiant effort. Unfortunately, that ends up being one of the film's general flaws in that the average viewer will have absolutely no idea what's going on or who's who and why it's important. Attenborough's epic almost requires the viewer to have, at least, some knowledge of the real Operation Market Garden, and while people with a interest in such things will delight in the details and scope, most folk will be all at sea. No doubt this was a contributing factor to the film's decidedly unimpressive box office when it was released in 1977, even if most critics were relatively favourable toward it in their assessment. Although we must also take into account that a certain George Lucas put out a little film called 'Star Wars' that destroyed the potential box office of every other movie released at or around the same time.
What can't be denied, however, is the sheer weight of the visuals on offer and all pulled off without a single ounce of computer trickery, matte effects notwithstanding of course. What you see happen on the screen was shot for real and because of that, the whole film feels very authentic. Although part of me feels that the familiar faces of Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, etc does a lot to take away a portion of that authenticity. And therein lies another problem with the film. While most of the actors turn in decent and serviceable performances, there are a number of questionable casting choices going on. Ryan O'Neal, who somehow managed to carve out a respectable Hollywood career despite having a terribly mediocre level of talent, is curiously odd as General James Gavin, head of the American 82nd Airborne Div. He never ever looks comfortable in his role and always appears to be at some level of struggle with his lines and what's going on. Sean Connery, who plays the British General in charge of the 1st British Ariborne Div. Roy Urquhart is...well...just Sean Connery. And while he was always a consummate professional in whatever movie he was in, it's impossible to see him as anything other than Sean Connery. James Caan's turn as the fictional (but based on a real person) SSgt. Eddie Dohun gives a goofy, sleepy, performance in a short vignette that remarkably had its roots in a real event. Caan, hot off his success as Sonny Corlione a few years before has nothing of the energy he was famous for and ends up being very disappointing. Elliott Gould, another more than capable actor, appears in the shape of one of the most awful Hollywood war movie cliches as another fictional character, Col. Robert Stout. He's a cigar chomping, loud mouthed, Yank farce that is as annoying as he is ludicrous as he roars his way through his scenes shouting for "Bailey crap" to span Rhine after the Son Bridge is blown sky high. But worst of all is a woefully miscast Gene Hackman who presents the absolute nadir of his acting career in the shape of Polish General, Stanisław Sosabowski. Hackman chose, or was directed, to employ a truly awful "foreign" accent that borders on the laughable at times. He's also given the most dreadful lines in the entire film to say, that one can't help but feel sorry for him. This is a bit of a shame because, historically, Sosabowski was an important figure in the whole Market Garden shambles, even if the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade were a relatively junior partner in the operation. It was Sosabowski who one of the figures that pointed out the very serious, and glaring, problems with the Allied plan in the first place, and who was subsequently proven to be correct.
However, if there are a number of sub par performances here and there, there are also some great ones. The stand out being Anthony Hopkins as Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost, commander of the British 1st Parachute Brig. in Arnheim. Hopkins worked closely with the real John Frost to give a no nonsense portrayal of the real man, who was on set to steer the actor correctly. Dirk Bogarde also deserves mention for his effort as Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning, even if there was some controversy about it at the time. Michael Caine plays Michael Caine, but he's supposed to be Joe Vandeleur, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Irish Guards although he puts in a typical Michael Caine shift which is pleasing enough. And all the best lines go to Edward Fox, who gives an excellent performance as the lively Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, Commanding Officer of XXX Corps. A man that could inspire anyone go to war with him.
It's a bit of a pity, therefore, that the German counterparts to the Allied men are somewhat portrayed as typically stiff German stereotypes. Although it's a nice touch on behalf of Attenborough to have hired German actors to fill in the prominent roles of the men of the 9th and 10th Waffen SS Divisions. However, Maximilian Schell plays Wilhelm Bittrich as a kind of Prussian aristocrat, when the real man was anything but, and in reality the men of the Waffen SS tended to despise that particular class. He's also far too young looking as well, even though he was only 4 years younger than the real man at the time of shooting. Hardy Kruger plays a composite character, General Major Karl Ludwig of the 10th Waffen SS Div. fighting around Nijmegen, a man constantly at odds with his superiors about how to handle the battle. One of those superiors is Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model who is, frankly, given a ridiculous portrayal by Walter Kohut and is absolutely nothing like the actual man. Model is played kind of for laughs here which is a bit unfortunate as it's neither that funny or accurate. And Wolfgang Preiss appears briefly to give a suitably entertaining performance as Generalfeldmarschall Gerd Von Rundstedt.
But while the film's flaws are present, they cannot take away the stunning achievement that Attenborough manages at getting some of the most incredible and realistic military sequences on the screen. The centre piece being the beginning of the operation where a large number of C-47's take off loaded with paratroops and carrying Horsa gliders. It must have been a nightmare to shoot, but the result is fantastic. There was also an admirable effort to get as many Sherman tanks as possible to pose as XXX Corps' amour, lending the ground scenes an appropriate level of photo realism. Unfortunately though, elsewhere that level of realism could not be attained for other equipment. While there is, indeed, a Mk IX Spitfire used as a reconnaissance aircraft, it's perplexing that the producers chose to use T-6 Texans as other Allied fighters. It's understandable that T-6's be used as a stand in for P-47's which were unavailable, but Spitfire's would have been a better choice. Naturally, the German equipment tends to suffer the most from a lack of availability, with modern day Leopards having to pretend to be period Tigers.
But most of the above criticisms can be written off as nitpicks at the end of the day because, over all, 'A Bridge Too Far' remains one of the greatest war epics ever made and it stands over many others that preceded it. These days it's rightly held up as an admirable effort to get onto the screen an accurate account of a World War II battle, even if at the time of its release it was met with much less enthusiasm.
George Michael Freedom Uncut
Documentary that he had almost finished at the time of his death. Lots of famous talking heads in it, it charts his rise from teen popstar to global superstar. While its made by him its obviously not hyper critical but it does give insights into his first love that ended due to Aids, his fight with the record label and some of his other exploits. Enjoyable watch and very poignant in places. He also had some cracking songs.
Koko-Di Koko-Da
I've been meaning to watch this for one of the posters for it caught my eye. It's a bit of an odd mix - while it has elements that make it seem like a horror film, that's not its main concern.
It's about a specific type of grief, in the same general vicinity as The Babadook but with a different approach - a tone that feels somewhat like if The Kingdom-era Von Trier decided he wanted to riff on films like Last House On The Left, maybe. It's not a long film (85 minutes including credits), although you could probably skip the first 10 minutes and not lose anything of importance.
Plane
Probably dos not need it's own thread. Caught it in the cinema. It's Gerard Butler, being Gerard Butler, as a pilot of a plane that needs to make an emergency landing in a dangerous place.
Found it an entertaining, pared back action flick. Moves are at a great pace, doesn't outstay it's welcome and a satisfying flick.
Director really likes mirrors/reflections.
Really liked:
that there was no unneeded,bolted on, sub-plots. No unbelievable romance between Gerard and Bonnie, no back story for the bad guy - he's the bad gut that's all we need to know, and no Machiavellian attempted double cross by an executive because he'd failed to file the plane's maintenance record in triplicate.
Yeah wasn't offended inasmuch as I thought it was a gag worn out by the 3rd or 4th time it came around - and the last time a little jarring, given how dialled back things had become in the back-half. It's kinda what I meant about a lack of understanding / experience with anime ... 'cos I'm given to understand those kind of freewheeling swings of tone can be common? I found this one jarring. One minute Taki's growing emotionally, experiencing the ennui of a linger memory he can't quite grasp ...oh wait, boobies!
Skinamarink
The big horror sensation of the year is probably the most divisive big horror sensation we'll see in a while. This is Paranormal Activity or Blair Witch by way of experimental or 'slow cinema' filmmakers like Chantal Akerman or Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Two kids wake up one night, and strange things start happening around them - their dad has disappeared, doors and windows are disappearing and reappearing, and something is trying to talk to them. This is all shot in strange, noisy and abstract digital style, with characters' faces rarely (if ever) in shot and much of the 'action' happening off-frame. Darkness is also used effectively, with the sense that something is lurking in the shadows without us ever being able to quite grasp it given the noisiness of the image.
So what is in essence a poltergeist / haunted house film becomes something altogether different due to the way its told. It's exceedingly slow and patient, and defiant in its more abstract approach to the genre. While it isn't above the odd jump fright, it does instead more often dip into a sort of primal horror... a Lynchian weirdness and disruption of the mundane. In that sense, some of the stuff in here is the more haunting horror filmmaking I've seen in years - the final shot in particular is properly unnerving, while one setpiece involving looking under a bed really has a tense energy to it that's as invigorating as it is unsettling. And again, a lot of this is making smart use of digital noise or darkness to obscure what's actually going on.
It's not a perfect film, but for a micro-budget horror film it for me managed to capture that special something I'm always looking for but rarely get when it comes to the genre. It comes with the biggest 'NOT FOR EVERYONE' sticker I can find (audience and even critical reaction to the thing is all over the gaff) but yeah it really, really worked for me.
The director said in an interview that he wouldn't be allowed make that joke now because of "Me Too". Having seen some of his previous work, it's not the thing I'd be concerned about someone post "me too" taking issue with. Garden of Words has a very weird student/teacher relationship, and a bit of foot fetishism for good measure
I felt Your Name was pretty tame in comparison. And honestly probably what a teenage boy would do if he woke up with breasts.
I watch so little anime and Japanese cinema I'm never sure what the normal tonal level is with these things; TBH the tenderness between the two leads felt a little restrained compared with all the "WHAAAAAT??" energy that pervaded the rest around the film, hence "little".
Yeah, gotta laugh how Japan still seems happy to play that kind of comedy without shame or apology. You wouldn't find that joke outside of a certain type of comedy in Hollywood - and wouldn't go to the well that often either. Did kinda undermine the romance a little, the male lead being that gropey.
While I agree there's a cute romance at the centre of the film, I'm not sure I'd use the word 'little' to describe Your Name: rarely has there been a more maximalist piece of filmmaking... although his Your Name follow-up Weathering With You goes beyond it again! For every intimate character moment (and there are plenty, including the ending) there are a dozen vast cosmic coincidences, ecological catastrophes, and the roaring Radwimps soundtrack. Makoto Shinkai has yet to find an emotional register he can't dial all the way up to 11 and beyond 😅
(I like the film btw 😂)
The first thing I always remember from Your Name is
Taki wakes up in Mitsuha's body after figuring out what's happened, so that her little sister walks in on Taki-in-Mitsuha's-body sobbing with joy while also fondling herself.
Your Name (2016)
I'll be honest, there was a moment during the midway point when I wasn't sure this was for me: all that peppy teen energy, the J-Pop soundtrack n' all; it just wasn't gelling with this hardened, middle-aged fart. I had contemplated bailing on something that rang too superficial by half, too sugar-infused and glib. But I persisted and it was, in the end, a rather sweet little romance lensed through tragedy and a degree of existential crisis. To the extent the ending was a well-earned moment of emotionality I hadn't have predicted possible at the start.
Jennifer Eight
Have starting into a phase of watching 1990's crime thrillers. Films that are similar to Seven, but generally lesser quality.
I thought this was really interesting throughout (almost). It had a great build-up as a who-dun-it. Keeps you guessing. Acting wasn't great, but wasn't too bad either to be a distraction. the plotline was decent. Couple of red-herrings thrown in to keep the viewers interested. But the ending really let it down. I was streaming it, and could see how many minutes were left to the end. It was down to the last 3 minutes of playing time, and the movie looked like it was just building up to the grand finale at that stage. I genuinely thought that it must have forgotten to include the last 10 or 15 mins of the actual movie in the streaming service that I was using. And then it delivered the finale in about 2 minutes, and then over. Such an anti-climax. And a crappy enough ending. And the movie was over 2 hours long. It's not like they were trying to cut corners timewise. Could have cut half of the John Malkovic/Garcia scenes, and added in a bit of a climax.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend on the basis of the final 3 minutes. I know that's harsh.
Quiz Show (1994)
Truly, what has aged most in all this was the idea pop-culture once idolised clean cut, upper class academics & intellectuals.
Told the story of an infamous cheating scandal within a NBC Quiz Show. Structurally this was a film whose emotional gravity came from the fallout as the truth of the cheating inexorably seeped through the cracks - as opposed to the criminal machinations itself. Its focus instead orbited around Ralph Fienne's increasingly sweaty co-lead as he found his position a moral nightmare, even if it wasn't a legal one. As pragmatic narrative decisions go, this made sense given the scheme amounted to simply giving the contestants the answers - hardly machiavellian complexity. While in the absence of any actual illegal act, there choice was made to make each one of its central characters part of a chorus functioning as a (politely) angry diatribe against class privilege and anti-semitism within the cultural landscape of 1950s American Television.
If that all sounded like a stuffy, slightly tedious & moralising film it never actually presented as that: Robert Redford showed a really deft hand in taking a story of moral torment and giving it a cinematic, engrossing facade. Especially as I'm typing as someone who didn't really know much about the real story beyond, "... in the 1950s, there was a scandal on a US Game Show". This was a good-looking movie that was never excessively showy, but still gave the right amount of zip to its pacing through an occasional flourish of energy and motion, all adding balance to the more sedentary aspects of the moral conundrums surrounding the actual story.
Also, after this and recently watched Strange Days? 1990s Ralph Fiennes was, as the kids say, a bit of a snack.
Castle in the Sky (1996)
So that's where all those SNES JRPGs got their ideas from. Retroactively it's revealed quite brazen.
Had to "laugh" at how after the preceding three-quarters of the film was quite conscious in having folk avoid death despite avalanches of bullets and explosions - all in the spirit of the A-Team - the last act murdered scores of faceless soldiers as if it were nothing. Also, that one of the pirates looked like Curtis from Porco Rosso was a weird, constant distraction.
Otherwise, this was a fabulously warm-hearted adventure whose spirit of discovery and wonder was copious throughout; being as it was the first Ghibli-Miyazaki outing, you could really see all the themes that would later inform - or even dominate on occasion - the director's work. But while those subsequent films might have had louder subtext, here there was "only" straightforward and arresting entertainment as the film's main goal: this was at once brimming with imagination, brio, a defiant spirit and as always, a touch of melancholy; not to mention a reverence for both nature and machinery that was neither reductive or clashing with each other. Well. I should be clear that the reverence for machines was towards those that flew - again being of no surprise given Miyazaki's rather overt love of aircraft.
Not an obvious connection but seeing some of the footage of Les Vampires in Irma Vep inspired me to watch Buster Keaton's The General last night. I absolutely loved it. Genuinely astounding to think it's almost 100 years old now, and modern action films, and comedy for that matter, can't get close to how good it is.
I have a feeling that the behind the scenes stuff from a lot of these silent films is probably worth seeing in their own right. Absolutely crazy stuff being shot.
It's on Prime but they have it in colour and it looks awful. Thankfully Mubi have a better quality version of it.
That's a pity; I saw the trailer the other day and looked like a potentially interesting genre mashup. Troll was fun so had peaked my curiosity about Scandi genre film.
Viking Wolf (Netflix)
Billed as Norway's first werewolf movie, trailers had me hoping this would be a Scandi police procedural meets lycanthrope. Unfortunately it's not clever enough to be the former, nor scary/exciting enough to be effective as a horror. Any decent ideas are either barely touched upon, or have been previously executed far more successfully in other examples of the genre (Ginger Snaps e.g.). Ultimately it's just predictable and boring. 6/10
The TV show is a delightful, playful thing, but the film is absolutely essential viewing if you liked the show. It has a different vibe (while still being playful) but it really is fascinating seeing how Assayas explored the same themes at two very different points in his life. The ending to the film is particularly striking. And, as good as Vikander is - it’s probably her best work to date - the original has Maggie Cheung at the absolute height of her powers. There’ve been extremely few screen presences as utterly captivating as Cheung in the 90s and early 00s, and Irma Vep is one of her very best roles. Arrow released an excellent Blu-Ray of it not so long ago.
And honestly… it’s well worth watching Les Vampires (which, quite amusingly, has no actual vampires in it) as well. I watched it alongside the Irma Vep show and found it a very worthwhile way of doing it. Yes, it’s proper 1910s cinema with everything that entails. But it’s a very entertaining example of early serialised screen storytelling. It can get a bit slow and repetitive at times especially in the middle, but there’s lots of delightful stuff in there too and some of the ‘episodes’ in the second half have some enjoyably wild stuff going on. It’s a lot of stuff to get through and yes I can understand 7 hours of silent cinema won’t be a worthwhile time investment for everyone. But it deepened my appreciation of what’s going on in Irma Vep while being a very worthwhile and entertaining watch on its own terms.
It took me an episode or two to really get into it, but once I did I loved it. I can't figure out if it's a work of extreme genius or if Asayas was making it up as he went along. I'm intrigued as to how he pitched it, or what it looked like as a script, did everyone involved actually understand what they were making? Just, as you say, so different to anything else, delightfully so.
I loved the Irma Vep series - just so widely different to most shows these days and I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Still thinking about it a few months on which is a real sign of a show that has made it's mark.
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