My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

You know what? I'm not going to waffle on. This thread is pretty self-explanatory - I want to start catching up on my watchlist, so that the number of films on it goes down instead of creeping up. I start with a nice even total of 450 films on it - and I want to go through it from the earliest added onwards, otherwise there will be a group of films deep down that never get watched.

I've been planning this for a couple of months now, and was going to start on January 1st - but I'm done waiting and will award myself a couple of bonus days to finish off 2023. I have to have a firm target, so that when 2024 ends I've caught up some. I'll say, 150 movies plus however many additions there are in 2024.

TARGET : 300

The earliest film that ever went into my Letterboxd watchlist was Out of the Past (1947), directed by Jacques Tourneur - but coincidentally, that film came up on the last Hall of Fame I was involved with, so I've already watched and reviewed it. That was film 451, giving me a neat, round figure.


So - here we go. The next film up on the list is Targets (1968)

I watched this film along with Nitram yesterday, making for a themed double feature - a mass shooting one. The killing in Targets is fictional, but inspired by the Tower shooting at the University of Texas in 1966, perpetrated by Charles Whitman, whose shadow looms over this film ominously. It's Peter Bogdanovich's first ever feature film - done with a low budget and produced by Roger Corman. The great thing it does is connect this new modern monster with the frightening visions of old by including Boris Karloff as pretty much himself (in the movie his name is Byron Orlok) and even including footage of real film The Terror, featuring Karloff as this film's 'movie within a movie' - Orlok's new feature. Most notably, that movie features Jack Nicholson, giving me a "oh my God, is that Jack Nicholson?" moment. It also includes a brief snipped of 1931 Howard Hawks movie The Criminal Code, which also features Karloff. Half of the film is devoted to a storyline with actor Orlok, and screenwriter/director Sammy Michaels (Peter Bogdanovich himself), prior to a promotional appearance the actor is to make after his new movie, and the other half deals with the killer - a fairly normal, quiet, nondescript man called Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) who is planning a killing spree.

The film itself keeps everything simple and straightforward, and that adds to the creepy sense of how these events warped the very reality of 1960s America. The way Thompson just continues his life as if nothing at all is wrong, while at the same time obviously harboring the desire to kill strangers and end his own life, is beyond our reckoning. In the meantime the man who plays monsters in movies notes how scary he finds this new breed of menace. Of course, the two are on a collision course, because one of the places Thompson plans to take out a great number of people is at a drive-in Orlok is due to make his appearance at. Visually, all of this is pretty unsparing as we follow on with Thompon's POV through the scope of his rifles, seeing what he sees. While there is a sense of prescience considering what we go through in today's society every year, I can't shake that feeling of how foreign it still was back when this was made - the shockwaves still felt from Whitman's crimes. The film flopped at the box office (it was marketed as an "anti-guns" feature, alienating some) but has lived on, and kick-started Bogdanovich's career regardless.

I thought Targets was a perfect example of what's achievable when a talented and hungry filmmaker has to work with a very limiting budget. Bogdanovich would follow this up with The Last Picture Show, which proves the kind of form he was in. I was really impressed and enjoyed it, considering that it was unnerving all the same. At 90 minutes it falls way short of overstaying it's welcome. Jaws editor Verna Fields worked on it (in the sound department) and I was happy to see László Kovács as cinematographer (he was director of photography on films such as Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces along with a few other Bogdanovich films.) Although the "monster" in Targets represents something really scary, one of the reasons they do what they do is because of how inconsequential they feel, and how scary they're not, in person. Targets presents this as an immediate reaction to something we didn't know yet - that this was only the beginning, and half a century later the problem would become an ever-present and painful part of our lives.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #1179 and in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

I've also been wanting to chip away at my watchlists (I have three of them: one at JustWatch, one on the IMDb, and a hand-written list somewhere).

My problem has been that I've watched all the fun stuff, so the majority of the films on my list have plot summaries that start like "After the tragic death of her . . . " or "In this harrowing tale . . .".

So I'm cheering you on! After I finish Jabs 2024 Film Challenge, I want to start on my watchlists.

Re: My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

450? Rookie numbers

What are your numbers?

3,423 on Letterboxd

2,017 on RYM

I often choose a movie to watch for the sole reason that it's been on my list longer than anything else and I'm tired of it being there. Which is exactly the right frame of mind to interact with art, I think. 🙂


I approve of this thread is what I'm saying, and I will vicariously enjoy the pruning of your list.

Mark f would've been proud.

I'm only at 551. I've seen approximately the same amount in short films though.

One a day will get you there in 15 years time.

Challenge accepted. :D

This is a great idea and a great thread idea. I am with you.



Incidentally, I was going to do the same - without the thread though - starting on November 1st - and since then I have watched... *checks notes... zero films from my watchlists.
(In fact, I think I may have watched zero films period since Halloween!)

So, this was a good time to get a book on Korean cinema - the one I was gifted had a whole chapter devoted to The Housemaid in it, although I must say nothing beats simply watching this thing. Adultery has never, ever looked this crazy - and I was never quite sure how this figured in relation to Korea, either culturally or artistically. The handsome Mr. Dong-sik Kim (Kim Jin-kyu) gives piano lessons and leads a choir group at a factory, and there is a never-ending conga line of ladies throwing themselves at him. He's happily married, and his wife is having their third child - but the intrusion of a newly hired maid unleashes an unusual kind of living hell for everyone. The Housemaid is kind of like Fatal Attraction - only if Glenn Close's bunny-boiling Alex character had of just moved in with the Gallagher family. When the characters make a big deal out of the rat poison early on in this film, you'll know it's going to come into play later - but not how much. This movie became so much more than melodrama when people started tumbling down staircases, and poison starts being passed around.

Something I especially enjoyed was the fact that it's director, Kim Ki-young (now revered by the new young modern masters of Korean cinema) adds so many avant-garde touches to the way this is filmed - fetching tracking shots along the home's second floor as we voyeuristically watch vixen housemaid Myung-sook (Lee Eun-shim) hide around corners and slyly slip in and out of situations. Or the fact that when Myung-sook succeeds in seducing Dong-sik Kim lightning hits the tree outside, which then bursts into flames. This film never lets the flames die out - and is never, ever boring - but I found the characters behaved in inexplicable ways. Like I said, I could never quite discern if this was a cultural thing, or part of a very strange story. There are times when you expect the status quo to disintegrate - but being revealed, and even murdering someone, does little to change the dynamic of this family's situation. Myung-sook's determination makes her the ultimate immoveable object, and the Kim family undergoes convulsive upheaval.

So, I learned a lot about early Korean cinema - and that fact that most films up to 1960 are now lost because old film stock was used and recycled. It took a while to even get a full version of The Housemaid, but by 1997 a few missing portions had been fixed up and reintegrated into a film which Kim Ki-young had subsequently made two more versions of - in 1971 (Fire Woman) and 1982 (Fire Woman '82). Full of raging passions, melodrama, great film technique and pulsating score - it's the kind of over the top that explores adultery from a cultural perspective that's extremely interesting. I don't think Lee Eun-shim did much else, but she's a sultry and desperately sad figure I won't forget too soon as the titular housemaid. I can hardly believe this film was nearly lost to us, and that there are many other Kim Ki-young films that have been lost. Brought to Criterion as part of the Martin Scorsese World Cinema Project, it's a fiery taste of the Korean cinematic world that birthed the likes of Bong Joon-ho - I found it electrifyingly crazy and great movie-making of the highest order.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #690 and also in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Housemaid

Those are the best ones.

This. Good luck with that.


I've been hoping to do the same but I keep adding things to my watchlist and it's been sitting at a little over 2k for a long time.

Perhaps, but I need some lighthearted space between tragedies and harrowing tales.

If mowing through my watchlist turns out how the first three films did in general, I'll be very glad I undertook this venture. It figures though - I'm watching the movies that caught my eye as definite "I have to watch this" entries. The King and the Clown was surprisingly brilliant, and I loved it. Another South Korean film - a nation that has a special pedigree now, with so many great filmmakers flooding the international scene with great films. Director Lee Joon-ik is known primarily for this one, but has a strong resume backing him up (two of his other films have gone onto my watchlist - this is going to be a battle!) This is a historical film - set in the late 15th Century, during the reign of one of the most tyrannical kings of Korea (of which he formed part of an unbroken line of kings which stretch out 500 years in time.) The characters we're introduced to initially though, are a couple of street clowns - Jang-saeng (Kam Woo-sung) and the feminine Gong-gil (Lee Joon-gi), who usually plays the part of women in the various situations they act out.

So - I wish to give nothing of importance away - they (and a bunch of other performers) obviously come into contact with the notorious king. It's a situation fraught with danger (they at first stake their lives on making him laugh - and suffer a moment of terrifying stage fright) and one that will eventually be steeped with intrigue. I was so impressed with actor Jung Jin-young as King Yeonsan - a complex mix of stunted emotional growth and rage. His child-like joy with the performers, and tension-filled attempts to join in on their comedy acts, are pitch perfect in body and voice. Kam Woo-sung and Lee Joon-gi also get everything just right, the former charismatic, and latter delicate and filled with barely concealed emotion. Everyone who lives within the king's orbit has the ever-present strain of knowing he can order them executed for any perceived infraction - and the troupe of comedians win no friends at all amongst those at court. There is one though, that guides the performers in the hope they can open the king's eyes to the corruption in the palace.

There was something of everything for me in The King and the Clown - it has it's very funny moments, and it's hard not to laugh along with the various audiences who watch the shows these performers put on - a blend of acrobatics, comedy and theater. The costumes are of course something else - a very pleasing visual presentation of life in 15th Century Korea. This was adapted from a stage play called "Yi", and the story never let me out of it's grip for a moment - some films make you forget about everything else until they eventually end, and this one was one of those. I also usually enjoy "I Claudius" kinds of royal conspiracy and machination - and there was plenty of that as well. This film was huge in South Korea during 2005 - and I'm going to do my best to make sure anybody who doesn't know about it gets to know about it. At first I was neither looking forward to watching it nor dreading it - I didn't see fun from a first glance. But The King and the Clown is more than fun. It's fairy tale mixed with history and unique South Korean cinematic sensibility. That's a concoction that'll always go on my watchlist.


Glad to catch this one - South Korea's official submission for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The King and the Clown

I marvel at what I can hardly describe. A stop-motion "world" - or perhaps "hell" would be a more accurate description, although I doubt hell would be this much fun to watch. Phil Tippet's project - which had it's genesis 30 years ago and finally came to fruition thanks to the likes of Kickstarter (for shame, but thank goodness) - was worth the wait. A maelstrom of monsters and creatures fallen prey to the likes of mad scientists, sadistic madmen and a dimension full of fire and fury. This world has all of the bad, and none of the good - but is a pure joy to watch. At one stage the character we follow through the first portion of this film steps on a trio of bickering tiny gnome-like creatures (was one of them Santa Claus?) which manages to ease much building apprehension. This isn't misery porn - it's a celebration of pure invention and wonderful creative spirit. It's stop-motion at it's very best, and while dark there's no malice or ill-will involved here. There seems to be a natural order to this very unnatural place.

So, is there a story? Not quite. There's a progression, for sure, but this film is too surreal to describe in any narrative sense. There's as much sense to things as your imagination provides, even for the journey of the redoubtable "assassin" who makes his way through the dangerous levels of this ultimate dystopia. What I loved were the monsters themselves, created by hand and brought to life through stop-motion. The imagination here is on an inspired level, and it's not only what the monsters look like, but what they do and the way they do it - which is invariably horrible, and earns the film's tag as horror. What they do and what we see isn't always logical, but purely surreal and adds to the psychological impact of the place as a whole. There's so much here as well - Mad God is another one of those films I'm going to have to see multiple times, and I'm very much enthused about that.

I can remember reading about Mad God now, when it first came out - and that just goes to show how valuable a watchlist is for keeping in touch with films you hear about and grab your attention. If not for it being on my list, it would have never come up again in my mind - and that would have been a real shame. A subconscious trawl through a dreamscape featuring war, torture, experimentation and one which makes references to God's warning of fire, brimstone and vengeance in Leviticus, you'll find a panacea encoded in our universe's natural tendency for regeneration and creation. It's the driving force of everything (just think of Darren Aronofsky's Mother!) Around the time Phil Tippett won an Oscar for his effects work on Jurassic Park, he figured the days of stop-motion were long over. If this is a clue, it might be around for quite a while yet - there's no surprise to learn that I like it more than CGI.

Glad to catch this one - available to anyone who's currently subscribing to Shudder!




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Mad God

Re: My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

Mad God is really good.

How bizarre! I was just thinking about this film last night and for the life of me I could not come up with the title!

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

Re: My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

Not waiting for any good movie in 2024. I always keep a look in TorrentFreak list of movie.
https://torrentfreak.com/

I became aware of Toshio Matsumoto when I first watched Shura (known variously as Demons, Pandemonium or The Pandemonium), looked him up, and discovered the odd fact that he only ever made 4 feature films. Shura (1971) was fantastic, but the film he's really known for is Funeral Parade of Roses - his 1969 avant-garde experimental movie examining the transgender underground scene in Tokyo. To be fair, I must mention the fact that he made many short films in his lifetime and his artistic output was varied - but that doesn't mean his features aren't some of the best films of all time. I had no idea that I'd be wrestling with something so profound and free-spirited when I started this, although I'd already figured that it'd be something very original and different. At times I was thinking about Alain Resnais film Hiroshima Mon Amour, mainly because of the lyrical, fragmentary way everything comes to us in Roses - where you have to open yourself up to the process and trust that you're feeling what Matsumoto wants you to feel.

Eddie (Shinnosuke Ikehata, aka Peter) is the transvestite protagonist whose life we'll get to know very well in piecemeal fashion throughout Funeral Parade of Roses - sleeping with drug dealer Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya) and meshing with fellow transvestites, the protest scene in Tokyo, a gay bar, art exhibits, a group of filmmakers and life in general. As we see scenes from a kaleidoscopic timeline, the film also steps outside of itself to interview various characters and people in straight documentary fashion - or else it will do something completely out of the blue that reshapes what we've been watching into something new, or in a way that spins us around a dozen or so times, making us dizzy and purposely stirring up the water. For example - a visit to an art gallery has a speaker speaking to an audience (us) directly about the way we all wear masks on top of masks in social situations and the various guises these masks come in. As Eddie examines some of the hideous paintings in the gallery, we see that the speaker is really a tape player, and various ghostly sillhoettes haunt the room. Eddie had run to this place as refuge, and now we're pulsating to some kind of murderous flashback as the score pounds, paintings swirl.

I don't know if it's possible for a person to get all of Funeral Parade of Roses the first time through it, but after a familiarization it opens up to the viewer who might be at first confounded by the film. It's certainly far greater and more assured than I expected. Matsumoto's feature debut seems to be coming from someone who might have been directing features for a lifetime. It uses so many different styles, techniques and ways of communicating ideas that it was a little overwhelming at first. Documentary realism slowly morphs into completely stylized avant-garde experimentation and back again - but always with great purpose and deliberately guided. I wondered throughout how acceptable being a transvestite was for someone living in late '60s Tokyo, and how progressive this was for a Japanese film in many ways. I have to admit that it's a pretty remarkable film all-up, and probably one of the best films I've seen this year (on 2023's second-last day.) Not bad considering Shura was also pretty great. My watchlist viewing schedule has opened with a parade of outstanding features.

Glad to catch this one - #143 on the Letterboxd Top 250 films!




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Funeral Parade of Roses

I feel like I've seen many films like Scum over the years - although the specific institution up for examination here is the average British borstal. A troubled kid would do something wrong, go in this place, and come out a hardened young criminal - there was no reforming done here. Just brutalization. The average citizen would never see what went on there - and as such the BBC's Play for Today program was going to air what director Alan Clarke and scribe Roy Minton put together. It ended up being too much - and was never televised, so the pair had to remake the whole thing (this time with a free hand, so they could show anything they wanted.) Graphic depictions of suicide, rape and violence were rare for British films of that time, but the system was rotten enough to really need exposing. The kids would brutalize the guards, and the guards the kids - and even in the 20th Century there was a kind of medieval feel to the whole place. What gets me most is the cruel attitude most of those in charge have - with absolutely no interest in turning the lives of these boys around.

If you didn't know that the boy called Carlin in this is played by Ray Winstone, you wouldn't guess it. At some stage of his life, Winstone's older gruff look transformed what was once a fresh, smooth-faced kid (closest to us above.) The performances in this - yeah, they're okay. There's only a lot demanded from the kids who lose it in the end. Poor Davis (Julian Firth) and a few others. The institution is racist from the top to the bottom, so darker skinned kids get abuse from both the warders and the white kids. Lord help you then if you're not white. The nature of these indemic faults in the system are apparent in one of the scenes I found to be funny - the 'physical education' or sports scene where the kids are playing some kind of game (it's so out of control it might be basketball or rugby - I couldn't tell) and just start attacking each other and hurting each other with the single aim of winning the ball, ending up in one big scrum. But most of all it's just hate, hate, hate. The warders make no beef about tearing these kids apart psychologically - any way they can.

The worst of it comes during a rape scene that one of the warders witnesses, and then just watches on without doing anything. He even has a slight smirk on his face. Often, when a kid is beat up badly he's the one who is punished, because his bruised, bleeding face proves that he was "fighting" - so you can be assaulted, and then punished after it. That puts the whole system into a nutshell - there's no justice, and no good work being done. Some of these kids can be turned away from criminality, but they're never given the chance, or a second thought. You'd expect to see this in 18th Century Britain, but not in the 1970s - and as such while I hear about reform, I really hope there actually has been some concrete steps taken reform-wise. The film itself is okay. Important even. Although both Ken Loach and Mike Leigh were already working around this time, I'd like to think it's realism influenced the kind of work they went on to do in their careers. Films with a social conscience. Films about reality. Films that help usher in long overdue change.


Glad to catch this one - 7.6/10 from 13k votes on the IMDb, which is a pretty decent rating.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Scum

When I watch my watchlist movies I tend to go in as blind as I can - I've already decided they're movies I really want to see, so there's no reason to screen each movie on the list. Going that route on Joint Security Area, I thought at first glance it looked a little like a mix between war and action. Then I saw who directed it, and went "woah!" Park Chan-wook? Oldboy? Decision to Leave? This wasn't going to be some random action movie. JSA is in fact part mystery, and part reflection on the division between North and South Korea. It starts after there's been an incident at the demarcation point between North and South. Apparently a South Korean soldier was kidnapped, and escaped after killing a couple of North Korean soldiers. The only problem is, everybody has a very different story to tell. Major Sophie E. Jean (Lee Young-ae) is brought in to investigate, and the truth behind this whole occurrence is both stranger and more surprising than anyone could ever have imagined.

This was another excellent movie on the list - it takes a sharp turn away from everything I thought it was going to be, and has at it's core a very touching, meaningful story that also made the whole film very interesting and thought-provoking. It also has some of my favourite South Korean actors in it. Song Kang-ho I'd just enjoyed in movies like Broker, and was also great in Parasite, Snowpiercer, The Host and many others. He must surely be the biggest star they have over there. All of the main players are great in this, and give really genuine traits to their various characters - their humanity rising above their roles as nameless, faceless troops guarding one of the most contentious borders in the world. I'm avoiding the plot - I think anyone who watches this deserves to go in without knowing exactly what happened. The other aspect to the film that really shines is the cinematography - guided by the very inventive eye of the director.

Yes, visually you see flourish after flourish - I think that's one of Park Chan-wook's trademarks, and was something I wasn't expecting in this kind of film (before I knew who made it.) Shots from every kind of angle, transitions that center on a certain shape, object or colour - along with revealing what's beautiful in the ordinary. So overall this was very satisfying - an exploration of what's beneath the uniform, and the tragedy of circumstance that the border between North and South Korea is. It's a rare case of both sides being particularly the same due to the fact that North was separated from South relatively recently. I saw soldiers on the film's poster and thought this would be a film where guns are blazing, and grenades flying through the air. There are brief moments that are explosive, but this movie is more about heart and humanity than war. More mystery than action. Park Chan-wook's first really great film, and his breakthrough. I highly recommend it.

Glad to catch this one - one of Quentin Tarantino's twenty favorite films since 1992.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Joint Security Area

I think nearly all of us watched on and remember the Tham Luang cave rescue in 2018. The seeming impossibility of a successful rescue was such that the cave divers called in from around the world were going to pack up and leave the 13 (12 kids and their soccer coach) in the cave. They were actually going to leave them. You only get a sense of what faced the rescuers when their trip through the cave system in Thailand is detailed step by step - and that's something The Rescue does very well. It maps the space out in 3 dimensions as these cave divers describe the difficulties that can be faced (and were faced) - difficulties I'd never be able to face. Claustrophobic, I'd panic even before I got into the water. The very idea of cave diving scares me - as does exploring cave systems where there's not much room to wriggle through elongated passages. If I stop and think about it for a moment, I feel the stress rising just through visualization. Getting stuck in a narrow passage deep down, and not being able to wriggle out, is pure horror - and I'd lose it.

Even though this event didn't happen all that long ago, there's already half a dozen documentaries and feature films made about it. Most notable is 2022 feature Thirteen Lives, which I actually saw before The Rescue. Which is better? I think The Rescue manages to make the whole process feel more tense, and much more connected to the real world without film stars such as Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton and Tom Bateman being shoved in our faces. I'm far too conscious of who I'm watching in that case, and can't immerse myself to the degree I'd ordinarily be able to do. Real footage of the drama also helps to a very great degree. There are details that don't fit easily into a scripted film - details that can much more easily be provided to an audience through the direct words of those involved. All of it combines to make this the preferred choice in my estimation, for bringing this specific story to us. The world's media descended on the place, and there's not much that wasn't recorded - and this doc also makes use of various news broadcasts.

So, a good documentary? Yes - a cut above the average one, and it seems Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin have made a habit of making above average chronicles of the notable and interesting, along with directing feature film Nyad which came out recently. A husband and wife team making movies and doing so to some acclaim - sounds so nice. So, why were none of the boys interviewed? That was my first question, and the answer I hunted down pertains to Netflix scooping their stories up and signing them on to some kind of exclusivity. Kudos to this filmmaking pair for making a great film while being hamstrung like that. The footage they managed to procure from the Thai Navy Seals ended up helping a lot - and what they didn't have they recreated. Added to all of that, the pacing in this is absolutely perfect. Adds up to the best telling of an already oft-told story. In a competitive industry, Elizabeth and Jimmy came out on top with The Rescue I think.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for a BAFTA for Best Documentary 2022.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Joint Security Area

Okay, so here we are with Eskil Vogt - the guy who wrote the screenplay to such films as The Worst Person in the World (and quite a few other significant Joachim Trier movies) along with writing and directing 2021 must-see The Innocents (which I've yet to see.) Blind was his directorial debut, and features Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) - a writer who has recently become totally blind. We pretty much experience everything from the point of view of her mind - and that's not to say the screen is black or anything. It's her imagination that still fires away while her eyes fail to see what's in front of her. She sees in her dreams, and she spends much time visualizing objects. She keeps on getting the feeling that her husband is slipping into the apartment unannounced, and spying on her. Her psychological struggle is the frame through which we see everything. In other words, if we're watching her husband in the apartment, he's probably not actually there.

Ingrid introduces characters to this story free from any basis from which we can see how they relate to her. They are players who give voice to her anxieties, fears and live out in the world that she's completely retreated from. Her fear is understandable, and there are moments when you see Ingrid stumble around outside and nearly get cleaned up by a bus - which are moments that are probably part of her imagination as well. I'm slow to catch on, so as we watch these characters and situations I'm thinking, "Oookay, and this person/moment will become part of a narrative whole at some stage?" without realising what we're watching (until it's explicitly pointed out to me.) It's not all as straightforward as that, and I give the movie kudos for allowing everything time to breathe before we see everything cohere cleanly and neatly. What's important is how everything is skewed and coloured by Ingrid's psychological state.

How did I like it? There's a free easiness to Scandinavian films that's really different - whether it's sex, shyness, or a disability - there's no holding back, and an assured confidence. It's almost like I should make a psychological adjustment myself before watching one. As it is, Blind is the kind of film where I'm thinking "Okay. This is, okay" while watching it, but turning around and thinking, "That was really, really good!" when reflecting on the movie as a whole, after it's finished. This is a really scrambled movie story-wise - threads that are real and only imaginary flitter through our consciousness, and as such I figured this was much more of a mood picture. As far as providing insight though, to everything that Vogt tries and wants to express, the movie does really well and should be considered a very nice addition to that collection of films he and Joachim Trier are sending out to much acclaim. I am generally a fan of everything they've lent their intellect and filmmaking prowess to.

Glad to catch this one - winner of the Best Screenwriting Award at Sundance, 2014.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Blind

As it was the first to turn up on my watchlist, the first of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki's films I get to see is The Match Factory Girl - and as such I'm really excited to have an entire oeuvre to rip into. This film is simple - and almost minimalist, but also one of those films where each quiet scene, and even shot, has a lot to say about it's impoverished characters and desperately lonely protagonist. It's also a very quiet movie - the various songs we hear do a lot of the talking, and after a few scenes I was wondering if it was going to be silent. A tidbit from the IMDb tells us that "Although being in nearly every scene, the protagonist does not speak until the 25-minute mark in the film." I'd argue that we learn more when a movie is like this, because as an audience watching on in anticipation - hungry for information - we pick up on every little bit of body language, composition, music, sound and detail.

Iris (Kati Outinen) works in a match factory (I bet you figured that out already) and gives most of her earnings to her distant, cold mother and stern step-father. She goes to dances in the hope of romance, but is rarely asked to partner anyone on the dance floor. Her treatment, when she does manage to become a part of someone's life, is shockingly cynical, rude and dismissive - even when she has good cause to need a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. As such, she decides on an overwhelmingly dark response to all of those who have made her life so miserably disappointing and empty. The film only goes for 69 minutes, and as such I mean it as a compliment when I say I was really wishing for more - I didn't want The Match Factory Girl to end, because Kaurismäki is a virtuoso behind the camera, and guides his performers and composes his shots to make every moment in this really stick.

I've mentioned it once already, but it's worth exploring in more detail how Kaurismäki has managed to insert diegetic songs into the film which have such a bearing on where the story is and how the characters are feeling or thinking - especially in a movie where the characters say so little to each other. I've seen filmmakers do this often enough, but not for a film's entirety like this. Anyway, one other thing to reiterate is how psyched I am now to watch all of this guy's movies. The title is a play on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Little Match Girl" - another story with an impoverished, lonely girl related to unloving parents whose fate is a lonely, cold and thankless one. Kati Outinen (who Kaurismäki seems to have called on repeatedly in his films) is absolutely fantastic in her role - the movie has it's focus so intently zeroed in on her that the entire film's fate was in her hands performance-wise. It's well worth seeing - indeed, essential I think.

Glad to catch this one - included on Roger Ebert's list of "Great Movies".




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Match Factory Girl!

* One thing I have to mention, even though it really has nothing much to do with the film per se, is how surprised I am that the brother of Iris in this (played by Silu Seppälä) isn't actually her brother in real life - because they look like identical twins. It's not really worth bringing up in the review, but I was so surprised by their likeness that I become convinced they must be brother and sister.

I remember reading about Luis Buñuel's Mexican period, and he made this film smack-dab in the middle of that particular era for him. I have to say, that this is a fantastically grim piece - taking place in the poorest of poor areas where kids run wild. Where they steal what they can or else starve. Not that anyone is looked upon in too sympathetic a manner. These kids beat up old blind men, and smash their belongings while also robbing defenseless cripples, leaving them on the pavement dazed and bleeding. I guess the above quote, spoken when one of the kids is shot by police (wanted for murder) is enough of a clue as to this one's tone. The IMDb's trivia section tells us that "When it was released in Mexico in 1950, its theatrical commercial run only lasted for three days due to the enraged reactions from the press, government, and upper and middle class audiences." Wow. Some people would prefer not to see what's going on, and insist on seeing happy tales of redemption and reform, lest they feel too guilty.

If you have enough resilience to see these filthy kids (literally filthy I mean) scrape through their days, falling prey to hopeless circumstance, then you'll probably never see a film as unsparing but dignified in it's tone and purpose. Some people are worse than others, but there are no angels or devils here in the poverty-stricken slum this is set in - although the one boy who has returned from being locked up, "El Jaibo" (Roberto Cobo), has been criminalized. That's something that our modern society has been so slow to learn - how locking people up together with no thought to reform just turns them into more hardened and committed lawbreakers. El Jaibo goes on to kill the kid who ratted on him - a crime that has far-reaching consequences for a few of the gang he runs with. I was amused and gladdened though, that Buñuel still manages to insert a moment of surrealism in this when Pedro (Alfonso Mejía) has a bad dream.

This was another great film - a classic that I'm probably underrating. It's just, I'm not used to watching so many great films together, and instead of the generality of films I'm starting to rate them against each other instead. I do recognize it as something special however - this film never slackens in it's pace, keeping us a little keyed up because of the constant danger and never-ending chance that something will happen suddenly. I spotted how much of an Italian neorealist tone it had because the sun, dust and outdoor settings made me think of films like Bicycle Thieves (not to mention the gang of kids that maraud in Rome, Open City) - but I wasn't confident enough within myself to be sure of that observation. It has a lot of well-written characters, all with their own problems and kind of moral ambiguity that comes with how impossible some problems are to solve. One of those movies that really feels like it's "alive", I liked Los olvidados a great deal and think it's terrible if people protested against it. It's passionate - and withholds none of the terrible truth, awful actions and despair we all need to be aware of if we're to progress to a more egalitarian and evolved society one day in the far, far future.

Glad to catch this one - placed at #110 in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films ever made. Ranked #2 in the list of the Best 100 Mexican films of all time according to 25 cinema critics (1994/2020)




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Young and the Damned.

I had a feeling you'd enjoy Match Factory Girl.

The surrealism we associate with Luis Buñuel is evident in The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz - which is about a would-be murderer, the titular Archibaldo (Ernesto Alonso) whose victims all die before he gets a chance to kill them. Archibaldo, correctly I'd reckon, thinks of himself as a criminal and murderer - because if these women hadn't of died by other causes, he would have killed them. His plans were in the act of being carried out. Those in authority however, proclaim his innocence - because you can't be convicted on future intentions alone. This protagonist is wealthy and pampered, which lends him a very soft, ineffectual air, further rubbed in by the fact he's frequently rejected by many of the women he meets in the movie. Buñuel constantly snipes at the upper classes - at one stage having Archibaldo's parents complain that the bloody Mexican revolution is delaying their trip to the opera. I love the weirdness which frequently rears up out of the screen.

I remember being surprised to learn that Buñuel had made some films which weren't out-and-out surrealist, freaky features - most of the films I first watched, like The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie were full-on. This has a definite edge to it - although most scenes play out pretty much how they would in real life. Apart from hallucinogenic moments and the bizarre and extreme coincidence that these people die when they're about to be murdered, the characters themselves drive the off-kilter properties of the film. For example, when Archibaldo fails to kill new acquaintance Lavinia (Miroslava Stern) he takes the mannequin based on her likeness and burns it in his kiln while he watches on in sadistic glee. Occasionally, during moments when our protagonist's sanity is tested, the film is accompanied by the quirky tune Archibaldo's music box makes - a childhood relic which he once believed had the power to magically kill anyone he wished, thus revealing to him the feeling of power and mastery that brings.

This movie really surprised me - it's rather twisted for a feature made during the 1950s, regardless of the fact it was made in Mexico (I hear the Mexicans wanted Buñuel to make more normal, melodramatic films.) There's a serial killer vibe I'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere during this time period. It also clearly defines a personality type I'd rarely see as well - the resentful, stunted and sexually conflicted man-child whose success in life entirely depends on the money he inherited from his parents. I wonder what audiences thought of this when they saw it! Archibaldo's obsessive desire and constant rejection would show up as features we'd see in many of the notorious killers humanity has had to confront, which makes The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz a fascinating peek into how they were perceived mid-century. The fact that he's a completely ineffectual killer brings him to an ideal state that nevertheless means he's free to walk amongst us, despite being exactly the same as the monsters who succeeded in their aims. A freaky cinematic treat, which manages to be very enjoyable despite it's ultra-dark subject material.

Glad to catch this one - I've now seen 7 of Luis Buñuel's films.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz.

Pickup on South Street is one of my all-time favorites. Great story, great lead and supporting characters.

No metaphysics, no humanity, no transcendence, etc., great story yep but I require my favs to have much more than just a great story and characters. Of course Thelma Ritter is godsend but thats not enough.

Looking through Samuel Fuller's filmography, I notice that I haven't seen many of his films. In fact, before this, The Big Red One looks to be it - although a lifetime ago I saw White Dog on video as a kid. Pickup on South Street is one that's very much a sharpened point of a movie. Wallet lifter Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) picks the wrong pocket (or perhaps the right pocket) one day on the New York City Subway, ending up with a piece of microfilm that was headed towards communist information gatherers - and when it's missing both the peddlers of the info and the agents who were trying to nab them attempt to find him and shake him down. Candy (Jean Peters), whose purse was picked, tries various tricks and methods, but Skip is street smart - even the cops find it hard pinning anything on him. When Candy starts falling for Skip, the sudden danger that develops (with deadly force now on the table) leads to the Stoolie everyone has depended on, Moe (Thelma Ritter), losing her head and Candy becomes desperate to save the man she's only just fell in love with.

Skip McCoy is one of the greyest of grey characters I've seen in a 1950s film. Painted black from the outset, this sneering, arrogant and boisterous thief - who seems completely irredeemable at first - slowly melts under the intensity of Jean Peter's simmering heat. It's impossible to forget Widmark's wild performance when thinking about the film, but it was Thelma Ritter who gained another shot at glory, being nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar (she'd be nominated for an Oscar six times, never to win.) She has such an easy presence that it's simple to understand why she was a magnet for nominations, and it's interesting to see that charisma brought to bear in a role where she's basically a crook. She gets what is probably the best scene of the film - facing death in brave but heartbreaking circumstances. Being noir, the hard edge that all of this brings is what makes each unfolding scene exciting. It's also hard to predict what's going to happen with these characters and the fast-paced storyline - I was honestly pretty surprised with how this ends, considering what I've learned about the film industry in the 50s.

So, another film noir classic during my film noir cram session - a genre that has grown on me, and one that makes sojourns back to the 1950s a rich and rewarding experience. It makes Pickup on South Street a visually interesting experience - with all it's close-ups, shadow and Widmark's leering visage - (he gets to try out a whole variety of swaggering, haughty and always amused facial expressions.) It marks an entry in the subcategory "Cold War noir", which I imagine would have been pretty divisive in the industry, considering Cold War paranoia was about to send so many great screenwriters and filmmakers into blacklisted exile. This allowed for an interesting twist on proceedings - a bunch of petty crooks become our heroes in this violent and edgy entry into a dark genre. It's a vague threat they face, but it's the redemption of our main characters which draws our focus, and the threat could have been anything to achieve the same aims. I enjoyed Pickup on South Street to the hilt anyway - it's a dark, lean straight-to-it film noir classic which I'll add to my Criterion collection.

Glad to catch this one - #224 in the Criterion collection and included in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Pickup on South Street.

El Sur would have been so much easier to talk about if I hadn't of done any extracurricular research and found out that it's basically an "unfinished" film - Víctor Erice intended the film to go for another 90 minutes, and bemoans the fact that funding was cut before he could complete the project as he envisioned it. Before finding that out, I was absolutely enchanted by this film about childhood and the painful discoveries we make about our parents not being the Gods we think they are when we're small. I'm going to have to read the novella to find out what happened when main character Estrella (Icíar Bollaín plays the teenage version) decides to travel to the south of Spain, where her father comes from - and the place he was forced to leave, leaving the love of his life behind. Estrella has a perfect kind of childhood until she discovers how unhappy her father really is, and the fact that he pines for someone other than her mother.

Taken by itself, this is a really great film - it embeds us in childhood, as the camera follows the narration we get, describing in detail childish attitudes and awakening understandings. It does end at a peculiar moment for a film to end, but I thought this was very deliberate and kind of an excellent place to finish off - with Estrella on the verge of leaving her childhood behind forever. It's another Spanish film which has their civil war looming in the background - a menace that has altered the lives of everyone there, with the added specter of General Franco - who had only died 8 years before this film was made. But the anguish is a quiet one which every character carries around with them without letting it out. It's funny how the drama that causes all of the misery is left far away - unexplored in every sense of the word. It kind of makes this all the more interesting, and perhaps would be considered an inspired choice if it hadn't of been forced on Erice by happenstance.

So yeah - I absolutely loved this film when it ended, but was deeply troubled when I found out it was an incomplete one. I wish I could forget that information. I also have Víctor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive on my watchlist, but I think I'll get to it before I actually get up to it otherwise it'll be years before I see it. I intend to read the novella that El Sur was based on, but not without some trepidation (it might make the fact that this film is unfinished all the more evident.) I really wish Estrella's father had of just been open with her - although I can understand the reticence, because if he had of been open it might have damaged their relationship irreparably. Still - what he ended up doing was worse than that. I haven't seen too many films that capture the feeling of childhood much better than El Sur - or at least, the dark corners within which there is joy tinged with a great deal of pain when looked upon with older eyes. I hope I can come to terms with the fact that this perfect movie was meant to be much longer - and thus could possibly be accidentally brilliant.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #927 .




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch El Sur.

The version of The Round-Up that I watched was really shabby - the resolution so poor that it was hard reading the subititles even. It brought me to the conclusion that it was unfair to rate it as I saw it, so I'm leaving it on my watchlist until I can find a better copy. I reckon it might have deserved a rewatch in any event - because I found the film demands some historical knowledge about what's happening. It's not about to spoon feed the viewer, and as such watching a fuzzy version of a film in which I'm lacking the requisite knowledge to know exactly what's going on is a miserable viewing experience. Not a great film to go into completely blind - but I have a feeling I might really like it the next time around. Any American website it's streaming on I cannot access, but I'll find it eventually and review it properly.

There are some films where I'm still thinking "What am I going to say about this? What did I even think of it?" as the time rolls around to say something about it. Overall, my feelings for Titane are positive though. I like body horror's capacity to make us feel this or that character's pain in a film - and that's what Titane does particularly well. No matter if it's main character Alexia's pinched discomfort hiding her breasts while pretending to be a young man, or her major agony as a metallic monstrosity grows in her womb, we really feel every bit of it through Agathe Rousselle's excellent performance and the make-up effects combined with visual effects. Because of this, and despite the fact that Alexia is a full-blown serial killer, we kind of feel for her. We see her broken in the film's opening scene when her high-strung father crashes the car while she's climbing about on the seats - having a titanium plate inserted into her skull is just the start of her physical transformation, and we notice the psychological aspect when she ignores her parents and shows physical affection to the car.

Now, Titane isn't the kind of film that will hold back when it comes to an imaginatively unreal narrative in saying what it wants to say. I mean, a car impregnates Alexia one night, just after she brutally murders one of her fans (who, of course, was asking for it.) It won't hold back as far as far as making us uncomfortable goes either (I couldn't count how many times I impored Alexia to see a doctor) - I mean, she sticks herself with rods and they come out covered in black oil as if she's just doing the rounds at a service station. There are scenes like the one where she has to break her own nose so as to fool people as to her identity. How would you break your own nose? It can't be easy - and it isn't here. I had to tell myself to let go of all the fabric scrunched in my fists when that scene ended. So - if you find that kind of thing fun then I guess you'll have a ball here, and Alexia isn't the only lost soul we'll meet. Vincent (Vincent Lindon) takes on Alexia, fooled into believing it's his long lost son, and underneath his fierce exterior is a foundering inner turmoil.

All up a pretty interesting film about human connection, love and technology/titanium steel's part in soothing our lack of deeply satisfying person to person contact. What are we becoming? Everything we touch blends into our beings - and fuses into our DNA. Titane is ferocious in it's answer and illustration of those questions, and seeks to do this using a fatally flawed, desperate survivor who seeks refuge with someone equally lost. Love can be found in the most unlikely of places. A cocoon from which something new can be born. It was the big winner at Cannes, taking home the Palme d'Or in 2021, despite it's lean towards horror. I'd say that people would be less inclined to take it really seriously the more horror that's in it (unless David Cronenberg is making it - but this is a very Cronenberg-like film.) Horror can tell us a lot though, as here. A good one this. I was consistently unaware of which direction the film was about to go in, which is something I value a lot in a movie. Lots of pain, and blood (and oil) - and lots to think about.

Glad to catch this one - Like I said, it won the Palme d'Or!




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Titane.

Watch more Fuller.


Watch all Fuller.


(Actually, no, skip Shark!)

Apparently I watched El Sur last year.


Who knew? Definitely not me.

And the Round Up is good. I imagine I suffered through the same bad copy you did though. I have lots of bad copies of good movies, and clearly no standards

Shit, you watched Bunuels Criminal Life of.... as well recently.


You're doing all the good overlooked stuff.

EDIT: And Scum too!

Jancso is someone I need to ge ti to, haven’t seen any of his films yet. That’s pretty much something I can say about most of Hungary’s films, of course. Maybe soon.

It all starts with Jack Elam - and I rarely get to see Jack Elam (the last time was during a Twilight Zone Hall of Fame a little over 2 years ago), so I was immediately grabbed by Kansas City Confidential. Elam plays Pete Harris - one of a four man crew who rob an armored car while it's picking up money from a bank. It's "perfect crime" stuff, with none of the three men recruited knowing each other, and all wearing masks. The patsy - our protagonist - is Joe Rolfe (John Payne), who works as a florist and drives the same florist delivery van that the robbers duplicate and use as a getaway car. That means the cops are at first sure that Rolfe, an ex-con, has something to do with the crime. By the time they figure out otherwise, Rolfe has lost his job and had his reputation smeared in all the papers. He's fuming, and makes it his life purpose to find out who framed him so he can deliver justice - and maybe, a get piece of the loot.

One of the things I liked about Kansas City Confidential was that at a certain point the game changes as a surprise reveal alters the playing field as far as whos who and what the score is. The other surprise is how capable Rolfe is and how bumbling the various crooks are compared to him - one of whom is played by a young Lee Van Cleef. Rolfe is often disarming them, much like Bogart's Sam Spade did to all and sundry in The Maltese Falcon. Shoehorned in is, of course, a love interest for Rolfe - Helen Foster (Coleen Gray) is the daughter of one of the major players, and falling for her is obviously going to complicate matters for everyone. It's rough and tumble was one of the inspirations Quentin Tarantino had for one of my favourite films of all time - Reservoir Dogs. It exudes that testosterone-fuelled "Rififi" menace, with most scenes involving some kind of deadly threat or vice one of the characters can't get enough of. You can almost smell the sweat and the metallic tang the plethora of guns everyone has is giving off.

I thought the story itself went on to tread water for the final third of the film - it spends that time building tension and gaining traction for the love interest, but I missed what was so great about the first two-thirds, which was the way the story advanced and morphed as it went. For a while nothing new is gleaned, and there's a series of confrontations and "getting to know you" moments that continue up until the climax we all know is coming. By that time however, I'd gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Kansas City Confidential, with it's gritty noir atmosphere and some powerful music by Paul Sawtell, whose exclamatory musical moments feel like gunshots and car crashes. A noir with Jack Elam in it (even playing a small part) is something I must see, especially with a film noir countdown in the offing soon. The best part of the film is the central plot point I won't mention - an excellent plan, and one which I kind of wonder hasn't been tried in real life. When the film starts it tells us it's based on a real event, but the way it does that makes you immediately suspicious of such a claim. A really cool addition to the genre of noir that's really bristly and pugnacious.

Glad to catch this one - it's in the public domain, roaming free.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Kansas City Confidential.

It's been quite an opening few weeks. If the whole year turns out like this then wow.

Wistfully downbeat, Scarecrow manages to slowly and evenly pace out the foundations of a loving friendship from it's inception - an unlikely one between the paranoid, gruff and violent Max Millan (Gene Hackman) and softer, playful funny guy Francis Lionel Delbuchi (Al Pacino). It's a road trip movie without ready transportation as Max and 'Lion' hitchhike their way across the United States. For Lion it's to see the kid he's never even met, and for Max a dream of opening a car wash business in Pittsburgh. What constantly threatens to derail the whole enterprise is Max's propensity to get into fights and take his side too far - he's already spent 6 years in prison for hurting someone, but what Lion brings to this coupling is a tendency to soften Max's view of the world, and bring him to a more happy place. Their meeting is what kicks off the movie, and Max is the kind of guy that needs constant work on Lion's part to get through those outer defenses. Max's barbs and insults are like water off a duck's back to him, and he's not easily turned away.

Well, this is one of those films that would have truly disappeared into obscurity never to return if it weren't for some beautiful work by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (who I know from Altman films McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images and The Long Goodbye) and brilliant dual performances from Pacino and Hackman. The screenplay isn't up to all that much, but the chemistry the two leads build with their characters managed to truly touch me, and I have to admit the film gets gritty and brave when it comes time for both Max and Lion to spend a few months in prison - the less physically forthright Lion beat up pretty badly in an attempted rape. It's a moment when Max's dam wall really breaks, and his protective instincts take the friendship to a new level. More powerful scenes of that nature could have elevated this film, but that coupled with quite an ending provide some counterpoints to it's occasional drift. Apparently the acting methods of Hackman and Pacino clashed - but you'd never guess that from watching the movie.

I kind of feel a little incredulous that I'd never heard of this film before - despite the fact that it was a box office flop. Another Cannes top award winner as well, taking home the Palme d'Or equivalent (the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film - I see why they changed the name.) So, all up, a movie that you have to have a look at if you're all about the great actors giving "at their peak" performances, and cinema itself. Gene Hackman pointed to this one as his personal favourites performance-wise, and this was a guy with a great body of work behind him. Anyway - my take is a growing awareness of a certain slow sift upwards of films that had very short lives at the box office, but are very slowly gaining the appreciation they either never got or was not due to them at the time, because the film didn't mesh with the age it was released in. Films no longer disappear into voids - and it's strange thinking that they once did (apart from the occasional showing on television) once they stopped playing. This is another that I intend to casually drop into conversations so word spreads - Scarecrow is very much worth seeing.


Glad to catch this one - another Cannes top prize winner.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Scarecrow.

God help those who have brothers like Osman (Erol Taş) - he works his plot of land with Hasan (Ulvi Dogan), and being the older brother gets to dictate how everything operates. When he decides to prevent the water's natural progression from his property to the land below - denying all of those farmers the precious water they need while he gets it all - all Hasan can do is lodge a protest, and try to convince him not to go that route. Young Hasan has just married Bahar (Hülya Koçyiğit) - who Osman lusts after - and when the latter accidentally kills an unhappy marauder on his property he convinces Hasan to take the blame - leading to him getting an 8 year prison sentence. Once gone, there's nobody left to temper Hasan's worst impulses and inclinations. Quite the tale about greed, honor, community and this moral lesson : just because something is within your legal rights and boundaries doesn't mean you should just go ahead and do what you want despite the implications.

Metin Erksan had me where he wanted me - my lord, I hated Osman. Dry Summer is just an endless procession of scenes which prove how awful the man is. As soon as his younger brother gets married, Osman wastes no time making a hole in the wall so he can watch them both make love. His worst act though is coming up for the reasoning for diverting the water - the spring is on his land so all the water is his. He's too dim-witted to understand that if he goes to such extreme measures he'll never again endure any kind of peace or good standing within the community. All of the senseless tragedy that occurs in this film does so because of his decision, and the fact that no matter what he won't be diverted from his insistence on it. I found this all made for a very nice analogy concerning nations and especially corporations. Many corporations do things that are morally reprehensible, but because they're within their legal rights they consider any course of action "okay" - and justify it by claiming that it's a dog eat dog, savage corporate world and they must do whatever it takes to maximise profits.

Dry Summer is a very easy film to watch because of it's very basic moral story. I thought the performances from Erol Taş and Hülya Koçyiğit were excellent - Osman is a very hard character to sell, but Taş makes him utterly believable in a boorish, primal manner. The cinematography was much better than what I was expecting from a Turkish film made in the 1960s, but apparently the 60s was something of a heyday and peak for Turkish cinema, Dry Summer being the key film which is at the top of most lists of great Turkish films of the period. I'd been watching quite a bit of avant-garde stuff, so it's nice to come back to very elemental storytelling - especially if it's making an agreeable point. One last take-away : I'm not so sure of the wisdom concerning a culture where the oldest brother gets to basically dictate matters to the younger ones - and this is a great example of how that tradition can go awry. Sometimes, you simply have to mutiny - even if it's in-family. There's no way I'd have taken an 8 year jail sentence for something my brother did while acting like a jerk.

Glad to catch this one - Golden Bear winner at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Dry Summer.

Wow - that was a surprise. A film noir directed with incredible panache by Nicholas Ray that features one of Humphrey Bogart's finest ever performances, and I don't think I'd ever even heard of it before. Like the best of it's kind, it gave me that special kind of feeling the moment it ended - a mixture of sadness and shock mixed with excitement and supreme satisfaction. Bogart plays screenwriter Dixon Steele, accused of murdering a girl he had over at his apartment one night, and given an alibi by neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), who saw the girl leave his apartment alone (and alive.) The film keeps the door open as to whether Steele really did have something to do with her murder, but what's certain is that this is a troubled man. Talk about methods of murder excites him, and he explodes into violence at the slightest provocation. When Steele and Laurel fall in love, the former starts to work again after a long hiatus - but the latter has yet to witness the terrifying change of personality that occurs when he's angered.

It's refreshing to see a film that wants to examine violence in a serious and meaningful way. So many are forced to excuse it because of it's essential necessity as part of the conflict in a story - with protagonists forced to depend on it. Here it's senseless - much like road rage, which I was thinking about quite a bit during the film. Steele's first moment of anger comes early in the film, while he's in his car waiting at the lights and gets into an altercation for talking to a jealous man's wife. Later he takes out his fury on a motorist he swipes while rage-driving, where all sense of proportion is lost and he nearly takes to the man with a rock he picks up on the side of the road. It looks primal and savage - like Bogart has suddenly become a cave man in some paleolithic era exhibit. That along with the possibility he murdered that girl has poor Laurel's internal alarm triggered - exacerbated when Steele starts pressuring her into huge decisions like marriage. Steele's disintegration is terrible to sit through, but we can't look away.

I read that Humphrey Bogart came closest to presenting his real-life persona on film as he ever did in this feature - which is both sad and a little unnerving. So many have that kind of rage trigger in them (and I think the number could possibly be halved if they stopped drinking.) Here we see it poison a love story still at the height of it's honeymoon phase, adding extra weight to the "did he kill that girl?" question which would probably have been dismissed if he didn't seem like the guy that'd do it. But overall, I found In a Lonely Place to be a tremendously gripping movie, and one that forged it's own way forward without relying on clichés or formulas. Loads of talent both in front of and behind the cameras, and a frightening intensity in Humphrey Bogart's performance. I'm all too happy to add it to the pile of films that are new favourites of mine, reminding myself to drop the odd, "Have you seen In an Lonely Place?" into conversations as if I've known about it all my life. Absolute masterpiece.


So glad to catch this one - Criterion number 810 and included in Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch In a Lonely Place.

I think that In a Lonely Place does really interesting things with the trope of a love story where it sort of hinges on whether one of the people murdered someone.

This movie dares to say, "If someone seems like they might have killed someone, maybe don't, like, become intimate with them?"

I bought this movie when I was 17, and decades later, even fans of Pacino and Hackman haven't heard of this movie. It's too bad. I would have thought after Hackman winning his 2nd Oscar, Pacino being in "The Godfather" and in retrospect, this would be more popular, because it's a nice independent movie with a lot of the gritty realism of the 70s.

Here is a film you simply can't seperate from the year it was made in - 1963, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was still fresh in everyone's mind (interesting to note that those "duck and cover" civil defense videos for kids were made in the early 1950s - I thought they came out around the same time.) Yeah - Ladybug. Fly away home. Your house is on fire. Or at least, the "nuclear attack is imminent" alarm has gone off, and the teachers at a secluded countryside elementary school aren't quite sure what to do. For me, they're all a little too lax for my liking - but I know that this is a movie, and that anything is possible (the more dramatic, the more probable) so excuse my paranoia. In the end there's nothing to do but go through all the steps put in place, and carry out what everyone has practiced during all the drills. This involves walking all of the students home so they can bunker down in their various bomb shelters and cellars. It feels crazy to be thinking "This might be it." It might be the end of life as we've always known it.

Now, I know I usually go through the films on my watchlist particularly blind - that's the way I like it, and seeing as though I put them there at some unknown time in the past for a long forgotten reason, I'm often completely clueless as to what's coming. Bar, that is, for an occasional odd sneaky look at a synopsis - and often an eyeful of a letterboxd banner still. The still for Ladybug Ladybug features a teacher leading her children along a peaceful country road (and the poster also alludes to the same.) So, obviously this isn't about fire, fury, survival and radiation sickness - it's about that uncertain walk home. Are bombs on their way? What will happen? All the kids process this in very different ways - but the one thing we can be certain about is that this long drawn out cold war tension has had an effect on them. The movie is based on a real event - an incident at a California elementary school during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis on which an article had been published in McCall's magazine. Despite happening over 60 years ago, it's still interesting to consider.

Although Ladybug Ladybug only goes for 82 minutes, the constant drumbeat speculation of the kids and their worried teacher can drag a little at times (are we there yet?), although that's eased a little when we follow one home and see how this or that one adapts. Overall, I can't see this as a film I'd return to multiple times. Still, for the most part it grabbed me, and I think it was a particularly noble attempt to make people take notice of what the cold war was doing to the kids who knew - in a general kind of way - what would happen if the Soviet Union and United States kicked off an exchange of their immense firepower. The tight close-in cinematography and some decent child performances help make this film from Frank and Eleanor Perry hit it's mark pretty much spot on. It also does a good job at making us uncertain as to whether the alarm is real or not. Radio broadcasts continue as if nothing is amiss...but, is that because there's nothing wrong, or because they've incorrectly assumed a true alarm is a false one? Like, say, being tested for cancer - you can't really relax until you know 100% that the prognosis is negative. Just - don't hide in a 1960s refrigerator. Please.

Glad to catch this one - the least seen film from my watchlist so far.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Ladybug Ladybug.

You've been watching many of my 10/10s lately (or close to it)... One thing I also loved about "Ladybug, Ladybug" is how the narrative is seen through the children's eyes, and how they develop a hierarchy for power.. "This is MY shelter", etc etc..

You just made me realise how Ladybug Ladybug and the other film I watched, Monos (which I didn't really cover here) fit together - Monos was about child soldiers, and as such it was another film from a kid's perspective. Kids are great rule-setters as well. Whatever situation they find themselves in, one of the first things done is a setting of rules, job-assignments and boundaries.

I very well may have heard of some of these films from you!

I had a feeling Memoria was going to test me a little, but I gave it my patience and it ended up being a mix of furnishings and essence which really did something for me, and placid fabric that wasn't quite my kind of jazz. Like most cinema of it's ilk though, I'm drawn to it's mysteries - and with arthouse movies these days, I'm into almost anything as long as it's expressive. This one threw me a little at first, because for what turns out to be such a surrealist slice of life it begins in a fairly standard kind of way apart from the moments devoted to "that noise", which come across as if Memoria is about a haunting - and I guess it is in a kind of way. So I was perplexed as to whether this was just going to swim around in a realist kind of way or get freaky. It gets freaky, but eases us in as if acclimatizing us to the philosophical scope which is an unusual side-effect of Jessica Holland's (Tilda Swinton) tinnitus.

Memoria is surreal in it's words and thinking - if it were playing and somebody wasn't paying attention they'd never guess it was anything less than an extremely slow drama where nothing much really happens. Perhaps that's why Apichatpong Weerasethakul never wanted to release the film on any streaming platforms or DVD/Blu-Ray - you have to focus and be on it's wavelength, or else it will almost literally be nothing to you. I wonder now why Neon backtracked and did end up releasing it - but I'm glad they did. I don't need any lifelong frustrations about movies I missed during their theatrical runs, even if I do eventually get to see illegal bootleg recordings of them. (I'm still waiting for VR cinemas at home.) Anyway, I concede that many films can lose a little something once seen at home, and Memoria is one I'd say rates highly on that scale because it would have been the perfect place to hear that sound. Fomp!

I kept on thinking of the title The Woman Who Fell to Earth while watching Memoria, and if you need some kind of description of the film's vibe, that's my best approximation. She's just involved in some kind of flower business, and visits various people while in Columbia - including her sister in hospital, a sound engineer to help pinpoint the exact sound she keeps hearing, a paleontologist excavating land that has ancient humans buried in it, a doctor, and a whole variety of strangers. Her discussions with these people do their own kind of excavating, and are much more free-form and searching than your regular garden variety conversations are. The final scene (which is a really, really long scene) is what really transfixed me, and as such I left feeling like the experience had been really uneven for me. That makes it really hard to rate. It didn't work perfectly, but there was so much in this I thought exceptional.

Glad to catch this one - won the Jury prize at Cannes in 2021, and was Columbia's entry for possible nomination at the 94th Academy Awards.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Memoria.

The Brand New Testament's brand of humour didn't mesh with me, and since it goes really hard at it, I didn't have a very good experience with this movie. The idea behind the film is really great though. God is real, and is in fact an overbearing schlub (played by Benoît Poelvoorde) who lives in a spartan apartment in Brussels. He sits at his computer and makes up new universal rules such as "bread always falls on the floor in a jam-down position" and "the person you love the most will be the one you don't end up with" - but one day his put upon daughter, Ea (Pili Groyne) sneaks into his computer room, and sends everybody their "date and time of death" - so people end up living with a renewed sense of freedom, knowing that whatever they do, it won't matter since their death has already be pre-ordained. Therefore God's one purpose in life - to make our lives hard - is thwarted. Ea then escapes the apartment to gather 6 new apostles to help her write "The Brand New Testament". Once God discovers her acts of sabotage, he enters the real world for the first time ever, and discovers it's a tough place to visit.

I was looking forward to watching this film, but like I said - the comedy wavelength it was on happened to be a wavelength I don't connect with. Not connecting with what's meant to be funny in a comedy absolutely destroys a film - even if it's based on great ideas and is well made. I sat through each outrageous Amélie-like blast of comedy without any laughter or joy. I found it a little too energetic and forceful. The film's explosive pace and monumental use of farce and slapstick just kept me off-balance and never let me into the narrative or put me in a good place. So, it's one of those difficult situations where an antagonistic feeling builds whereupon the film isn't necessarily as bad as my negative feelings towards it. Whereas I'd normally be into any sense of whimsy and fun a movie might throw at me, with The Brand New Testament it just felt painful simply because of the chip I had on my shoulder.

I don't want to rip into this movie because it would sound mean-spirited, and I can see that most people really liked it. Either way, it doesn't really matter - because my entire experience boils down to me not finding it particularly funny. It looked great, and I was looking forward to seeing it - but no. Fantastic idea - but I really didn't like it. Any comedy that finds the inclusion of a gorilla a winning card (and there are a few) I don't like. That's one thing I've never really understood - why so many comedies add one to the mix, as if they're inherently funny. Poor Catherine Deneuve. Her character, Martine, falls in love with one - which is one of the many flights of fancy that did nothing for me. I was on a remarkable run with my watchlist films, and it came to an end with this one - a movie that my personal taste was diametrically opposed to.

Most critics (and I guess people) enjoyed this more than I did. Not my kind of comedy. Didn't like it.

Oh what a wonderful, heartbreaking movie this was. What Happened Was... is one of those films based on a play that has been elevated to a great cinematic standard, but has also stayed true to it's stage origin. It all takes place in one apartment - Jackie's (Karen Sillas), who is fussing around before her date arrives. His name is Michael (Tom Noonan) - and these two people are the only two characters in the film. What plays out is a date which goes through many of the phases most of us will be familiar with - there's a heightened awareness and tension during dates that make every awkward lull or moment of connection feel very intense. As the two become more comfortable with each other we see sides to their personality we weren't expecting - masks slip, and when reality begins to exert itself there's a completely new understanding of who these two people are. One that we never would have expected.

I loved this, and I would have loved to have seen the play before this was made (the film's eventual producer went to see it with only 11 other people - one of those intimate theater experiences that I often love.) I was glued - I mean, every moment is brimming with subtext and that special kind of tension that exists in situations like this. There are many unexpected turns, but we never for one moment feel that there's anything fanciful here, despite the fact that we're taken to so many psychologically varied places - both familiar and unusual. The performances of our two leads are both phenomenal, and I have to say absolutely perfect in every way conceivable. It's a really easy film to become involved with simply because we've all been through these experiences and can completely sympathise with the characters, and feel the tension.

Something I loved about this was the complete change of mood that occurs when Jackie reads the first chapter of her story to Michael in what turns out to be a very creepy room in the apartment - completely altering the balance between the characters and shifting the tone of the film. But I have to admit I loved the film as a whole, and every small shift in location brought with it an interesting change in the dynamics. Such a well-written piece of work from Tom Noonan, who I never knew had made a handful of what look like interesting films adapted from his theater work. This is my kind of film on so many different levels - I love these intense dramas that almost take place in real-time, in which we find ourselves bound to the one location (another great one like this is 2014 HBO film Nightingale.) I was completely wrapped up in this film emotionally, and it spoke to me on a very deep and personal level - so the ending moved me a great deal. Such a great movie - another favourite from my watchlist.

Glad to catch this one - won the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch What Happened Was....

I just want to point out that the still you've chosen is like a gender-reversed shot of a certain sequence from Manhunter.

Carry on!

EDIT: Why is this the best image I can find? Am I misremembering her touching his face while they are sitting on the couch?

https://external-content.duckduckgo....cd5&ipo=images

I had a look at the scene and she doesn't touch his face in that specific one. Perhaps there's a bit of Manhunter/Red Dragon crossover going on for you here - or, ooh, my favourite, the Mandela effect.

I think she touches his face when they are at work, and then the couch scene is different. The moral of the story is be very careful sitting on a couch next to Tom Noonan.

At what point does your natural desire for vengeance melt in the face of innocent humanity? Czechoslovakia, May 1945. Krista (Iva Janžurová) has just gone through the trauma of witnessing her husband get executed by retreating Nazi's for a trivial, trifling offence. Barely a moment passes before a German soldier, a deserter, orders her at gunpoint to help him transport his wounded comrade south to Vienna in her horse-drawn wagon. Bristling with fury, she plans to kill them at the very first opportunity - but how? The hidden axe underneath the wagon bed? The pistol left lying in the straw, practically unguarded? Or perhaps the rifle Hans (Jaromír Hanzlík) carelessly throws around - at times with a white handkerchief tied to the barrel. It'll take some nerve and good timing to catch them off guard - and she'll only get one chance. In the meantime, Hans showers her with gifts, thanks and friendliness - none of which she particularly wants.

I was quite surprised to come across a Czech film made so soon after the Second World War that paints it's German characters as very human, and in some cases innocent. By contrast the partisans are downright brutal - and of course this caused some controversy for the film when it was released. In 1968, when the Soviets strengthened their grip on the country, the film was banned outright. I never felt like this film was taking sides politically at all - it was simply a question of humanity, regardless of creed or country. Some Germans were evil, some were innocent. Some partisans turned to brutality, some were noble. Some civilians sought revenge, and some forgave. Hans is a boy, doesn't want to fight, and becomes quite enamoured with the undoubtedly good looking Krista - without even thinking about sides and conflict. Krista, on the other hand, has been pushed onto a different path after being on the wrong end of capricious cruelty.

Carriage to Vienna was very good, and another really simple straightforward film involving few characters and a virtually unchanging forest location (which the film makes great use of - it feels as if the characters are pinned in a claustrophobic self-imposed prison.) Injured soldier Günther (Luděk Munzar) only wakes occasionally, making it a mostly two-character story as well. It's not something that'll leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling though, despite it's focus being on humanity. When you reach the closing stages of the worst conflict in human history, brutality and bloodshed crouch around every corner. There was a reckoning awaiting in Czechoslovakia, no matter any moment of clarity a person could or would feel in passing. This 1966 Czech offering really puts a lot of the war films coming out at the same time around the world to shame, and was really decades and decades ahead of it's time. I couldn't help thinking all the way through how much it feels like the kind of film that would be made nowadays, and definitely not way back then. Brave filmmaking.

Glad to catch this one - deserves recognition.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Carriage to Vienna.

This was my No.1 film of its year.


(And you're right, in the theater that sound almost makes your bowels move.)

I was very high on this movie and sure I had it in my Top 250... But the thing I remember most is how she got the attention of the horse, "Brrrrrrrr"

The burning question I had was "How the hell do you make a film like Ucho during an era of Soviet repression and censorship?" It was answered as soon as I logged on to Wikipedia. Despite being made in 1970, it wasn't possible for this film to be released until 1990. I had already credited Karel Kachyňa as being brave for making Carriage to Vienna, and apparently there was nothing this filmmaker wasn't going to tackle in spite of the probable backlash he'd face for going to these places in his films. Officially, nobody in the Communist (Soviet puppet) Czech government spied on their various ministers and senior officials - and there could be a free flow of ideas without danger of being imprisoned. In reality houses were bugged, and agents listened in day and night - especially spying on people who had some kind of uncertainty hanging over them. It was all meant to be about ideology - but loyalty is the key issue at play here. When it comes to abuses of power, maintaining an iron grip on it is what mostly leads to the abuse of what's possible in a police state.

Ucho is about senior official Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohatý) and his wife Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová) living in Prague, who come home from a big political party celebration in a state of inebriation and ill-temper. The two go at each other like Martha and George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but as they enter their two-story house (after forgetting their keys at the party) they're disturbed to find their spare keys hanging in the door, objects in the house moved around, and the back door hanging ajar. Their power is out, but their neighbours have power - and in what couldn't be a coincidence, the telephone isn't working either. As they bicker Ludvík comes to the conclusion that there are incriminating files he has to destroy, and that they better watch what they say - leaving their most private comments for places that aren't usually bugged. Their paranoia grows as the night goes on, which potently mixes with their intoxication, marital problems, inner demons and the increasing suspicion that it might be too late for Ludvík to save himself. Flashbacks to the party reveal moments that might have had more meaning than the couple thought at the time.

What's unique and kind of original about Ucho is the way it balances (and compares or analogises) the antagonism that goes on between this couple and their oppressive overlords and the situation they are in concerning their marriage. Kachyňa creates a very intimate portrait of a couple that have learned to hate each other - but at least they can openly express their feelings as far as that goes. There's also an unspoken contempt for their government, which is completely intolerant of any kind of dissent. The situation they are in evolves over the course of this one night though, as both characters are stripped down to their core components. There are surprises in store as this happens. It's amazing to think that this great film was made only for it to go unreleased and left to waste - at least until the 1990s - and it's kind of inspiring to see a filmmaker do something that could cause a lot of trouble for him, but nonetheless be something that needed to be expressed. It's a brilliantly edited, very well shot film with very good performances - and when you consider Carriage to Vienna it's not hard to see how good a filmmaker this guy was.

Glad to catch this one - included in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and Karel Kachyňa was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Ucho.

To get the most dramatic satisfaction from A Bad Son (Un mauvais fils) it kind of helps to dwell on the intensity tragic French film star Patrick Dewaere gives the lead role - that of Bruno Calgagni. Bruno is just arriving back in France when we meet him - an ignoble return as he's just been released from a 5 year stint in a U.S. prison for drug dealing. While he was away, his mother has passed, and as such he only has a father to return to. A father, René (Yves Robert), who doesn't even know he's about to knock on his door. Bruno is an agreeable sort of guy, but it's his tendency to fraternize with addicts and prostitutes that creates much conflict between his father and him. During his time reestablishing himself, Bruno meets fellow addict Catherine (Brigitte Fossey) and shuffles in and out of jobs, all while his volatile relationship with his father has it's explosive ups and downs. In the end, Bruno might prove to be the best of them all though.

I was gutted to read about Patrick Dewaere. By 1982 (only 2 years after A Bad Son came out), after spending most of his life acting and being nominated for 6 César Awards for Best Actor over a 7 year period, the troubled thespian aimed a rifle at himself and took his own life. His wife, Elsa Chalier had left him for his best friend - and Dewaere had struggled with depression all through his life. Watching him in this film (for which one of his César Award nominations had been for) was a real revelation and I thought he had something special. A Bad Son is full of great performances though, from Yves Robert to Brigitte Fossey to Jacques Dufilho who, as gay bookshop proprietor Adrien Dussart actually won a Best Supporting Actor César Award himself. This is a very mature film with very varied characters whose relationships are in a constant state of flux - and another who is introduced early, Madeleine (Claire Maurier - also nominated for a César) also plays a very important role in how all of this evolves.

Hanging over Bruno Calgagni throughout this film is the death of his mother, who took to drugs herself when her son left, and was soon consumed when his troubles became more and more dire. Despite his happy-go-lucky personality, you can see it weigh on him - and further revelations will add fuel to some emotionally raging fire within. A Bad Son doesn't turn into a full-blown drug relapse/recovery film like I was afraid it would at one stage - instead revolving around relationships and really allowing the narrative to dedicate itself to the way these characters relate to each other. Bruno and Catherine weather familiar dangers, while Dussart becomes the strong father-figure René finds himself unable to be. Bruno himself is an interesting mix of easy-going, dependable and intelligent, but is something of a rolling stone. The mix we get has an interesting taste and Claude Sautet drives it to his own rhythms - not depending on huge melodramatic fireworks, but instead digging deep into a contemplation about a father/son dynamic skewed by generational distance and a loss of connection. Great stuff for good actors to sink their teeth into, and interesting to watch.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for 6 César Awards at the 1981 Awards Ceremony.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Un mauvais fils.

The Round-Up is unlike any other film I've really looked at and tried to understand. It marches forward purposeful in it's determination to disorientate the viewer, and if a narrative strand starts to take shape it very purposely cuts it, then cauterizing the wound. If for a moment we start to wonder if things are meant to be this way then this is confirmed as we soon notice the faces of the various prisoners that are characters in the film - they're afraid, and just as confused as us. We're one of them. We never get to be a fly on the wall during strategy sessions the prison staff might be holding. Their various ways of weeding out the worst of Sándor Rózsa's guerrilla band are always happening, and the cast of characters always changing - promises of clemency, threats and tricks doled out by one group who has total power over the other. A time-honored game of marches, bags over heads, tiny dark cells, hangings, shootings, torture and mind games. In the meantime, lies and deception become reality.

Here we have the subjugation of prisoners, abuse of power, interrogation techniques and demoralisation down to a very unfamiliar 19th Century artform. Amongst it we see things we are familiar with today - the bags on heads for instance, which made it's return when the United States became openly nasty in it's campaigns in the Middle East (it has to be noted though - as far as warfare is concerned, other nations can be far nastier.) If there are reminders of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay it's because the parallels are striking. Prisoners have one rich resource which those in power want to take from them - and that's information. To do that they have their resolve completely crushed, so they don't care anymore whether it is taken from them. Seeing a prisoner in Round-Up run around ratting on all his brothers because he's become obsessed with absolving and saving himself is the result of the way the guards psychologically worked him over in previous scenes - and they don't even need to execute him anymore. The prisoners will take care of that. Then the prisoner that killed him will be worked over.

Miklós Jancsó films all of this on the steppes of Hungary, giving us wide open nothingness and a feeling of complete isolation. It's as if nothing else exists anymore. He expands it further by allowing elements such as horses to leave the shot and then cross back into it, or having the camera leave the confines of a cramped room into the perfectly flat, never-ending landscape. There's no real protagonist in this film - we never stick with a character, and although it's always obvious some kind of trick is being played out on this or that prisoner, we're never quite sure what the endgame is as far as how it's meant to play out. It's the ultimate in confusion, and as such gives us an absolutely spot-on perspective of being hopelessly played with by powerful forces who will most likely kill you at some point, but will hold out enough hope that you'll do their bidding no matter what that might be. They tell you that you'll never see your family again, and then in the very next breath that you're free to go. It's never been so scary to hear "you're free to go" - because what the jailer obviously means is you're free to go to the afterlife in the next few moments.

Glad to catch this one - screened in the Cannes Classics section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Round-Up.

Across 110th Street is a hard film to classify - it's too well budgeted to be slapped with a grindhouse tag (executive producer Anthony Quinn wanted John Wayne or Kirk Douglas to play the role he ended up taking for himself - hardly Driller Killer type trash then) and not quite fully into blaxploitation territory either - although elements of both are on full display regardless. But boy - director Barry Shear wanted us to get a real feel of the filthy, poor, rotten Harlem streets, and I think that alone makes it feel like you're watching a low budget grindhouse flick. He managed to film on location and defy naysayers by taking advantage of the new lightweight Arriflex 35 IIC camera, meaning the real Harlem streets and tenements weren't as tricky to negotiate. The places we go look terrible (and somehow familiar to me - but I was a student once, trying to make a go of it in the inner city - low rent city apartments have a "many many paint jobs" feel to them, as if misery itself can be painted over.) It's location camera work that gives the film an authentic feel, for which there's no substitute.

So it's a mix of race, poverty and justice in a gritty kind of crime film manner. We have lots of jive-talking and white mafioso trying to run things but always seeming out of place. We have a high-stakes robbery - $300,000 from a mob-run "bank" by three desperados (in an early role, check out Burt Young as one of the "bankers" - so cool - but he dies so quickly.) Jim Harris (Paul Benjamin), Joe Logart (Ed Bernard) and Henry J. Jackson (Antonio Fargas) are the robbers - and the film really earns it's tagline : "If you steal $300,000 from the mob, it's not robbery. It's suicide." Apart from mob capo Nick D'Salvio (Anthony Franciosa), two cops are also desperately seeking the trio. White, racist Capt. Frank Mattelli (Anthony Quinn), who brutalizes suspects and is on his way out, along with the black and by the book Lt. William Pope (Yaphet Kotto), who is in charge and on the way up. I liked that the story had a range of things going on, with the black mafia, the Italian mafia, the cops and the robbers all having their specific storylines and dramas. The soundtrack is also absolutely brilliant.

Was this a little too "In the Heat of the Night" regarding it's white cop/black cop storyline? Well, if it's kind of grindhouse then cliché is the rule and not the exception and anyway - they didn't feel like the center of the story. One of the great things about this film is that the poverty itself was central, and all the players played such equal roles. There's a great scene where Harris relates to his girlfriend about the fact that he's been to jail, has a disability and never had a good education - meaning there's no longer any way out of impoverishment for him. Across 110th Street was absolutely castigated by the critics when it came out as trash - so it's funny about it's reappraisal today. What's changed? Perhaps it's that we've been somewhat culturally removed from this early 70s kind of funky jive-talk and New York crime wave era period. It's easier to see beyond all of that, and enjoy it for being an historical epoch now. Even the violence doesn't seem gratuitous anymore, but simply a way of telling an audience about economic desperation and it's life and death consequences.

Glad to catch this one - it's Soundtrack album is a must have. Not noticed much in it's day, this film might just be a future stayer and classic cultural artifact.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Across 110th Street.

Sometimes you approach a filmmaker and hit upon the one film where they're first experiencing cinematic mastery, and here we have Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower, a Japanese film noir experience that's extremely satisfying for any lover of cinema to watch. Our central protagonist, Muraki (Ryô Ikebe) is a high ranking Yakuza hitman who at the moment we meet him has been released from prison after a three year stint for murder. He's a middle-aged, serious sort who has his haunts, and is well known about the streets his gang virtually own - but only one thing manages to wipe the grey, expressionless boredom from his face. Saeko (Mariko Kaga). Saeko is sitting in a gambling den, being a lone woman playing Hanafuda with an attractive kind of intensity which lights up the whole room. As Muraki asks about her, returns, and introduces himself he becomes involved in an extreme but sexless relationship where Saeko not only wants to gamble for higher and higher stakes, but take more outrageous risks and invite danger to eke out a desperate trace of feeling alive. Muraki tries to satiate her need, and save her, showing her the one act that does take a person to the very peak of that mountain.

Exponents of film noir and cinema as an art form rather than a commodity often use cinematography and editing combined to create such gratifying shape and motion - Pale Flower is superbly stylish, always looking cool and pleasing the eye. It also sounds fantastic (as a topic that was heatedly discussed at Shochiku, Shinoda emphasised sound effects and score over dialogue - the film was even delayed 9 months until the controversy over that died down.) The gritty noir darkness combined with Japanese sensibilities brings out something unique here - a collision of very strict culture, Western influence, edginess and crime that bleeds into every scene. Despite that darkness though, there's a happiness to the Yakuza that underlines Saeko's desperate unhappiness - she's such an unusual character for a Japanese film, for she takes no notice of gender rules. While you might expect a Japanese woman to be punished for being that way, instead Saeko becomes popular and brightens up any gambling den she visits - and Muraki is drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She becomes an obsession. It creates a fascinating dynamic - especially when Saeko wants to go places Muraki doesn't.

I thought Pale Flower pretty masterly, and very enjoyable to just sit back and appreciate. I understand that all of the Yakuza would feel the way Saeko does if they were to go straight or be bound by feminine roles - which really tells you why they are what they are. There are some great scenes in this too. The car chase mid-movie, between two sports cars (one driven by Saeko, the other by an unnamed Japanese man whose reaction to being raced provides another highlight to the film) is a real joy to watch. The score is something else entirely - so unusual, dissonant and striking that it deserves a review of it's own, and is very much a component in the film's winning hand. Deadly games of cat and mouse through the murky, inky black streets feel intense - as does the strange attraction Muraki and Saeko have for each other. They're a cinematic couple who feel comparable to some of the great ones in movies - exchanging something that goes beyond physicality and sentiment. So - this is a film that's pretty important when talking about the Japanese New Wave, as is Shinoda. There was something about it that makes me think of Kurosawa's High and Low (made just the year previously) - so fans of that might be well advised to check this out.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion number 564, and on Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Pale Flower.

Re: My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

I watched that one a while ago, so I barely remember it. I remember liking it quite a lot though.

That was a hell of a thing. Gripping is the word I'd use, and I'd really emphasise it because I was held tight by The Innocents, and not let go until it finished. It started to have it's effect on me at a particularly unpleasant moment, when young Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum) who has moved to a large apartment complex with severely autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad) drops a cat from near the top floor with disturbed child Ben (Sam Ashraf) - before going downstairs to finish it off. As unendurable as that is, it put me in a sickened mood which the film exploited going forward - because in one brief movement Eskil Vogt has told me a lot about these kids - especially Ben, who from that moment on takes on a menacing darkness which will only get worse as the film progresses. Where my expectations were misplaced was in that I thought all of these kids were going to turn bad - but this is really going to turn into a war between four children as Ben's supernatural powers (yeah - he can move rocks at first) expand, and spread through four children - Ida, Anna, kindly little Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim) and Ben, who puts Brightburn to shame.

What The Innocents does really well is make the fact that these kids start acquiring heightened supernatural powers feel absolutely believable. The kids mess around with them and play games, just as kids would - but at a certain point Ben starts lashing out, and he has many avenues to terrorize and hurt the other kids. Whoever can kill a cat the way he did could go on to kill people - and Ben can do this by possessing the minds of other adults, crushing the bones and organs of others with pure thought, or moving heavy objects at speed from a distance. Soon people start dying, and Ida, Anna and Aisha have nobody to depend on but themselves - a terrible circumstance for children. This is what makes The Innocents so tense, scary and riveting - kids don't often choose the most considered options, but somehow this battle feels epic and spiritual in scope once it hits it's strides. That's because Anna - almost completely disabled by her condition - has the most powers and seems to have a very strong inner consciousness. Vogt makes her seem great without taking away her disability, and I really liked that.

The Innocents is the most exciting new horror watch I've had this year (most likely soon to be remade in the United States) and I recommend it strongly to anyone who hasn't seen it. Quite a follow-up to Blind from Eskil Vogt (who in the meantime has penned some fantastic Joachim Trier films.) Beware if you love cats - I do, and that part of the film hurts. But still, like I said, it put me in that disturbed mindset that worked in the film's favour. Sam Ashraf is a little Damien - I don't know if he just looks that way, or if his performance darkened his demeanour that way, probably a little bit of both. Effects-wise the film is sparing and perfect, giving us a masterful visual experience which focuses a lot on the faces of the children, and the way they internally guide their efforts. Innocence mixed with a growing sense of becoming more and more lost - apart from Ben who descends into pure determined, murderous blackness. It's a lot of fun, but also just disturbing enough to make you squirm a little. It's what parents fear most when they send their kids out to play while living in these massive apartments - nearby, but really so far away. I really enjoyed The Innocents to the hilt.

Glad to catch this one - premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 74th Cannes Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Innocents.

Evil kids are about tied with torture porn in terms of horror subgenres I am absolutely not drawn to.

Though I have heard many good things about The Innocents (and that poster is fabulous).

What about Village of the Damned?

I liked it too. This was around the time when I was hip deep in a lot of Japanese noir like A Colt is my Passport and Cruel Gun Story. Thank you TCM.

Like, it's fine. Those are more spooky kids than evil kids, if you get the distinction I'm making here.

I've seen a fair few John Ford films, and I never really would have pegged him as progressive or anything other than a conservative, so I was interested in Sergeant Rutledge - the story of a black sergeant in the 9th U.S. Cavalry, Rutledge (Woody Strode) accused of raping a white girl and killing her father. It's a courtroom film in which the action consists of flashbacks, and it manages to work in a lot of the Western genre action Ford was famous for. The Defiant Ones - one of my favourite race relations films of the era, had been released just two years previously. Does this do as good a job? Well, it's very direct - and I didn't mind that, even though it'd be seen as a little heavy handed today. Most surprising is the way all of the black characters are treated and filmed in this - glorified at times, in a way I've never seen from a film made so long ago. The villains are basically the townsfolk ready to lynch Rutledge, automatically assuming his guilt because he's black and there's circumstantial evidence - more than enough for them. Of course the prosecutor - often mentioning this "black man" who committed a crime against a "white woman" - adds to that. The figure of fun is the judge presiding, Col. Otis Fosgate (played wonderfully by Willis Bouchey.)

As a film that deals with race, it isn't perfect. For me, even though the black soldiers were highly esteemed and portrayed as monumental heroes, the movie felt like it was first and foremost a white person's film in which the black characters appear. Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter), Rutledge's defense attorney, is the lead character despite the film's title. His love interest, Mary Beecher (Constance Towers) is credited above Strode's Rutledge, and even old screen star Billie Burke, who plays a small role, has her name in large type on the posters (while Strode's is tiny, down the bill.) One poster (not the one shown below) is significant because it makes Rutledge look white - the exact same hue as Cantrell - and when you read about the trailers and such, it's obvious the studio wanted to downplay the fact that this film was about race and a black man. Despite that, it tanked at the box office. Still - I admire it for not beating around the bush and acknowledging what it was like for black men accused of crimes like this. The race issue is openly laid bare, and talked about in a frank manner. For that, I think the movie is okay.

Okay - but was it good, considering it's a John Ford film? It's not one of his best, but the biggest surprise for me was how well the courtroom action, and various dramatic scenes, were structured and filmed. When it comes time for what seems like requisite Western action with battles against Native Americans (ironically depicted as savages), it feels like Ford himself is bored, and constructs those scenes in a very rote way. Rutledge himself is shot from very low angles, Ford going all-in as far as giving him a prideful, heroic, almost mythic status. He saves the regiment when it's against his personal interest, and is more honorable than the entire undeserving town put together. I've read that this late into his career, John Ford was trying to make up for the way he'd portrayed black characters in the past. I'd have to say he does this here in a very thoughtful way, using his talent at glamorizing heroes. The film also acknowledges what black people have had to go through persecution-wise, and that although Lincoln declared African Americans free people, it would be many, many generations before this is even partly true. That Rutledge would be assumed guilty, and treated harshly and unfairly. Sergeant Rutledge doesn't pussyfoot or hedge. It's not a really great Western, but it is a really great and frank film about race for it's day.

Glad to catch this one - one of the few American films of the 1960s to have a Black man in a leading role and the first mainstream western to do so.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Sergeant Rutledge.

Re: My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

Phoenix I looked through all of your watch list movies and I must say you seem to have really great taste in watching what I'd call connoisseur movies. I haven't seen any of them, me bad!...except for the noirs you watched. Oh and I seen the John Ford film.

Thanks Citizen! - Yeah, I've actually been bowled over by the run I've had here of movies I've really enjoyed a lot. I guess a lot of that comes from reading reviews (there are a lot of great reviewers right here who I enjoy reading) and getting that telling urge that I'd probably like it. I owe a couple of recent great ones to you - Sweet Smell of Success and The Ox-Bow Incident. Both of those are all-time favourites now, on your recommendation. Most of the time, I don't remember who guided me to whatever film I watch from my watchlist. If it's a film anyone loves, chances are I've watched it because of what they said about it.

I'm a fan of both of those especially Sweet Smell of Success, love that one. I thought it was neat that you say on your reviews, 'Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch (name of movie).' It's a nice touch. Maybe I'll see one of your films from this thread in the 33rd HoF. I of course enjoyed the last nom Picnic at Hanging Rock.

I'm guessing The Omen and The Ring are okay but We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Good Son are right out.

Correct. (Though I've never seen The Omen, a fact that horrifies my sister, LOL).

Cruelty/sociopathic/psychopathic/sadistic behavior in kids isn't something I see that often in my work, but it is there at times and it is disturbing and emotionally exhausting to deal with and makes me very anxious. It falls under the category of "see it at work, don't need it in my entertainment, thanks!".

Trying to think of evil kid movies I actually like, I mostly draw a blank. I thought Cub was disturbing but good, and Who Can Kill a Child?. But I thought both of those stepped a bit outside the normal tropes I associate with the genre (animal cruelty, dead-eyed staring, etc).

Talk about transcendence. Taste of Cherry is more than that though - it's near-flawless filmmaking that works no matter which way you look at it. It's filled with abundant, rich meaning from every perspective. It cuts to our core, in an existential way and as importantly in a way which makes us examine our connection to others and the world itself. The plot is very simple to sum up : Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) has decided to end his life, but he's determined to find someone who will bury his body after he dies. To do this he tries to befriend, cajole, reward and otherwise influence people who are reluctant to participate in such a process. If you agree, are you not giving some kind of tacit approval for what he's doing? Or would a real friend agree to this man's dying request? In the meantime he drives these people around a desert landscape with little life to be seen for miles in any direction. A golden, vast space within which Mr. Badii endlessly searches. There's a vibrant orange beauty, and a gleaming, resplendent aliveness to the very earth itself, which exhibits no natural life at all - and that translates beautifully to film. It's size makes people look small - but it's nothing if there's nobody around to appreciate it.

Abbas Kiarostami of course manages to absolutely smash that 4th wall to pieces late in the piece, bringing himself and the film crew into the movie. I have my own interpretation as to what it means when this happens, and it added to my appreciation of this film. It's as if one character's decision and action splits the very fabric of the narrative itself, and brings us outside of what has been going on. Whatever your interpretation though, this is a common methadology of this filmmaker, and we almost expect it. I remember how well it worked in Close-Up (1990) and other Iranian films which have adopted this style. When I look at the sheer number of Kiarostami films out there, I'm taken aback however - and wonder if I should watch a great deal more before I say anything about his style and method. In any event - it's what I take away from the little I've seen so far. What it amounted to was an openness in which I was able to give the film an interpretation which fit perfectly with how I saw the film as a whole - others interpret it differently, but most leave the ending as an open question.

I connected with this film immediately, and loved everything it was doing - whether it felt painful, good, bad or bittersweet. Homayoun Ershadi - who Kiarostami discovered as an architect in Tehran out of the blue - does a surprisingly good job of embodying a person at the end of his spiritual tether. I found his interactions with suspicious strangers, and the terrible barrier he had to try and break through fascinating - especially the different way each person reacted to his request. I thought the cinematography and visuals were breathtaking, and the way they meshed with the themes and meaning of the film pure perfection. I felt the especially strong pulse of humanism flowing through the film paramount to it's being an absolute masterpiece. In fact, it has a feel of a master-work that belongs amongst the highest ranks of cinematic achievement. It's incredibly beautiful - exquisite in every way and a work of art I have the highest admiration for. I was completely taken aback by the way it shines - it's warmth putting your average cinematic output to shame. I only regret that I didn't find a way earlier to squeeze in how much I enjoyed taxidermist character Mr. Bagheri's (Abdolrahman Bagheri) soliloquy on how he was saved from suicide by the taste of mulberries and interaction with children, which could easily have been ham-fisted but instead is delivered in a way that worked as an affirmation of life of the highest order. Makes this paragraph unwieldy, but it touched me so deeply it must go mentioned. A truly great film, and I loved every minute.

Glad to catch this one - awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Criterion number 45 and in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Taste of Cherry.

I really owe Taste of Cherry a rewatch. I remember being so stressed out when I watched it (during grad school) and I SO didn't click with it.

Re: My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!
 

I imagine Taste of Cherry would greatly improve with a rewatch. I kept going back and forth on whether the ending helped or harmed the film when I first watched it, which put somewhat of a bar as to how much I enjoyed it, but I imagine I'd click with it much more now.

I aim to watch Taste of Cherry soon (as in, this year). But I’ve read that it sharply divides critics

Well, no matter how calamitous the final cut, there's always something interesting going on in an Orson Welles-directed feature. The Lady From Shanghai features the man himself along with his ex-wife, Rita Hayworth - hair short and dyed blonde, being as alluring as ever. Their marriage was kaput, and the pair struggle to ignite the film with enough chemistry to really convince, but Hayworth gives a good performance. The movie is only the jangly bones of what Welles intended - his cut ran 155 minutes, but after test screenings the studio pruned this to a scant 88 minutes, losing over an hour of footage. Much as he was to do later with Touch of Evil, Welles wrote a memo imploring some compromise - but it went unheeded. What we're left with is a really good film noir classic regardless - fascinating camera direction and sparks of brilliant invention were part of Orson Welles' allure, and that's something no amount of trimming could dilute. Welles plays Irish sailor Michael O'Hara - complete with thick accent - and it's his screen presence (which is magnified by Hayworth's) that makes the movie immediately interesting and grabs our attention.

O'Hara stumbles across Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) taking a ride in Central Park, and is immediately entranced - but Elsa comes with a scheming defense attorney husband, Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane - one of Welles' Mercury Theatre players.) Although O'Hara is allured, it takes much convincing to get him to sign up as a member of the crew on Arthur's yacht - and it begs the question, what's the catch? Why does Arthur want O'Hara as one of his crew so badly? To satisfy his wayward wife? Is Elsa up to something here? Well, once aboard we find that all of Arthur's friends and cronies are acting weird, and that O'Hara isn't in on the joke. He's attracted to Elsa, but at the same time it feels like he's a fly approaching a spider, and in any case he's constantly being watched. When fellow traveler George Grisby (Glenn Anders) approaches with a proposition you know it's bad news - and so does O'Hara really, but still - $5000. That's enough for O'Hara to start a new life with Elsa if she's on the level. I'm watching thinking that O'Hara is crazy for not running for his life every time that yacht reaches shore.

There's a lot of great stuff here. Famous from The Lady From Shanghai is the funhouse finale, with mirrors distorting what's going on, and giving conspirators wrong targets to aim at and shoot. It's a scene that has been often imitated - and Welles seems to have been very assured as to what he wanted from each shot, pulling them all off marvelously. His camera direction and inventiveness is something we could have done with a lot more - a shame he was shunned the way he was. The narrative, taken from "If I Die Before I Wake" by Raymond Sherwood King, makes for noir plotting that's complex enough to be interesting but simple enough to follow easily - all the while making it impossible to predict what's about to happen. Cards are kept close to everyone's chest, except for O'Hara, who is the innocent amongst all of this. Performances are up to snuff (I was especially impressed by Sloane) - and the only drawback is that I feel the missing hour plus. I'd be first in line if it were possible to conjure up the 155 minute version. There's enough magic to suffice however, and The Lady From Shanghai is definitely worth a look for any fan of cinema or film noir.

Glad to catch this one - included in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Lady From Shanghai.

The Lady from Shanghai is pretty good, but I prefer The Stranger over it.

Man, I wish there was a Director's Cut of this somewhere.
I thought there was a truly great film lost here. And still very seriously worth seeing.

My thoughts exactly.

Life in East Germany became a hot topic in the wake of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others, and Barbara's marketing leaned heavily into that. One thing you can tell when watching it though, is that this is being told on Christian Petzold's terms - and as such it is very evenly paced and sedate, without the powerful dramaticism of that earlier film. We see everything from the perspective of Barbara Wolff (Nina Hoss), and the only time we're outside of that point of view is at the film's very beginning, when fellow-doctor André Reiser (Ronald Zehrfeld) and Stasi officer Klaus Schütz (Rainer Bock) eye her up from a distance at the new small-town hospital she'll be working at since coming under stricter surveillance. To call that surveillance invasive would be an understatement - every time her flat is searched, Barbara herself gets a strip search and body cavity search. As one of her patients notes in succinct terms, this is a "scheiße land". There isn't anyone who doesn't want to escape their lot and live a life where they don't have to constantly watch what they say, who they socialize with, what they do, where they live or where they go.

Barbara's desire to leave means she's in no hurry to form new and lasting friendships at the place she's now working. André though, seems determined to break through her very hard outer shell - not knowing that all the while, Barbara's partner Jörg (Mark Waschke), who is now living in West Germany, is plotting her escape from the East. While a lot of Barbara's focus is on her relationship with André and Jörg plus the escape, there's another which deals with Barbara's relationship with the patients that come in for treatment - sometimes dragged in by police officers. There's pregnant Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) - whose baby is destined to be taken away from her, and Mario (Jannik Schümann), who may well need surgery after a desperate suicide attempt. It's her compassion for these people that throw her whole quest for freedom into doubt and turmoil. That's the part of Barbara I found most interesting - it's more than Barbara suffering. A whole nation is. Those less fortunate than Barbara have no means of escaping - no lover waiting over the border. Is it right for her to just up and save herself - especially considering she's dedicated to helping people?

I remember Christian Petzold's Phoenix very well (that ending!) and while Barbara doesn't hit as hard, it's still very substantial and well filmed. It's full of scenes where we're just as stressed as the characters as to whether someone is watching at the wrong time. When Jörg's friend takes him to see Barbara, and the two are making love in a forest, the waiting friend is slowly approached by a car - and we all hold our breath. It's a harmless old man - or is it really? That paranoia is expertly created through careful editing, great cinematography and sound - working excellently together. Other than that, the screenplay (co-written by Petzold with Harun Farocki) is something to really admire. Life in the East is a slow drip of humiliation, drabness, fear, frustration and confinement. Petzold expands on it by having his characters tell detailed anecdotes, and quote novels - and those moments were also my favourite moments in Barbara. There's one about a horrifying mistake (helped along by East German scarcity) made by André that left two infants permanently blind - which is why he's practicing at this outpost. All in all, an excellent film about what escape really means for Barbara - one that can touch a nerve in anyone.

Glad to catch this one - winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival along with the "Reader Jury".




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Barbara.

I haven't watched The Lady from Shanghai but did watch and really enjoyed The Stranger. I'm pretty sure his character was meant to but I think Edward G. Robinson stole the show.

Robinson was always so good in his roles, so effortless, that he tended to get overshadowed by his flashier co stars.

By "meant to" I just felt it was a really well written character. Welles' Franz Kindler/Professor Charles Rankin might have been the centerpiece but Robinson's Mr. Wilson made the movie. Which is exactly what he did in Double Indemnity.

Any tale about fraud and misrepresentation seems to be emblematic of our current age. The era of fake it till you make it, wishful thinking, cheating and the general assumption by many that this is simply how the world works. For years, one of the most famous art dealerships in New York City, Knoedler, were making the bulk of their incoming profits through the sale of forged and fake artworks. Made You Look : A True Story About Fake Art examines the various personalities involved - and what's interesting is how there's a layered element to the scandal. There are the crooks - Glafira Rosales, Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz and Pei-Shen Qian - who made the art, and sold it to Knoedler on false pretenses. Then there's the funny layer that really interests me - the people at Knoedler who must have known something was up, but hushed it up and kept the process going to keep the huge amount of money coming in. One, Ann Freedman, was president of the gallery at the time, and is interviewed extensively in the documentary. She presents a familiar portrait of narcissism, denial and blame-shifting, and looks absolutely terrible in the process.

Made You Look is a lot of fun, because we get to see so many art experts in so many fields get egg all over their faces after authenticating various paintings that were in reality created by Pei-Shen Qian in a New York Garage. "Beautiful" and "Wonderful" are words that were bandied about, until the forgery was exposed - and we see that these same experts backtracked and denied saying what they did when their embarrassing errors were revealed in court. But before you think that those at the Knoedler Gallery were fooled by them - there were plenty of reasons to suspect the works were fake. When scientific analysis brought up all kinds of worrying questions, Ann Freedman was there to quash them, bury them and deny what was happening. I can understand that she was so invested in them being real that she could hardly face the possibility they were fake - up to a point. In the end this all proves that it's not about the creation at all - it's all about the creator. A work of great beauty and meaning from Fred down the street is worth ten bucks, while a splash and kick from Jackson Pollock is worth ten million. It's an eccentric game of fancy decorative autograph hunting.

In the end it spelled the end of a 160-plus year reign for a veritable institution, with the Knoedler Gallery's doors closing - shocking fallout from a shocking scandal. I really enjoyed the Netflix documentary about it though - access to Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz, Ann Freedman, Domenico De Sole and his wife Eleanore along with many more experts and those involved with the criminal proceedings who have the chance to either look really smug, guilty or simply surprised. I'm amazed at the leniency shown to Glafira Rosales and I'm in absolute shock that Ann Freedman is still in the business. Those with money can slip and slide out of things monumental in scale, while a poor person can end up sitting in jail over a minor violation. I'm surprised we don't have a system of fairness when it comes to justice - because of what it's definition is. I almost come to expect the rich walking away from stuff like this nearly unblemished. In the end, the world of high-priced art is such a showy, "look what I've got" business anyway. I respond better to those who are more "look what I did" rather than "look what I bought" - except of course for what Glafira Rosales, Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz and Pei-Shen Qian did. A good documentary to make up a double feature with Exit Through the Gift Shop.

Glad to catch this one - 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.0/10 on the IMDb.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Made You Look : A True Story About Fake Art.

I absolutely loved Phoenix and quite enjoyed Barbara.

HERE'S the short review I wrote of it.

And I also enjoyed Made You Look, though I felt that some missing interview subjects made it harder to get an overall picture of what was happening. My review is HERE

It wasn't until fairly recently that I started watching Hirokazu Kore-eda's films - started off by the incredibly high esteem Shoplifters was held in, making it unmissable once I'd heard about it. I Wish followed, and Broker had it's release recently, meaning I could catch it in a cinema setting. Nobody Knows is one that has been much suggested, and on my watchlist for quite a while it seems. It is indeed worth all the encouragement and recommendations - in fact, I've never been as on board with his style as much as I am now - my expectations locked and loaded and ready to appreciate his area of expertise (obviously a point of fascination for him), which boils down to non-traditional modern Japanese family dynamics. This often means he's eyeing the dysfunctional and poverty-stricken ad hoc family - often at the point of disintegration, but always with a lot of heart and emotional resonance. Often it's broken homes, destitution and kids that have been left behind but are making the best of it. That's literally what Nobody Knows is about - a family of four kids whose mother has abandoned them, meaning they're fending for themselves.

Much of the film unfolds from 12-year-old Akira Fukushima's (Yuya Yagira) point of view - he's the one that's allowed to go outside and shop for the kids when mother Keiko (You) disappears for long stretches. The two youngest, Yuki (Momoko Shimizu) and Shigeru (Hiei Kimura), are forbidden to go on the balcony, because by tenancy agreement they're not meant to be there at all (in a really hilarious opening, the two young children are smuggled in via suitcases.) All four, including oldest daughter Kyōko (Ayu Kitaura), are not allowed to go to school, and are forced to look after the apartment, do the laundry, and feed themselves (often catering to an inebriated mother who staggers home late at night when she's there at all.) So we get a child's-eye view, but this is a child who has had to do some rapid growing up. As the film continues, the situation inside the apartment slowly deteriorates and we constantly wonder how bad things can get - always worse it seems. These kids are great - which is all the more shame they're being neglected the way they are. It feels like their hopes and dreams fade a little more, the longer they're adrift in the world. They don't want to report their situation to the authorities for fear they'll be separated.

Nobody Knows turned out to be really sad and sobering, but it's not a film that dwells on misery throughout - instead every small victory for the children gives us enough to recharge our hopes for them. No doubt we understand the fears they have of being separated - who wants to be forever removed from the comfort, love and care of their family? At the same time, it's obvious that the current situation can only be maintained for so long - and that disaster will be the inevitable result if nothing is done. Having watched a few Hirokazu Kore-eda films now this is exactly what I was expecting, and as usual that helped immensely with being in the right frame of mind to take it on. Nobody Knows is an absolutely brilliant film in which his style works flawlessly - it's a film that makes me want to go back and watch Shoplifters again, which is a film which also mingles that intense warmth of family with the unbearable sadness of a family fractured. A family is filled with love no matter how good or bad it is, which is what makes life in a troubled family that much harder - that love will hurt when hardship strikes. All very well said in this film, which I enjoyed a lot and think is marvelous.

Glad to catch this one - Yūya Yagira won the award for Best Actor at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival (the first Japanese actor to win that award.)




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Nobody Knows.

The kids are definitely not alright in this 2008 Tom Shankland horror film, where some kind of cosmic goo infects a group of children - turning them into homicidal maniacs. Two couples are celebrating Christmas together at a secluded property - both have two young children each. The film has to bend over backwards giving the little ones the upper hand - but the most believable advantage they have is the fact that the adults continually dismiss the fact that this could actually happen. You see people behave stupidly in horror films all the time - but there's groan after groan in store watching this, as a mother or father gets duped into believing their little angel is fine after all - and not about to stab them in the eye (which they totally are going to do.) Parents are pushed on sleds down steep hills into spikes, and have their legs broken like twigs on a jungle gym - fighting back won't be easy seeing as it's really against human nature to do so (unless you're a paedophobe.)

It's pretty obvious that watching a horror movie that involves violence being inflicted by and on children is especially hard to watch, and an uncomfortable experience. I guess that makes it effective in a "makes you squirm" sense - and to the film's credit the kid-zombie deaths aren't too drawn out, despite the fact that they are kind of brutal. It makes the term "little monsters" almost literal, and it's pretty easy to think "Just kill 'em!" - but when you consider what it would be like in the character's shoes, pitting you up against children you love and want to protect with your very life, it's not so easy. Tying them up would have been my preferred way to deal with the situation - but the film invents scenarios where that's not possible. While only mid-level gory, the movie does involve uncomfortable injuries and bloody mayhem. Tom Shankland knows how to build suspense and gives us tiny little slices of what the world is like from the point of view of the children's minds - all horror and hell-like fire from the pits of every ashen cracked surface on earth they see in nightmare-vision. Looks like cosmic goo just went and ruined Christmas for these folks.

I liked how Shankland (who also wrote the screenplay, with a story credit going to Paul Andrew Williams) gives us a sense of that duality children have in the pre-carnage part of the film. Kids can be angels - so innocent, cute, nice and beautiful. Kids can also be devils - annoying, prone to tantrums, demanding and extremely histrionic. As a movie though, I though this was okay, but not something I'd return to multiple times - one of those horror films that are good enough for one go-around. There are no special performances from the adults, but the kids have been directed brilliantly - and it's quite a talented bunch that were picked out for this film. I was hoping for something more Village of the Damned but got something closer to The Crazies, with the kids more snarly than spooky. It's okay. This was a decent horror film. The reviews for it when it came out were all really positive - but I think it failed badly at the box office (not sure how it went rental-wise.) Includes a couple of deaths to character's who behaved so stupidly they had it coming.

Glad to catch this one - Tom Shankland won a Special Mention Award at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2009 for how well he directed those children.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Children. (Apologies to Takoma11 for another 'Evil Kids' entry.)

What a month (and a bit) of movie watching that was - 36 films all-up (plus a few incidental strikes), but only catching up around half a dozen spots on my watchlist - it seems that it's harder than I thought to make inroads, but I'm kind of excited about that. It means there'll always be great movies waiting on my watchlist to wade through - and doing this has led to what is probably my best ever hit/miss ratio I've ever known concerning me liking what I watch.


Here's hoping February will see me cross paths with some more that are up to this standard.

I know Paolo Sorrentino from his Oscar-winning Felliniesque (and you could say complete opposite of minimalist) film The Great Beauty, but I don't know much about him apart from that. I've seen Youth, but it hasn't stuck in my mind - and I've heard about This Must Be the Place, featuring a gothed-up Sean Penn - I'd like to see that, regardless of the mixed reviews it received. Well, this 2021 Best International Feature Oscar-nominee - The Hand of God - is an autobiographical piece for Sorrentino, although I'd never have guessed that to start out with. Much like Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths and Sorrentino's own The Great Beauty, this film ventures into the surreal and absurd, which is the last thing I'd equate with something that's autobiographical. Fabietto Schisa (Filippo Scotti) stands in for Paolo Sorrentino - and the film starts with Fabietto's sexy aunt coming into contact with a divine person called the "little monk" (The munaciello) - legendary to Naples, which is where Fabietto's story takes place. We later learn that this aunt has psychiatric problems - so perhaps the encounter was all in her mind. I'd love to know if Sorrentino had an aunt that claimed she did have it though.

We meet the rest of Fabietto's family, a large one which includes his father Saverio (Toni Servillo) and mother Maria (Teresa Saponangelo) - and learn from the film the tragic fact that Sorrentino lost both of his parents in an accident when he was only 16. It's an event which has a jarring effect on the young boy - but one that makes him determined to follow his dream and become a filmmaker. The antics the rest of the family get up to are hilarious, and they make this a really entertaining feel-good story for the most part. One almost religious matter of importance to the boy is the soccer team that represents Naples - Napoli, and the fact that they manage to buy the greatest footballer going around at the time - Maradona. "The Hand of God" refers to a famous goal he once scored which was controversial at the time, for it looked like he may have used his hand to help score it. Family drama often clouds football games though, and although Maradona helps guide Napoli to glory, the death of Fabietto's parents means he's not the least bit interested anymore. It's all background noise to him by that stage.

There's a lot more to the film than that central, emotional core to the story. Like I said, the characters have real depth to them, and the way they behave makes for no end of amusement for us spectators. While Fabietto's aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri) fills him with sexual yearning, it's the ancient upstairs neighbour Baronessa Focale (Betti Pedrazzi) he loses his virginity to (she considers it a gift she bestows on him - and considering the fact she's an old lady, the scene is surprisingly erotic.) I felt the film all-up was fantastic, and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would - you could almost call it magical. It's someone's life story writ large, with beautiful Naples the perfect backdrop to a story of this make-up. Fabietto has to build new relationships when his parents - his only true close friends by that stage of his life - depart the scene, and apart from smuggler and petty criminal Armando (Biagio Manna) he finds film director Antonio Capuano (Ciro Capano). The rest is history. Recommended film - I loved it.

Glad to catch this one - won the Grand Jury Prize at the 78th Venice International Film Festival. Nominated for that Best International Feature Oscar in 2022.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Hand of God.

You don't see it very often, but The Beat That My Heart Skipped is actually a French remake of an American film - it's usually always the other way 'round, but the original was a movie called Fingers (1978), directed by James Toback, and starring Harvey Keitel. When the film started I assumed Thomas Seyr (Romain Duris) was a gangster - but he's actually a very (very) shady real estate broker. They introduce rats to tenements, chase squatters away and purposely smash up properties - all the while skirting French laws concerning property development. His father, Robert (Niels Arestrup), is in the same business, and occasionally gets his son to beat the hell out of tenants who aren't paying their rent. All of this changes when Thomas has a chance encounter with the person who managed his late mother's career as a pianist - who tells him that he had real talent himself, and offers to set up an audition. This has Thomas desperately brushing up on his skills, and neglecting all other areas of his life - in the meantime falling for his best friend and business associate's wife.

What I found different about this movie was the sense that Thomas was heading for disaster despite the fact that he wasn't doing much wrong as far as his life was concerned. Taking piano seriously at first seems like something of a pipe dream, but as he takes lessons with virtuoso Miao Lin (Linh Dan Pham) we see that he does indeed have great talent, and the lessons themselves have him open up more than he was when just working on the edge of criminality - he becomes a better person. I unexpectedly found myself on his side, and rooting for his success - but his ties to his father and his crooked real estate colleagues make this very difficult, which produces a lot of the tension we feel as the narrative beats become more pronounced and severe. We've all seen movies like this before, so we sense that something dramatic and monumental is going to come between Thomas and his dream. All he can do is keep fighting, and all we can do is keep watching.

Main star Romain Duris has a bad-boy Liam Gallagher feel to him which works for this Jacques Audiard film, and Audiard himself would go on to make what is probably his most renowned film after this - A Prophet (2009). Overall the director's output has been maintained at this high level for the majority of his career. He seems like the kind of filmmaker to have a stab at seeing every film he's made. Rust and Bone looks like it might be good, and I've already heard about Dheepan (it's on my watchlist.) This one was an enjoyable watch - I got to see Mélanie Laurent in a small role (she was in that 'minor roles' early stage of her career) and found main character Thomas a fascinating and complex mixture of good and bad. It seems that he's been led astray by his father and compatriots, but decides for himself to do something greater than be a lowly crook. Whether he can or not, it's a change that slowly wins us all over and provides the dramatic context for the shocks to come - making for interesting viewing.

Glad to catch this one - won the BAFTA for Best Film not in the English Language at the 2006 awards ceremony, and 8 César Awards.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Beat That My Heart Skipped.

"Get up!" - "Get down!" - "Get out!" - "Get moving!" The constant barked orders demand a rebuke, but Emmett Myers (William Talman) has the gun, and experience with killing. Roy Collins (Edmond O'Brien) and Gilbert Bowen (Frank Lovejoy) are just two guys who wanted to go fishing - and had the misfortune of picking the hitch-hiking Myers up. So it's "Be quiet!" - "Fix the radio!" - "Give me the keys!" - "Take off your clothes!" Okay, that last one was because Myers wanted to switch so the authorities might misidentify who the killer is if spotted - but it led me to some uncomfortable thoughts about the smell and discomfort of three guys in close proximity in the hot desert for so long. The last thing you'd want to do is put Emmett Myers's clothes on. Talman is uglyed up (props to the make-up team on this film) and when he sleeps he reminds me of a guy I once knew who had a glass eye. Whenever he slept it looked like he was still awake, because that one eye would be open - staring at you. It used to look freaky - just like Myers does.

All the way though The Hitch-Hiker I really wanted one of these guys to go for the gun. I know, it's so easy for me because my life isn't on the line - but Myers keeps on rubbing their nose in it. Chiding them for being inferior - for not taking what they want, like he does. He keeps pushing it - and the audience as well. There's no outlet for us - and it's like Myers is also disparaging the audience, whom I assume mostly participate in society and don't run around like maniacs robbing, taking, punching and killing. Every moment they do what this guy tells 'em to do is another moment he feels justified in crowing about how he's the smart one. "Change the tire!" - "Go to sleep!" - "Hide!" - "Give me that!" It exhausts us even though we only spend an hour with him - the endless hot desert we see making us really think of what it'd be like on the run across the hot, dusty miles with this guy constantly ordering us around - all the while having the power of life and death over us.

One of the most interesting aspects to The Hitch-Hiker is that contempt Myers has for his two victims, seemingly because they're not willing to risk their lives attempting to disarm him and take him on. You know at some stage the tables will probably turn, and it'll be interesting to see how Myers himself reacts. Will he still be the smart one? In the meantime this film (thankfully only 70 minutes in length) has a constancy which wears us down - Myers barking orders nearly non-stop through most of this film's running time. There's a tiny bit of police procedural to the moments we spend away from the threesome, but mostly we're watching these tense interactions - and waiting for any move Roy or Gilbert might make. There's a target practice scene which exemplifies all of the qualities I've defined - that tension, utter defeat and superior attitude from Myers. He doesn't promise the two guys freedom or reward either - being quite open about the fact that at a certain stage he might not need them anymore! On the way to Santa Rosalía, the game plays out in this edgy film noir classic - the first ever directed by a woman.

Glad to catch this one - it holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews - not too bad at all.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Hitch-Hiker.

I feel quiet. I feel depressed. I just watched Conspiracy - a film about the Wannsee Conference, which didn't make the decision to murder all of the Jews in German-occupied Europe but made it clear this was to be done - each person attending in charge of a branch of government which would see it done. Reinhard Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh) tops the list of awful conspirators, Branagh winning an Emmy (he was also nominated for a Golden Globe) because his performance feels too real. A mixture of hatred and "pfft, so we're killing them? So what?" Treating the murder of innocent civilians on about the same level as killing chickens - the industrial scale that this was being done on almost comparable. Stanley Tucci brings us a taciturn and dour Adolf Eichmann - his only sense of positivity one in which he relishes doing his job well. Colin Firth is the practical and lawyerly principled Wilhelm Stuckart - annoyed because this Final Solution of the Jewish Question means the Nazis will be operating contrary to their own laws.

Many a reviewer has written a sterling, impassioned review of this film that says it all so very well. It's a daunting film to talk about, because to do so you're having to acknowledge one of the greatest crimes in human history - and there are no words that can do the feeling of horror justice. The way some of the conference members snort, snicker and chuckle as if this were some ordinary council meeting discussing adding a lane to a highway or requisitioning a park. The way some argue because the Final Solution is going to drain their slave labour workforce (I'd have them admit - for the Nazis there was never any shortage of slave labour when you consider those they found to be unworthy of being free.) The way they serve dinner mid-conference, at which point I felt sick - stuffing their faces while discussing death, disease and murder - all of which is of their own doing. I don't know how the actors all did it - maintaining that level of animalistic nonchalance at the thought of murder and general hubris must have been difficult.

So - this is really required viewing. We usually see the Holocaust at the point of the terrible work being carried out - but it's ideation is an important moment to study because listening to these guys talk makes me realise it could happen again. There are factors I recognize. The arrogance is one. The excessive pride and narcissism another. The lack of empathy, and embrace of nationalistic ideals. All it takes is for the wrong people to have the power to do it. Before it happened, the average everyday German never would have thought it possible that their own government would commit such terrible crimes. It's very interesting to note, at the end of the film, how many of those at the conference ended up free to participate in West German governance after the war ended. Not every participant in the Final Solution received the punishment they probably deserved. Thanks to Undersecretary Martin Luther (Kevin McNally) the minutes of the meeting weren't destroyed - so we know exactly how it played out. For conspiracy theorists - here's one that actually happened, and doesn't need to be dreamed up and spread online.

Glad to catch this one - winner of a BAFTA, Golden Globe and Emmy for Best TV Drama, Stanley Tucci and Kenneth Branagh respectively.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Conspiracy.

Heh. A Miike film up next, huh? His films are generally hit or miss. Audition is great though.

Yeah, I love Audition.

The fact that Takashi Miike made The Happiness of the Katakuris around the same time he did Visitor Q made me a little nervous - not that I found the latter film unendurable, but it transgressed boundaries in a way that was extreme even for this director. The Katakuris has a much better balance of weirdness, horror and fun - it doesn't go for taboos as hard, instead injecting as much of the bizarre as it can while never straying too far from it's central theme about family. The Katakuris consist of a grandfather, mother and father, son and daughter and granddaughter - all living together while running the ‘White Lover's Inn' - situated on a former garbage dump near Mount Fuji. The bed and breakfast hasn't quite got on it's feet yet - the road that will be passing by hasn't been constructed, and whenever the Katakuris gets new guests they find some kind of way of dying. Afraid to taint their business by having to acknowledge these deaths, the Katakuris decide to bury the bodies nearby in an ever-expanding graveyard. (I have never seen The Quiet Family, so was unaware that this was loosely based on it.)

While not always even, or having any kind of rhythm, this film manages to mix together a concoction of styles that'll make your head spin. There's claymation which takes the place of what's going on at any random moment (a lot of fun), and when it's not claymation it's a musical number - all the while Takashi's sense of humour (and I'm almost afraid to admit this) pretty much lines up with mine, making a lot of the funny stuff 'laugh-out-loud' for me. The film is never serious, but at the same time it's beating heart - the love of family - is it's one truly profound and resplendent feature. As a refreshing change, the Katakuris aren't a completely dysfunctional unit but instead a loving family that has it's problems but overcomes them because the love between them all is never questioned or weakened. Whenever it comes time for one to make a sacrifice for the whole, most of them will put their hand up. One other thing I'm thankful for is the fact that none of them are sick or perverted - just unlucky.

Yeah - they all have their problems. The daughter (recently divorced) is the type who falls in love at the drop of a hat - and indeed she swoons over an audacious con-man, "Richard Sagawa" (Kiyoshiro Imawano) who claims to be a member of the British royal family. The son was troubled and a thief, but is trying to make a better go of it. The bed and breakfast might turn out okay - but the fact that the Katakuris are burying so many dead bodies makes this situation deliriously funny. As each one shows up we slip into musical territory which just increases that feeling - and that's where the film is at it's strongest. Sometimes we slide over into absolute lunacy, and that's where the film almost loses me here and there. The film starts in an absolutely bizarre manner - and as I watched I wondered if the entire film would be completely inscrutable - but everything waxes and wanes in The Happiness of the Katakuris. A bright and very Japanese mixture of music, comedy, horror, claymation and positivity. I liked it very much.

Glad to catch this one - won a Special Jury Prize for its director at the 2004 Gérardmer Film Festival and has received generally positive reviews from critics..




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Happiness of the Katakuris.