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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Pigs and Battleships (1961) -




At first glance this is a simple rehash of this classical 30s Hollywood gangster tale, but it has way more to it than you may intially think. The sharp criticism hits both the Japanese and Americans and creates a strong feeling of misery in a world full of suffering. A girl terribly exploited by her own family and a two-bit Yakuza underdog are a part of this world. They find a light of hope in each other, and start the struggle. The film keeps you in suspense to the very end indefinitely drawing out the finale! The ending is both happy and sad. It's depressing, but it also gives hope. It's heartbreaking, but unavoidable. I have to watch more Imamura ASAP, because out of 5 of his I've seen 3 are masterpieces, and I still have to see some of his most acclaimed ones (Black Rain!).

Giants and Toys (1958) -




Masumura's best right after Red Angel! More frightening than most psychological horrors, more disgusting than most body horrors. A fierce satire on consumerism and sharp criticism of the world in which in order to succeed you have to be merciless to your opponents, and (ab)use love only to gain advantage in business. Originality and naturalness are quickly turned into yet another PRODUCT. People are turned into machines - either frantic workaholics, or distressed starlets. They do things only to succeed professionally. No room for sentiments, real feelings. And there is no stopping it - either you comply, or you lose. For satire's sake the film is obviously exaggerated, but also damn recent and still applies to contemporary world. The ending is spectacularly shocking - selling your life and soul for caramels. But, hey, let's smile. The public wants it. The public demands it, and to quote the most jarring line from the film: "The public are worse than babies. Worse than dogs. Because they don't think. They work like slaves, and get drunk at night. TV, radio, movies, games. They have no time to think. That's where we come in. We'll fill their empty heads with our message: "Delicious caramel, World Caramel! World! World!". This is the Japanese Ace in the Hole. A masterpiece of satire! EDIT: Now that I think about it, it's much more like A Face in the Crowd!

In the Shadow of the Blue Rascal (1986) -




Clementi's weakest from what I've seen. I think the prolix narration really drags it down. The sheer power of Clementi's visuals is undeniable, but its weakened by only half-successful attempts at creating a story. Necrocity is a nasty place to live, and the film indeed shows these dilapidated rooms and damaged people with a certain dose of authenticity (even though it's a quasi-sci-fi film), and it's all good, but where the film really shines is when Clemeneti just lets it go in this euphoric end credits sequence. His other flicks are like this all the time, and this is what makes them great. This one is good.

How to Be Loved (1963) -




Welcome back Polish cinema. It's been a while. A very good film from one of the most prominent Polish film auteurs Wojciech Jerzy Has. A woman reminisces about her past during the Second World War, and about her unrequited love. How to be loved? How to deal with it if you have sacrificed everything for that person, but then see that person is slowly descending into the nihil. Are cynicism and indifference indications of desensitization, or ways of fighting with unbearable memories of the past? Chris Marker says in Sans soleil that sometimes he thinks that memories exist only to hurt us. With time the lost person simply disappears, and all that's left is a wound. Disembodied.

Color of Pomegranates (1969) (Parajanov Cut) [REWATCH] -




Finally watched the infamous Blu-ray Criterion restoration. The only version of the film that had been available before was the Yutkevich Cut. This time I watched the Parajanov Cut, which apparently is closer to auteur's original vision. I wish I hadn't watched it. I was tired and had already watched two other films during that weekday (which means all of this after 8 hours of work as well), so I had a hard time focusing on the movie. Of course, visuals were absolutely fantastic, but I couldn't get into the atmosphere. I feel like this is one of the best films ever made, but I just don't understand it yet.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) -




That feel when several hundred years old vampires are more outgoing than 20-something you. I had put off watching it for way too long based solely on the fact the director made a Marvel movie. The reality show formula worked really well, and the gags were genuinely funny. Stu.

Profound Desires of the Gods (1968) -




Just like I said, moar Imamura. Very good cinema, but I wasn't blown away. I guess its themes were a little bit lost on me. Man is an animal no matter the surroundings sounds quite trite. I can't wait for Black Rain next.

First Reformed (2017) -




The only true problem with this otherwise fantastic film is that it takes way too much from others. It's basically a mix of Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, Bergman's Winter Light, and Scorsese's Taxi Driver. But well, it's not easy to be a good epigone, so kudos to Schrader for handling it so well. I love how the film gradually becomes darker, heavier, and more distressing up to the harrowing ending. Great character study. Great deliberately slow pace. Great performances. Wonderfully utilized 4:3 aspect ratio with nice blocking and lighting. Some frames i.e. of the choir singing have this wonderful Bressonian simplicity to them. Haunting dark ambient soundtrack by Lustmord. Also, I watched it in English with no subtitles. I have to start watching all English-language films that way.

In Praise of Love (2001) -




My 55th Godard film (including shorts and every part of Histories of Cinema separately)! Again a very intellectually stimulating essay film that is not only about love, since "You can only think about something if you think of something else.". Sharp DV black and white nights of Paris are combined with oversaturated colors that mimick paintings that create something truly beautiful. When a picture starts to move, a painting turns into cinema. When cinema depicts our true inner selves, it turns into life. So when I'm asked which of the following I choose: a play, a film, a novel or an opera, my answer is life. I choose life.

Erotic Ghost Story II (1991) -




So much worse than the first one! Just when I thought The Heroic Trio was the cringiest Anthony Wong performance... !!! What I got was the cringiest film I've ever seen! Be warned, watch it only if you're desperate for boobies, an Anthony Wong completist, or feel like extremely cringy HK craziness. For all of you who won't see it (let's be honest, all of you) here follows the sneak peek:
- it starts with a synopsis of the previous film along with a changed ending to fit this film's "plot" (!)
- apart from the synopsis that uses footage from the previous part only Amy Yip is left from the original cast, but she dies in the first 5 minutes
- the new girls are fine, though
- Anthony Wong f*cks two girls at once using his penis and his tail (!!!)
- a man f*cking a pig is seen for a couple of seconds (random af)
- uncensored vagina is seen for a split second (tribute to part 1?)
- a girl on girl action is followed by a threesome - quite clumsy
- sex scenes contain licking of random body parts like buttocks, arms or back
- another sex scene has Anthony Wong pouring red hot wax on a girl's body (she did it to herself earlier in the film, too)
- the goofy "haha, we're making a sex film" or corny sax solo music ruins any attempts at atmosphere-building
- not that any of the atmosphere of the first Erotic Ghost Story nor Chinese Ghost Story is ever present
- a midget turns into a fireball and attacks Anthony Wong
- a girl pretends to be a cat to hypnotize Anthony and then they have underwater sex
- another girl uses the heat of her body to melt down the ice cube her lover is inside.

Change Nothing (2009) -




A disappointment from Pedro Costa! It drags, but doesn't drift.

The Magic Blade (1976) -




Yet another (great) Shaw Brothers film. Devil Grandma was vile!!! Fights and twists were enjoyable as hell! The humane scene was really unexpected and touching!

Through and Through (1973) -




My first Królikiewicz. An experimental Polish film. Cold, but hits where it needs.

Cat’s Play (1974) -




The stream of consciousness of Hungarian grandmas is so beautiful, moving, rad. I can't believe it! I really have to rewatch this director's Love.

Dead Landscape (1972) -




An extraordinary ordinary film! Director's, István Gaál's, other film I saw Current gave me similar feels, but it was so outstanding visually it was hard to believe. This film has wonderful cinematography, too, but it's also so modest, It's expertly crafted. Everything seems to be at its place, everything set just right, but it's also so natural. It doesn't bring attention to itself. It just goes. Things just happen, and in the end the only question I'm left with is: Should I give it a
?
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



Weird is relative.

Color of Pomegranates (1969) (Parajanov Cut) [REWATCH] -




Finally watched the infamous Blu-ray Criterion restoration. The only version of the film that had been available before was the Yutkevich Cut. This time I watched the Parajanov Cut, which apparently is closer to auteur's original vision. I wish I hadn't watched it. I was tired and had already watched two other films during that weekday (which means all of this after 8 hours of work as well), so I had a hard time focusing on the movie. Of course, visuals were absolutely fantastic, but I couldn't get into the atmosphere. I feel like this is one of the best films ever made, but I just don't understand it yet.
I watched this yesterday for the first time, and I thought it was a fantastic piece of performance art, as though it were an art documentary. That would be the best way to appreciate it, in my opinion, because otherwise one will think it makes zero sense while they search hopelessly for coherent threads of plot to follow.
I am definitely going to re-watch it.



The Ritual



A group of friends mourning the recent untimely loss of their friend go on a hiking trip to spread his ashes and spend some time together. Unbeknownst to them they are in for a deadly experience on their trip.

The best thing about this movie is its atmosphere. Outbacks has always been a favorite horror movie setting for me. Because its the closest setting to reality that there is. Urban horror is not believable because we live in urban places all the time. Space horror is not relatable because most have never been to space. Even Jungle horror is remote because rarely do people venture into jungles. But hiking in the outback is something people do.

So the movie starts with few men in UK leaving a game and two of them go into a super market , one more reluctant than the other but unbeknownst to them they stumble into a store mid robbery. The sequence here is quite brilliant. Both these guys are in an aisle and as the robbers emerge from the restricted room in the store, the quick witted one among the two moves fast to the end of aisle and hides. Since its a matter of fraction of seconds before the guys notice them the other guy couldn't just follow his friend. So he is spotted and in an altercation that ensues looses his life all while his cowardly friend hides there and does nothing. There is certain guilt to his character but the actor who portrays him doesn't have enough brood and screen presence to carry it with him. This is a good set up. But I do think this a clever idea and can't call it an outstanding achievement in story telling. Because its just a trick. If you watch enough cable news then you will stumble upon a news where guys stumble into stores mid robbery. Most of these outback horror thrillers are creature features. Going supernatural diminishes the effect. Because, for the most part the gist of the story lies is these characters making out alive against a quantifiable threat. A mortal threat. Once it becomes immortal there is no real end to it. It becomes genie in the bottle scenario. You never know when the bottle is going to be knocked down and genie is out. The problem with having a mortal threat is it lessens the danger. You know its some hillbillies if its in the outback. All these poses challenges.

The best thing about this movie is that it wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the treat of a supernatural entity but at the same time it wants a definitive ending. The execution is brilliant. The movie overlaps the supernatural entity with natural boundaries. So, all these friends from the beginning of the movie have a trail they follow en-route their hiking trip to a hotel in the outback. The interesting thing about the movie is that they can actually see the hotel far away since its the only human made structure in the area. Due to series of unpleasant events that happen while following their planned route they had to take a detour through a jungle. So, all the people are entering this jungle with a sense of guilt and their trip is in memory of their dead friend. Once they enter the jungle the director had a little trouble in balancing the sense of dread and the guilt of these characters. Firstly they are being stalked by something in the jungle. Initially the guilt between these characters takes precedence in their priorities of attention. Then after spending a night in a house they found in the jungle the dread takes higher priority as it looks like their survival instincts kicked in. Its then the director makes a series of mistakes. He tries to compound their sense of dread with their guilt but it simply doesn't work. You can't have characters worrying about something that isn't life or death situation when they are actually in a life or death situation. It makes them annoying. So the movie wanders a little bit off target which I feel is intentional but misguided. In the third act the movie solves the mystery with a supernatural explanation of a Nordic demon haunting the forests and who happens to have disciples . They have plans for these new entries. Some to be sacrificed and some to be joining the disciples to continue their race. Which is a saving grace for all the meandering in the second half. The surviving one among the group manages to escape and survive the Nordic demon. They use the Jungle as the force field for the demon. There by giving this supernatural entity a finite force field. This makes audience satisfied that our protagonist makes it out alive. That to me is most impressive part of the movie. The way the filmmakers were able makes this movie with lot of abstract elements of guilt, demon and haunting feel like a movie with finite ending is very satisfying.



A system of cells interlinked
Alien

Now a word about Ridley Scott. I covered my disdain for him in Covenant review. But people always bring up this movie to defend the genius of Ridley Scott. But the problem with that argument is, at this point in his career he was a ads director. He used to shoot TV commercials. The studio having liked his direction gave him this movie. But if you look at the movie there is not too much room for a director to imprint his stamp in a boiler room story. Its almost a closed space movie. He can't take credit for creature design because thats another department. The screenplay is given to him. What he basically did was , he made a movie that satisfied the financiers. Because this movie is no different than a slasher movie. But the genius of setting it in space and having this awesome creature design and face hugger design came from people involves in this movie that are not the director of the movie.

I think you need to research the making of alien a bit more, especially the stuff about Ridley's inarguable genius in regards to vision and art direction, which he always take a huge part in, so much so, that while working on some films, it becomes a detriment because he ignores other important aspects of the film. I really think this is where Ridley excels, and I don't think he is a genius director, but can certainly be a genius film maker from a more purely artistic standpoint. Just look at Blade Runner, where he again focused a large part of his energy on the art direction, much to the annoyance of the person who was hired as the art director. This stuff is pretty well documented, so should be fairly easy to dig up.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



Alien
...the filmmakers decided to include some blue collar worker-esque crew members in there. I think its a commercial decision by studio.
I seriously doubt the producers micro managed the film and insisted on blue collar workers for characters. Remember the crew are space miners of asteroids employed by a corporation. That's why they're rough and tumble like blue collar workers.

The problem is, its an alien planet and they are just going on it with no hesitation. Even looking into the egg of the face hugger is kind of a stupid movie. He knew something was moving inside it , then why even look into it so directly. But the curiosity of it all from audience stand point sort of makes us excuse these dumb decisions by astronauts.
It's a movie, not a documentary and the crew member needs to be attacked by the face hugger to make the rest of the story work.

Because what happens next is a series of kills by the creature and the filmmakers reveals their final trick and that happens to be the android trick.
And that was a pretty good trick in it's day. Now we all know about the android but when if first came out it was a shocker and made a statement about corporate greed in the future.

Now a word about Ridley Scott...if you look at the movie there is not too much room for a director to imprint his stamp in a boiler room story. Its almost a closed space movie. He can't take credit for creature design because thats another department. The screenplay is given to him. What he basically did was , he made a movie that satisfied the financiers.
Atmosphere! Ridely gave the movie atmosphere and without that it would have been just another film.

I think you need to research the making of alien a bit more, especially the stuff about Ridley's inarguable genius in regards to vision and art direction, which he always take a huge part in, so much so, that while working on some films, it becomes a detriment because he ignores other important aspects of the film. I really think this is where Ridley excels, and I don't think he is a genius director, but can certainly be a genius film maker from a more purely artistic standpoint. Just look at Blade Runner, where he again focused a large part of his energy on the art direction, much to the annoyance of the person who was hired as the art director. This stuff is pretty well documented, so should be fairly easy to dig up.
Yup, well said.



I think you need to research the making of alien a bit more, especially the stuff about Ridley's inarguable genius in regards to vision and art direction, which he always take a huge part in, so much so, that while working on some films, it becomes a detriment because he ignores other important aspects of the film. I really think this is where Ridley excels, and I don't think he is a genius director, but can certainly be a genius film maker from a more purely artistic standpoint. Just look at Blade Runner, where he again focused a large part of his energy on the art direction, much to the annoyance of the person who was hired as the art director. This stuff is pretty well documented, so should be fairly easy to dig up.
After watching directors commentary along with cast and crew I stand slightly corrected. But I still think creating a smoky environment and other superficial things is not the core of a directors skillset. A directors core skillset should be to tell a great story and not just a pretty story. I think Ridley Scott just focused on asking various departments to show him 10 different ways of how a set should look like or a prop should look like and pick one from them. He lucked out with Alien and few other movies (which means his choices worked for these movies). In case of alien the script was great and may be the 4th act of Alien in Ripley's escape pod was Ridley's idea and in case of gladiator Russell Crowe single handedly carried all the emotional weight of the movie. Again, he seems much more focused on staying employed and pleasing studios than taking his time to really dig into a story and make the movies that are close to him.



A system of cells interlinked
After watching directors commentary along with cast and crew I stand slightly corrected. But I still think creating a smoky environment and other superficial things is not the core of a directors skillset. A directors core skillset should be to tell a great story and not just a pretty story. I think Ridley Scott just focused on asking various departments to show him 10 different ways of how a set should look like or a prop should look like and pick one from them. He lucked out with Alien and few other movies (which means his choices worked for these movies). In case of alien the script was great and may be the 4th act of Alien in Ripley's escape pod was Ridley's idea and in case of gladiator Russell Crowe single handedly carried all the emotional weight of the movie. Again, he seems much more focused on staying employed and pleasing studios than taking his time to really dig into a story and make the movies that are close to him.
Again, I agree that Ridley perhaps isn't a director with the greatest director's skill set, but his vision at the time for sci-fi was pretty great. Did you run into any info concerning his story-boarding skills...the Ridleygrams?



Aliens



We are back at it again but only now its a lot of them against a group of soldiers. Aliens, the bigger and more bad-ass version of Alien.

James Cameron took over from Ridley Scott for this edition. I am not going to use the comparison of horror vs action between the first and second one because its been done by everyone. But this movie builds upon the mythology of the first in a rather conventional manner. It respects the first movie. However the movie doesn't feel like a knock off of the first however conventional it is. James Cameron made subtle changes to the script and mythology. When it comes to action, James Cameron has the ability to make it just right. He perfected that in the 90s with Terminator and True Lies and he became a master at it in avatar. But in 80s his action scenes has a punk rock vibe and lot of cheese to them. Smack talk during action is a big part of that. This movie has a lot of it.

Logically this movie doubles down on the stupidity of the human characters except for Ripley and the good android, which is awesome. Most characters make tons of mistakes again and again. First the corporation doesn't believe what happened to her space ship. Logically that should lead to her punishment . But for the sake of the movie we need Ripley outside. So they write her off as semi-delusional and close the case. We know they aren't trying to cover it up because there is a colony on the very same planet. James Cameron movies have strong undertones of socio-economic class systems. It's very obvious for movie buffs but if you just watch movies for entertainment over the weekends then you might not notice it. Its very evident in Titanic and avatar. Not so much in terminator movies and abyss but in this movie there is this "evil corporation" undertone all over the movie. Back to the stupid characters, the corporation sends a guy with them to investigate the place and even he is an idiot. As for the soldiers their actions as part of the mission are rooted in stupidity. I get that soldiers should show no fear. But when is ignorance confused with bravery ? Vast stretches of this movie have sequences which could have been avoided if the soldiers were much more vigilant. Firstly none of them take Ripley's situation seriously. That's kinda dumb. You think what she says is bull**** but you want her with you. You don't believe the whole colony is wiped out by aliens yet you want Ripley to accompany the soldiers. All these are contradictions that provide entertainment for audience but make no sense. Couple of soldiers are straight up caricatures. You have the macho Latin american lady, the bro dude, the straight calm and collected semi-love interest for Ripley kinda guy and the full metal jacket-esque sergeant. They take you out of the plot only to entertain the audience. So there is that upside to these characters.

In a weird way this movie sort of follows the tradition of dumb actions by characters in very dangerous situations in the franchise. They are aware that metal railings are burnt due to acid then why are they not vigilant and even their boss who is giving orders from a remote monitor doesn't take Ripley's suggestions seriously. Why bring an adviser when you don't even consider her advises. All these questions stack up. Even the decision to secretly impregnate Ripley/Little girl by the corporate guy is dumb. Don't you think they won't tell ? It wasn't even the time for it. All this makes for a very dumb movie. But here are some cool sequences through out the movie like when they escape through the pipes from xenomorphs or the knife trick by android. All these raise from level of super cool to become iconic in sci-fi genre. The core relationship and emotion of the movie is between the little girl they find in the colony and Ripley. Its a mother daughter kind of relationship. It works for what it is given that it is in an action movie scenario. But for some reason even though I liked the character of the little girl, she has a punchable face. I get that they can't cast a future model type girl as it would take the audience out of the movie but for some reason her face annoyed me.There is brief sequence in the movie where the android has to crawl through a long pipe with very small diameter to go to the other side and do something. I always thought that there might be a cool interesting side story that could have been told in the movie with that. I don't mean making the android evil or anything. But either he stumbles into a group of sleeping xenomorphs and he somehow uses that knowledge to help the crew or something. Imagine this - "You are in a very small pipe crawling and that won't fit a xenomorph and the pipe is the last place a xenomorph would suspect someone to be in because of how far stretching it is. So all this makes the chance of surviving while crawling in the pipe more than 50%. For me it felt like a little cozy place and quite frankly a very safe place rather than where all the crew were hiding out". Its a little tense sequence that could have been elaborated upon but the focus is instead on all the crew. Which makes it an action sequence as opposed to a tension filled sequence. I am okay with creature design. But this movie gives away the fakeness of the creatures more than the first because the script demanded much more dexterity from the creatures. The whole concept of queen is a little predictable. Of course there will be one like it is for ants. The whole egg laying concept didn't work. James Cameron should have spent more time to make the origins of the egg much more creative than a lame excuse of alien queen. Its soo cheesy. The fight in the end would likely appeal to someone who saw the movie when it came out than the current audience. The fight between mec suit ripley and alien queen might be ground breaking for that time but it doesnt hold up. The Alien is far more dexterous than the mec suit. But in the end its a fun watch. Nonetheless the dumbness in this movie starts stacking up pretty fast. I mean, fast.



The Dark Knight Rises



The conclusion to batman saga in the dark knight trilogy.

This movie is like a monster with flu that crosses the finish line. By the point this movie is released I am a dark knight trilogy fan and also I have heard that my friends watched Inception on IMAX and that it was awesome. So the formation of intense worldwide Nolan fan base is in full swing.Moreover I became a fan of christian bale by pure coincidence. I was obsessed with the first half of batman begins when I first watched it but for some reason during Inception and 2011 Oscar win by Bale made me want to look up more about Bale. Then I stumbled upon his filmography and anyone who does that with christian bale will be highly intrigued and is bound to be fan. So the movie starts with an introduction to bane. Nolan is too smart of a director for your average critic or even director. Never in this movie did he try and beat specific elements of the dark knight. He went in a totally different direction. He is trying to top the dark knight without competing with it in the same race. Kind of like Oscars. No two nominees are the same but none the less they compete for the same prize. Nolan chose to make the movie a mythology and a fairy tale. Obviously fans of the trilogy wanted a hyper realistic take on the character. But he knew that he can never top the dark knight by making another crime saga.He had to make it work as a sequel that is going to establish the legend of the character. No legend is satisfactory without some mysticism and surreal quality to it.You can't develop a legend if everyone knows his life in and out as a book, there has to be some divine intervention.

Even though this movie is great there is one specific story-line that kind of bummed me out. The moment bane captures the city, his plan is a real bummer. Both the weight of the plan and the directorial choices to inter cut the reveal of Gordon's intentions in bane's speech with occupy wall street montage sort of fell apart.Nonetheless this movie is more about intentions rather than the practicality of it. The time it takes for Bruce Wayne to get fixed or to comeback to Gotham are part of legend. It not about how he did but about the fact that he came back.The scope and scale of this movie is the biggest of the trilogy. Chris Nolan was able to maintain the tone of the movie through out. Dark movies are easy targets for critics if not done right. Because you are not entertaining the audience by making them laugh. You are evoking their other senses and that means their focuses turns to quality of the movie than the fact that it makes you laugh.

This movie can be used to explore an interesting concept apart from the review. That's called Tom Hardy phenomenon. I will try and cover all aspects of it.So Tom Hardy was a little known actor before Inception outside UK or may be even inside. UK film community has a soft spot for born and bred British actors starting out in the industry and then branching out to US with their roots still in British cinema. This can be seen in the kind of projects those actors make.Are they giving opportunities to British filmmakers ? are they acting in British TV series all while making movies in Hollywood. Because they treat them as one of their own. They consider them as proud representatives of British talent abroad. Youth in UK also want to think that way. This is similar to the over whelming popularity of conor mcgregor in Ireland. If a video of conor mcgregor is posted ,more than half of those views are from Ireland and rest are from wannabe tough guys. Same thing with Tom Hardy. His online popularity is from his UK fans or wannabe tough guys because he is bane and mad max. In case of Tom Hardy he is more internet famous than anything. He can't put butts in the theater. But his videos will get clicks. His fans are from superhero genre. They are not going to follow him into his other movies. This UK respect is shown by fellow actors as well. Its all tribal. UK actors in Hollywood need to stick up for each other. Aussies with Aussies. The problem is patriotism gets in the way of being objective. Tom Hardy is not versatile. His troubled childhood and youth transformed him into this troubled individual and that looks good on screen for the roles he portrays. That's his baseline.From then on he acts like he is happy. He acts like he is charming. But all those are fronts to his disturbed core. You look at his online profile and he has huge presence. But, look at his movie's box office performance and they perform horribly when he is front and center. This disconnect is because his fans want fast and furious type movies because thats the demographics he appeal to and he is making movies like the drop. It doesn't work that way. He has to make movies with Quentin Tarantino or someone like that with multiplex audience appeal. Then he is walking the fine line between commercial appeal and critical appeal. But that's DiCaprio's turf. People don't seem to understand that it can be incredibly frustrating for No.2 actor on producers list of actors in demand because they always get the rejected material by No. 1. Currently the top stars are Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, christian bale, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Matthew Mcconaughey , Michael Fassbender, Tom hardy, Bradley Cooper and Jake Gyllenhaal. These are the cream of the crop in Hollywood. They are talented and most popular male stars. But they all come only second to DiCaprio. So this weird hype that Tom Hardy is enjoying will not last longer. Because eventually he has to succumb to the Hollywood system. His movies will not meet expectations because he is not working with masters of filmmaking for every movie. Thats the only way to create event movie level hype for everyone of your movies. Of course the movies has to meet the hype.

This movie is very cloudy. Rarely if ever do you see sunlight. I think I used this statement before but mad max fury road and the dark knight trilogy are the only movies that doesn't star DiCaprio since 1997 but feel like dramas with epic scale and incredible ambitiousness with huge financial risk and actually worked out in the end for both financiers and critics. Both those movie have a sense of studios dumping lot of money into movies just based on the vision of a single person and realizing each and every scene with extreme precision and to its fullest potential. You want a scene in a ball room ? lets get a huge ball room and take our time to shoot it. You want streets full of snow ? lets cover streets with fake snow and get expensive permits to block streets for multiple days of shoot. You want to explode a football stadium ? lets do it. All these are very unique to this movie. I have only one non-Nolan and non-DiCaprio movie do it since this movie and that would be Logan. That movie had the balls to spend 90 million on a movie that actually looks like distopian wasteland. But anyways thats a huge benefit this movie. Batman doesn't show up half way through the movie and has around 10-15 minutes screen time in a close to 170 minute movie. The extensive set piece for the heist in the air carrier and Wall Street. The whole pit for bruce Wayne to come out are all very impressive. I remember being obsessed with the teaser. And the final shot of batman backing away when bane walks towards him. Its an imposing shot of a man having met his match. The first encounter between batman and bane is the best part of the movie. Its a fist fight , a very simple first fight with no global scale explosions. Its just a hand to hand combat in a sewer. I always thought that the fight could have been more badass if it took place in Arkham prison with all the prisoners cheering it on. Somehow all the cops are out and the whole prison is unguarded. And cat woman lures batman into prison and alas he is in front of bane. But then again its hard to find a prison with such huge free space in between. Nolan wanted each punch to feel like it matters and not be overtaken by the background sound. Even visual point of view it does feel like having more people staring at them kinda distracts audience away from the fight. The pit is the give away for Nolan treating this movie as a mythology. Because the legend of the pit is established super vaguely. Its almost like "once upon a time far far away" kinda story. All this is Nolan giving us hints that it is a conclusion. The ticking bomb is a used trope but by that point a lot is happening and Nolan is juggling 100 things at a time that the bomb can be given a pass. He made Bruce Wayne survive for commercial reasons. The taking over of mantle is something Nolan wanted to use as a satisfying conclusion to bruce Wayne saga because audience know what it takes for a man to don that cape and fight crime. We have seen bruce Wayne literally go through the ringer at every step of the way.



A Simple Favor



A nerdy single mom becomes friends with a very attractive but mysterious neighbor who is leagues above her in looks department. But one day the mysterious woman disappears and this forces the nerdy mom, our lead to uncover truths about the disappearance.

I enjoyed this movie thoroughly and since it came out this weekend if you are interested to watch it but are on the fence, I suggest you go watch it right now . Only asterisk her is if you are into the sensibilities of Paul Feig as a director. This is a murder mystery and at no point does it try to be a comedy but the comedic moments comes through characters involved in the mystery and those characters have Paul Feig's comedic sensibilities. He does deliver a compelling murder mystery/thriller. Almost all the main characters in the movie has layers to them. Some characters that look innocent are not so innocent and some characters that are vile and quite despicable can't help themselves but be that way. Blake Lively plays the role a pathological liar and femme fatale quite perfectly. Its one of those roles that's comparable to Sharon Stone's character in Basic Instinct. Only difference is that there is no x-rated stuff in this movie. Director cleverly makes almost all the main characters feel like culprits. So, for a while there you feel that the protagonist is somehow involved with the disappearance of Blake Lively and for sometime her husband who is played by Henry Golding feels like culprit.Another important thing that people going into this movie should note is that this is not a David Fincher movie. In David Fincher movies every character has certain darkness to them. There are no black and white characters. The darkness of the characters comes from the scripts, the actors chosen by David Fincher and of course Fincher's direction. But in this movie the script is written for a director like Paul Feig and the actors chosen for the movie are approved by Paul Feig. So you need to know that before going into the movie. The complexity of the characters in this movie are much more compartmentalized and are distinguishable by audience as opposed to a David Fincher movie. For example in Social Network, David Fincher presented Mark Zukerberg as this vile character thats reprehensibly ambitious and who is getting layed in toilet because he is famous. Thats a lot of layers to a character thats supposed to be this great genius. Where as in this movie in one scene we get a comedic/innocent Anna Kendrick and in the next scene we get a smart investigative Anna Kendrick. Thats a compartmentalized portrayal of a character than a complicated character thats walking with all the inner demons in them all at once.You can see the script turning off some of the characteristics of a character and turning on some other characteristics required for the scene in this movie. There are 3 or 4 times in the movie where I wished it had been directed by David Fincher as opposed to Paul Feig so that I could get that dark turn I wanted for the story to take but Paul Feig detours it into some not so dark places.

Key thing you need to understand is that this movie is the cinematic equivalent of the mystery/investigative novels read by housewives. This movie is aimed for middle aged women as I saw a lot of them in the theater. Luckily I went with my girlfriend so I didn't feel like a weirdo sitting by myself in a theater with mostly middle aged women on a girls night. So anyone going for a hardcore mystery will not like it. There is some dark stuff but the movie brings it back to light place quite quickly so that it doesn't loose its key demographic. You are not going to get a movie with grit and feel of something like Seven. But the movie is engaging enough for you to forgive the films unwillingness to go the distance. A much easier way to say about this movie is, there is a joke for almost every 5 minutes of the movie even till the end. So, even during the climax there are jokes in the dialogue. I liked it. However some jokes didn't work in terms of the dialogue.

Spoilers

So the main storyline of the movie involves Blake Lively's sudden disappearance. Initially everyone thinks she just ran off due to financially unsustainable marriage but later her body is found in the bottom of a lake. Due to shared grief between Anna Kendrick and Lively's husband they start an affair. After a while when she decides to move into the house she starts feeling Lively's presence not just imaginarily but even physically. The straw that breaks camel's back is when she receives an envelop through her son's friend aka Lively's actual son which contains a very dark and disturbing information about our protagonist's past which only Lively could have known. The reason for this whole taunting is because Lively , who isn't dead is angered by her husband's affair with Kendrick.

The reveal of the secret behind the identity of the body found in the lake is uncovered by Anna kendrick after she knows for sure Lively is not dead. Director does a very layered approach to the investigation. I liked it so much. It almost feels like her investigation is leading her deeper and deeper into the distrubing past of Blake lively's character. Blake Lively as I said is a very disturbing and exploitative character. She is the kind of girl that you hear about in the news that is murdered by her husband for having an affair. I always wondered how guys can be so dumb in judging the character of certain kind of women. I can only presume you will see lot of such women in Los Angeles because only so few of them make it to the top that the rest of them have to find a source of income to live and they use sex as a power play to make money. So Blake Lively's character is a parasite and she is born "evil". During the first layer of investigation Anna kendrick through a nude painting of Blake Lively tracks down its painter. As I said she is a parasite and also happens to be a bi sexual. So she scams the painter for a lot of money under the pretext of a sexual relationship and vanishes. The painter seems like one of those nice people who believes the best in people and moves on if life screws them over. So she moved on from Blake lively's betrayal. Linda Cardellini plays that role so well. She is tough in appearance but not at heart. So Blake lively was able to scam her. From there Anna Kendrick's investigation goes a layer deeper. She finds out Blake Lively's original identity and tracks down her address and sees her mom in a rather tension filled sequence. You could see the impact of Blake Lively's disturbing actions during her teenage years in her mother. Her mother is living a sad and depressed life.Through her , she learns that Lively's character has a twin and together they kill their father by burning the house down at a very young age due to some fight in the family. That forces them to run away from the house and split because twin killers are easy to track down if they stay together. We follow one sister who stays in America as the other sister movies to Mexico and becomes a drug addict. One the day of her disappearance she goes to visit her long last junkie twin who starts black mailing her for 1 million dollars. So Blake Lively cooks up a plan to kill two birds with one shot. So she kills her twin sister faking her own death and once her husband gets the insurance money due to her death she will join him and they can live together. But those plans are slightly spoiled by Anna Kendricks interference and ultimately Anna Kendrick orchestrates a sting to make Lively confess for her crimes.

Henry golding is perfect as a guy stuck between these two women. The movie cleverly shows how even attractive guys like Henry are not immune to the charms and scams of someone as vile and as attractive as Blake Lively. That was so great because the movie could have easily followed the route of showing the pair as a mismatched couple where Lively's character is too good looking and her husband is way below her league. But Paul Feig wanted the pair to look like a believable couple. I liked how no 2 characters are in complete honesty with each other. Blake Lively has got her husband wrapped around her finger and she is the perfect embodiment of femme fatale in any movie ever. Her character was written so well. It almost feels like one of those supermodels who switch between dating celebrities or increase the profile of men they date with time as they themselves get more and more famous.One of the scenes towards the end of the movie is another gem. There is a point in the story when Anna Kendrick had to choose between siding with Lively's character and blame her husband for forcing his wife to fake her own death so they can get the insurance money or side with husband to perform a sting on Lively as make her confess. By this point she realizes that Lively is a pathological liar and her husband didn't ever love Anna Kendrick. So she has reason to hate both of them. But she choose to side with the husband and expose Lively. I am not sure how much of it has to do with the findings from her own investigation that uncovered the evil of Lively's character and how much of it has to do with how a female mind works and not wanting to let a woman getaway with what she has done to her husband. But nonetheless it was a very good storyline.

The gripe I had with the movie was there are many scenes where the movie could have gone deeper and darker with certain storylines. Blake Lively could have executed her disappearance plan much more carefully. After all , she is a skillful parasite and femme fatale. Her move to taunt Anna Kendrick ultimately became the bane of her existence. Had she not done that , Anna Kendrick wouldn't have investigated her background. Even her plan to fake her death to get the insurance money of 4 million was so spontaneous. She never planned on killing her sister until she met her. Its little hard to believe that she cooked up this whole plot in a matter of seconds. To use the millions of insurance money she must have to either disappear with her whole family. That would have been a very suspicious getaway plan. I also didn't get how Anna Kendrick fits into the whole exploitative nature of Blake lively. From her past we know that she used lot of people around her. The only thing I can think of is she just used her to babysit her son. If thats the case then I take back my criticism. The creepy past of Anna Kendrick having an incestuous relationship with her half brother and eventually her husband finding that out that leads to both their deaths in an altercation servers only one purpose . It makes our protagonist believable when she is investigating this whole disturbing past and not be just a dumb nerdy workaholic single mother who is at the wrong place at the wrong time because she has gone through some dark stuff and she is smarter than she is letting out to be. I get that. So all in all its a tight script and I enjoyed it.

In a way this can be considered as an origin story for a private detective. A single mom vlogger who gets sucked into a murder mystery , uncovers the mystery with her own skills and realizes that she is highly gifted at this. After the case is closed , she becomes an investigator.



Age of Consent (Michael Powell, 1969) -


The logline about an ageing male artist facing a creative slump and being inspired by a pretty young girl really does sound terrible on paper so it's a credit to all involved that it doesn't turn out too badly in execution, though I suppose it's helped by not being too long or too skeezy and actually having some well-composed visuals thrown into the mix.
Where did you find this film, Iro? (PM if necessary)
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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019



Andromeda strain



After a satellite crash lands in a remote New Mexico village, the whole village and the 2 government officials tasked with retrieving it die in a mysterious manner. Its up-to scientists to find the root cause of this strange occurence.

The movie belongs to this very niche genre called a mission film. Most movies try to cover lot of things during the course of its runtime. But there are few movies which focus extensively on one thing. No matter the time and events in the movie all of them relate to one common thing. Every character's motivation is the same. This approach gave the movie a very pointed focus. Audience are treated to very unique scenes of a village where everyone is dead and scientists are going through the village among all these dead bodies. The concept of quarantine and isolation are key plot points in the movie.Even though antagonist of the movie is virus, the way it creates this sense of dread among all the people in this facility and all people involved in this first line of defense for humanity has a very visceral feeling. Its a whole new play ground for the director.The movie is very matter of fact about the biological procedures to isolate and neutralize this virus. Our protagonists are all normal looking everyday heroes. Most of the actors are unknowns or little known actors. Thats a very big deal. I mean the director must have had to fight studios to let them put an all unknown cast. Here the virus is the lead character. Its driving the plot and presence of a movie star could have spoilt its thrill. The three parts of this puzzle include the virus itself, the survivors immune to the virus and the test subjects killed by virus. Its interesting how all three play a part in their mission.

The main problem with the movie is that it slightly falls apart in the third act. Until this point the whole procedure has a very realistic feel to it. Its an incredible achievement by director to create this visceral feel among audience by making the whole movie move at a natural pace and not succumb to cinematic techniques. However in the end the director wanted that cinematic ending and so he decided to ramp up the narrative momentum. Even though he did that cleverly and staying true to realistic tone, the movie did feel abrupt in the end. I mean just a few minutes ago we were lost and in the matter of minutes we found everything and they dropped the ball on full impact of the antagonist a little bit in the end. Only the pace felt unnatural and jarring to the rest of the movie.It not a masterpiece by any means but it makes for a very good double feature with another space based movie called Capricorn one. Both have this semi conspiracy theory based narrative feel to them.



Empire of the sun



A boy living in china gets separated from his parent during the Japanese invasion and he must learn to grow up in these harsh circumstances and in the process loose his innocence as a child.

Its one of those early movies where Spielberg is trying to make a turn into dramatic work from blockbuster film making. Hie is getting lot of resistance from not just critics but also from the people that matter like studio executives and financiers. But since he made them a lot of money he was given leeway to make few of these dramatic movies. Color purple and empire of the sun are some of his earlier forays into dramatics. Color purple was a massive success in terms of Oscar nominations and it did fairly well at box office. Because world wide audience along with US are interested in knowing about black culture but the weird thing about it all is that the curious of audience stop there. Other races and cultures want a movie about black culture with black cast and that's all. They are not interested in seeing black actors in common man movies or movies where the focus of the character is not on their blackness. Its the same even now. Black Panther has its roots in its blackness. Its about the culture of black people and so people are interested in seeing it and most of the audience are kids who don't know any better. Denzel Washington and will smith are the only two actors who were able to transcend it but even they had to stick with switching between commercial entertainers and low-budget dramas. They are not allowed to makes ambitious movies that have something to say like Revenant or the martian. Lets see if that changes.

This movie has a huge budget for its time. With the lead as an unknown that's pretty ballsy. Something like ET has alien as its star. But here the movie rests on the shoulder of young christian bale. I thought he did an outstanding job. The character is that of a highly active kid who survives the concentration camps of war by merely doing what he had to to survive. Over the course of his stay he is exposed to all possible kinds of human experiences. He sees some stuff he is not supposed to see at his age. All this accelerates his mental growth rate. At his age he doesn't see an enemy as an enemy rather he sees them as humans. But the circumstances forces him to behave like an adult. The movie has few cheesy lines and scenes where a Japanese kid tries to cut a fruit with a knife while Bale is holding it but from afar it looks like he is about to kill Bale. So the people who knew Bale from concentration camp tries to help and protect him but he sees adults making such evil decisions to kill an innocent kid trying to help him. There is no other way but to describe this journey as loss of innocence. I don't think Bale was acting and rather he was reacting. He was coached by Spielberg on the set in the moment. Which I think is how lot of kids act. They just react and throw a tantrum or something. They can't and don't internalize scenes and emotions. But there is so much Bale's face is emoting at a given time that it almost feels like he is mentally there.

Speaking of Bale, this is one of his early collaborations on a movie and that happens to be with Spielberg. I hate to compare this to any of the later collaborations of Spielberg. The main reason for that is in Spielberg's early part of career the cinematic landscape was different. Movies can sell themselves on their themes. Jaws and ET were more or less family friendly creature features. They are PG versions of Alien/The thing/Predator. They are mild and accessible enough to make boatloads of money. He made Indiana Jones movies as well cashing off the stardom of Harrison Ford from Star wars. I am not saying its easy but there is a clear path for those movies to make money. Heck, even Fugitive made lot of money. But from late 90s and early 2000s on wards Spielberg started behaving more and more like a better version of studio director for hire than a director with a vision. He always had his laurels to fall back on in terms of legacy and pedigree but for the most part he started behaving like a director dependent on the star power of the movie stars for box office rather than his own name brand and the strength of the movie. He collaborated with Tom Cruise , Tom hanks and DiCaprio. All these are bonafide movie stars who can bring in at-least 300 millions $ on a movie as long as it is either epic in scale or entertaining enough. He managed to not work with cheap movie stars like Adam Sandler but nonetheless he became dependent on star power. So none of those collaborations felt like a director pursuing his vision and more like studios put together a cast and a movie for him to direct. It all felt so commercial and cheap. In the last decade I felt most of his movies to be extremely pumped with studio push and marketing. Studios tried to push his movies way too hard to get some kind of recognition they never deserved. Even he is too scared to play it risky. All of them are just him playing it safe critically and financially. He lost his mojo. So to me collaboration in this movie always feels like classic Spielberg pursuing his vision and not forced by studios to cast someone because he is a movie-star. The collaboration between Christian Bale and Spielberg feels so pure.

So this in an emotional movie with some heartbreaking scenes. Its a good watch. It plays like a real life fairy tale.



Welcome to the human race...
Getaway (Courtney Solomon, 2013) -


Heinously low-grade run-all-night schlock that I wouldn't have seen if not for it being covered by the We Hate Movies podcast. Even by the standards of DTV-level action (which I'll admit to having a certain degree of fondness for), this is nigh-unwatchable thanks to its cheap and extremely over-cut visuals (there are supposedly over 6,000 cuts in this 90-minute movie), to say nothing of how aggressively generic it is in every possible regard. Once again I question exactly where I split the difference between a
and a
and whether or not this deserves the infamy of the former of the obscurity of the latter.

Under Siege (Andrew Davis, 1992) -


After giving this a
last time I watched it, I opted to give this a second chance and...well, I still found it wanting as far as action movies go. At least now I'll concede that the sheer level of personality that dudes like Jones and Busey bring to the proceedings keeps it from being unwatchable (as does the perfunctory plotting and concise running time) but I've seen it twice now and there's next to nothing that sticks about its actual action, which is a major handicap (that and Seagal himself is so weirdly uncharismatic in a way that doesn't exactly help sell his typical Gary Stu protagonist).

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Geoff Murphy, 1995) -


As this is supposedly a significant step down from its relatively beloved predecessor, I went in with low expectations and...I guess they were surpassed (or at least met)? It's still a fairly dull excuse for an action movie, though it does feel like I could at least pinpoint the very occasional standout moment (even if it does tend to be something absurd) - if nothing else, watching these two movies back to back is making me think in depth about how to assess the worth of certain action movies.

La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016) -


Now that both the hype and the backlash has died down, I've had a chance to re-watch this and...I still just think it's okay. It certainly doesn't lack for audio-visual verve and there's a tangible passion that keeps it from being bad but it really does hit a bit too much of a wall once it knuckles down and gets serious in its back half.

12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013) -


Now that I've seen this three times, I do have to question whether or not it actually rewards multiple viewings (then again, I think you could say that about all the 2014 Best Picture nominees). This film's various horrors (both graphic and subtle) don't exactly get less hard to watch as it still maintains its visceral nature, though one can definitely question if that's enough to make it truly great.

M (Fritz Lang, 1931) -


Finally got around to clearing this off the watchlist and it very much earns its thoroughly-respectable-classic status.

Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) -


Definitely one of those films that makes me sit up and wonder why the hell I don't watch more like it, especially when it gleefully eschews established cinematic conventions for the sake of a pure artistic experience.

A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011) -


Cronenberg's almost too obvious a choice for this based-on-a-true-story psychosexual drama about the sadomasochistic relationship that unfolds between renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung and one of his patients. Too bad it gets maybe a little too hung-up on psychiatric jargon and see-sawing between stiff theatrics and Keira Knightley's remarkable (for better and for worse) performance as the aforementioned patient.

My American Uncle (Alain Resnais, 1980) -


Resnais' tale of three inter-connected people whose lives run along similar parallels and occasionally crash into one another is conventional up until a point but his use of New Wave techniques to both introduce and juggle all three of these narrative strands proves an effective way of comparing and contrasting three vastly different (yet not too dissimilar) individuals, all of which manages to be in the service of a solid ensemble drama anyway.

Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 1996) -


An intriguing little film that ostensibly satirises the state of France's contemporary film industry through its troubled tale of one man's attempt to remake classic French serial Les Vampires (which I definitely feel inspired to check out now). Succeeds at capturing a moment in time while also remaining relevant and just being a rather abstract and unpredictable watch anyway.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



I hadn't heard of this movie, but just realized it had Blake Lively. I think she's one of the better actresses working today, but so far she hasn't landed any really great film roles. Glad to see you rate this so high, I think I'll check it out based on your review.



I hadn't heard of this movie, but just realized it had Blake Lively. I think she's one of the better actresses working today, but so far she hasn't landed any really great film roles. Glad to see you rate this so high, I think I'll check it out based on your review.
before checking out just know that its not a david fincher movie. Its a dark comedic mystery/thriller by a director known for comedies. You wont get the dark smoky foggy cinematography.



before checking out just know that its not a david fincher movie. Its a dark comedic mystery/thriller by a director known for comedies. You wont get the dark smoky foggy cinematography.
Thanks. I don't think I've ever seen a David Fincher movie before.



Seen in September Pt.1



Everyone was disappointed with Unfriended saying it was ‘a good concept but bad movie’. Searching takes that concept and makes it into a very intense mysterious thriller. For a film about the internet, they get everything very accurate (E.x. an entire sub-reddit dedicated to the missing daughter). My favourite element of the film was the suspense and tension: I was constantly anxious wondering what would happen, pretty damn impressive for a 12+ film. The only thing I’ll say though is that the ending is a little corny and the fact that the teens censor themselves on social media is hilariously inaccurate.


-
A fun thriller. Peter Lorre is awesome as always. Doesn’t hold a candle to the awesome remake. The opera house scene in the remake is one of my favourite scenes in Hitchcock’s entire filmography; So comparing it to this one really shows why Hitchcock remade this.


+
This review on Rotten Tomatoes sums it up well:

“He stayed in the trenches for 21 years? What a f*cking idiot.


+
Holy crap man this was a wild f*cking ride! The film went unbelievably fast due to how engaged and interested I was in it. The main subject of the documentary is unbelievable, you really can’t believe that someone like this exists. The way it was shot, its editing and soundtrack were brilliant and really kept me on edge for the whole film.

Also ’that’ scene: I..I can’t, I just can’t. Definitely one of those films you shouldn’t read about before seeing.



Very good Hitchcock. Lots of great suspense and OH S*IT! moments as is to be expected by Hitchcock. The film drags down a but when the main character handcuffs himself to the woman,



Eh, I guess French New Wave films aren’t really my thing.


?
Oh my God, this is so bad and so good at the same time. I felt like I was having a bad dream watching this.
I mean where to start?
There's about 5 different subplots that don't have anything to do with the film. There's multiple bits where I wasn't sure if they were being purposefully bad or accidentally bad. There's barely any tomato action. All the tomatoes don't look like tomatoes. The camera quality reminds me of the restored edition of Manos: the Hands of Fate. The pacing is awful, I cried in dismay when I realized I was only at the 20 minute mark.
I can't be too harsh though, it's crappy b-movie fun and all the awful elements of it is what makes it good. I remember genuinely laughing at some parts (The advertisements, 'Could you pass the ketchup?', earmuff tomato).


-
Violent fun. The dialogue from Tarantino was awesome, as is to be expected. The first bit act or so of the film feels so much different from the rest and I’m not sure why.



HOLY CRAP THIS WAS SO NICE! I loved all the animals being super cute (Thumper was the cutest!). It was just such a nice and happy film that warms your heart. So much better than Snow White and Dumbo.



My review: https://www.movieforums.com/reviews/...e-burning.html

Alright, so I went into this expecting an alright slasher with a few interesting kills.

What I wasn't expecting was for it to actually be REALLY good, maybe even great.

Let's start with the best element of this film: The characters. Most slasher films you barely remember any of the characters as they're all just there to be offed by the killer. The Burning on the other hand is completely different. We get introduced to our main characters within the first few minutes: Counselor Todd, the misunderstood Alfred, Michelle, and cheeky Eddie. After the scene with Todd's talk with Alfred I was basically rooting' for him the entire film. I was thinking in my head "If anyone lays a hand on Alfred of Todd, I'll lay a chainsaw in their head". Good thing I likened towards them considering the film's chain of events. The film doesn't have any 'proper' kills until the 50 minute mark, so we spend tons of time getting to know these characters better.

This film might as well be an advertisement for summer camp as it makes it seem super fun: Playing with your buds, canoeing, chillaxed camp counselors, spooky campfire stories, HOT BABES!. This film might've convinced me to take a stab at it.

Now for the technical aspects: Really liked the soundtrack, sounds as you'd expect from an 80's slasher. The gore effects were pretty cool (and other effects aswell). The lighting and shadows were great too. All of the goofy jumpscares and the OH S*IT, DON'T DO IT! moments definitely add to the fun.

Now hears a couple of other bits I liked about it:
-When Michelle is giving out to Alfred for peeping and Eddie's just in the background smirking his f*cking head off, so funny!
- Eddie can't swim but he's in his trunks? lol wut?
- The bully calls a porno mag "Girly Magazine"
-Truly Oscar worthy quotes with Oscar-worthy delivery: "A f*cking Big Mac, overdone!" "What am I, Masters and Johnson" What is this? Some sort of interrogation ere”?” “Dave sold ‘em to some Indian guy”



Memories of murder



A small county/district outside Seoul, capital of South Korea is terrorized by a serial killer who rapes and kills young women. Its up-to the local police and a curious detective from Seoul on an assignment to catch the killer.

First and foremost this is a 2003 Korean movie. So, people need to be aware of that before jumping into this movie. It takes place in a semi rural location. The village architecture is not that clear. You don't see much of the village if not for the investigation. If police are not investigating a certain place of village then you are not seeing it. From what we see it looks like an industrial place. There may be 3 or 4 factories that provide the main livelihood for the families in the village. The movie begins with a local police visiting a crime site where a young woman is tied down and gagged in her own underwear and left in a mini open-air sewage line. From the initial scene we realize that the movie tries to put the characters in the movie on a collision course with the atmosphere. It makes the movie not just an atmospheric movie where surroundings are just part of the background and characters behave like the script says but instead you see the surroundings/atmosphere actively interfere with the investigation. This has its benefits and downfalls but I did think in case of this movie the benefits outweigh the negatives.

The sensibilities are completely different between East Asian audience and rest of the world. I am trying to find a way of saying it with out sounding like a racist. There is something about their definition of masculinity and sensuality that is not universally appealing. That's the main reason why so many Asian movies don't breakout internationally. Audience are just not into it. Mixed race east Asians like Crazy rich asian's Henry golding might have a better advantage at appealing to international audience than pure east Asian race. To be quite honest there is huge chunks of international audience who don't like the way East Asian eyes look let alone spending money to watch them in movies unless someone transcends that with personality. Someone like Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee transcended that with their personality and natural machismo. Jackie Chan doesn't need to have 6 pack or cheek bones to prove that he is alpha male, all you need to convince someone that he is alpha male is by showing them one of his movies. But you don't have room for an east Asian star who is just known for his lead roles and not for his martial arts. There is huge disconnect there. It has nothing to do with bias but its more about sensibilities and physical features. There was a little bit of culture shock there when I started watching this movie but eventually the story became gripping.

Getting back to the movie, it starts with a local cop taking a case of a murder described earlier. Since they couldn't find any evidence on the body of the victim they are forced to interrogate all potential suspects. Her ex-boyfriends etc. The interesting thing about this movie is that audience are at ground zero of this whole case. So, while we feel it to be much more intimate and small in scale, the case is widely publicized. Audience don't exactly know how big of a news story this murder is but once in a while there will be scenes where we do notice lot of reporters snooping around and general public gathering around the crime scenes etc. So, the case did cause a huge commotion and panic among general public. This obviously means more pressure on the police to catch the killer. The movie portrays the lead investigating cop as lazy and ill equipped for handling this type of serious crimes. The movie has a very "matter of fact" approach to it all. The crimes as gruesome as they are, were never exploited. Director didn't revel in or romanticized the crime or any of the characters in the movie. In a more familiar analogy this cop is the Korean equivalent of Tommy Lee Jones from No country for Old men but he is just a little more practical without all those long monologues of Jones and little inexperienced. The movie does show him as ill equipped and not ready for these type of crimes. After all he is a small town cop and he is thrust into this huge case due to his territory. Corruption of the system plays a huge role in the movie. Its treated more as an inevitability than a choice. Initially they try to blame it on a mentally challenged person who knows the victim and try to beat a confession out of him which is partially coached and it doesn't work. They are joined by a detective from Seoul who requested to be assigned to this case.

Team dynamic forms a crucial part of the movie. Because , for sizable portion of the movie we are dealing with suspects that don't end up being the culprit. So we are left with the police team. As mentioned the cop is tough but corrupt as we see him planting evidence to frame the mentally challenged person behind bars. The detective from Seoul is much more a straight man and meticulous as opposed to the cop. He is smarter and foils the unlawful and misguided plans of the cop to convict wrong people. The cop has a deputy who is the muscle of the duo. During the interrogation its the job of deputy to physically threaten and assault suspects to scare them into confessions. Its a very interesting three hander. You don't see a lot of those in American movies except in LA confidential. The deputy is a less prominent version of Russell Crowe from that movie. This investigation has a superior. The movie does a interesting with the superior. The movie does show consequences for mistakes made in the investigation. Once the news gets out that the handicapped was forced into confession and was a victim of police brutality, in a subtle way we see how the superior is fired/transferred and replaced by a new superior. It doesn't have big moments of him leaving emotionally or anything, they just show the new guy taking in charge by directly participating in the investigation. With all this man power behind the investigation and after few subsequent murders, they find patterns in the killings. The killings take place during rain , women are clothed in red at the time of crime and a shot in the dark speculation that the killer requests for a little known song which excites him before going out and committing the murders. All these patterns help them isolate the suspects. As movie goes on you see the atmosphere and surroundings interfere with the investigation. In a false note they chase a factory worker after they catch him visiting a crime scene late at night to full-fill his usual fantasies unbeknownst to him that it's a crime scene. All these makes them go nowhere close to tracking down the criminal. To be honest close to 1 hr 30 minutes into the movie the pace felt little slow. So I paused the movie and came to it a while later. Around the 90 minute mark when they catch a suspect who has strongest evidence against him yet, the movie starts picking up. From then on its not just the story but all the story-lines they have created up until that point starts amplifying the narrative. Both the lead investigators in the case, the cop and the detective from Seoul strongly believes that he is the killer. They try to prove that point.

What happens next is something very unique to this movie. Empathy in a character can only be created if you see a character in a movie in more than once scene in different timelines. So basically you have to revisit the character if you want audience empathy for him.That's one of the things I noticed and quite frankly felt at my gut level watching this movie for the first time ever. I can clearly sense the feeling of loss. During a sequence when investigators deduce that the mentally handicapped suspect from earlier in the movie was able to describe the things happened to the victim even though he didn't do it because he witnessed it. Director uses flashback sequences to give a hint to the audience what the truth is. Any information provided by a person as part of investigation if true is given a flash back sequence. They do the same with a victim of the killer who manages to not get killed after being raped. From her account we realize that the killer does not actually want to murder but he is primarily a rapist. He kills only because most of his victims except the one above looks at his face. Since she actively decided not to look at him, he didn't kill her. This aspect covers lot of things. For example, women not coming forward with anonymous rapes fearing societal shame. All these things kinda started making the movie interesting again quite quickly actually. The another example is police brutality. You can feel at gut level that cops are frankly torturing the family of the disabled suspect. Initially trying to frame him as a killer and later trying to ask him identify the suspect who they think is the killer.

The movie shows how frustrated these cops are. Character arc for the detective from Seoul involves his transition from this calm, cool, collected and thoughtful person to frustrated, angry, impatient and sad detective. Because they couldn't catch the killer in the end. When I saw the accolades for this movie on Wikipedia, I noticed that the corrupt/ill equipped cop was the lead and that performance was the one getting all the praise in this movie. Rightfully so. We basically start and end the movie with his character. His arc is very interesting. He starts off as I said, basically a cop who is tough but is corrupt as well. The actor plays the role so well. He doesn't play the cop like a bum but more like a street smart and tough cop who is not ideological. And by the end of the movie he suffers great loss. His deputy and his pal loses his leg due to the investigation. He absorbs some of the obsessive investigative personality of the detective from Seoul to the point that in the 3rd act both these guys are so involved with the investigation and their motivations are so in sync. It feels like True Detective in terms of the time span of this crime. You do feel bad for this guy. They couldn't catch the killer or arrest the prime suspect because of lack of evidence. The ending of the movie is spectacular. We see the cop moving on from his job , probably due to this case and when he is driving through the village after many years. He stops by to revisit the first crime scene in the movie. Of course he is not there as a cop but as a normal citizen. A little girl greets him asking what he is doing and tell him that another man has come there a while ago and told her that he has done something there a while ago. The cop turns to the camera and screen cuts to black.

To sum it up, this is one of it not the most satisfying serial killer movies ever where they don't catch the killer. Its about the process. Even something like Zodiac doesn't feel satisfying. But for some reason this movie felt satisfying because the movie plays up the "no one is perfect" card. We know that there could be 100 things that could go wrong before the killer is convicted. Because he is so meticulous in his crimes that there is hardly evidence. Despite all this its a very satisfying watch. The movie oddly is okay with its protagonists being little inefficient in their jobs. You see them doing lot of questionable things but movie is more like "you gotta do what you have to do". Main negative is the pace in the second act which drags a little bit. And also the bread crumbs along the investigation are not really that clever. It not some dark and complicated puzzle piece of investigation. Its a very forensics and guess work based investigation.