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A second watch to understand who's who may be needed, but a great film. I think quite a few noir films are similar. Plots move so fast it's sometimes hard to keep track.
I liked it, despite only grasping like 70% of the plot.

RE: Run, it has a pretty good Tomato score. I'll check it out.
It is junk food, but fun junk food. It's also really short and moves at a very quick pace. For me it pretty much flew by.

They just made it too easy.

Also, I am all for everyone rewatching or watching Hold the Dark until they realize it’s brilliant.
I will concede that I am very drawn to mysteries, and so when presented with a film like Hold the Dark, my instinct is to focus on the literal aspect of the plot. And that is . . . not what Hold the Dark seemed to be after.



I liked it, despite only grasping like 70% of the plot.



It is junk food, but fun junk food. It's also really short and moves at a very quick pace. For me it pretty much flew by.



I will concede that I am very drawn to mysteries, and so when presented with a film like Hold the Dark, my instinct is to focus on the literal aspect of the plot. And that is . . . not what Hold the Dark seemed to be after.
Indeed. HTD is beholden to the Coen Brothers MO of using a crime story to explore the epistemological nightmare of human existence. No Country and A Serious Man being the most obvious in its DNA, the film is more about observing and accepting the chaos of certain people and events than the understanding of them that a mystery usually tantalizes as its payoff.

And I’m not just naval gazing. I made a similar tweet and it was liked by Saulnier himself. VALIDATION!





The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957

This nearly three-hour long epic follows a group of WW2 prisoners of war who are forced to help construct a bridge while being held in a Japanese POW camp. For one of the officers in the camp (played by Alec Guiness), building the bridge becomes a point of pride and leads to a tragic clash with an Allied plan to destroy the bridge.

This film was great, really well acted, and the final 20 minutes made me incredibly anxious!

Guinness does a wonderful job portraying Colonel Nicholson, a man for whom military duty overlaps dangerously with personal ego. The film centers the humanity of the story through the use of several observer type characters: a doctor (James Donald) who cares for the sick and injured at the POW camp and an unnamed group of women who accompany the Allied soldiers on their mission. The heart of the film is a man named Shears, a pessimistic American soldier whose cynicism both helps and hinders him.

The film contains several breathtaking sequences, including a night-time parachute landing and a final sweeping shot that speaks volumes.




the film is more about observing and accepting the chaos of certain people and events than the understanding of them that a mystery usually tantalizes as its payoff.
Exactly. And this is something I realized around halfway through the film. But by that time, it was a little late to mentally shift gears.

The film it makes me think of the most is
WARNING: spoilers below
actually Antichrist--that sense of the unknowable reasons that people do harm, and about the confusing bonds that can exist between people during or after violence and trauma
.





The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957
Such a good movie. Alec Guinness was so amazing in this.
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Exactly. And this is something I realized around halfway through the film. But by that time, it was a little late to mentally shift gears.

The film it makes me think of the most is
WARNING: spoilers below
actually Antichrist--that sense of the unknowable reasons that people do harm, and about the confusing bonds that can exist between people during or after violence and trauma
.
I can definitely see the connection there thematically. The two are so stylistically far apart that it hadn’t crossed my mind but I like the comparison. In particular with...

WARNING: spoilers below
mythology creating a self fulfilling prophecy for the morbid behavior of the characters. They’re groomed to behave destructively, unknown to those around them, so their behavior seems beyond comprehension


Though Trier uses this element for a more pointed critique of misogyny and Saulnier uses it for a more broad assessment of violence.

I suppose I’ll have to rewatch both.

Dunno why my spoiler format isn’t working. I’ll just keep that vague as well and hope people avoid it.



Such a good movie. Alec Guinness was so amazing in this.
It's an amazing portrayal of the power and danger of ego.

I can definitely see the connection there thematically. The two are so stylistically far apart that it hadn’t crossed my mind but I like the comparison. In particular with...

WARNING: spoilers below
mythology acting as a self fulfilling prophecy for the morbid behavior of the characters. They’re groomed to behave destructively, unknown to those around them, so their behavior seems beyond comprehension


Though Trier uses this element for a more pointed critique of misogyny and Saulnier uses it for a more broad assessment of violence.

I suppose I’ll have to rewatch both.
I mean, on an even more literal level, I was thinking of
WARNING: spoilers below
mothers harming their own children, the imagery of animals consuming/harming their own young, the idea of harmful "forces"/evil that may be influencing character choices, etc
.



It's an amazing portrayal of the power and danger of ego.



I mean, on an even more literal level, I was thinking of
WARNING: spoilers below
mothers harming their own children, the imagery of animals consuming/harming their own young, the idea of harmful "forces"/evil that may be influencing character choices, etc
.
It’s certainly operating with similar content and themes. It reminds me of the much more overt connection between Sunset Blvd and Mulholland Dr.

Parallels in plot and theme but the style and structure is so different, it can be hard to see. But once seen... Very intriguing.

I think both Antichrist and Hold The Dark deserve better reputations, with the former getting lost in the discussion of “elevated horror” and the latter getting lost almost entirely (damn you, Netflix! I doubt a Criterion release is on the way for this one...).





The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957

This nearly three-hour long epic follows a group of WW2 prisoners of war who are forced to help construct a bridge while being held in a Japanese POW camp. For one of the officers in the camp (played by Alec Guiness), building the bridge becomes a point of pride and leads to a tragic clash with an Allied plan to destroy the bridge.

This film was great, really well acted, and the final 20 minutes made me incredibly anxious!

Guinness does a wonderful job portraying Colonel Nicholson, a man for whom military duty overlaps dangerously with personal ego. The film centers the humanity of the story through the use of several observer type characters: a doctor (James Donald) who cares for the sick and injured at the POW camp and an unnamed group of women who accompany the Allied soldiers on their mission. The heart of the film is a man named Shears, a pessimistic American soldier whose cynicism both helps and hinders him.

The film contains several breathtaking sequences, including a night-time parachute landing and a final sweeping shot that speaks volumes.

That's one of my all-time favorites. Glad you also loved it. I'm a huge fan of Lean, overall.
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That's one of my all-time favorites. Glad you also loved it. I'm a huge fan of Lean, overall.
I like Lean too though I would have to think carefully which movies of his I have seen.



I like Lean too though I would have to think carefully which movies of his I have seen.
In addition to this one, I've seen Lawrence of Arabia, Brief Encounter, and Great Expectations. I consider all of these films to be great and among my favorite films of their respective decades.



That's one of my all-time favorites. Glad you also loved it. I'm a huge fan of Lean, overall.
Same. He has a talent for the epic and a talent for the intimate. I think that Lawrence of Arabia is the best example of him combining the two, but Bridge on the River Kwai certainly had its moments.



Same. He has a talent for the epic and a talent for the intimate. I think that Lawrence of Arabia is the best example of him combining the two, but Bridge on the River Kwai certainly had its moments.
In terms of his intimate films, I recommend Great Expectations. It's not quite as strong as Brief Encounter, but it comes pretty close, in my opinion.



Dunno why my spoiler format isn’t working. I’ll just keep that vague as well and hope people avoid it.
You need to put an "s" at the end. Right now your front tag says "Spoilers" but your end tag says /spoiler. I fixed it when I quoted you, which is why it's working in my post.

In terms of his intimate films, I recommend Great Expectations. It's not quite as strong as Brief Encounter, but it comes pretty close, in my opinion.
I've seen it and quite liked it!



You need to put an "s" at the end. Right now your front tag says "Spoilers" but your end tag says /spoiler. I fixed it when I quoted you, which is why it's working in my post.



I've seen it and quite liked it!
Thanks! One of those brain autocorrects that makes self editing so difficult.

Have you seen his Oliver Twist? It's as good as it is (unintentionally?) anti-Semitic... Very!



Fun fact: David O. Selznick assaulted David Lean at a party due to how Anti-Semetic Guinness' portrayal of Fagin is in Oliver Twist.





The Last King of Scotland, 2006

This film documents the rise of dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) as seen through the eyes of a (fictional) Scottish physician named Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy).

The strength of the film is undoubtedly Whitaker's commanding performance as Amin. It is a powerful portrayal of someone who is equal parts charisma and danger, so that you understand his popularity and his capacity for atrocity all in one go.

McAvoy is good in his role, someone who is swept up in Amin's charm and only realizes too late the true nature of the man. Garrigan repeatedly comes across as a self-serving weasel (running a man over with his car to help Amin escape an attack, tattling on another member of Amin's cabinet, etc), but at the same time it's very, very easy to imagine someone acting in the same way. Garrigan has no real allies, and so his need to keep Amin placated generates strong dramatic tension.

A fundamental problem that I had with the film was its need to center on a non-Ugandan, white outsider. McAvoy is good in his part, but there are many compelling secondary characters who are Ugandan (another doctor who works in the hospital, one of Amin's wives who has been shunned because she bore an epileptic child) who could easily have acted as an audience surrogate. I get that using a white protagonist makes the film more accessible to a Western/white audience, but many times I felt that the movie was overly centered on his character.

A good example of this is in the portrayal of violence in the film. Multiple characters are beaten, murdered, shot, or otherwise harmed by Amin or his people. And yet the film reserves the most dramatic sequence of violence (a sequence of torture) for the white guy. This film is supposedly based on the life of a man named Bob Astles, but the script makes several significant departures from this true story (such as the fact that Astles already worked in the Ugandan government before Amin's rise to power). The film seems to want us to like Garrigan more than he deserves, and I felt as if his character arc was totally stunted by the slightly wishy-washy approach to his character--one minute totally brave and moral, the next minute acting in a way that puts others in mortal danger.

Garrigan slowly realizing the depths of Amin's cruelty is an interesting dynamic, but the way that the story is trapped between real history and a fictionalized character ultimately does it a disservice. I wish that we had been given more time with Kerry Washington's Kay (who's entire subplot centers on her attraction to Garrigan who, according to the film, is a totally irresistible stud muffin), or David Oyelowo's Dr. Junju, the former of which certainly did exist and provides more than enough of an understanding of the kindnesses and cruelties of being in Amin's intimate circle.

A great performance surrounded by a film that could have been a lot better.




Ball of Fire - Howard Hawks directed this 1941 screwball comedy from a script co-written by Billy Wilder. Amazing pedigree to be sure but then Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck knock it out of the park with their roles. Cooper plays Prof. Bertram Potts who, along with seven of his colleagues, is cobbling together a comprehensive encyclopedia. Potts is an etymologist and composing a subsection on American slang. He meets nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea (an absolutely, drop dead sexy Stanwyck), and asks for her help. She's the girlfriend of gangster Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews) and inadvertently becomes entangled in a murder investigation. Lilac and his lawyer come up with the idea of having them marry so she can't be compelled to testify against her husband. There's the usual romantic comedy entanglements and will-she-or-won't-she moments but Wilder's whip smart script and Cooper and Stanwyck's onscreen chemistry make it seem fresh and original. 90/100