By http://ftv01.stbm.it/imgbank/GALLERY...0-page-002.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52051588
Hounds of Love - (2016)
David and Catherine Birnie were couple of serial killers who operated not far from where I lived growing up - by the time they were caught they were torturing, raping and killing a woman (or girl) a week. Needless to say, they received much attention at the time - 1986. I have mixed feelings about a film being made which is based on their crimes. On the one hand, this is actually a really good film - it played at the Venice Film Festival where Ashleigh Cummings won the best actress award. It's extraordinarily tense and gripping, and is unflinching in the horrors it lays out in a very period-correct suburban home of the time. I would have been fine with it, if it had of stuck to the true story to the end - but Ben Young obviously wanted a more cinematic kind of climax, and it's his right to choose that path. I was just a little shocked, probably because the story is kind of sacrosanct to me. I can tell you what really happened without spoiling the film - the Birnie's last victim used cunning and wiles to set one against the other (David had a tendency to fall for his victims, an aspect of their depraved crimes which Catherine didn't like) which granted her a little more freedom, which she used to escape. At first the police didn't believe her story - but one female officer was impressed with the details, and long story short the Birnie's were sent to spend the rest of their lives in prison (David hung himself after 20 or so years behind bars - or at least, that's what I hear.) If you're up for a great horror/thriller, and have strong nerves - Hounds of Love is exceptional. I didn't like it as much because the altered ending turned this into an exploitation film which tramples the memory of some poor souls, and survivor Kate Moir did come out against the film.
7.5/10
By Box Office Mojo, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56680216
Good Will Hunting - (1997)
Being cocky and showing a lack of respect for others is a bad trait, but in someone with the gift of an incredible mind, good looks and youth - well, there's nothing more annoying. Will Hunting (Matt Damon) isn't a likeable person, and when he disrespects counsellor Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) you really want him to knock the kid's block off (which he almost does.) Good Will Hunting really gets underway when Maguire sits Will down in the park and delivers a devastating monologue which finally cuts this snot-nosed brat like a knife - and we learn that beneath the too cool for school aura is a frightened boy who's still imprisoned by the trauma he went through growing up being abused as a child. I think perhaps Ben Affleck and Matt Damon might have gone a little too far in making Will the next Einstein times a thousand (really) but there's still a lot to like about the screenplay they wrote and the characters they created, including Stellan Skarsgård's Professor Lambeau. This is a real Boston story, and Affleck would stick to the city a lot in his future films as Boston seems a unique place - a character in and of itself.
8/10
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We miss you Takoma
We miss you Takoma
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