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1917 (2019)




I avoided this after not liking Dunkirk, thinking these new mainstream war movies aren't for me. It was a crap reason and I was wrong. I was into this right from the start and I liked the small cast. The shooting technique was especially impressive when the characters were walking through the bunkers. Nothing iconic or lasting as far as I can tell, but a very good film.





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I did not go into this expecting to like this so much. It took me a little bit to get into it, but I'm glad I did! Very bittersweet, and felt very "real" for lack of a better word. I especially liked how the movie portrayed the dynamics of the family, good and bad.

I know that this film is sometimes compared to Ozu's Tokyo Story (The only Ozu film I have seen at this point.) and while it's a different movie, I can see why. What that tells me is that I need to watch more Ozu, and almost certainly some more Kore-eda.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I know that this film is sometimes compared to Ozu's Tokyo Story (The only Ozu film I have seen at this point.) and while it's a different movie, I can see why. What that tells me is that I need to watch more Ozu, and almost certainly some more Kore-eda.
Koreeda takes more from Naruse than Ozu.
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Koreeda takes more from Naruse than Ozu.
I don't believe I've seen any Naruse (And I've only seen one Ozu, as I said) so I can't exactly disagree there. Perhaps I should watch a Naruse film.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I don't believe I've seen any Naruse (And I've only seen one Ozu, as I said) so I can't exactly disagree there. Perhaps I should watch a Naruse film.
Well, Koreeda himself mentioned Naruse, but I could tell myself.

I just checked how many I saw from each:
I've seen 50 Naruse films.
I've seen 30 Ozu films.
I've seen 11 Koreeda films + 1 TV series he made.




OK, but not as funny as his old stuff. He went hard after Smith at the end, but there was a whiff of desperation (and rage) about it. The critical moment was a year ago. Yelling FU to Smith at the end was more of a whiff than a bang. At bottom, I think that slap is going to follow Rock for the rest of his life. Smith will be forgiven, but Rock was emasculated. His ethos as a comic depends on a sort of Oscar the Grouch edge and bluster and now we've all seen him dismasted on stage--his former place of mastery. The more times he yells that Smith is a b**ch, the more we're reminded of that pain and humiliation he suffered, only for the academy to give Smith a standing ovation for winning the highest honor in acting a few minutes later.



I forgot the opening line.

By IMDB.com - UK quad poster., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60506051

Bedazzled - (1967)

Saw the remake back when it came out - what feels like six million years ago, but what really piqued my interest in the original was seeing Peter Cook play the Devil role. It does feel very fresh and the kind of movie where Cook and Dudley Moore, along with director Stanley Donen, play by their own rules. They expect the audience to keep up with what they're doing. Along for the ride in small roles are Raquel Welch as Lust and Barry Humphries as Envy. Is it funny? Yeah, well, it made me laugh out loud in several instances, so I bet some people absolutely loved this when it came out in '67 - British comedy has always been to my liking, and I haven't really seen enough of Cook and Moore during their glory days.

7/10


By https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047580/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7087409

Three Coins in the Fountain - (1954)

Rome! Three Coins in the Fountain has a triple-romance story that's adequate enough, but it's the sumptuous and beautiful shots of Rome that take the breath away - and Milton R. Krasner was on that all throughout filming. This won him an Oscar for Best Colour Cinematography - but Three Coins missed out on Best Picture, despite being nominated. On the Waterfront won - that's fair enough, but I would have given the Oscar that year to The Caine Mutiny. This also won an Oscar for Best Song - and everybody reading this probably knows it.

6/10


By MGM - IMDb, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71257399

Show Boat - (1951)

This was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Music Oscars, but I don't know. I should have watched the 1936 Show Boat. Also, I always felt a kind of racial cloud hanging over this film, with everything African-American pushed to the background, and Ava Gardner being chosen over a black actress for her role. The songs, with the exception of Ol' Man River, were a little slow for me, and weren't memorable. I liked the story - but like I said, I think I'd prefer the '36 Show Boat.

5/10
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I forgot the opening line.

By May be found at the following website: I Watch Stuff, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30991930

Death at a Funeral - (2007)

So glad I watched the right Death at a Funeral last night - one of the greatest comedies of all time, which had me laughing a lot even though I'd seen it before years ago. I got a sense of what it would have been like to see this in a theater full of people - there's a steadily rising pulse of comedy which hits peaks in a perfectly rhythmic way. I have to say, Alan Tudyk doesn't get enough high profile work for the talents he has - I loved him in the first season of Doom Patrol, and I know he's in a lot, but I just think he should be at the uppermost of the industry. Matthew Macfadyen leads the cast really well, and it's an all-round ensemble effort without any others dominating the proceedings. So funny and risqué.

9/10


By May be found at the following website: http://www.impawards.com/1956/carousel.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50297547

Carousel - (1956)

Well, isn't this the troubling one. It would have been easy to give this a high rating and say I enjoyed it if not for a few lines towards the end of the film, seemingly saying that some domestic violence is completely forgivable, for it happens because a guy loves his wife so much. A crazy, crazy moment which has darkened the film a lot compared to how it would have been looked upon in 1956. The music, and even the story otherwise, is charming - so to come to such a puzzling conclusion hurts all the more.

Not ratable



Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre 5/10



I mainline Windex and horse tranquilizer
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)







The Twilight Samurai (2002)

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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) dir. Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan


Yes, this is an actual screencap from the film. It's on the screen for just the duration of one frame. Umm, I guess I found an easter egg, eh?

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

An unlikely homage to the TikTok attention span, this cinematic endeavor employs clownish excess to build a simulacrum of digitalized overstimulation. In this realm of headache-inducing anything-goes, the characters within are reduced to conduction rods of comic strip ridiculousness that neutralizes every wisp of the narrative centrally constructed around familial values. Instead, EEAAO is slaking the public thirst for a soulless, frenetic orgy of a hubristic action-happy surplus, stretching a 15-minute blockbuster finale into 140 minutes of anomie filled with cynical references and juvenile dildo jokes. The camerawork is of an identical uninspired brand, with the occasional bout of flashy photography amongst an otherwise unremarkable mise-en-scène. Acting is uniform in its mediocrity, lacking expressivity appropriate for the intransigent f**k-all chaos conveyed. Special effects are no replacement for the lack of vision, and its amalgam of platitudinous content only turns the whole overblown exhibition into an infuriating tribute to obtuse sledgehammer pop philosophy. Despite the pandemonium pervading the film, with its dildo duels and execrable boisterousness, the narrative's trajectory is always lucid, clearly due to EEAAO's lack of thematic complexity. Unfortunately, Scheinert and Kwan lackadaisically neglected to construct anything to provoke a sense of empathy, instead opting to indulge in the curation of their music video spectacle. A deep dive into the omnifarious depths of depraved, pornographic fantasy, EEAAO is a dreadful abnegation of traditional cinematic sincerity that strives to stoop to the abysmal cravings of those longing for a dopamine rush.



The Dawn Patrol (1938) Watched on dvd in preparation for the war countdown. This was fine with some good sequences. Worth a watch.





Marlowe (2022)

The film’s title reference is to Philip Marlowe, the famous shamus of Raymond Chandler’s 7 novels featuring Marlowe
(an 8th was incomplete at Chandler’s death). However this screenplay was based upon a 2014 novel, The Black-Eyed Blonde, by John Banville. Reportedly the novel was intended as an extension of Chandler’s The Long Goodbye (1953), with permission from the Chandler estate. The screenwriters for this film were William Monahan and Neil Jordan (who also directed). Monahan especially has some bona fides, having written The Departed, but any reference in this picture to The Long Goodbye is remote.

In familiar detective noir fashion, a lovely wealthy heiress named Cavendish (
Diane Kruger) enters Marlowe’s (Liam Neesom) seedy office wanting to have him find her missing lover, Nico Peterson (Francois Arnaud). Marlowe accepts, but soon finds that Peterson is dead. However this may not turn out to be the case, and Marlowe’s search for Peterson and the trouble he gets into, along with the clever and tawdry plot, forms the dramatic story for the film.

In turn we meet Cavendish’s aging film star mother, Dorothy Quincannon (
Jessica Lange); club owner Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), who appears complicit in Peterson’s murder; Peterson’s sister, Lynn (Daniela Melchior); and a host of other participants in this nicely crafted period neo-noir.

Marlowe is an Irish, French and Spanish production, with the emphasis on Irish-- with both director and lead actor, along with some of the cast being Irish. The story is set in late 1930s Los Angeles, but Barcelona substituted for L.A. in its exterior shooting locale, while the interiors were shot in Dublin.

The chief detraction in this otherwise interesting production is it’s casting, most especially of Liam Neesom as Marlowe. Although Marlowe at the time of this story set in the late 1930s would have been 30s/early 40s, and Neesom is 70, it is not the character’s age which strains credulity, but it is Neesom’s demeanor and underlying personality. He’s a fine actor, but not a good pick for Philip Marlowe. Kruger is iffy as a believable femme fatale, notwithstanding her beauty. Even is a lesser role, Ian Hart as police detective Joe Green makes one squirm with incongruity.

On the plus side Jessica Lange turns in a nice portrayal as the nosy aging movie star; and Danny Huston is very acceptable as the shady club owner. Also
Daniela Melchior has the perfect look for a 1930s damsel.

The music score didn’t help with it’s contemporary sounding music.

This is a very watchable but mediocre detective neo noir which could have had more punch with better casting and a slightly more authentic production design.

Doc’s rating: 5/10



Europa Europa (1990) -


*SPOILER WARNING*

After thinking about the movie for a bit, I've decided that the various lucky breaks and coincidences Solek experiences throughout it aren't excused by the film being based on a true story. While I enjoyed the film (I think it's important to state this at the start since my review might not read as positive), I frequently felt the movie lacked the claustrophobic atmosphere necessary for it to be a great film. In spite of how most of it consisted of Solek hiding his identity from numerous people, the film had a more relaxed tone than I expected it would and the direction of it was lacking in suspense in the scenes which needed it the most. The only scene which I felt aced this was when Robert snuck up on Solek in the bath.

It was clear early on that whatever misfortunes would happen to Solek, everything would turn out well for him. When he jumped in a barrel during an air raid, it was clear he made the right choice and would be fine. When he fell out of a boat, it was clear he would've been worse off had he remained in the boat. Whenever a German officer suspected him of being Jewish or asked him to expose himself, I simply asked "I wonder what he'll do to get out of this one" and got my answer fairly soon. Maybe if the film drew out his anxiety during these scenes more, his lucky breaks would've had more teeth, but as they stood, they killed too much narrative momentum in the film. While these scenes have their issues though, the final act was the most contrived. After the Gestapo grew suspicious of him, it seemed like he was finally backed into a corner. Upon leaving the headquarters though, he said "Only a miracle could save me now", a miracle happened literally ten seconds later, and he was no longer in any danger. Finally, after he was about to be executed at the end for being mistaken as a German, his brother suddenly came out of nowhere and saved him at the last second.

I can't speak for the accuracy of this film, but even if everything in it happened in real life the way it was depicted in the film, I don't think that excuses everything. Just because something happens in real life doesn't mean it makes for a compelling story. To paraphrase one of my film buff friends, fiction needs to make sense because real life makes so little sense. Life can sometimes be unfair, on-the-nose, coincidental, have severe cases of good/bad luck, etc., but when you write this into fiction, especially one where the aforementioned lucky breaks and coincidences grow more contrived as the film goes on, this doesn't translate so well since a few conflicts are resolved via dei ex machina.

Anyways, I know it seems like I was underwhelmed by this film, but even though it had potential to be much better, I will state that I found plenty to enjoy about it. Its premise at once explores the anxiety of determining who's trustworthy enough to open up to, it has a fairly large scope given all the places Solek travels and is relocated to, and it's topped with numerous memorable scenes of Solek dressing up and attempting to pose as a German (interestingly enough, a simple scene of him doing a brief jig after attempting to perform a Nazi salute in front of a mirror seem incongruous since he blends in to his surroundings so well). I also generally enjoy stories where characters are forced to betray their principles and morals to survive and Solek's story was no exception to this. The elements of a great film are certainly here and, even though this may not read as a positive review, I did enjoy it a good bit. It's just that the direction of the film prevents it from being anything special.
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