Movie Tab II

Mad Max Fury road



Lately I have been following google trends websites to see which movies are most searched. I am pretty sure they don't share the whole data and probably its not exactly correct. But i do think that a 100% searched topic will not be shown as 2 % searched topic and 1% searched topic will not be shown as a 100% searched topic. Search trends for actors are a little different because that's celebrity.It is not correlated to box office. Trends of Justin bieber are incredibly high but if he stars in a movie its not make 200 million.So all that out of the way, the search trends were interesting to look at. For revenant and wolf of wall street, the spikes were incredibly high around the release date and that obviously contributes to box office as that shows excitement.On the other hand for a movie like Mad max fury road even with all that epic scale trailers that are unbelievable and out of this world the spikes are not that much high. Its just half the size of those other movies. What exactly does it mean ? MM:FR is one of the very few non-superhero movie of the last decade that actually looks and feels like it could give DiCaprio tent pole movies a run for their money. But for some reason the movie didn't catch much steam at worldwide box office.There might be some strong cult following overseas for the movie and tom hardy but all in all the studio did consider the movie as barely a hit.

The reason I am stressing this is because these are the movies that will make actors superstars and legends. No one remembers the lead of some comedy drama that won best picture at Oscars. Even something like broke back mountain is very niche in its appeal and international appeal for the movie is very minimal.In my opinion the longest an actor can be remembered from a generation is if he can appeal to a 19 yr old Russian male. Because that movie will have enormous effect on the guy. At that age he is shedding boyhood and becoming a man. So all the silly movies no longer appeal to him and this movie appeals to him in his formative years. It proves that this movie transcended language and culture. The feel towards a movie is very important. Forrest Gump is incredibly dated and for a 19 yr guy with raising hormones , he doesn't wanna see a guy like Forrest gump he need someone like Jordan belfort or something like inception to invoke the emotions of relationship with father and people ambitiously working on a mission with high stakes.A movie like blue jasmine will be watched by a niche audience and even they will forget about it. Its the movies that hits a cord with audience that stick around for decades and centuries. Oceans 11 and 12 are movies that have entertaining audience as their sole motivation. The jokes don't land for international audience. A movie should be remembered as an epic and a masterpiece and not as a feel good movie or fun movie. Because the latter kind are dime a dozen. Same thing with paint by numbers action movies lie mission impossible with great stunts. They make for good you tube videos or mountain due ads, but to be considered greatest or to inspire or be copied by other filmmakers you need something original.

This movie is a single non stop chase with 99% outdoor shots. It never lets up. So,from that perspective its a masterpiece. When you set up pressure based explosives in the middle of a street in Detroit that is something we have seen in tons of movies, but when the same explosives are placed in the middle of a desert with blue filtered shots at night now that's something you have never seen. So thats the shtick of the movie. Shots are well compositioned and there is not much to the story other than technical excellence and editing.

So in my opinion this movie sort of made the notion that only DiCaprio can pull audience into the movie even though the movie is not pandering to the audience and is just an artistic endeavor more stronger. Because this movie had every quality of a DiCaprio movie. It will stand hand in hand with revenant in terms of memorability in history of cinema. But still the fact that it made less than terminator genesis and the mummy from 2017 sort of makes me think that "is there no other actor who can do what DiCaprio has been doing for almost every movie " ? I mean not just once ? It think one more closest example was blade runner 2049...even though it had the baggage of the first but it also must have have had the advantage of being a sequel. Because that movie was getting rave reviews just like a DiCaprio movie and it also had epic scale and out of this world cinematography in trailers and reviews were good but all the hype by studio sort of crumbled when reality hits. Because the only wrong piece in the puzzle is Ryan Gosling. Its r rated just like wolf of wall street and revenant but for some reason it just bombed in US by 120 million short of revenant.

So is there a formula of replicating DiCaprio's success without Titanic and Scorsese under their belt ? even Matthew McConaughey became internet famous almost comparable to DiCaprio level during mcconaissance but that was just internet famous not box office. Its comparable to harambe the gorilla viral video. People read articles and feel good about it and move on. When his next movie is coming they don't even think about going to see it.His career has been in toilet after interstellar and even that was Christopher Nolan star powered movie. It has nothing to do with Mcconaughey. From then on he made sea of trees, free state of jones, gold , dark tower and 3 other movies that are anxiously waiting to jump into toilet which are white boy rick and beach bum and serenity. I think there is a way though. Tom hanks is not hot, so he couldn't be that famous internationally especially in macho markets where men want manly movie stars..DiCaprio isn't macho either but he got that movie star look like Paul Newman or Steve McQueen. DiCaprio level star power has been displayed twice and thats with Tom Hanks for close to 2 decades between 1990s and 2010s almost all his movie has same amount of box office pull to them and but most closest to it was Russell Crowe for two movies the gladiator and beautiful mind...those two movies commercial success is DiCaprio level because it his name selling those movies.

So I think the way to go is make a movie that has some thematic appeal to mass audience and make it a major Oscar player...hire some great director and release it in awards season with Oscar buzz and that is good especially for an epic with huge budget. So the end result should be something like this..the movie should sweep at Oscars with best picture and best actor and it should make close to 500 million $ and the guy should be hot or handsome. So basically you get an international exposure to the lead of the movie and from then on the guy should either stick to a single director or only work with top directors. Because his incredible brand thats created then should be maintained. But Russell Crowe couldn't maintain it. Because the problem here is that its hard for an actor from Australia to get into the inner circles of hollywood. The way in for someone like christian bale , who isn't an american but a brit is working with someone like Terrence Malick or David o Russell or being handpicked by Spielberg at an young age or Michael Mann . Because these are the directors that have some clout. So for DiCaprio getting into inner circles of oscars is through someone like Scorsese. Auteurs more than anything want freedom both financially and artistically. Scorsese seems to be of the same type. In Hollywood you can't force studio executives to fund your movie.It just has to happen. So DiCaprio gave Scorsese financial security and in return asked him to make great movie. So an actor has to develop this kind of bond with a commercially viable auteur and not someone like Paul Thomas Anderson whose movies have zero commercial appeal and will only show up on some obscure best picture list which no one will even remember. But this has to happen after they won best actor in a best picture winner for a mass appealing blockbuster. It all has to start at oscars. Because a DiCaprio movie always shows up to play. Its rarely a dud. So for example there is a movie that is being made right now with christian bale and matt damon about Le Mans race of 1966 and rivalry between ford and Ferrari. The movie is basically a mission movie and the mission is to build the fastest car to beat the reigning champion Ferrari. So a team built a car from scratch that would rival and defeat the reigning champion. So if this were a DiCaprio movie then it would be up for sound categories, production design,editing, screenplay and may be an acting or directing or even best picture Oscar. No matter what it would most certainly win sound awards because the fricking movie has that as a key factor. It will be a cerebral thriller because its really life or death for these test engineers because they have to push the cars to their extreme. I want that from a Bale/Damon movie and not some period drama. The moment the movie tries to make it about period drama the movie looses the quality of wonder and uniqueness. Mission movies need to be built around the mission. It can never be about some drama. Because we have all seen those movies of inspiration a million times now. We need a movie that essentially building towards that race. Everything anyone has ever done should all bring them to this moment. Otherwise its not a DiCaprio movie. Because by looking at the type of movies he is making lately this is exactly what he wants to make.

Even mad max is like that. This movie is bare bone action. No fat at all. In the process of all that action story is told. I agree that its incredibly risky. For all we know this could have turned into a blade runner 2049 type bomb but luckily they broke even. I think it is in situations like these that we need a director like Scorsese or Tarantino or Nolan. Because they will deliver on the promise of the story. Otherwise the movie is going to disappoint. I think James Mangold has made enough great movies to be considered dependable.

Solo: A Star Wars Story - This was just fun from beginning to end. A fast, funny sci-fi heist movie that gives us a glimpse of Han Solo before he became a known scoundrel and smuggler, and how he went from extreme poverty to the rebel scum we know and love. Alden Ehrenreich (yeah, I don't even know if that's spelt right) wisely does not imitate Harrison Ford, instead he gets the overall feel correct, and captures the rough and tumble, slightly inept, comedic nature of the character. Donald Glover is so amazing as Lando I'd go see a whole movie of just him.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Black Mass



Life of James Whitey Bulgar and his alliances and betrayals.

The life of Whitey is not particularly an interesting one. He has friends in high places and he formed an alliance with FBI to help them eradicate other mobs all while increasing his own power. Even the mob genre is not ripe for retelling. All the classic mob movies are still fresh in our memory. So is there a room for a mob movie ? well, there is room for one but it has to have a very distinct style and be very fresh in its view.

This movie was the fake Oscar material from warner bros. for 2015/16 oscars. Studio thought this was the Oscar material and put all their support behind it. But ultimately they realized that it was a fugazi. I covered my hate for director Scott Cooper in reviews for his other movies. But this movie deserves its own treatment.

This is the career of Scott cooper

He made a movie with washed up Jeff bridges, an actor who is well respected and overdue. Luckily the movie caught fire and he won an Oscar. Some people confused it with his direction skills.

Then he made a movie with christian bale which would never have happened had bale not said yes.The thing about bale’s career up until that point is that he has two choices after the dark knight trilogy wrapped. He can either make studio based popcorn cash grabbers or work with relatively unknown to good directors. He ain’t gonna be able to make either prestige pictures on epic scale at studios or be picked by auteur. For two reason respectively , one is that he is not that huge of a box office draw for epic prestige movies because Hollywood knows that batman is a box office draw and not christian bale and the other is that it almost feels like auteurs don’t think he is that good of an actor and he is just a serviceable actor in their opinion. Paul Thomas Anderson would rather hire Joaquin Phoenix and make the movie less commercially viable than hire someone like Bale who is clearly willing to take chances and risks in making complicated stories. There is certain amount of perversion to auteurs. They are inherently rebellious to system. It is evident in Scorsese making cape fear the way he wanted and warning Spielberg ahead of time that the movie is not going to be commercial fare or Paul Thomas Anderson risking his credibility by hiring Adam Sandler for a drama during both of their heydays or Tarantino hiring John Travolta instead of Daniel Day Lewis against all odds or David o Russell hiring spike Jonze instead of studio recommended christian bale for 3 kings. All these are directors with incredible hold on their vision and have something unique to bring to the table. They make movies with singular artistic voice and all the royalty of Hollywood who vote at oscars appreciate that. They appreciate that the hateful eight has no movie stars. They cherish the fact that everyone talks about how DiCaprio bled his hand while shooting Django unchained but the actual best performer and Oscar winner for the movie is Christoph waltz.The whole DiCaprio talk is a movie star attention and if he were any less attractive and average looking all that would disappear . But the performances that impress the royalty in Hollywood is the actual great acting. So all this leaves no choice to Christian Bale except to team up with a new comer with potential and a voice of his own and take the risk of him being a one hit wonder. That could turn out to be Damien Chezelle or Scott Cooper.

Then Cooper was hired by Warner bros to rewrite the script of Black mass and direct it. Since its a serious drama with Johnny Depp that makes it ear marked for Oscar campaign. Johnny Depp is very carefree about his career choices. He is someone who believes in his individuality and his choices reflect that. He is not known for his movie star performances. He is more into character building and creation. So Johnny Depp being cast in black mass directed by Scott Cooper doesn’t say nothing about the projects quality. For all we know thats the only straight character he was offered. Because drama is a genre which is hard to appeal to younger demographic or for that matter no demographic. All audience wanna to be watching thrillers or feel good movies. No one wants multiple complex emotions from a movie. So black mass with Johnny Depp is never gonna be a blockbuster. So all of a sudden his casting is not gonna give more credibility to the movie. Rightfully the project was campaigned for oscars and around the time of golden globes , Warner bros realized that they bet on the wrong horse and changed their focus to creed.

Here is the thing about Scott Cooper. Until now he is trying to be an auteur by taking on ambitious projects, but his talent is not enough to make a great movie. So in the end all his movies comes across as a little try hard and flat and thin plotted. Take something like revenant, the story is so thin, but the director is able to capture the depth of circumstance and plight of character in almost a transcendental manner. Try hard is where you end up if an ambitious project fails. But all his movies get prime Oscar release date by studios because of the stars in the movie. They get Oscar campaign screenings and December releases. It almost feels like cry wolf. For his every mediocre movie if there are awards screenings then when he actually makes an awards worthy movie, no one will be interested in him.

I think his ideal career choice is to stick to genre filmmaking or wait for 5 years and write his own script and get it picked up by a big distributor and then hire actors. Studios should pick up the script purely based on its quality and not the star power of cast. That is the key. Other wise he will just work with actors who wants to work with him and schmooze them to work with him again and again so that he could get financing for his movies. If 3 of your movies in a row are failed Oscar baits then I don’t think you should stick to making those movies. Either make a big hit in other genre or prove that you have audience pulse or just go away. I remember listening to his interview for Hostiles where he says “christian bale is the greatest actor working today” and I thought “of course you will say that, he is getting your movies funded with 40 million dollars and you deliver a thin plotted weakly directed movie that wastes its incredible talent ?” Shame on you dude..shame on you.

With that out of the way. This movie really is very superficial. Just because you had 50 million to shoot at various real locations, doesn’t mean you made a great movie. Someone changing into people who they meet often from different line of work is not much of a shock in movies. That trope is done 100 times. Its very mediocre in its tone and story. Just because there is a character in mob doesn’t mean they need a movie. I wouldn’t even recommend watching it. This movie falls apart so fast. All the tension based scenes fall flat or feel like copies and not imitations or inspirations , they feel like directly lifted from other movies. Look at something like wolf of wall street. DiCaprio wanted to make the drug overdose scene like a movie with in a movie. He wanted it to feel like some parts of goodfellas , that doesn’t mean they copied from it..no one looks at the drug overdoes scene from wolf and recollect any scene from any movie. But the dinner scene here is like a copy from goodfellas. Thats not inspirational , thats just copying or lifting scenes. The more I talk about Scott Cooper and this movie or out of the furnace the more I like dislike them. These are huge errors in scripts and lazy lazy screenwriting. I am shocked these stars are working with him and financiers are giving him money to make the movie.

Inglourious Basterds



Two parallel plots to kill Hitler in Nazi Occupied France culminates in a satisfying ending.

For a longtime i used to think that how is it possible that an auteur like Tarantino has so much box office draw. Auteurs generally tend to have strong fans inside film industry and a small fan base outside industry. Usually the fan base inside industry helps get the movie awards nominations and that sort of pushes the box office for a movie. Think no country for old man or true grit. But I think certainty is highly valuable in Hollywood. Hits like the Martian or Gravity are unpredictable and they have more to do with luck than the filmmakers. I think if a filmmaker is known to make great movies or movies that are entertaining in a dark way and the movie is guaranteed to make anywhere between 150 to 200 million then I would say that the filmmaker is highly in demand. In an industry like Hollywood, where film making is highly volatile and no one knows how a movie will turn out, consistency and certainty is gold.Its like 150 million in the bank even before the movie is green lit. That's probably the reason why his next project currently is getting so much attention. You can't say that about very many directors.

The interesting thing about a Quentin Tarantino movie is that its basically a genre picture that's covered in Tarantino flavor. The same way a quiet place makes 300 million $ , a Tarantino movie makes 300 million $. But can the director of quiet place make a movie like quiet place 3 times in a row with equal success ? can audience connect with the director of quiet place the same way they do for Tarantino in terms of reliability to entertain them ? that's what sets him apart from other directors. His movies have his own flavor and academy respects him for that. Entertaining value of a movie trumps the unoriginal nature for the most part. If your movie is set in a modern suburban setting and its entertaining, then it mostly is a movie made for that purpose. But if it is set in 19th or early 20th century then immediately the question why pops up. If you just wanna entertain audience then why do you have to make the movie in that time period. All these peeks the curiosity of audience and if the curiosity is met with a great entertaining movie then they are okay. But if the movie is using the setting to smuggle some message and if its not tactile then the cards starts falling off. If you are not entertaining me then at-least move me emotionally. So that's the crux of his bank-ability. He is a commercial director but his commercial aspect is his own signature , so it makes money and gets awards attention at the same time. Most of the times if a movie is Oscar material, it has to deal with truth and honesty and that cuts off its box office by a large number. That's the sad part. You are either appealing to 60+ audience or to a niche. Both are not repeat customers and highly unpredictable. But the customers of a drug most certainly are.

This movie has some great scenes. The basement rendezvous scene is one of the best in his movies. The opening scene is great. The SS general is well played in the movie. Re-visioning world war 2 is something Hollywood will not allow if not for Quentin Tarantino. The interesting thing about Hollywood is that lets say a director like peter berg wants to tell a revisionist story about world war 2 the problem is no one will give him money to make that movie. Studio executives will not want him to make the movie.Stars will not sign on to make the movie. So the project will not even movie an inch if he is at helm. The problem is that if Peter Berg is making a movie , Spielberg is not excited to see the movie or Scorsese or Paul Thomas Anderson. So the movie has to be big with critics and even then these auteurs will look at his career and see that he has done lot of commercial movies and then they will avoid even doing Q & A with him. But when a movie of QT comes up, all those guys are interested in seeing his movies and they clearly love his career because not one of his movies is a studio product. The problem here is perception of people effects the way your movie is treated if studio executives allow you to make a prestige picture that's a revisionist. PTA interviewed Adam McKay for the big short because all of Adam McKay movies are his signature style movies. He in a weird way is an auteur. So PTA considers him worthy of interviewing. You never see PTA interviewing some new comer. Because that's too much. He doesn't want him. If PTA likes your movie then there is every chance that it will be liked by elite Hollywood voters for awards consideration.

Its his most entertaining movie yet.Quentin Tarantino did successfully prevent any other filmmaker from trying out interesting dialogue or strong deep misogyny in their movies because people will immediately call them out that. That's a very sad state of affairs. Bad times at El Royale looks like an awesome movie from the trailer but people feel like its a Tarantino movie and that's a disgrace and an insult to the filmmakers behind the movie. However the silver lining here is that lately Tarantino is liking his dialogues more than audience. So that's a good thing. Look , all these actors are puppets. They will play a 2 minute part just to be in Tarantino movie.So I wouldn't put much stock in a movie just because all the actors are lining up to be in his movie. Give this movie a go.

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Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967) -

Second time around and I'm still not totally on board with this wildly inconsistent (for better and for worse) neo-noir that takes a classic revenge plot and drags it down an existential rabbit hole with some very 1960s visuals to go along with it, but there's still plenty going on that makes me think of it as remarkable. Still not over its one extremely-dated shot of a guy falling off a building, though.

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) -

Yeah, you know what it is. My only two comments: one, that I'm reluctant to give out and maintain 4.5s because I'm either acknowledging that a film's not good enough to be a 5 or constantly questioning what really makes it better than a 4 (the latter of which definitely applies here). Two, they really need to home-release the full 144-minute version over here at some point becuase I haven't seen that in about 15 years (on free-to-air television, no less!) and yet every other viewing (including two separate theatrical viewings) has been the 115-minute "European" version. Baffling, really, even though one could genuinely question exactly how much of worth gets lost as a result of the trimming.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard, 2018) -

The weakest of the Disney Star Wars films by some distance and definitely in the running for the weakest overall. Pacing is all over the place, action is frequently underwhelming, characters are under-cooked, and what little substance is on display here actually has a chance at being worse than no substance at all.

Super Mario Bros. (Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, 1993) -

What initially became a childhood fave off the back of a rather flimsy association with Mario has now revealed itself to be an oddly fascinating curio thanks to its bizarre mixture of jaunty family-film antics with gritty cyberpunk aesthetics. As a result, I don't think I can ever actually bring myself to hate it.

O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973) -

The sequel to if... is very much my kind of movie as it sees Malcolm McDowell go on a series of Candide-esque misadventures through a somewhat surreal depiction of early-'70s Britain. Long and disjointed, but its satirical elements hold up far more often than not.

Un flic (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972) -

Melville's final film sees him pit Alain Delon's cop against Richard Crenna's robber in a film that, despite the title translating to "a cop", is much more concerned (and all the better) with detailing the criminal side of things. It still ends up being a decent heist film, but nothing more.

City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931) -

I've realised now that I appreciate Chaplin films a little more when I stop expecting them to be the most gut-busting comedies I'm ever likely to watch and instead end up observing the technique on an academic level and getting wrapped up in the fundamentally simple but nevertheless resonant tales of humanism at their very core.

Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004) -

I originally called this one of the worst movies I'd ever seen and, after so many more years and terrible movies, I don't think that opinion has changed in any significant fashion. It's still obnoxious as all hell in just about every regard (except maybe when it comes to the cinematography and editing - even Soderbergh at his absolute worst is still capable of making me sit up and notice his technique, albeit in an extremely grudging manner).

Pioneers of Ingolstadt (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971) -

Going back on a Fassbinder kick with yet another one of his flawed but interesting exercises in examining the love between people and its seemingly inevitable intersection with unfortunate power dynamics, here represented through the relationships between a Nazi occupying force (euphemistically referred to as "pioneers") and the townsfolk who are caught between embracing or rejecting their presence.

I Only Want You To Love Me (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1976) -

A problem I have with Fassbinder's prolific filmography is that, at the staggering rate he churned out films, too often they can overlap thematically and come across as repetitive exercises on themes he was a little too good at picking clean (the fact that he does this by design doesn't help matters too much). In this case, the tale of an emotionally needy young man struggling to make his way in the world is familiar territory for Fassbinder but he mixes it up just enough to be halfway-worthwhile.

Only the brave



A story about firemen who put out forest fires.

I am in a quest to find the kind of movies that will stand the test of time and why many good movies get lost as time passes.What do you expect in a movie that deals with firemen in forest ? you expect to see their hardships , you see camaraderie , great visuals of forest being burnt or after burnt etc. and you get all those in this movie. But here is the thing about movies like these.It always starts with getting the budget to tell these stories. The investors need to see commercial viability of projects and they need proof that projects like these have worked. When I say projects like these I mean either this concept or this director or this actor or this sub-genre. If the sub-genre is not commercially viable, then the filmmakers will be asked to include elements of the movies that actually worked. Either its that or the director's psyche itself so morphed by his own movie watching experiences that he came up with those elements. I get that the lifestyle of firefighters in rural Arizona could be that of a stereotypical middle America but that doesn't mean you have to make it that way. Because the problem with this movie is that its so damn conventional.Its very episodic. You can take and pick apart the movie beat by beat. The unfortunate thing is that even the most surreal part of the movie which is when Josh Brolin compares himself to a burning bear running in the forrest. Get it ? its meant to be a metaphor.But I think more than anything the movie is a very interesting case study on how certain well made movies are not good.The director of this movie is a very visual director but thats about it.

The main problem here is that we are dealing with filmmakers of varying talent. If a school teacher made a hollywood movie anyone can say thats a piece of garbage. But if a guy who did some exceptional work in film industry behind the camera and is making his debut because most of his collaborators thought that he is talented enough to do it made a movie then you run into complex feelings about the movie. The emotional through line is what people will be looking for in the movie or the "wow" factor in a proper way. Getting movie under budget and in schedule is a rare art that so many filmmakers can't do. The few who do will stick around as journey men directors with no vision of their but just looking for scripts to adapt. I am sure the producers for this movie felt that Josh brolin is better for this movie because of no country for old men. So everyone kind of feels like this will make a decent movie and the director is passable and so this is gonna make for a passable movie thats not reviled.

My only thought going through this movie is that there are some really breath taking shots in the movie either real or CG. There are some shots like forest on fire seen from a distance at night or the aftermath of a forest fire with lots of ashes or the scenes of CG bear running through the forest which is haunting to some extent or the shots of burning trees on the edge of a cliff falling into the fog and disappearing. All those are good. Then why doesn't this movie get any attention where as a movie like Revenant gets so much attention.

I think the answer is multi-layered. Its the high profile nature of people involved. The stakes of the movie are so high. A movie like revenant is made for 150 million $ and its made by Innaritu whom many directors admire purely based on craft. There is a certain amount of comraderee between directors because all of them wants to get their vision up on the screen by fighting with many people. I think its the respect that not many directors can get from fellow directors. You can be friends or acquaintances but to truly get respect from some directors who you haven't even met but they just know you from your movies, you need to have movies that are your own vision and not be a shill for studios. If all your movies are studio movies then you don't have any idea how hard it is to get financing. For some reason certain directors just are not respected. Someone like Peter Berg is a bro director, his movie are all semi-gritty action movies with fake emotions but the whole selling point of the movie is guns and explosions and action. I don't expect a director like Paul Thomas Anderson to respect Peter Berg. Its just that prestige movies or scripts are not offered to journey men directors. They are offered to top dogs like Spielberg or Nolan or DiCaprio ( who in turn finds a director to make it for him). I am talking about scripts that are just gold. Studios don't wanna afford letting them fall into wrong hands. Best example in ready player one. That movie was a cash cow. If it sucked it will make 100 million less or even more.So they need Spielberg brand not just for quality but also for name value. So all this forces either journey men directors to write their own scripts or stick with studio movies. Some one like Adam McKay is an auteur in the sense that his movies has his political views as undertones. He is not just this director making comedies for middle aged women or action movies with no view.

The intricacies are very interesting because Hollywood is a very small industry. So you can't fight with someone and then go make movie with someone else. There are just 5 major studios and a whole lot of independent filmmaking world that makes movies that no one sees. So to actually make it, you need to be in a studio picture. Thats what I always think, the hardest part for movie stars after no. 1 position aka 2,3,4,.... is that they have to work with what is left by no.1 movie star which right now is DiCaprio. He is gonna jam any great project or script if he thinks has potential to be an oscars movie and appeal to foreign audience.So they either do that or try and risk their reputation by working with new directors or directors they already worked with. It a very tricky business . Because Paul Thomas Anderson is not going to hire some movie star if he is not fit for the role. He will hire someone who he thinks fits the role well. The auteurs are usually very spot on, in terms of casting.

All this puts this movie at a very high disadvantage of getting any sort of prestige exposure. It was never made as a directors vision anyway it was made by people who want to tell a good story in a non risky way with some symbolism thrown in to make audience feel familiar and happy. I can't recommend it , because the story has to be much deeper than this beat by beat product and the end has to be earned.

Ready Player One



A virtual reality game occupies the conscious being of human race and its consequences.

Steven Spielberg is the only director who feels commercial and auteury at the same time. Most of the times an auteur is someone who has a common theme and vision and point of view running across his movies. Nolan has obsessed character grappling with demons as his lead in almost all his movies. Tarantino cleverly has genre pictures smuggled through his auteur vision. Spielberg has parent's divorce as common theme. But I think Spielberg is the only one among these three whose movies feel like commercial when he is making blockbusters. They are more about clever ideas and concepts that are well made and so, they can avoid the stink of generic blockbusters. His movies have character scenes and he is given the levity by directors just so he could push them through the blockbuster product. Its only recently that I realized Leonardo DiCaprio found the key to maintain his fan base. It is the "WOW" - factor. Audience have accustomed to watching dramas and well made movies in laptop. So to make them go to the movies they need 2 things. One is they need to have a cerebral experience and the other is they need to know the movie is good. They might not want to know the beat for beat plot but they do want to know what the movie is about and that its one of the best movies of the year. Around 50% of movie going audience don't care about critics. But these are the one's that are hard to predict if they are gonna come to a movie or not. Most of the time they go to superhero movies or franchises or movies by some stars. But its the other 50% who checkout critics that can be seduced into coming to a movie with glowing reviews. DiCaprio realized somewhere around Inception that he should stop making movies like revolutionary road or J.Edgar and start making movies like The great Gatsby. Its a one two punch of pleasing the audience by giving them the "wow" factor and pleasing the industry by getting movies like those made which are not being made at the moment. So when ever your movie is up for Oscar, its not just your performance that deserves praise but it is your willingness to lend your star power to get the vision of the director upon screen for a 100 million $ budget. But the sad part is as long as audience flock to see a movie by a star or director like mindless sheep there will be no risk taken by those filmmakers.Spielberg is now boxed into making only movies for families or elderly. He can't make outrageous bloody movies because he is too afraid to fail. DiCaprio cannot play an overweight bald buy because his 15-25 yr old fans want him to be this macho force of nature they see themselves in. A white guy can't relate themselves to Django in Django Unchained but they can relate themselves to this charming rich and macho looking plantation owner up until his death because even though the hero gets the last laugh in the movie for the most part the villain has many scene stealing moments...uncovering the heroes plot or forcing them to listen to his evil psychology. Those are qualities of this character. His death is very minute part of his arc, so audience will erase that from their memory and will only think about his performance. It's the damn 15-25 yr old demographic man. That's the age group where anything masculine with perfect human specimens is the greatest thing. They laugh at a 50+ old man like Liam Neeson fighting bad guys but they are wowed by how a dad bodied DiCaprio is invincible in the role of Hugh Glass.

So all these changes in the audience preference kind of made Spielberg dated in the current generation. He does have his own core group of old people who grew up with jaws and ET. They will show up as long he makes movies like the post and bridge of spies for old people. But the moment he makes anything not in their wheel house, he looses them. He will have to rely on foreign audience from china and japan for movie like ready player one because those the kind of people that would cause a traffic jam to catch pikachu. They live in locker room sized rooms for months and years together just to work and make money and play video games.So his movies are targeting markets to make money. One might ask, if Spielberg movies are so by the numbers, then why would his movies get nominated for so many Oscars up until last years the post ? You see, that's where the internal politics of Oscars comes into play. Look, a studio will not launch an Oscar campaign for a movie they think is crap. Spielberg with all his talent won't be making a crap unless he makes a swords and scandals movie as long as he stays in his safe zone.From then on the campaign starts with something like this "the guy who helped you at different times in your career to either get the movie made or to tell an actor to be in your movie is making a decent to good movie.So, will you vote for him or not ?" the answer to this is mostly yes. There are 10 slots for best picture , can't they allocate something for the guy who helped them make money and get lot of their projects in the right track and pull some strings ? of course they can. Its easy to get Oscar nomination for a movie if it is the flagship movie from a big studio. Its all the behind the scenes stuff. If you are part of something that's doing greater good, then people will praise you for it. All this is within the condition that the movie should be good but need not be great.

The movie didn't use the concept to its full potential. Its missing the mystery and the edge needed for movies like these. Instead it just wants us to be in awe of this world and go along with ride and come out with a half baked hypocritical message about digital age. Go into it for visuals and some interesting nostalgia. Its not that great.

Fear of Fear (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975) -

Fassbinder does a woman-on-the-verge movie starring Petra von Kant lead Margit Carstensen as a housewife who constantly worries that she is going insane. Broadly familiar territory for Fassbinder, though at least it's executed sharply enough and features one of his better lead performers in Carstensen.

Effi Briest (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974) -

Fassbinder does a period romance, a genre for which I express a certain indifference that isn't exactly defied by this film. It certainly has its moments and picks up as it moves along, but I don't think of it as being especially great.

The Tin Drum (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979) -

An exceptionally twisted WWII-era drama that hinges on a fantastic premise - a young boy deliberately stunting his growth so he effectively never has to grow up - to serve as a throughline for a gut-churning odyssey through the rise of Nazism and all the horrors it either brings or permits.

Children of a Lesser God (Randa Haines, 1986) -

A pretty passable romantic drama about the relationship that develops between a hearing teacher at a school for the deaf and the school's deaf janitor. While it has its moments and you can definitely see why Marlee Matlin earned that Oscar, I don't think it's anything too special either.

Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) -

As with The Shining, another old favourite where the 4.5 at once seems like a vestigial reminder of a time when I barely knew anything about movies and yet is still completely earned by such a strong film that lives up to its recognisable influences while forging a unique identity in the process.

Croupier (Mike Hodges, 1998) -

The more I think about this casino-themed neo-noir, the less I like it. It starts off promisingly as Clive Owen's wow-he-really-could've-been-a-good-Bond writer-turned-croupier smoothly explains himself and his industry but things deteriorate before too long (invoking quite a few writer-based clichés in the process like novel-as-confessional) and as such I don't find much use for it.

Tenderness of the Wolves (Ulli Lommel, 1973) -

Unsurprisingly, this based-on-a-true-story tale of a serial killer that preys on runaway teens and gets away with it by ratting his fellow crooks out to the local police is not a particularly pleasant watch by any measure, but what really damns it is its sheer tedium and vacuity in this regard.

Fox and his Friends (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974) -

Fassbinder does a rags-to-riches melodrama. Trying to watch Fassbinder's sizeable filmography means watching a lot of meh-to-okay entries, so it's good to actually watch one of his films that's genuinely great and actually offers an inventive twist on his usual preoccupations with toxic romance and class warfare while also having style to spare.

The Right Stuff (Philip Kaufman, 1983) -

An appreciably solid biopic about the early history of the space race and the various pilots who contributed to its slow but ultimately successful development. A strong ensemble and remarkable technical work are definitely able to carry it for its sizeable three-hour runtime, as is the way in which it tempers the potentially jingoistic notion of competing with "the Russkies" by framing every aspect of the Americans' process through a charmingly satirical lens.

The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice (Orson Welles, 1951) -

I'm not too familiar with the original play beyond a few superficial details, but Chimes at Midnight had already made me hopeful for seeing a different example of Welles taking on Shakespeare. Unfortunately, this result doesn't quite reach those heights and still feels a bit sluggish even at 90 minutes, but it's still decent enough on its own merits.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Zodiac



A story that chronicles the hunt for Zodiac killer.

David Fincher knows how to direct mystery and suspense. He is not good with thrilling but he can create the sense of terror and creepiness in his movies. After burning his hands at a studio directing a sequel he realized that he needed fully autonomy in the movies he make.Initially he got it through Brad Pitt, who was in desperate need of an auteur. After having some quality and successful films under his belt he started using his clout to make movies he wanted. Nonetheless he needed stars for his movies.

One common thing general public forget and to be honest don't care is that people like genre pictures. They like horror/thriller/mystery/adventure etc. movies. Having a single tone for the entire movie.People want to see what they like rewarded.If they like Django Unchained then they want it to win Oscars. Same with the dark knight. Most of the times the movies people like are very explicitly genre pictures.Die hard or it follows or avengers. So people can understand why those particular movies are not rewarded at Oscars because of the deep genre roots the movies have. But once in a while a director comes and makes movies that are just too awesome and original that people throw the genre filter out of the window and root for the movie as if its a drama. But the common pattern among these high art genre pictures is that they blend reality with fiction seamlessly that it feels those movies have transcended genres. But in reality those movies are still genre pictures and they fall apart if the genre element is taken out of the movie. Those movies offer the possibility of fantasy. They show the potential for something supernatural.

Zodiac is one of those movies where the technique of inter cutting murders with investigation used by Fincher sort of gives the feel of omnipresence of the killer. They show an extremely intimate setting of the killings and then the extremely intimate settings of the investigations. The ultimate bummer ending is made up for over the course of the film. Its pretty evident that director has done a lot of research and stayed close to the reality over the course of the movie. After panic room made so much money he was given insane amount of money to make the movie he wanted. He made this extremely well documented movie. But this is a masterly crafted movie because a movie made from a Wikipedia page lacks the magic and tone of this movie. But this has all of those all while being extremely meticulous. The police investigation even though it is not hot on heels of the killer still manages to have the sense of urgency and dread. It is a very rare feat for a filmmaker to be doing those things.

He is not up there with Tarantino or Nolan in terms of box office draw because his directing style is easy to copy and not be called out for it. If you try and make a Tarantino style movie critics will call you out on it. Not so much for Nolan but its hard for directors to commercially and intellectually replicate his movies. You need a lot of dough to replicate cinematography of Nolan. But the cost of replicating the style and expenses of a Fincher movie are not that huge.I do believe that he is an auteur and he is probably in the bucket list of directors to work with of DiCaprio. He is extremely consistent. But I am glad he works repeatedly with Brad Pitt and not be a shill for DiCaprio. Brad Pitt is a much more honest artist than DiCaprio because he is willing to be in movies where he doesn't have a showy role and take on roles that fit him rather than take on roles that have awards potential and somehow make them a different version of him and completely tarnish the identity of the characters he is playing.

A meticulous movie with surprising amount of tension and dread for its 180 minutes long running time.That in of itself is a huge accomplishment considering there are no explosions or action chases.

Hereditary



The death of mother starts a chain reaction which leads a woman to spiral out of control and effect her whole family in unexpected ways.

My summary doesn't make it out to be a horror movie but it is. I liked the unsettling tone of the movie.By this point I am able to pick up on the directorial choices in this genre. The tone of a movie is essential. Certain examples of tone are the poor neighborhood of Detroit in don't breathe or the 1980's feel to Detroit in IT follows or the period feel to conjuring or the ancient look of the witch. The tone takes you into the lives of the characters. The second trope I noticed in the movie and that is the disturbing third act. More specifically the second part of third act. So it is the part leading up to the climax. The third trope is the psychological degradation of characters.The delusions and reality converging to make characters not trust what they see.

All these are in this movie.This is better than most movies which belong in this genre. The atmospheric nature is much more subtle as opposed to lot of other films. The surroundings blend into the background without asking for attention. The creep factor picks up towards the end and its more unsettling than anything.

Spoilers

The story starts with the funeral of an old woman, the mother of our main female character(x) who has been secretive her whole life.From X we learn that she is extremely manipulative and taken a liking to her grand daughter from infancy. X decides to not have a son because she didn't want a son in the house for her own sanity but nonetheless she has a son. The whole family of X has some kind of mental diseases that eventually lead to their demise. Even X survived some sort of mental disease. The daughter raised by dead woman has some kind of syndrome to begin with. I do think there is certain amount of make up to her. All those made her pretty weird to begin with. But as we go along we realize that she isn't a harm to anyone in the family but she just is not normal. All that comes to an end during an auto accident that decapitates the girl. This accelerates the plot in unexpected ways. Firstly this further breaks down X who is already distraught at her mother's death. Then she confides in a fellow support group member. The support group member reveals her a method on how to speak with dead people and she in turn uses it to speak with her daughter and that sort of invites her spirit into the house. From then on the reveals keep hitting. Firstly in an earlier scene it is revealed the death of brother of X is because of an apparent suicide he committed after complaining that their mother tried to put in bodies inside him. X's father killed himself through starvation. So basically everyone around the dead grandmother is killed one after another. The reveal is, she is part of a coven. The coven's mission is to find a human host especially male to be possessed by some hell god. When the old woman was able bodied, she tried doing that to her son but he killed himself. So she put it in her grand daughter. I think the plan is to wait till the boy is able bodied and then place the hell god spirit in them. Since the grand mother dies before that and she knew she didn't have very many days she placed the spirit in the grand daughter, so she could somehow transfer it to the son. But her decapitation sort of accelerates the process as the host is dead and they need at-least the spirit of the host to be invited back into the house so it could transfer spirit of hell god into the son. So it all culminates in a horrifying finale where in the son becomes possessed by spirit of king of hell. And also as part of this coven's ritual they needed the decapitated dead body of the old woman and its in the house attic for a while. All the moving parts are different pieces of puzzle needed for the ritual to be complete.In the end, unbeknownst to X her mother makes her part of the ritual because they are part of same hereditary. So she is a unwitting member of the ritual.But when the son kills himself by jumping through the window of the attic, his body becomes a perfect vessel for hell god to possess and is crowned as their king.

This has disturbing imagery and believably troubled performances.The switcheroo of making the daughter look creepy but her not being the antagonist is very smart. She acted like a disturbed child raised by a witch but at no point does she act more than just like a child. There is also this sense of inevitability and doom looming over the family wherever the family member is. Its almost like a families fate is fixed.like watching a family leading upto the day all of them gets massacred.That's the best part of it.

Mr. Vampire - 1986 Hong Kong flick about a mortician and his dimwitted assistants battling a hopping vampire, a sexy ghost, and a walking corpse. It's ridiculous and fun. There's a TON of sequels, too. Can't wait to watch those.

June (pt i):


Eye Of God (Tim Blake Nelson, 1997)
Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo [I Was Born, But...] (Yasujirô Ozu, 1932)

+
Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015)
Stanley And Livingstone (Henry King & Otto Brower, 1939)
The Count Of Monte Cristo (Rowland V. Lee, 1934)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Sidney Pollack, 1969)
Tsumetai nettaigyo [Cold Fish] (Sion Sono, 2010)


Joe (David Gordon Green, 2013)
The Adventures Of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1939)
Theodora Goes Wild (Richard Boleslawski, 1936)

+
Back Street (John M. Stahl, 1932)
Hawking (Philip Martin, 2004)
Mediterranea (Jonas Carpignano, 2015)
The Black Doll (Otis Garrett, 1938)
The Dressmaker (Jocelyn Moorhouse, 2015)
Where's That Fire? (Marcel Varnel, 1939)


Kiseki [I Wish] (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2011)
M'Liss (George Nichols Jr., 1936)
Mononoke-hime [Princess Mononoke] (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)
Secrets Of A Secretary (George Abbott, 1931)

+
The Baroness And The Butler (Walter Lang, 1938)
The Look of Love (Michael Winterbottom, 2013)


Arthur And Mike aka Arthur Newman (Dante Ariola, 2012)
Boy (Taika Waititi, 2010)
Dare To Be Wild (Vivienne De Courcy, 2015)
The Benson Murder Case (Frank Tuttle, 1930)
The Canary Murder Case (Malcolm St. Clair & Frank Tutlle, 1929)

+
Dracula Untold (Gary Shore, 2014)
Sailor's Luck (Raoul Walsh, 1933)


Strawberry Summer cut vsn (Kevin Conor, 2012)

+
Kept Husbands (Lloyd Bacon, 1931)
Klondike (Phil Rosen, 1932)


The Greasy Strangler (Jim Hosking, 2016)


Project Almanac (Dean Israelite, 2015)

My favourite is III, then I, then II, then IV, but all of them are super fun!

__________________
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.

Nympho Diver: G-String Festival (1981) -



A decent enough comedic pinku eiga which is basically just a series of sex vignettes. Nothing too great, but the titular G-String festival wasn't bad. :P

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (1967) -



Yet another Oshima masterpiece, and a pretty symbolism-heavy, mind-boggling film with a Targets-esque fourth act.

Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996) -



I never liked Balkanic sense of humour, but I think the movie is fairly impartial by showing its presumed heroes in satirical light, and also (deliberately) in a very Hollywoodish way. I believe these tools were used to strengthen the film's anti-war message.

Horny Diver: Tight Shellfish (1985) -





I'm in for more fish! Again a decent offering with a lot of (mainly vanilla) sex. Kinda lacks variety but the girls weren't bad, you know.

Purple Noon (1960) -



A Hitchcockian neo-noir crime in sunlit Italy whose initial boating sequence was no doubt a great inspiration for Polański's Knife in the Water! Wonderful use of color and shameless Delonsploitation!

Martha (1974) -



A travesty! A Sirkan melodrama becomes a cruel grotesque. A snobish vampire-sadist trains his obedient panicky wife taking great pleasure in hurting her psychologically in most cruel ways imaginable. Great camerawork and baroque scenography!

The Moon Has Risen (1955) -



Simply delightful! Written by Ozu, but directed by Tanaka, and therefore devoid of Ozu's meticulous approach but not quality. The matchmaking was so cute! A fairly simple film but one that I enjoyed most of all 4s I watched.

Another Girl, Another Planet (1992) -



Shot on a toy camera, and about some meaningless relationships. A little bit similar to the movies of Hal Hartley but not as good.

Touki Bouki (1973) -



Inspired by French New Wave. Great colours and framing. Great use of music. Didn't win my heart, though.

Sexy Battle Girls (1986) -













Soo good. Sooo sleazy. This contains one of the most explicit sex scenes I've ever seen in a pinku eiga. But... it's also so entertaining! A spoof on Sukeban Deka with the girls fighting each other using weird sex weapons! This inspired me to watch the actual Sukeban Deka series, but I failed miserably. Despite having Yuki Saito it was quite terrible and I gave up after two episodes! Oh, I took a lot of screenshots from this film because it's fun.

Lovers Are Wet (1973) -



I literally have nothing to say about it. It's okay but Woods are Wet is sooo much better.

CONTINUED (image limit)

The Fetist (1998) -









Sato being Sato, but this is a gay pinku eiga, so I don't think I'm the target audience. Then again, this also contains hetero BDSM sex (probably they were afraid non-homo viewers will get bored or something so they added something that will make them happy too), and some nice bloodshed at the end. If you think about it, there are only 2 or 3 gay sex scenes.

XX: Beautiful Beast (1995) -












Pretty lousy! The worst kind of boring erotic/action thrillers aired on dubious TV stations at 3 AM. Me gusta! Okay, it wasn't that bad! Some okayish shots from time to time and nice atmosphere built mainly by the music.

Time Regained (1999) -



Ruiz is the master of surrealism and he wonderfully plays with time and the viewer in this adaptation of Proust's magnum opus. At times I couldn't believe my eyes - a woman in red crossing the frame twice. I had to rewind, and yes - she did cross it twice! Nice mindf*ck, Ruiz!

Seen in June Pt.1


+
What the actual hell was wrong with our main character? His performance was really bad! Ironside’s performance was great though. The pacing is very strange, something doesn’t feel quite right about it. The scenes where the scanners were doing stuff were really cool and ‘that’ scene was in another realm of awesome. The gore effects are great too. Excited to see more Cronenberg films now.


+
I think I watched the 2010 Disney dub. Oh my God I just loved this! I loved all of the characters, humour and animation. The music was amazing, very Legend of Zelda-esque. The film perfectly pulls off the scenery of a quaint town that you’d probably spend a vacation at. Some absolutely gorgeous shots of the town. It was way better than Totoro, I preferred the fact that it actually had a structured plot and didn’t have an ending that felt anticlimactic. My only real problem at the end JIJI CAN’T TALK ANYMORE OMG IT’S SO SAD!!!



My thought on each story...
1: Whatever
2: Thought bubble scenes were funny but nothing much else.
3: Great. Very spooky combined with the thought of being buried alive.
4: Loved the scenes under the stairs as they're shot really well: quick cuts, close ups etc.
5: Loved the sense of isolation and phobia.



Review: https://www.movieforums.com/reviews/...dont-they.html



The lady who made this is ‘Possibly in-Sane!'. Awesome music and use of creepy imagery.


+
At the start I expected to not like it due to its presentation and plot but I started to love it when it got to the murder plot. It's crazy how fast they speak in this movie, I don't remember anything they said! The only thing that's putting this down a bit is the blatant disrespect they have to the new husband near the end, I mean how would the screenwriter feel if he was about to get married and the lady suddenly threw him away like dirt?



Very funny and quotable. Probably the only mockumentary that could trick you into thinking it's real.


-
Really enjoyed it. I liked the dynamic between Marlo and Tully. The way their scenes are shot feel extremely erotic yet nothing sexual is happening on screen, very strange. Liked all the subtle foreshadowing. Realistic performances. Unique to see a film that doesn't portray motherhood as the ultimate 'happily ever after'.


-
The animation is great, lots of beautiful shots of the scenic landscapes. Beautiful soundtrack, with some of it being piano, orchestral and Lord of the Rings-esque. What puts down the film for me personally is the whole 'hating humans' aspect. San hate humans throughout the entire film yet our main character seems totally ok with it and still wants to help her, even in situations where he could be helping his fellow humans against the samurai. I dunno, that element of the film just made me really uncomfortable. It's like if a movie about racism had the racist character learn nothing by the end and they portrayed it as a happy ending.



I don't know what to say, it's just a total trip.

Eddie Murphy Delirious (Bruce Gowers, 1983) -

This is more or less on par with Raw - there's more than a few instances of jokes ageing badly (e.g. a rather homophobic opening routine) that threaten to sink the whole thing, but fortunately they are balanced out a bit by Murphy finding better targets for his foul-mouthed mockery.

In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Oshima, 1976) -

For whatever it's worth, this notoriously twisted and graphic can-you-even-really-call-this-erotic drama about one increasingly hedonistic and sadomasochistic love affair is at least actively challenging me to find some greater point or aesthetic brilliance to its relentless displays of raw sexuality - as such, I don't think it's particularly successful in that regard.

Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936) -

Not overly impressed by this early piece of Hitchcock's. Starts off on the dull side and at least manages to get a little watchable towards the end, but ultimately feels more like a sign of things to come from the man himself than something good in its own right.

Empire of Passion (Nagisa Oshima, 1978) -

This tale of two lovers who murder the woman's husband only to be haunted by his restless ghost reminded me of Kobayashi's Kwaidan for better (it's a sufficiently unsettling and atmospheric ghost story) and worse (it seems like it could do with being considerably shorter, almost to the point of being a better anthology segment than standalone feature).

The Best Years of our Lives (William Wyler, 1946) -

It's always good to see a Best Picture winner that actually comes across as a worthy contender for the title (though I'm not sure I'd call it my favourite film of 1946 anyway). Still, there's a lot to be said for how this post-WWII drama about returning soldiers coming to grips with how everything has changed for them has aged well even as its humanistic approach can seem a little vague at times.

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) -

Another old favourite, but this time I think a 4 is about as high as I can go for this bad boy (used to be top 100, but now it's more like the top 500). At this point I'm paying more attention to the craftsmanship than anything else, which I'll admit is a bit of a backhanded compliment but as far as films of this kind go you can hardly accept any substitutes.

Fruits of Passion (Shuji Terayama, 1981) -

Another day, another graphically sadomasochistic French-Japanese co-production courtesy of MUBI. While this one at least has the sense to keep it short and add a somewhat engaging sub-plot about Chinese rebels to the proceedings, too often it settles for just showing off a bunch of bondage scenes that vary quite wildly in tone and makes me wish it would end already.

Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008) -

A blunt attempt at a multi-narrative ensemble drama about Mafia-dominated slums and the people who are caught up in the resulting power struggles. Not totally ineffective in terms of illustrating the seriousness of the issues it's concerned with but even then it's hardly worth watching.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975) -

In some regards, this actually plays better on a second viewing - a film that's as focused on minutiae as this one is can only benefit from a viewer being able to absorb as much of it as possible (and see how it all ends up serving as extremely subtle foreshadowing).

Mother Küsters Goes To Heaven (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975) -

Fassbinder does another woman-on-the-verge movie with a dash of class-conscious commentary thrown into the mix as it tells the story of how a factory worker's murder-suicide of his boss (and the resultant media attention) affects his struggling widow. A variety of sub-groups get targeted - tabloid journalists, armchair leftists, violent anarchists - but it never loses sight of the wounded woman at the heart of the proceedings. May actually be better than I'm giving it credit for.

A Bride for Rip Van Winkle (2016) -



A tremendous achievement in filmmaking - director's best since All About Lily Chou-Chou. A film that weirdly mixes realism with fairy tale. The trails and tribulations of Nanami feel like taken out of Cinderella but at the same time maintain high level of realism. Inducing a wide range of emotions from frustration, to bliss, to sadness. The movie has more twists than most thrillers, and some of them elicit really strong emotions. The post-bridal sequence one comes to mind. Nanami's not perfect but she's shy, good, cute... :3 Sadly, also used by others. I was tempted to rate it 5 stars but I dunno.

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) -



Cassavetes' cinema verite style is on display again as two unlikely lovers (one of them played by Cassavete's wife - Gena Rowlands) meet in strange circumstances and seem to fancy in each other. What really struck me was Cassell's violence both towards Minnie and also random men he seemed to provoke to fight him. A very bad match for a woman who just finished her relationship with a woman-beater. That being said, I thought the ending was somewhat an ironic one, especially the "what's gonna happen in a couple of years" addendum. A very bad relationship and a very bad idea to stay together. Unless you believe in omnia vincit amor that was hard to believe given the realism of the picture.

Mad Love (1985) -



Żuławski takes his hiper-expressionist style to its extremes. Actors' animalistic, mad behaviour is almost unbearable. Dostoyevsky is brutally raped! Even sexy, angel face teen Sophie Marceau, Robbe-Grillet-esque kitschy crime film aesthetics, and riveting Tati-referencing scenography do not save the film.

Let the Corpses Tan (2017) -



The third film of the acclaimed Belgian duo is perhaps their weakest offering. A mix of Poliziotteschi (or just Euro Crime), Spaghetti Western, and trademark eye-popping visual extravaganza is a fetishized, unrelenting tour de force which, similarly to their two neo-gialli, pushes aside the story and draws attention to its visuals. Inventive camera angles exhibit i.a. almost unrecognizable Elina Löwensohn, and the sound design intensifies sounds of i.a. leather police uniforms. Not much to chew on here - just genuine fun and playing with the convention.

Murmur of the Heart (1971) -



An Indonesian war era coming-of-age film. Innocent and natural love for a mother twists and turns into weird, morally dubious thing as the young protagonist discovers the world of sex. A lot of very natural feelings here (including jealousy) but that ending was really unexpected.

Call Me by Your Name (2017) -



Basically a contemporary ROHoMoER. Penalty points for lack of originality. Kudos for shooting on film. I thought the whole thing's going to be platonic but it turned out to be quite carnal. Good acting and a great speech from a dad towards the end. The highly praised end credits scene did nothing for me.

Women in Heat Behind Bars (1987) -

KINKY

*Pink film connoisseur mode on.*

With the advent of hardcore pornography in the 80s, major studios (like Nikkatsu) had to produce much lewder films in order to compete with the fast-growing AV market.

*Pink film connoisseur mode off.*

Naah, this is just your regular pinku WIP film with maybe one strong almost-pornographic scene. These Nikkatsu-funded flicks had decent budgets, so the film is also nicely shot.

Introspection Tower (1941) -



Yet another one of Shimizu's children pictures he was so good at. The film takes place in a reformatory school, and whereas plotwise its first part was much superior to the pro-government second part, the atmosphere and visuals were great all throughout. I especially loved the out-of-focus, blurred backgrounds (distortion lens?) filled with trees, and trolley shots of these tree-populated areas. A great place, by the way. This is poetic filmmaking.

Forest of Bliss (1986) -



Beautiful colors but the world of India is extremely hard to accustom to. The theme of death prevalent in the film means many brutal images.