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Nixon in the Den - 6/10
"Our Nixon" is probably the best Nixon documentary, and I'm sure I've seen all of them.

You might be right about the best doc on Nixon. And at 50 minutes, it's probably the shortest as well. Watched it the other night, and thought it was a fair assessment.

Nixon was a fascinating guy, although a very middle of the road President. He was great in foreign affairs, but some of his domestic stuff was awful, plus he formally closed the gold window, which has since allowed Wall St., the Treasury Dept., and the Federal Reserve to systematically degenerate our economy to the pitiful state it is today.

I grew up with Nixon. I recall wearing a "I Like Ike and Dick" pin in grade school, and then of course grew along with him as his career advanced. It's funny. The Watergate thing, which ultimately caused him to resign, is such small potatoes next to what dirty stuff has happened since...





Amulet, 2020

It is disappointing, but at the same time unsurprising, to see that a whopping 11% of IMDb users scored this film a 1/10. In many respects, the film is a hate magnet: slow paced, highly allegorical, a more nuanced/psychological form of "horror", and some of the least-subtle feminist/gender-related imagery I've seen recently.

And yet.

This film, the writing and directing debut of actress Romola Garai, has enough intriguing and/or disturbing imagery and a firm enough grasp on its main character that I think it's well worth checking out.

Tomas (Alec Secareanu) is a former soldier, living homeless. Offered free room and board if he will become a live-in handyman for a young woman, Magda (Carla Juri) and her very ill mother, Tomas's time in the house is intercut with flashbacks to his time as a soldier manning an isolated outpost and his encounter with a desperate refugee.

In a lot of films, and especially horror and thriller films, the question that lurks as a twist is "what did someone do?". Here that isn't really the question (if you can't guess in the first ten minutes, maybe you've never seen a movie before?). The question is: what are you going to do now? Who do you think you are, and what are you going to do about it?

Not in a literal sense (because that would be very spoiler-y), this film reminded me a bit of Fascination--a film where the enticing question is who is in danger, and in what way.

I saw a review that compared this film to The Lighthouse, and while it's not at that level, it does give you a sense of what the pace is like. It's the kind of film where the label "horror" probably does more harm than help. (Though I have to say that there were two different moments that totally shocked me and some wonderfully disgusting and disturbing imagery.)

Speaking of imagery, I honestly had to admire the in-your-face visuals that spoke unambiguously to sex. The main character never puts his fist through a Georgia O'Keeffe painting, but it's close. In less assured hands, it could come off as misogynistic (you know, around the time a character is reaching into a suggestively slit open fish) or parody. But the way that the film walks the line between female vulnerability and femme fatale, the imagery feels more like something to be decoded. Likewise, the dialogue walks that double edge. What does it mean for a woman to tell a male character, "You're a good man". What is her motivation? What does it mean for a man to tell a female character a variation on the old classic, "I'm not going to hurt you"? The actions of the male and female characters mirror and echo each other until the usual signals about victims and perpetrators in horror become totally scrambled.

This is not a great horror film, and it certainly has its weak points. There's an exposition dump toward the end that dings the pace, and there's a denouement that leans way too heavy-handed. But there's no way it deserves so many low votes. If Garai writes or directs another horror film, I will definitely check it out. There was too much excellent weirdness for her to go under the radar.




Blood Tea Red String (2006) Christiane Cegavske.
Stop-motion animated film. Very interesting movie. Some mice and some other bird like creatures both have a deep desire for a doll that has been made, and there is an ongoing struggle between them through out the film. It is a pretty dark and obscure story that is told, and the animation style is one of a kind.

8

Belladonna of Sadness. (1973) Eiichi Yamamoto.
A woman makes a deal with the devil, after being treated poorly in her village.
Animated film. The music in this film is very good, and gives the film a special atmosphere.



Blood Tea Red String (2006) Christiane Cegavske.
Stop-motion animated film. Very interesting movie. Some mice and some other bird like creatures both have a deep desire for a doll that has been made, and there is an ongoing struggle between them through out the film. It is a pretty dark and obscure story that is told, and the animation style is one of a kind.
I really enjoy Cegavske's work, and I signed up last month to her Patreon account. I really like the look of the new film she's making, and I'm more than happy to send her $5 a month until it's done!

Blood and Sunflowers, a short she made, is also good.



Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm halfway through that new Netflix epic, Hillbilly Elegy. It's based on JD Vance's book about his dysfunctional family from the hinterlands and don't let the "stars", Glenn Close and Amy Adams fool you. It wants to have moments of cultural insight now and again, wants to have emotional depth, but wow. I expected more from Ron Howard.

It reminds me of that recent exercise in scenery chewing by Nick Cage, Color Out of Space, like you're not sure you really want to finish it, but you also want to see if it gets any better, but you doubt that it will but you want to see where it ends up and you already have an hour of your life invested, but there's nothing else going on anywhere anyway and it's too late to start another movie.

You have an interview with a law firm tomorrow morning, but your mom just overdosed on heroin and you remember the time when you were a kid and she got arrested for abusing you and your gnarly grand-maw is yelling at everybody and you have a flashback of your dad being set on fire by your mom.

Don't say I didn't warn you. And they say that horror movies are bad. Get the heck out of this town.




I really enjoy Cegavske's work, and I signed up last month to her Patreon account. I really like the look of the new film she's making, and I'm more than happy to send her $5 a month until it's done!

Blood and Sunflowers, a short she made, is also good.
Interesting. I read that Blood Tea was meant to be first of 3 films. It has been some years since she stated that, but i will keep an eye on what comes from her.



You mean me? Kei's cousin?

The Boy and the Beast (2015) - First Time on 9anime

Whoa. Mamoru Hosoda never ceases to amaze me. I expected to enjoy The Boy and the Beast. I expected to be entertained. Shooo… I had no idea. I had no way of preparing myself for how emotionally satisfying, by turns poignant, and richly rewarding Hosoda's film would turn out to be. The animation is stunning, utilizing character designs by Neon Genesis Evangelion co-creator Yoshiyuki Sadamoto who has worked on all of Hosoda's films; the beast world in which much of the film takes place is well-realized. Hosoda has also crafted an incredible story, never missing a beat and throwing several surprises along the way; Hosoda also takes a chance to explore the human condition, the darkness we all carry inside, whether it's possible to overcome that darkness, and what happens when someone lets that darkness control them. Masakatsu Takagi's excellent musical score also plays a big role in how the film plays out; from the second it opens over the title card, it flawlessly captures the film's adventurous tone. It's a strong entry in Hosoda's filmography for sure. There's far worse ways to spend 119 minutes of your time; just between us, this one can hold its head up high next to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Untouchables, and Howl's Moving Castle—which Hosoda was set to direct until he and Miyazaki had an argument about how it should be made. As usual, Funimation has delivered an excellent English dub. Luci Christian and Eric Vale are excellent as Ren, later renamed Kyūta. Christian effectively captures what it would be like to be a nine-year-old boy who just lost his mom and wants nothing more than to live with his dad and ends up in a strange world full of animals possessing human traits as the apprentice of an abrasive creature named Kumatetsu. Vale voices the character in the latter half at 17 years old when he's grown up and become hardened by all his training and eventually rediscovers the human world. Both capture the character's soul flawlessly at different times in his life and make him likable, sympathetic, and easy to root for. Gendo Ikari himself John Swasey is equally impressive as Kumatetsu, an abrasive beast—described in the opening narration as looking like a bear—who takes Ren on as his apprentice, renaming him Kyūta, in an effort to prepare for a battle to earn the title of Lord. Swasey is gruff but likable in the role, completely in his element here; when his backstory is revealed, it becomes all too easy to understand why he's the way he is and he just grows on you throughout the film. Bryn Apprill is rock-solid as Kaede, a high school girl Ren meets upon his first return to the human world who teaches him to read Moby Dick. Alex Organ is also good as Hyakushūbō, a benevolent pig beast who does his best to keep the other beasts from bullying Kyūta, in quite the departure from his villainous turn as Shogo Makishima in Psycho-Pass. Also, watch out for Chuck Huber as the father Ren never expected to see again; I must confess that the scene in which he appears was especially hard-hitting for me since I haven't seen my own father in a month. Everyone else is also solid and the dub script is completely natural. All things considered, I really enjoyed The Boy and the Beast, it was far more rewarding than I could have expected, and if I ever get the chance, I'll buy the Blu-ray and return to it repeatedly in the future. Oh, yeah. Hosoda's done it again, y'all.



A BITTERSWEET LIFE
5/5

I'd recalled this being brilliant and it was better than I remembered. How does this not have a boutique Blu-ray release?





It's like two short movies slaped together with little interaction between them... and they both suck.
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The Lusty Men (Nicholas Ray & Robert Parrish, 1952)
+
It could have been a load of bull but Hayward/Mitchum make sure it's a decent enough ride



is thouroughly embarrassed of this old username.
Please forgive this long list of mostly short films...

Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (David Blair, 1991) - 9/10
Finding the Telepathic Cinema of Manchuria (David Blair, 2010) - 7/10
PUPARIA (Shingo Tamagawa, 2020) - 7/10
The Interpreter (Noriko Okaku, 2015) - 8/10
Spherical Harmonics (Alan Warburton, 2014) - 7/10
The Sun and the Moon (Stephen Dwoskin, 2008) - 5/10
The Art of Mirrors (Derek Jarman, 1973) - 8/10
Dear Phone (Peter Greenaway, 1976) - 8/10
Catalog (John Whitney, Sr., 1961) - 8/10
A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (Ben Rivers & Ben Russell, 2013) - 6/10

Evolution (Jim Davis, 1954) - 8/10
Gyromorphosis (Hy Hirsh, 1954) - 8/10
Hurry, Hurry! (Marie Menken, 1957) - 4/10
N.Y., N.Y. (Francis Thompson, 1957) - 9/10
36/78: Rischart (Kurt Kren, 1978) - 8/10
37/78: Tree Again (Kurt Kren, 1978) - 7/10
Pharmaceutical Hallucinations (Georges Melies, 1908) - 7/10
17/68: Green-red (Kurt Kren, 1968) - 7/10
(Tommy-Chat Just E-Mailed Me.) (Ryan Trecartin, 2006) - 7/10
Engram (Toshio Matsumoto, 1987) - 8/10




Decided to run through some Library holds these are the 2020 films I've seen.




Babyteeth (2019) -



This might be my number #1 film of the year to me. Teen girl has horrible disease falls in love and we get the tragic lovestory/comedy. But this movie takes the dying girl trope and goes dark....some of the narrative choices just floored me.






A Rainy Day in New York (2019)


It's a split story about a couple in new york, one a young woman who gets to interview a star director and the other a wealthy boy friend trying to meet up with her. They both have adventures, Fanning's story is far better but the performances from Timothy's section are more endearing. I kinda wish Woody would have made this a trilogy or a compilation because he's got something good here but the end result kinda meh.







Bill and Ted face the music (2020)


This was a failure of excess...way to many women in the story. The worst thing is we get these daughters that are sort of clones of Bill and Ted but they are given practically no personality other than aping their fathers and redoing the plot of the first film. And far too many cameos





You’re the disease, and I’m the cure.
Mallrats (1995):
Awesome comedy from the 90s by Kevin Smith. Still holds up quite well, watch the threatrical cut over the extended cut. Not a Ben Affleck fan but liked him in this film as well as Chasing Amy and Dogma. Relatable dialogue that sounds like things you would say to your friends. Probably has one of the funniest scenes in film in the Easter Bunny scene. Soundtrack is filled with 90s rock and ska throughout.
9.5/10.
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Joe Dante



Sure. At his otherwise worst, Howard's movies are decent pop entertainment. I can't say that at all about Hillbilly Elegy. I can think of so many ways that you could tell a similar story that would work or even ways you could tell this story with less awful performances that I'd be embarrassed to be Howard. I'd be gravely insulted if I were someone who identified with that culture, not unlike being black and seeing Stepinfetchit in Judge Priest.