Joelmurr wins again!
Anyhow here’s Edgar on it -
EW: So we’re still in the lovers phase. I’m going to go with an Australian film called Long Weekend from 1978. And this is another film that until recently had been a little forgotten. Now, the young couple in this, unlike Carrie, are completely unsympathetic. One of the criticisms against the film—but also the central theme—is that the couple are horrible and deserve everything they get, but that’s part of the joy of the movie. It’s basically about a young couple on a weekend camping trip in the outback in Australia, and they show total disrespect to nature. They don’t help a dying whale. They run over animals. They start a bush fire. So they commit all these crimes against nature, and then nature fights back. The rest of the movie is… well, if you imagine the film Furry Vengeance, but extremely bleak and with a ’70s ending, and genuinely terrifying, then you’ve got Long Weekend. If you can imagine that.
There’ve been plenty of other films that have been terrible, or silly versions of the same thing. There’s that other one called Day Of The Animals, there’s plenty of comedy versions of man vs. nature, but Long Weekend is completely straight-faced, and there’s something really powerful about it. There are very few actors in it, so it’s basically a two-hander. The couple played by John Hargreaves and Briony Behets are the only actors in it for most of the movie. It was on British TV late at night when I saw it at the age of 12. I was absolutely gripped by it, and completely loved the downer ending. But what’s funny is that, until recently, Australian genre films were, I think, mostly dismissed by their home country, and that documentary Not Quite Hollywood went a long way to giving some props to Oz genre films other than Mad Max.
I remember when I went Australia to do press for Hot Fuzz, I’d always get asked, “So, what Australian films do you like?” I would say, “Picnic At Hanging Rock, and I love Mad Max, and I like this film called Long Weekend.” And nobody seemed to have heard of it, or even if they were aware of it, they would deny any knowledge of it. I found that kind of strange. I guess a similar thing used to happen in the UK, where genre films went through a phase in the ’80s and ’90s when they would be a dirty word. But this is a really good movie. It’s really beautifully shot, as well. There’s a decent DVD that came out a couple of years ago.
Quite a few clues there - figured it would be either LW (great film, that) or Wake in Fright (which I haven’t seen yet).
Now, this one might be easy - or not!
Here’s 20:20:
I’m off to Ireland tomorrow so I’ll skip my turn, whoever wants to post the next one; go ahead!
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Okay, I’ll take it:
I’ll accept either title in either language.
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Glasses.
-Tom
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No encyclopediae are involved.
The 40:
So is a foreign movie or are the subtitles so we can understand the New England accent?
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It’s a foreign movie with subtitles. This movie is well-known in its home country because for a while (like a decade) it was shown every single New Years Eve on TV. Wait, does that make it a TV movie? And is that against the rules? I’m still unclear about that.
The 60:
I’m sure I’ve seen this one!
Hmm - in that case, it must be … Ирония судьбы, или с лёгким паром. Or: The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
From imdb: “A group of old friends have a tradition of going to a public bathing house on New Year’s eve. Occasionally too much vodka and beer makes two of them unconscious …”
Don’t the Germans watch Dinner for One every New Year’s Eve?
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Excellent work! B+ because you haven’t actually seen it.
Cool! The shots scream 70s Eastern Bloc, but that’s all I knew for sure.
Okay, let’s try this. 20:20:
Most of north-west Europe does.
Oh. Well, that clears it right up.
It’s clearly Breach.
