George Miller is a genius is how.
Truly
Watched Norwegian disaster flick The Wave. For the most part it follows the traditional Hollywood tropes, albeit in a pleasingly understated way until the climax, but there are a few particularly harrowing scenes it’s hard to imagine a Hollywood version including.
Weirdly, it’s also the second film I’ve seen with Peter Bo Larsen and he drowns in both of them.
Yeah, that scene with the mom and the stranger is intense.
Came across this today and I am glad I watched it, I must admit I have;t seen many movies with Sidney Poitier in them, the one he made after this about the last brickmaker also looks interesting. :)
I enjoyed this, hung out with my mom for a movie and she also thought it was great. I call movies she liked, Silent Generation Approved. :D As she really does not like many of the newer movies released.
Im Westen nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front 2K22
I never read the book, but I really enjoyed this. It’s a powerful anti-war movie that reflects a lot of the stories I’ve heard from my friends who’ve been to war in more modern times.
War is cruel, it’s random, it’s exhausting and sometimes unbelievably tedious, and I think this movie shows that all beautifully, without resorting to a lot of clichés.
Skyfire, its like Jurassic Park, but replace the dinosaurs with a volcano. Solid B flick.
I don’t know how there’s not a thread for All Quiet on the Western Front but we just watched it on Netflix last night and I thought it was fantastic. (We were going to go out and see EEAAO but it was about 7 degrees outside so I canceled the tickets–eating the $4 fee, grumble grumble–because it just seemed wiser to stay inside.) I read the book a long time ago, but I don’t remember too much about it.
The parts that I didn’t like about the movie had to do with framing: I thought the part from the schoolhouse to the western front was rushed (thematically appropriate, but cinematically inappropriate, IMHO) and then the skip from spring 1917 to the last week of the war was weird and jarring. (I suppose they could have been making the point that once you arrive at the front the horror all runs together and nothing stands out, but again, cinematically inappropriate, IMHO). What I do remember of the book was that it ended brilliantly; the last line was something to the effect of: Paul was killed on a day so mundane that the only words in the official report were “All quiet on the western front”. Just a perfectly devastating way to end the book. The way the movie made it into some weird assault during the last 15 minutes of the war ordered by a glory-seeking nutcase of an officer was just too blunt (and weirdly ahistorical, I think).
I mentioned this to my wife (who only agreed to watch it because she felt bad because she knew I wanted to watch the other movie that we canceled on) and she pointed out that it was just one more pointless death and that all of his friends died pointlessly in a variety of ways. That made me compare it to Saving Private Ryan (and it’s tank knock-off, Fury) where there’s a big emotional build-up and release as they all die one after another in a way that feels heroic (I think, it’s been a while, and the protagonist kid survives, right?). Here it’s just pointless and infuriating and terrifying. And I think that just completely sums up how WWI and WWII live on in our national (and international, this is a German film after all) mythology.
[Also I thought the bit about the signing of the armistice and the “betrayal” by the social democrats was a bit trite compared to the rest of the film, but it was probably a good thing to have to remind people who don’t spend their free time on military history what some of the long-term consequences of the war were.]
Anyway it’s probably a good thing I didn’t see it in theaters–I still can’t shake some of the images in the movie. Especially the scene where the tanks and flamethrowers come at them. And I still think they probably underplayed the horror of artillery and gas. The imagery of the movie was just so strong.
[Again, how is it possible there’s not a thread for this? Maybe I just failed at searching.]
Amazing write up, thank you!
Calm With Horses
I just wanted another fix of Barry Keoghan after Banshees, and ended up discovering Cosmo Jarvis, who is also really good in this. I also just like his name, it sounds like a Wes Anderson character.
It’s a movie that can be summed up in three words: Heartbreaking Irish Pusher.
I liked it a lot, but it’s a very oppressive and menacing movie, so definitely check your mood for this one.
I know, I was surprised too!
I made one over here, we should have @tomchick or @Telefrog fold your post into it. It’s too good to linger in this one :)
Have you seen Killing of a Sacred Deer yet?
Heck yeah, I’ve seen all things Lanthimos. Including Nimic. Did you catch that one yet? It’s real good.
For Keoghan I’ve also seen '71 and Green Knight. I’m a big fan of the pod, so whenever they rave about something I usually go watch it :)
I also have Black '47, Mammal and American Animals on my list of Keoghan things to watch.
Thanks! I’ll just paste mine over there.
Wolf Warrior 2
I wish I had an explanation for why I do this to myself, but I spent 2 hours watching this piece of Chinese state propaganda. I wish I could say I learned something, but really it was just a waste of 2 hours and any fondness I had for Frank Grillo.
It’s like a 1980s American action movie, if it had been written by tonedeaf Chinese diplomats and members of the Ministry of State Security.
If there’s anything good to say about it, it’s that it’s occasionally dumb enough to be kind of funny.
At one point a Chinese diplomat ends a gunfight with African rebels by simply standing up and saying “China and Africa are friends” which impresses everybody.
Later the main character conducts a hostage rescue mission by blindly crashing his 4x4 at full speed into the building and seeing who dies.
There’s also a pretty good drinking game here if you do a shot every time the main character smiles benevolently at his helpless African subordinates.
You will get absolutely hammered.
Not worth it though. Not by a long shot.
I saw “Through A Blue Lens” in 6 parts on YouTube.
(Graphic depictions of drug use, be warned)
Yowch. The landscape has changed; generally a lot more awareness, I imagine; unfortunately, durgs are not unpopular as one police officer hopes. More safety nets, I suppose. Those real down and out stories, though; those haven’t changed.
It was great to see some of these addicts recover, if even for the time being. I hope they are all doing well. It’s an overused phrase, but, my heart goes out to them. These types of stories just floor me. ‘Playing with fire’ is another phrase that comes to mind. I’m reading between the lines a little, but common threads seem to be childhood trauma and also the self-deception of ‘well, it’s not that bad’. Another thing that struck me was the sense of humor these addicts had; I guess when life gets that tough you need humor to keep going.
My favorite part was when the one cop says to the guy in the dark street corner “oh, so you’re chasing the dragon, eh?”
Canada, man.
Does anyone know of any other documentaries like this?
After reading up on this in Wikipedia, I guess April didn’t make it. Shit.
I also watched Beast. Pretty great movie.
Rhino
This is the Ukrainian take on the classic American gangster tale, featuring lumbering Ukrainian farmboys in place of the usual fast-talking wiseguys.
The filmmaking is pretty idiosyncratic and sort of uneven, but it manages a decent mix of things that don’t work, with things that are actually kind of cool.
I liked it, but it really botches the ending, and that obviously dents the impression a bit.
I went through Arrow’s Giallo Essentials - Red Edition. Which, looking back at them, is a pretty curious collection, with only one entry actually falling into the giallo golden age. You get an artsy proto-giallo, an actual (still very artsy)l giallo, and a depressing social-realist finale.
The Posessed - Ostensibly co-directed by Roberto Rosselini’s nephew, most of the special features credited Luigi Bazzoni as the actual director. It is a gorgeous, dreamy take on one of the more infamous crimes in Italy. Somewhere between an art movie and a noir, you can see the psycho-sexual fixations that would form the bedrock of the genre, even if it isn’t quite there yet.
The Fifth Cord - Another Luigi Bazzoni joint. It’s the most schematic narrative in the boxset, but Bazzoni along with DP Vittorio Storaro (who would go on to shoot Apocalypse Now amongst other things) make every shot the best thing you’ve seen in years.
The Pyjama Girl Case - I’m not going to lie, it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize what its structure was doing. Until then, I was kinda bored (not to worry - I did still repeatedly kwetch about an Australian-set Italian b-movie looking so much better than current big budget studio movies), but when I did, it was gut punch after gut punch. It’s grimy and dirty and its most outrageous setpiece is upsettingly enough replicated from the real-life case that inspired it.
I saw Anima, a 15 minute Thom Yorke thing. Nice head nodding choreography. Choreography in general. His non-verbal ‘pick up line’ thing was pretty funny. I wonder what would happen if I tried that in real life. On the whole rather touching.
Brawl in Cell Block 99
I liked it, but it has one critical flaw, which is Vince Vaughn as the lead. His acting is as good as his southern accent, and his southern accent is crap. It’s the kind of role you need Woody Harrelson for.
S. Craig Zahlers writing and filmmaking is good enough to carry it, fortunately.
It has a really good scene where he fights a car, Street Fighter style.
Just 6.5 (alternate title: Law of Tehran)
This is a pretty devastating drama about the drug war in Iran. I liked it, but like most movies about drug wars it’s very much a feel bad movie.
I thought it was funny that the uber-handsome lead actor Peyman Maadi (whom podcast listeners will recognize from “A Separation”) has a really squeaky voice when he gets excited, and he gets excited a lot.