Going to hit all the big classics then. Charlotte is amazing Baby Jane was a little less so for me but still holds up well. Please don't get fooled into viewing the inevitable remake. It is to the original what a big mac is to fillet.
On another note and to digress a little. I have been following the first two eps of a German Horror/thriller series titled Weinberg. For modern gothic creepiness this thing is hitting off scale high right now. The texture alone is worth the look and the unbelievable cast would be over the top were it not set in a small town in rural Germany. Those who are fans of the genre can happily rely on this one for a weekly dose. If Poe had been German this might be something he concocted. Catch it if you can.
Going to hit all the big classics then. Charlotte is amazing Baby Jane was a little less so for me but still holds up well. Please don't get fooled into viewing the inevitable remake. It is to the original what a big mac is to fillet.
On another note and to digress a little. I have been following the first two eps of a German Horror/thriller series titled Weinberg. For modern gothic creepiness this thing is hitting off scale high right now. The texture alone is worth the look and the unbelievable cast would be over the top were it not set in a small town in rural Germany. Those who are fans of the genre can happily rely on this one for a weekly dose. If Poe had been German this might be something he concocted. Catch it if you can.
Erik Skjoldbjærg's directorial debut sees specialist investigator Jonas Engström (Stellan Skarsgård) called in to solve a murder case. It's a fish-out-of-water story in a sense, as Engström is a Swede seconded to an office in Norway - he speaks Swedish throughout, and though Norwegians readily understand Swedish, several characters snidely remark on his incomprehensible dialect. The land of the midnight sun proves to be a difficult location for Engström as he fails to sleep in the 24-hour light, vainly attempting to block out the light in his hotel room. Consequently, he gets more and more exhausted as time goes by and after a critical failing of judgement, his sleep deprivation and mounting pressure cause him to fail to distinguish the line between reality and hallucination.
Although it's ostensibly a police procedural, it's actually more of a character study and Skarsgård excels playing the cop on the edge. He keeps a lot bottled up (a challenge Skarsgård said he particularly relished in playing the character), but it's fascinating watching his will and his sanity gradually leak out through the cracks. Almost anticipating the new wave of Nordic crime drama, it's typically downbeat and minimal, the muted colour palette echoing a perpetually melancholic state of mind. I never saw the remake, but I can't imagine it would be anywhere near as ambiguous or operate on a moral Grayscale like this one does; Hollywood likes its heroes to be good and its villains bad, but despite his many faults, Engström remains a sympathetic character to the end.
I wanted to like this one, but found it difficult to really get my teeth into it - the pacing is choppy and it frequently drags. Lino Ventura plays Rogas, a cop in over his head, investigating a spate of deaths of preeminent high court judges, which his superiors ascribe to the mafia and send him on a fool's errand to prove it, find the killer and prevent any more deaths. The further Rogas digs though, the more it dawns on him that there's a greater conspiracy afoot, involving the Italian Communist Party and the state itself. The plot is intriguing and does draw in the viewer, along with the protagonist; it's more the execution I have a problem with. As a political thriller, it's not very thrilling. There are several scenes that either outstay their welcome or don't advance the plot and that's where it starts to drag. Also, the viewer is always several steps ahead of Rogas who is honest and dogged but fatally naive. For far too long, he spends his time methodically exhausting conventional leads when he really should have been thinking outside of the box much earlier.
The film is well-shot - I especially like the opening sequence, where judge Varga is walking through the charnel house, inspecting the bones of former power-brokers; a chilling foretelling of his own fate - but ultimately let down, I feel, by a failure to extract enough drama from its premise, a refusal to properly engage with the mechanics of the conspiracy (it seems we should be satisfied with knowing that one exists) and by its lethargic pacing.
The remake of Insomnia was actually not terrible. Largely owing to the strength of the cast itself. It maintained the anti hero vibe quite well but lacked the dryness of the original.
The remake of Insomnia was actually not terrible. Largely owing to the strength of the cast itself. It maintained the anti hero vibe quite well but lacked the dryness of the original.
Ah OK - good to know; I was planning to catch it at some point. I wasn't actually intending to go to the original Insomnia last night but I had a bit of time to kill before Illustrious Corpses and the fact Stellan Skarsgård was there in person for a Q&A was the clincher. Turned out to be a good decision as the Q&A was particularly insightful - he spent quite a while talking about working with Von Trier, who seemed to be the director he had most time for, along with Fincher. He said both really leave the actors to do their work, without over-directing, and like to do many takes of one setup in order to push the actor into being more naturalistic. He said they're both happy to amass a ton of footage which they'll later streamline in the edit.
Ah OK - good to know; I was planning to catch it at some point. I wasn't actually intending to go to the original Insomnia last night but I had a bit of time to kill before Illustrious Corpses and the fact Stellan Skarsgård was there in person for a Q&A was the clincher. Turned out to be a good decision as the Q&A was particularly insightful - he spent quite a while talking about working with Von Trier, who seemed to be the director he had most time for, along with Fincher. He said both really leave the actors to do their work, without over-directing, and like to do many takes of one setup in order to push the actor into being more naturalistic. He said they're both happy to amass a ton of footage which they'll later streamline in the edit.
What an awesome opportunity. He's an actor I admire for not being sucked up by the Hollywood system and continually returning to Nordic cinema to knock out some incredibly intriguing films.
What an awesome opportunity. He's an actor I admire for not being sucked up by the Hollywood system and continually returning to Nordic cinema to knock out some incredibly intriguing films.
Yeah, he said the fame side of things never really interested him and that his only criterion for choosing what films he works on has always been the same: that it has to be fun. Seemed like a very grounded guy.
Thor Ragnarok - 7/10: Surprisingly enjoyable, coming from someone who typically avoids all action movies. Didn't take itself seriously at all. Shades of Fifth Element absurdity during the middle part of the movie, finishing with typical modern comic-hero action movie fights at the end.
Thor Ragnarok - 7/10: Surprisingly enjoyable, coming from someone who typically avoids all action movies. Didn't take itself seriously at all. Shades of Fifth Element absurdity during the middle part of the movie, finishing with typical modern comic-hero action movie fights at the end.
This really doesn't hold up for multiple viewings. Overall it's just kind of rather dull to sit through.
Too much time is wasted on things that are not very important. It's a bit filler-filled. A lot of the casting choices were kind of bad.
There were also not many memorable characters in it. The only one that was decent was the medic during "Bastogne".
Best episode was easily "Bastogne" and it took me a few viewings to realize this.
I think i've seen the entire series about 4 times now and just find it rather boring.
This series is a bit overrated. Crazy that it has a 5/5 score on Amazon with thousands of reviews.
BTW the actual battle scenes are well done, but there is very few of them. No, I don't expect this to be an action movie.
The worst episodes are the ones with the excessive narration and flashbacks.
"The Pacific" is a much better series and is also based on many different books. All of them are worth reading.
Rommel - 8.5/10
German film that's really very good. Felt like a mix of The Longest Day and Valkryrie. I don't know how accurate it is.
Found the whole movie fascinating and there was a lot in it I didn't even know about. Free on Amazon Prime.
This is also one of those rare war movies without many battle scenes. Those are some of my favorites.
I also watched maybe 4 or 5 WWII documentaries on Amazon prime lately. Some of them i'd give a 10/10 to. Probably these:
Day of Days: June 6, 1944 - American Soldiers Remember D-Day Iwo Jima: From Combat to Comrades
Yet yourself a copy of "Legion of Brothers" ASAP. It will really make you re evaluate the hollywhore hype of you above mentioned visual tomes. Very hard to make an astute valuation on much of the stuff pushed out by the studios if you have not seen the elephant yourself but I would easily give Legion top marks and closely followed by Armadillo.
Anyone looking for deep meaning, realism or plausibility should probably look elsewhere as this is Fincher's answer to a popcorn movie - the clue is in the title! There is a something of a morality tale in there, with Scrooge-like Nicholas Van Orton in need of a wake up call which his brother duly delivers, but primarily it's just a fun ride: a tautly constructed, adrenaline-fueled thriller with no wasted scenes. Boasting a score from the venerable Howard Shore, it's also stylishly shot, well-acted and holds surprising replay value. Given the nature of the film, you might think that it wouldn't be worth watching again after the twists of the first-time viewing have been revealed but a second viewing is like re-watching Fight Club - the foreknowledge you have means you actually enjoy it from another angle. It's best not to look too hard at the plot mechanics though otherwise you'll be lost down the rabbit hole of "but what if he'd done this, or hadn't done this." On subsequent viewings (this was my third or fourth), I really appreciated the technical aspects of the film even more and it stands as a reminder of what Fincher is capable of, after the recent disappointment of Gone Girl. The fact he's been contracted to direct World War Z 2 doesn't fill me with hope either.
A little bit predictable, a little bit hammy, but a whole lot of fun - mainly thanks to a gleefully schizoid turn from Terry O'Quinn in the lead role of Jerry Blake. Blake is a serial killer with a difference - he is driven by the American Dream and yearns for the perfect nuclear family, which normally means moving in on a single mom with kids (although he wouldn't be averse to offing the head of the family to take his place either!) and for a while, living in harmony with them. After a year or so, his inevitable psychosis rears its head and it all goes south, forcing him to move on again and find a new town and a new family to prey on. With Susan and Stephanie Maine, he doesn't choose his adopted family very well because Stephanie is on to him straight away, her intuition telling her there's something deeply wrong with him. On top of this, a determined relative of one of his former victims from the last town is hot on his trail. It's great fun watching the net close around Jerry, witnessing his increasingly futile efforts to maintain a semblance of normality and order in his life.
A woman witnesses a man assassinate her husband and goes crazy. He feels it is his responsibility to look after since it's his fault she is that way.
When some bounty hunters after him kill her he goes on a killing spree I haven't seen the likes of since Sword of Doom. Mortally wounded himself, he is saved by a mysterious 800 year old woman who cuts him and puts bloodworms, yes, bloodworms, in the wound. These miraculously go to work and heal any and all wounds he has and gets, thus making him "immortal". Whoda thunkit...
Stylish, well filmed with a good, if not somewhat familiar story sans bloodworms. 5/5 stars for a new Takashi Miike film.
A guy runs up a debt he can't pay off playing Majong and he wants to get to Korea to find out what's up with his wife.
A mob boss offers to bankroll his trip and wipe his debt if he will pull a hit for him. He agrees and what ensues is a brutal, bloody tale of a man on a mission.
I like these kind of movies because it provides a look into other cultures and shows just how hard some people have it compared to the comfy life most of us enjoy. 5/5 stars for grim realism.
A woman witnesses a man assassinate her husband and goes crazy. He feels it is his responsibility to look after since it's his fault she is that way.
When some bounty hunters after him kill her he goes on a killing spree I haven't seen the likes of since Sword of Doom. Mortally wounded himself, he is saved by a mysterious 800 year old woman who cuts him and puts bloodworms, yes, bloodworms, in the wound. These miraculously go to work and heal any and all wounds he has and gets, thus making him "immortal". Whoda thunkit...
Stylish, well filmed with a good, if not somewhat familiar story sans bloodworms. 5/5 stars for a new Takashi Miike film.
A guy runs up a debt he can't pay off playing Majong and he wants to get to Korea to find out what's up with his wife.
A mob boss offers to bankroll his trip and wipe his debt if he will pull a hit for him. He agrees and what ensues is a brutal, bloody tale of a man on a mission.
I like these kind of movies because it provides a look into other cultures and shows just how hard some people have it compared to the comfy life most of us enjoy. 5/5 stars for grim realism.
I was similarly impressed by Blade of the Immortal - one of Miike's best I think, but there's a lot to pick from! The Yellow Sea is the only Hong-jin Na film I haven't seen yet - I'd recommend both The Chaser and The Wailing though, if you're so inclined. Based on these two, I can readily believe the 'grim realism' part; they don't come much grimmer than The Chaser.
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