Rate the Last Film you Watched 2: Electric Boogaloo

April 13

What I Watched This Week #118 (April 1-7)

Now, Voyager
dir. Irving Rapper/1942/1h57m

Bette Davis stars as Charlotte Vale, a socially anxious drab and ugly (movie ugly, not actually ugly) young woman living with her domineering mother. After suffering a breakdown and spending time under the care of Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) she takes a cruise where she meets and falls in love with Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid) and, more importantly, discovers a love for life. An overwrought and melodramatic script is helped with the progressive for the time attitude to mental health and the idea that a woman's self worth isn't tied to the love of a man, but what really elevates this film above average is the performance of Davis in the lead role, transforming drastically over the course of the movie. I did find the opening a bit plodding, but it finds its pace once Charlotte is on the ship and starting her journey of self discovery. 7/10

Home on the Range
dir. Will Finn, John Sanford/2004/1h16m

When a small dairy farm is threatened with closure a trio of cows voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly set out to claim the bounty on outlaw Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) to raise the money needed to save it. There are a few things I like about this film, the backgrounds and animation are generally decent despite the ugly character design and it has a great bluegrass country score by Disney legend Alan Menken who also did the music for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. My favourite part of this film is a yodelling song set to some really trippy animation that reminded me of the pink elephants scene from Dumbo. Judi Dench is also great and makes a much better cow than cat, and I liked Cuba Gooding Jr's character of a karate obsessed horse. The rest is either just bad or forgettably average. My biggest problem is with the casting of Roseanne as the lead of an animated film when she has the most obnoxiously unpleasant voice imaginable. If this film didn't have such good music and a decent supporting cast I would've watched it on mute with subtitles. 4/10

Rancho Notorious
dir. Fritz Lang/1952/1h26m

After his wife is r*ped and murdered simple farmhand Vern (Arthur Kennedy) sets out to find the men responsible. His hunt leads him to the notorious Chuck-a-Luck ranch on the Mexican border, a hideout for outlaws run by the stern yet sultry Altar Keane (Marlene Dietrich). There's an interesting mixture of tones here, at times it can be brutal and nihilistic and then veer towards the camp, even comedic, but for the most part Lang is able to make it work and feel coherent. Dietrich and her character own this film, swaggering through every scene like she owns the place and is more dangerous than any outlaw in her ranch. I also like how we're introduced to her character throughout the first act by way of flashbacks from all of the men who have fallen for her charms, creating almost a mythology around her and the ranch. 8/10

Sleuth
dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz/1972/2h18m

When young hairdresser Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) is invited to the stately manor of aristocratic mystery author Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) – whose wife he is having an affair with – he's not expecting to be asked to participate in an insurance scam, but this is just the start of a long day of game playing that can't end until there is a definitive winner. This is my favourite film of all time, it has a brilliantly intricate plot that layers twist upon twist, an incredible setting that reflects its owner perfectly and two performances that compliment each other better than any other two-hander I can think of. Olivier is having so much fun here and has made one of the most entertainingly malicious b*stards in his Andrew Wyke. I just love the way he cackles with delight as he toys with Tindle, or how he likes putting on different accents and playing different characters, everything is a mask, a deception. The fact that Caine is able to hold his own against such a heavyweight performance is honestly impressive, and there are even times when he steals the scene. There is also a small appearance by legendary theatre actor Alec Cawthorne in his only film role, and he really makes an impact. It's hard to say any more about this film without spoiling it, so I won't. Just watch it, but remember, it's only a bloody game. 10/10

Sleuth
dir. Kenneth Branagh/2007/1h26m

I'm not someone who discounts remakes on sight, there have been loads that are better than the original, The Thing, The Fly, The Departed, but then there's this. In this modernisation of the story Michael Caine plays the Laurence Olivier role of the older author with Jude Law taking on Caine's role from the original and it's f*cking awful. The setting is an ugly modern minimalist house with no personality, the script, supposedly written by Harold Pinter, is clunky and offensive to the intelligence of the audience and Jude Law gives not just one but two of the worst performances I've ever seen. And then there's the final act which deviates from the original story and I'm pretty sure is a joke. I generally try to find something to enjoy or praise about every film I watch but there's nothing here like that. I hated this. 1/10

Avengement
dir. Jesse V. Johnson/2019/1h28m

After breaking out of police custody a hardened enforcer, Cain (Scott Adkins), seeks revenge on the gang that turned him into an animal, a gang led by his older brother Lincoln (Craig Fairbrass). This is a pretty standard revenge thriller fare that would be straight to video if that was still a thing but a few factors really elevate the material. Firstly, Adkins is a brilliant lead for this type of film, he feels like a threat all the time and the way he snarls his way through every scene never feels over the top, it always feels like it fits the character. Then there is the way the story is framed, with Cain taking the gang hostage in a pub and his backstory unfolding in flashbacks. Finally the fight scenes are excellent, and it's no surprise as Adkins, before he was an actor, was a martial artist and worked on films like John Wick and a bunch of Marvel and Jackie Chan films. It's very simple but a little bit of non-linear storytelling really makes things more interesting. The supporting cast are all solid and full of faces from British films that'll have you thinking “I know that guy from somewhere” like Thomas Turgoose and Nick Moran. A thrilling surprise. 8/10

Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal
dir. Steve Conoscenti/2024/2h3m

Last year the wrestler Bray Wyatt, real name Windham Rotunda, passed away from a pre-existing heart condition at just thirty six years of age. This documentary acts as a tribute and explores the life and career of one of the most original and innovative wrestlers and storytellers the business ever had. It's hard to explain to anyone who's not a fan of wrestling just how good he was, but he's actually what got me back into it in 2013. His character of a New Orleans cult leader seems so ridiculous but he makes it work thanks to his performance. As time progressed his character became more supernatural and it felt legit, which is not easy to do. I can think of only one wrestler who ever made a supernatural gimmick really work, the man who narrates this documentary, The Undertaker. For the most part this film follows Windham's younger brother Taylor who totally idolised him and it's really hard to watch at times because of how emotionally devastated he is, but his love and respect for his brother shines through even stronger because of it and makes this a beautiful celebration of family art and life. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

April 13

Hey, a new page so I can now read the reviews again! 🤪

I’m glad you enjoyed Avengement. As you may or may not know, I’m a huge action/revenge flick fan. However the story and acting needs to be decent. Avengement, in my opinion, is all of that.

Edited April 13 by omarcomin71

April 13

1 hour ago, omarcomin71 said:

Hey, a new page so I can now read the reviews again! 🤪

I’m glad you enjoyed Avengement. As you may or may not know, I’m a huge action/revenge flick fan. However the story and acting needs to be decent. Avengement, in my opinion, is all of that.

Weird, it's not a new page for me. But yeah, I thought Avengement was great, a proper cheap and dirty film in all the best ways. If you want a really good revenge film that's light on the action but heavy on the mind games you should watch Sleuth which is in my last post. It's my favourite film but I think it's pretty hard to get hold of now.

Edited April 13 by LimeGreenLegend

April 14

FOE (2023) dir Garth Davis

A sci-fi with a clever basic story, well acted by a very small cast, but with a script that lets it down. It's set in 2065, somewhere in Mid-West of America. Ever increasing temperatures are making much of the Earth inhospitable. Hen (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal) live on a farm, but they can't grown anything because it doesn't rain any more, so they both have other jobs. One night Terrance (Aaron Pierre) comes to the house, telling them he works for a organisation constructing massive space stations where groups of humans can live if / when the whole Earth becomes uninhabitable. Junior has been selected to go and work on board one of the space stations for a couple of years, Hen has not. Those selected do not have a choice, it's like military conscription. But they won't leave Hen alone. They have also developed artificial life forms, one of which will be made that looks, behaves and thinks just like Junior to keep her company while he is away. I can't say much more without massive spoilers. But the story progresses in a somewhat confused manner, and then comes a big change. It's not like a thriller with a twist in the plot, it's more that at this point the film makes it very clear that the story you think you have been watching is not the truth. I am not 100% sure if you were meant to see this coming or even have worked out what was really going on already. I don't think so though, because when this all happens one of the characters starts to explain very clearly what the real story is to another character, but it's almost as if they are talking to the viewer. Ronan and Mescal are pretty good; they have to be since most of the film is just them, but the way the plot pans out is just a bit too disjointed and some scenes did not make sense. It is interesting to think back about earlier scenes once you know the truth, but I don't think you were supposed to see clues and work it out yourself. I have no idea what the title is supposed to mean other than it is adapted from a novel of the same name. But it is still watchable.

6 / 10

April 17

What I Watched This Week #119 (April 8-14)

Dune: Part Two
dir. Denis Villeneuve/2024/2h47m

Picking up right where the first film left off, Dune: Part Two sees Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) now living with the Fremen in the deserts of Arrakis, launching attacks on the brutal House Harkonnen. Meanwhile, he is also struggling with the idea of being “the chosen one” and what that means for the future and how it will affect the woman he loves, the Freman Chani (Zendaya). This is an exceptionally crafted film with the costumes and sets feeling real and lived in and it has some stunning photography that really emphasises a grand sense of scale fitting for such an epic tale. I also found it pretty dull with everyone delivering their lines in an intense whisper that got pretty grating after a while. It's also unsatisfying in the sense that it's the middle section of the story and so feels like it's spinning plates just to keep them in play for the third part. I also really disliked Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha whose characterisation is reduced to “look at me I'm so evil look at me stab these innocent people”. I really don't get the hype. 6/10

Head
dir. Bob Rafelson/1968/1h26m

Head is a follow up to The Monkee's TV show and, like that show, stars the band as themselves getting caught up in madcap situations. What makes this fascinating is that this is an early New Hollywood film and is incredibly meta and part of the counterculture. Throughout the film – which was produced and co-written by Jack Nicholson - the band, who were created by director Rafelson, are constantly trying to break out of whatever situation they find themselves in and prove that they're real people not some manufactured product, but every rebellious action they perform turns out to be pre-determined and leads the film to end where it began. s*x, drugs and the Vietnam war being explicitly mentioned makes this a markedly different product from their show and large portions of this film are more surreal and LSD-inspired than anything The Beatles ever did, which is saying something. 8.5/10

Pain and Glory
dir. Pedro Almodóvar/2019/1h54m

Antonio Banderas stars as Salvador Mallo, a director reaching the end of his career and is breaking down both physically and mentally. The restoration of one of his old films leads to him reminiscing about his childhood and his mother (Penelope Cruz), a relationship he had in the 80's and his friendship with the star of the restored film who he has not spoken to since making it. A deeply personal film that unfolds the history of its main character like a beautiful puzzle box, and I loved discovering every new facet to this man. Banderas is amazing in this role, the entire history of this character laid bare in every expression and movement. This is easily the best performance he's ever given. This is also a gorgeous looking film that is absolutely slathered in Almodóvar's trademark violent, passionate reds. It also has a brilliant ending that had me grinning from both how clever and how optimistic it is. 9/10

Yannick
dir. Quentin Dupieux/2023/1h7m

Yannick (Raphael Quenard) is a car-park attendant who has chosen to spend his one night off at the theatre watching a comedic play. The only problem is that he doesn't find it very entertaining, and so stands up and tells the actors what he thinks. Things only get worse from there. This may be the most normal film from Dupieux, whose previous work includes Rubber, a film about a killer tyre, and Deerskin, a film about a jacket who wants to be the only jacket in the world. That doesn't stop this from being delightfully absurd, with the situation escalating in unexpected ways. Quenard is great in the lead, his character veering between affable geniality and threatening malice with terrifying ease. I spent the barely an hour runtime of this film going between agreeing with him and wanting someone to punch him in the kidney. The direction really does a good job of keeping the one location interesting and the abrupt ending is the perfect punchline. If you're looking for some bizarre and totally unique films then you should check out the work of Quentin Dupieux and this would be a great starting point. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Yellow Canary
dir. Herbert Wilcox/1943/1h34m

(can't find a trailer so here's the whole film instead)

Sally Maitland (Anna Neagle) is a socialite from a wealthy family who have disowned her because she is a n*zi sympathiser. On a boat to Canada she meets Polish officer Jan Orlock (Albert Lieven), who is part of a secret n*zi spy ring which he invites Sally to join. The catch; she's actually a British spy in deep cover. A decent wartime thriller full of twists and turns, this starts off really strong with an arresting opening scene that sets Sally up as the ultimate traitor, but a lot of the film gets bogged down with a romantic subplot involving a British officer sent to tail her. Thankfully there are some fun supporting characters to add some levity and variety, my favourite being Margaret Rutherford, who I recently loved watching in a series of Miss Marple films, as a feisty old woman who kicks a n*zi after he calls her an old sow. 7/10

Trenque Lauquen
dir. Laura Citarella/2022/4h20m

Trenque Lauquen stars Laura Parades as Laura, a woman who catalogues rare flowers for the council. When she suddenly disappears her boyfriend Rafael (Rafael Spregelburd) and her colleague Ezequiel (Ezequiel Pierri) start searching for her. What unfolds over the next four and a half hours is like a nesting doll of mysteries within flashbacks within mysteries within flashbacks. This film is absolutely hypnotic with its storytelling, the deliberate pacing parcelling out questions and answers like the ebbing tide. The structure of this film really helps with that, being non-linear and broken up into chapters. Parades is fantastic in the lead, feeling like a real enigma, like you're always just one step behind her. This is a film that's worth your time. 9/10

Sweet Charity
dir. Bob Fosse/1969/2h29m

Sweet Charity, adapted from the Broadway play, is a musical version of Federico Fellini's Night's of Cabiria – brilliant film, 10/10 from me – and stars Shirley MacLaine as the titular Charity, a nightclub “dancer” who life chooses to sh*t on constantly but she always remains hopeful and quick to love despite that. This being a Fosse film it is full of incredibly distinctive choreography and jazz hands all over the place. He doesn't care if it makes sense to have a dance routine, he's going to have one dammit, and it's gonna be so good you'll thank him for it. The presentation of the song Hey Big Spender is so good, it's both s*xy and sensual while being awkwardly angular. MacLaine is a natural in the lead role, taking every hit on the chin and facing her troubles with a smile. That just makes the times when she lets her sadness show even more affecting, such as at the end of the If They Could See Me Now number. Throw in Ricardo Montalban as a sleazy Italian movie star and Sammy Davis Jr. as Big Daddy, leader of a cult of flower power hippies, and you've got a good time. 9/10

April 21

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) dir Justine Triet

This won this year's Oscar and Bafta Best Original Screenplay awards, and it is a very good story. It stars Sandra Hüller as author Sandra, living with her husband and son in the French Alps. When her husband is found dead, having apparently fallen from an upper floor balcony of their house, an investigation is launched and, eventually, she is prosecuted for murder. I would not call this a thriller. It's neither about police trying to catch a killer nor a typical court room drama of an innocent person falsely accused. We simply watch the story unfold and see the evidence, not being told anything more than we would if we were one of the jury. I think the idea is you make your own mind up about whether Sandra is guilty or not. A lot of it is played out at the trial, but whether it's because it's a French court, and they do things very differently to British and American courts, or just the specifics of this case, it's not like any court-room based film I have ever seen before. It feels a lot more real than a story being told by a film usually does, but still not like a drama-documentary either. It's mainly in English, Sandra is German, her husband and son French, they, tend to speak in English to each other and she gives most of her evidence at the trial in English too. The acting is very good, particularly from Hüller. It's well worth the awards and nominations it got.

9 / 10

April 24

What I Watched This Week #120 (April 15-21)

Of Time and the City
dir. Terence Davies/2008/1h18m

Of Time and the City is a documentary collage film made up of newsreel and archive footage that builds up a picture of the director's childhood in Liverpool during the 50's and 60's. This is like film as a memory, fragmented and broken into unrelated segments as if it were edited by stream of consciousness all scored to a majestic classical soundtrack. The narration, by Davies himself, is just like the rest of the film, at times he snarls about religion and the royal family, at others he rhapsodises about his working class upbringing, his s*xual awakening. Both incredibly personal and universal – he could be talking about a thousand cities, a thousand lives – the juxtaposition of dirt poor children playing in the streets set to highbrow classical music does become a little laboured over the length of the film, but that is my only small negative I have for this very moving picture of time and place. 9/10

Joint Security Area
dir. Park Chan-wook/2000/1h48m

On the border of North and South Korea two Northern soldiers are killed by a soldier from the South with the investigation uncovering what seems to be a very strange mystery – too many bullets fired, stories not matching up – but the truth is much simpler and much more tragic. Director Park Chan-wook is a master of unravelling mysteries in interesting ways – Oldboy and the recent Decision to Leave being two prime examples – and this is no different, with the investigation uncovering more information relayed through flashbacks. Saying anything more about the plot would be to spoil it, but the tension never lets up, even during moments of levity, because one wrong move would be disastrous for both sides. The two lead performances of South Korean Sgt. Lee (Lee Byung-hun) and the North's Sgt. Oh (Song Kang-ho, probably the biggest star in Korean film right now thanks to his work with b*ng Joon-ho) are excellent. The film also ends with a brilliant still image from a scene in the middle of the film that is given a whole new meaning thanks to the context we subsequently get. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Dead of Night
dir. Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, Alberto Cavalcanti/1945/1h43m

Dead of Night is an anthology horror film that stars Mervyn Johns as Walter Craig, an architect invited to a cosy little country inn to see about renovations, but when he arrives he realises that all of the people there, total strangers, are people he has seen in a dream, a dream where something terrible happens at the end, but he can't remember what. We then get four of the guests telling spooky stories of their own, which makes up the majority of the film. While the first three stories are good, especially the more comedic one about a dead golfer haunting his friend, it's the last one that really sticks with you. It stars Michael Redgrave as ventriloquist Maxwell Frere who goes mad with jealousy thinking that his d*mmy Hugo wants to leave him for another ventriloquist. It felt very much like an inspiration for the brilliant Anthony Hopkins film Magic (and every other creepy ventriloquist's d*mmy in media.) Chilling and charming in equal measure, this is a fun watch with some genuine thrills sprinkled throughout. 9/10

The Guard
dir. John Michael McDonagh/2011/1h36m

Mean, miserable, drug addled and prostitute loving small town Irish cop Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is less than pleased when he's teamed up with FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to bust an international drug smuggling ring. This is a black comedy with a real mean streak that you can't help but to compare to the works of the director's brother Martin McDonagh, particularly In Bruges. It's a testament to this film that it's not a totally unflattering comparison. Gleeson is always a joy to watch, even when he's playing someone so aggressively unlikeable. Cheadle doesn't really have a lot to do other than be amazed that Boyle is saying/doing the things that he's saying/doing, but he does it well. It does fell a little too mean spirited at points, but that is softened by a few scenes where Boyle meets with his equally foul-mouthed mother (Fionnula Flanagan), and I really liked Mark Strong's character of a drug dealer who feels like he's above it all. 7/10

The Party
dir. Sally Potter/2017/1h11m

Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) is throwing a party to celebrate getting a shadow ministerial position but her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) seems distant and distracted, her best friend April (Patricia Clarkson) is splitting up with her partner, the very zen Godfried (Bruno Ganz), and Tom (Cillian Murphy) has turned up upset with a load of cocaine and a gun. A blackly comic social satire, this gets a little too verbose at times and feels like the characters are just spouting ideologies rather than having conversations for a lot of the very short runtime, but when it is as well written as this is you can forgive that for the most part. The performances are all solid. Clarkson's withering insults had me cackling every time, and I couldn't get enough of Ganz's Godfried, especially when he starts a therapy session for Bill and Tom. This film also has a really strong ending which I didn't see coming but that the script had seeded subtly throughout in a very smart way. 8.5/10

The Cure
dir. Charlie Chaplin/1917/24m

In this mid tier Chaplin short he plays an alcoholic who checks in to a health spa in order to sober up, but it's going to be a hard job when he brings a case full of booze with him. In the end the spa's well of curative water is spiked with alcohol and everyone enjoys getting blasted. During the film he makes classic slapstick out of revolving doors, the changing rooms and has a wrestling match with a burly masseuse. For me, whenever Chaplin strays from the character of the little tr*mp his films lose a bit of their heart and humanity. Rather than actually having anything to say this film is more like his earlier works in that it's just a succession of gags. They're really good ones performed by the best to ever do it, but when you know he's capable of more then you can't help but feel a little disappointed. That said, this is still better than the majority of films from the time and we're lucky to still have them. 6.5/10

Dilating for Maximum Results
dir. Nyala Moon/2023/14m

Trans woman Dreya (writer/director Nyala Moon) is going to hook up with her online boyfriend for the first time, but she has never been with a man and hasn't dilated in years, with this comedy following her as she tries to get ready. You learn something new every day, and the day I watched this film I learned that trans women need to dilate to stop from closing up, and that is what we get here in what I can only call a zany way. My main problem with this film is that the comedy is very TikTok if that makes sense. It's just not my taste, but that's me being an old man not hip with the kids. I do like how much of Moon's personality shines through here, she's very engaging and likeable. I also appreciate seeing a film about a trans woman that's not depressing and only focuses on negative experiences. 6/10

TRAY TRAY KO
dir. Seba Calfuqueo/2022/6m

(no trailer so here's the artist performing another piece in a gallery)

This avant-garde piece of indigenous art see filmmaker Calfuqueo drag a long train of shimmering blue material through the Chilean rainforest to a sacred spot at the base of a waterfall. The only sounds are that of the forest and the water. The material is like a stream of man's making, leaving its mark on the landscape but only for a second, only until Calfuqueo hass passed by. There's a gorgeous overhead shot of the synthetic stream running next to a real one, man in harmony with nature. Hypnotic and meditative. 7/10

April 28

Curvature (2017) dir Dieogo Hallivis

An interesting, low-budget sci-fi, but with a confusingly flawed plot and at times terrible script and support acting.

Scientist Helen (Lyndsy Fonseca) returns to work a couple of weeks after her husband killed himself. He was also a scientist and his company has invented a time machine. What seems to her a day or so later she awakes a bit groggy and discovers she cannot remember the past 7 days. She then gets a phone call from a mysterious woman warning her someone is coming to kill her. She goes to her family hunting cabin and there she finds some things not quite as expected, as if someone was leaving her clues and eventually works out things are not what they seemed to be at first.

As I said already the plot is confusing. What we are eventually meant to believe has happened involves someone using the time machine to travel into their own past, to get their past self to do something different. So now, in the timeline we are watching at least, there are 2 copies of this character. This ought to make for an interesting plot about the consequences of time travel, if it were possible. But it's just badly written and does not explore this the way a serious sci-fi film ought to. For example the fact that someone goes back into their own past, making two copies of themselves, surely means one of those two is also going to go back in time eventually, so then there then will be 3 of them, and then one of those will go back in time to make 4, etc etc. It also has some pretty cheap plot elements and crappy lines. There is one bit were someone is tracking another person down, finds them inside a locked room, and says something like “OK, come out or I'll count to 10 then smash the door down”. Why would you give your enemy a 10 s warning!? It's like a child wrote it at times.

However it's still an interesting story and the lead actor manages to hold things together despite the poor support.

4 / 10

May 2

What I Watched This Week #121 (April 22-28)

The Housemaid
dir. Im Sang-soo/2010/1h47m

A remake of a 1960 film of the same name, The Housemaid stars Jeon Do-yeon as Eun-yi, a young woman hired by a wealthy couple to look after their child. Once in the house the husband Hoon (Lee Jung-jae) uses his position of authority to seduce and impregnate her. A psychosexual social commentary on inequality this is a beautifully shot film with a great lead performance by Do-yeon. The plot of this film does stray pretty far from that of the original. Here Eun-yi is the victim whereas in the original she is the one who manipulates and controls the family she works for, which I think makes for a more interesting story, very much like a prototypical Parasite. I do like some of the changes and appreciate the fact that they wanted to do something different, but this in no way matches the deranged insanity that the original spirals into. That said, this is still a finely crafted thriller with some well placed shocks. 7/10

Cries and Whispers
dir. Ingmar Bergman/1972/1h35m

A period drama from Ingmar Bergman, Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin and Harriet Andersson as Maria, Karin and Agnes, three sisters, the latter of which is dying of cancer. Rather than coming together to comfort her, their reunion only brings up painful memories with only the maid, Anna (Kari Sylwan), offering any care to the dying woman. A film about how grief can not only bring people together but also force them apart, this to me makes up an unofficial trilogy alongside Persona and Autumn Sonata – Bergman films starring Liv Ullmann about women confined together in a single location getting heavy with the emotions. Bergman's theatre background shines through in his framing and composition, especially the positions of characters in his frame. His use of the colour red here would make Pedro Almodóvar jealous. An emotionally exhausting watch, this isn't quite as good as the other two films mentioned earlier, but when they are both masterpieces you can't be too upset. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Jill, Uncredited
dir. Anthony Ing/2022/18m

You won't recognise her name or her face, but you will have seen Jill Goldston before as she has appeared as an extra in nearly 2000 film and TV productions between 1960 and 2009 from the Carry On series and Mr. Bean to Aliens and The Elephant Man. This short film takes clips where she is briefly seen and slows them down, zooming in on the more and more recognisable face as she brushes past Malcolm McDowall on the street or assists Anthony Hopkins with surgery. There's something of an ominous tone to this film as it at times feels like we're stalking this woman, piecing together her life from brief glimpses, never coming close to a full portrait. A mesmerising tribute to all of the people who make films feel alive, this has also made Jill's face as recognisable to me as any of the A-listers who were lucky enough to work alongside her. 7/10

Chicken Little
dir. Mark Dindal/2005/1h21m

Zach Braff stars as the titular character who becomes the joke of his town and brings shame on his father when he claims that the sky is falling. But what if there really is something else up there? This is f*cking awful. It's Disney's first fully CGI film – Dinosaur had live action backgrounds – and it's one of the ugliest films I've ever seen. All of the characters look like they should be in constant pain and there is nothing natural about their movements. The script is bland and unfunny and none of the lead performances stood out. Braff is a terrible lead with no charm whatsoever. The only bit I liked here was the film-within-a-film that had Adam West as a beefy Chicken Little. 1/10

Clowns
dir. Marco Bellocchio/2016/18m

(no trailer or any video at all about this film exists, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it does)

Clowns is a short film about a rehearsal of the opera I Pagliacci and a dinner party at the rich backer's home afterwards where a hypnosis session brings up all sorts of family drama. There are some interesting ideas here and it does feel like it's building towards something, but ultimately it all just feels a bit underdeveloped and goes nowhere. Lucia Ragni gives the best performance as the cold and heartless matriarch of the family, and I loved the scene of Corrado Invernizzi singing the clown's part from the opera. Other than that this is sadly pretty forgettable. 5/10

The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry
dir. Faris Alrjoob/2023/21m

Ida (Clara Schwinning) travels from Germany to a small town on the Red Sea in Jordan to investigate the disappearance of her husband Ismail (Ahmed Shihab-Eldin), who is presumed dead. A rumination on grief and the absence of a loved one shot on grainy 16mm film this is a haunting experience with a powerful lead performance from Schwinning. In a way this feels like a story about the living haunting the dead, following them just one step behind, wanting to inhabit the same spaces they used to. I would love to see a feature length version of this story. 8/10

The Lords of Flatbush
dir. Martin Davidson, Stephen Verona/1974/1h26m

The Lords of Flatbush stars Sylvester Stallone in his first lead role not in a softcore p*rn film as a member of a gang of teenagers hanging around Brooklyn in the late fifties, with Henry Winkler also in the gang. There's not much of a plot here, the biggest throughline was Stallone's character getting his girlfriend pregnant and being pressured into marrying her – the scene in the jewellery store where he gets pissed about the price of rings is the best scene in the film. This is like an east coast, working class American Graffiti. It's all about those last dying days of childhood before the responsibilities of the world smack you in the face and tells you to get a job. Apart from the novelty of seeing a pre-Rocky Stallone and a pre-Fonz Winkler there's not really anything to recommend this. Not that there's anything awful here, it's just all pretty generic. 5/10

May 5

Novecento / 1900 (1976) dir Bernardo Bertolucci

An epic story of two friends in early 20^th century Italy. It's very long; 5 hours and 17 mins! I had to do a double take when I saw that, but it really is that long. So I watched over 3 sessions.

Alfredo (Robert di Niro) and Olmo (Gerard Depardieu) are born within minutes of each other around 1900 in rural Italy. They grow up as friends and remain so for the rest of their lives, but they come from completely different sections of society. Alfredo is from the family of a wealthy land owner and Olmo the son of one the estate's farm labourers. The first hour of the film is from their childhood, and features Burt Lancaster as Alfredo's grandfather. Then it skips to the end of the First World War and Olmo returning home after military service. The rest of the film, with a few other, shorter, jumps, takes the story up to the end of the Second World War. Donald Sutherland comes into the film playing the estate's foreman, Attila. The rest of cast are, I think, mainly Italian. But those three actors, plus Dominique Sanda. playing Alfredo's love interest Ada, are the leads and main support. Sutherland gives the best performance. He is the film's villain, and truly evil. He becomes the leader of the local fascists as Mussolini takes control of Italy, and, as if that was not enough, also a murderer and child abuser. There is a very clear class distinction. Alfredo's family and friends all accept the fascist takeover, some enthusiastically, others, like Alfredo more just going along with things beyond their control. Olmo and most of the other farmer labourers just want a fair wage, so they can feed their families, and many join the communists. Being as long as it is, there are obviously many different stories within the whole plot. But the class struggle, with Alfredo and Olmo just about remaining friends, is the main one.

It's in English. Many of the Italian cast's lines are clearly dubbed. Depardieu's are too, despite him clearly speaking English. You can tell the voice is not his, but it is in sync with his lip movements. I don't like this, but it does not spoil the film. It is of it's time. The makeup used to depict the character's ageing is not that good, when you compare to modern day films, and some characters seem to hardly age at all. The score is by Ennio Moricone. I had heard the main theme before, and think it is one of his best, but there is not much else to the original music in the film, just a lot of that theme or variations on it.

Although it is so long, I never got bored. It is obviously slow paced, very slow at times. But there are some great scenes. One comes early on with soldiers on horseback sent to break a strike, and the striker's wives all lying down in the road to block the way. Another towards the end, after the Facist regime has been toppled and their N*zi allies defeated, sees the workers dig up a sack containing a massive red flag made out of many smaller flags they each owned, all stitched together. They have had to hide this for many years, but now they parade it around the fields where they have worked all their lives.

7 / 10

Edited May 5 by djw180

May 8

What I Watched This Week #122 (April 29-May 5)

It Is Night in America
dir. Ana Vaz/2022/1h6m

This mesmerising documentary explores the relationship between nature and man in the streets of Brasilia; snakes infiltrating suburbs being hunted by animal control, a dead anteater on the road, the all-seeing eyes of the owl. Eschewing narrative, this film is all about the atmosphere, which at times can verge on suspense, even horror. Humans are side-lined here with them never being the focus of Vaz's camera, and dialogue is kept to a minimum making sure that the focus is always on the animals. This film uses expired 16mm film, an endangered species, that at times gives the film a warped texture, and the eerie soundscape adds to this unnerving effect. I did find that the film drags somewhat, despite the short length, and would maybe be more impactful if it were shorter. But this is still a unique look at the creatures we share our planet with. 7/10

My Life as a Courgette
dir. Claude Barras/2016/1h6m

After the death of his alcoholic mother, eight year old Courgette (Gaspard Schlatter) is taken to an orphanage by kindly policeman Raymond (Michel Vuillermoz) where he and the other children learn to trust and love again. The claymation style may make this seem like a kids film but this gets quite dark and deep at times, especially the opening scene where Courgette loses his mother. The script is by Celine Sciamma, also a director, and she really captures the authenticity of how young children speak, something she used to its full effect in the beautiful time-travel film Petite Maman. Rather than an overarching plot this is more like a series of vignettes that are full of little touches that make these characters feel rounded and gives motivation to their actions, and subtly shows how each child represents a different way of dealing with grief and trauma and loss. A touching and tender film about the importance of family, in all the forms it takes. 9/10

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
dir. Stephan Elliott/1994/1h44m

Drag queens Mitzi Del Bra and Felicia Jollygoodfellow (Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce) and trans woman Bernadette Bassenger (Terence Stamp) bundle into the pink party bus Priscilla in order to drive halfway across Australia to perform a show. In classic road movie tradition they meet a hatful of colourful characters along the way, some nicer than others, and at the end are changed – but still fabulous – people. Very progressive for its time (apart from the awkwardly racist sub-plot involving a mail order bride), I loved the chemistry between the three leads with my favourite character being Bernadette. The dignity she shows in the face of extreme discrimination – even from her two best friends at times – is genuinely touching, and one of my favourite things about this film is the charmingly old fashioned relationship between her and outback mechanic Bob (Bill Hunter). Funny and filthy whilst also being sweetly wholesome, Priscilla is a bus you don't want to miss, and how could you not love a film that ends with a drag show performance of Mamma Mia? 9/10

The Zone of Interest
dir. Jonathan Glazer/2023/1h45m

The Zone of Interest is about a loving husband and wife who live in a nice house with a handful of children and some maids to cook and clean for them. While the wife, Hedwig (Sandra Huller), looks after the kids and tends to her beautiful garden the husband, Rudolf (Christian Friedel), is advancing in his career, being as good at his job as he is. That all sounds nice and boring, but his job is commandant of Auschwitz, and his house backs directly onto the death camp, it sharing a wall with his wife's beloved garden (“the vines will grow and cover it all”). This is an amazing film that really shows the horror of the holocaust by not showing it at all, much like the legendary documentary Shoah. At no point in this film do we set foot in the camp, or even see over the wall. All we know of Auschwitz here are the tops of the smoking chimney stacks and the thing that makes this film really stand out, the sound design. Throughout the entire film there is a constant industrial rumbling punctuated by the occasional gunshot or screaming child and it gets under your skin so effectively that I was close to having a panic attack several times and that's not hyperbole. This is honestly one of the most distressing films I've ever watched, and the fact that all of the characters in the film act like they can't hear it, they are numb to it or just don't give a sh*t in the first place, is disgusting. It's the normality of the situation, how banal their life is with the most evil travesty in human history happening literally next door, that really made me sick with anger. This is also an incredibly well made film, just like Glazer's other, too infrequent, films like s*xy Beast and Under the Skin, with a very unexpected ending that left me floored and emotionally drained. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
dir. J. A. Bayona/2018/2h9m

A few years after the disastrous failure of Jurassic World (the dino theme park, not the film), the volcanic island on which they live is about to blow, so for some reason Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and the man who tamed velociraptors, Owen (Chris Pratt), set out to save them despite them only bringing death, destruction and misery to everyone. This is a very, very stupid film that is split into two acts and is made somewhat entertaining just by how dumb the plot, and every single character, is. The first half is set on the exploding island, and I quite enjoyed this part. It's shot really well with some fun set pieces, like a tranquilised Owen desperately trying to outrun some slow moving lava. Bayona also bought that spectacle of devastating natural destruction to last year's excellent Society of the Snow. The second half is set in a giant mansion in California where some rich *ssholes are bidding on the dinosaurs and is like a home invasion movie and was totally unexpected, and still very, very stupid. I enjoyed seeing some actors I didn't know were in this like Rafe Spall, Toby Jones, Geraldine Chaplin, and Ted Levine, but again, their characters are all very, very stupid. Dumb, fun, but ultimately forgettable. 5/10

Jurassic World Dominion
dir. Colin Trevorrow/2022/2h27m

The latest Jurassic World film sees the dinosaurs now living among us, so obviously the main plot is all about giant locusts eating our crops. Really. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum from the original Jurassic Park, this is one giant pile of sh*t. Goldblum returns here, alongside Sam Neill and Laura Dern, but they're nothing more than a nostalgic distraction from the actual film. At least the last one was stupid and fun, this is stupid and boring. 2/10

Suzume
dir. Makoto Shinkai/2022/2h3m

Inspired by the earthquake that led to the tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, Suzume is a Japanese anime about a teenage girl, Suzume (Nanoka Hara), still affected by the death of her mother when she was a small child, accidentally opening a magical door that unleashes an evil force that could destroy Japan. So she must go on an epic odyssey across the country sealing shut other magic doors aided by a man called Souta (Hokuto Matsumura) who has been transformed into a three legged chair. A beautifully animated film with some of the best looking food ever drawn, this is a whimsical road movie with a strong message about the harmony of man and nature that's full of endearing characters that don't get too “anime”, which I find grating. I didn't really like the romantic plot between Suzume and Souta, but the flashbacks to her life with her mother, and how that all relates to the plot is very moving and gives the film a strong emotional core. 8/10

May 12

Lolita (1997) dir Adrian Lyne

An adaptation of Vladamir Nabakov's controversial novel about a man's affair with his 14 year old stepdaughter. It stars Jeremy Irons as the main character, Humbert Humbert, and Dominique Swain in the title role. Both are very good. I'm a big fan of Jeremy Irons and his voice is perfect for this as there is a lot of narration, from a future Humbert trying to explain why he did what he did, even though he knew it was so wrong. There's good support from Melanie Griffiths, as Lolita's mother, and Frank Langella as the seedy playwright who also takes an interest in Lolita. It's well made with a score by Ennio Morricone (one of his better ones, might just make my personal top 10). Given the subject matter it's not that explicit. Other than one very dimly lit night-time scene, the only nudity is of Langella. Swain was 15 at the time it was made so a body double was used for some scenes. The film seems to sometimes make her look older than she was, I think to represent us seeing Lolita through Humbert's eyes as he tries to justify himself, but other times she seems much younger with lots of bubble gum and childish playing around. I first saw this a couple of years after it was released, but could remember very little of it. I do recall there being a campaign to ban it, from people, obviously not having seen it, thinking it was promoting adults having s*x with underage teenagers. It doesn't do that at all. It starts a few years after the main story, making quite clear the consequences for Humbert.

8 / 10

May 14

What I Watched This Week #123 (May 6-12)

The Loveless
dir. Kathryn Bigelow, Monty Montgomery/1981/1h22m

The Loveless is the debut film of both director Kathryn Bigelow and star Willem Dafoe who plays Vance, the brooding leader of a biker gang stopping over in a small town on their way to Daytona. While there he forms a connection with Telena (Marin Kanter), the abused daughter of local *sshole Tarver (J. Don Ferguson). Set in the fifties, this feels much more modern and is permeated by a persistent threat of violence that feels more tragic than exciting. This is very light on plot and comes across like a deconstruction of the Marlon Brando film The Wild One, with it having practically the same plot. But where that film, and Brando's character, seemed to represent some sort of freedom, here Vance and his gang feel imprisoned, chained to their bikes and destined to die on them. This is a cheap, independent production which gives it a gritty, almost sleazy tone that matches the characters well. Dafoe is excellent in the lead, always feeling dangerous yet vulnerable at the same time. It does seem a bit directionless at times, and feels longer than its runtime, but this is still a great, modern interpretation of the 50's biker movie. 7/10

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
dir. Zack Snyder/2024/2h3m

I'm gonna be honest here, I don't remember a f*cking thing about this film. 1/10

The Shop Around the Corner
dir. Ernst Lubitsch/1940/1h39m

Later remade as the Tom Hanks film You've Got Mail, The Shop Around the Corner stars James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as Alfred and Clara, two bickering gift shop employees who are unknowingly falling in love with each other via a lonely hearts column. This is a very predictable romantic comedy, but that doesn't matter when it's full of as much charam as this. Stewart is naturally excellent as the leading man, though his character can be a bit too much of a jerk at times. Sullavan is a worthy adversary for him, giving as good as she gets. However, I did find she turns into a sweet little wifey a bit too easily at the end considering how she's been treated by Alfred at times. They are surrounded by a cast of memorable and well rounded supporting characters, my favourite being the messenger boy Pepi (William Tracy) who is all about the hustle. 7.5/10

The Expendables
dir. Sylvester Stallone/2010/1h43m

Sylvester Stallone is Barney Ross, the leader of a group of meaty, manly mercs who are sent out to kill the dictator of a small nation who is actually the puppet of real bad guy, ex-CIA sh*thead James Monroe (Eric Roberts), who you know doesn't f*ck around because he has Stone Cold Steve Austin as his main henchman. Totally generic and with an awful script this is pure nostalgia bait for fans of 80's action films. The first thing I had to get over were the character names; Jason Statham is Lee Christmas, Randy Couture is Toll Road, Jet Li is Yin Yang (y'know, cos he's Chinese) and Terry Crews plays Hale Caesar. The second thing is the copious use of awful looking CGI blood splatter. You'd think that a film that was supposed to be a love letter to over the top action films from the 80's that they would use practical effects for stuff like that. Staying true to old school action films, the characters are all one note, Statham is the knife guy, Jet Li is the martial arts guy (again, because he's Chinese) etc. There are some fun moments, and it's always a blast seeing Terry Crews taking out a corridor full of baddies with an automatic shotgun, but for the most part this is an underlit, forgettable mess. 4/10

The Limey
dir. Steven Soderbergh/1999/1h29m

Tough English criminal Wilson (Terence Stamp) is in LA to avenge the death of his daughter, which he blames on record producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda). This is a brilliant neo-noir that is made even better by the use of jump cut editing and the non-linear structure which really puts you in the mindset of Wilson. The fractured state of the film really adds an unpredictablity to proceedings. Stamp is a threatening presence in the lead, always moving with a purpose. I particularly love how he constantly uses cockney rhyming slang which just confuses everyone he talks to (to quote one character “there's one thing I don't understand. The thing I don't understand is every motherf*cking word you're saying”.) At once both very flash and very gritty, this feels like it would be perfect if it were in black and white. 9/10

Perfect Days
dir. Wim Wenders/2023/2h4m

Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) is a middle aged Tokyo toilet cleaner who lives a simple life alone where he enjoys the little things and seems content. Throughout the film his encounters with various people like his co-worker Takashi (Tokio Emoto) and his niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) slowly reveal more layers to his character culminating in an incredible ending where all of his emotions are released in a sustained close up. A contemplative and meditative minimalist slice-of-life drama (it was about fifteen minutes in before I realised that I didn't have the subtitles turned on) this is a film that takes its time to build up its main character through repetition of routine much like Jeanne Dielman I also love how his isolation is shown through his use of outdated technology; he listens to casette tapes and takes photographs of trees with a film camera, but it is also this that brings him close to people. A beautifully warm film that leaves you feeling content in the world and wanting to be more like Hirayama. A masterpiece up there with Wender's earlier film Paris, Texas. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

May 19

What I Watched This Week #124 (May 13-19)

Calamity Jane
dir. David Butler/1953/1h41m

This musical western stars Doris Day in the title role of the rootingest, tootingest cowgirl in the town of Deadwood who likes to embellish tales of her escapades. She gets in trouble with the locals when she promises to bring back a famous actress to perform in the saloon but, through a case of mistaken identity, she brings back unknown Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie). There is a romance plot here between Jane and Wild Bill Hickock (Howard Keel) but the real romance here is between Jane and Katie. It's just so in your face how gay this is that it's hilarious and I'm totally here for it. There is one musical number where the two decorate Jane's cabin up all fancy so the two of them can live together and it's called “A Woman's Touch”. It's supposed to be a song about how to be the perfect wife but come on, it's so not. Day is just so charming in the lead even though she really doesn't fit the role, but she makes up for that with her performances in all of the song and dance routines. 7/10

Doctor Who
dir. Geoffrey Sax/1996/1h29m

Coming between the end of Doctor Who's original run in 1989 and its revival in 2005 this TV film sees Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor (my personal favourite classic Doctor) get gunned down in the streets of San Francisco at the turn of the new millennium and regenerate into Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor who must battle his mortal nemesis The Master (Eric Roberts) and save the world. The best thing about this film is McGann who is excellent as The Doctor so it's a shame that this is basically his only appearance in the role. There are times where he is a bit too much of an action-hero, which isn't really in the spirit of the character but those are few and far between. Roberts is an over-acting ham here and is very much just a stereotypical evil guy when The Master and The Doctor are supposed to be like two sides of the same coin, but it is fun to watch. The biggest problem I have with this is that there's not much actual sci-fi and alien nonsense with much of it playing out like an action film. I'm just saying that if you're making a Doctor Who film and set it all on Earth then you're doing something wrong. Also the effects have aged terribly, the companion and love interest. Dr. Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook), is bland, and the story is boring. But Paul McGann is really, really good. 5/10

Strasbourg 1518
dir. Jonathan Glazer/2020/10m

This short film from Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer, Strasbourg 1518, features several contemporary dancers filmed in isolation during the first COVID lockdown freestyling to a repetitive earworm of a banger by Mica Levi. The title refers to a dancing plague that spread across the city in that year that saw people spontaneously break out into the freshest of moves. This film captures the manic intensity of that event through a modern lens and also the madness of isolation from that period. Like the song that this is set to, this film almost starts to become monotonous but ends before that really happens. My favourite dancers are the lady who rhythmically and repetitively takes off and puts on a cardigan, a bald dude who just f*cking goes for it throwing himself around, and a woman who uses a tub of water in her piece, flapping around like a wet flannel, though I was worried about her slipping over on her wood floor. 8/10

Love Lies Bleeding
dir. Rose Glass/2024/1h44m

Director Rose Glass's follow up to her brilliant 2019 debut Saint Maud, Love Lies Bleeding stars Katy O'Brian as Jackie, an aspiring female bodybuilder stopping off in a small New Mexico town on her way to Vegas for a competition. While there she meets and quickly falls in love with gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart), but things are complicated by Lou's violently criminal family led by her father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). This is a bloody and brutal thriller with a brilliantly pulpy and sleazy atmosphere that makes everything feel like it's covered in a fine layer of grime. O'Brian is a fantastic lead, totally dominating the film both physically – she is a damn fine specimen of a woman – and emotionally. She's like a raw nerve and the use of extreme close ups showing her muscles rippling threateningly under her skin really shows the animalistic side of her, something that comes into full effect in the absolutely bonkers ending. This is Thelma and Louise on steroids and I loved it. 9/10

Evil Does Not Exist
dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi/2023/1h46m

Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) lives with his young daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) in a small village in the countryside where he is a respected member of the community. A development company wants to open up a glamping site nearby, regardless of the consequences to the environment. This is a film that takes its time to build up its characters through observation. The opening watches Takumi performing odd-jobs for his community. We sit in on the meeting between the locals and representatives of the company, Takahashi and Mayuzumi (Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani) and then a meeting between them and their boss, and a car journey between the two of them, very reminiscent of key scenes in the director's previous film Drive My Car. Like that film this is also about communications and problems that arise when they break down, most importantly of all the communication between man and nature. This is all tied together with a gorgeously mournful score by Eiko Ishibashi. To quote a review I read for this, evil does not exist because everybody is just doing their job. 9/10

Hands Up!
dir. Jerzy Skolimowski/1981/1h21m

Made in 1967, this film was immediately banned by the communist government because of its criticism of Stalinism and the director was banished from Poland. At the fall of the regime he got the footage back, recorded a new introduction giving more context to the film and released it. A surreal satire that sees four medical students travelling in a train boxcar who all refer to each other by the make of car they drive and make overt references to the holocaust, with the carriage becoming filled with ash by the end of the film. Not knowing a great deal about the politics of Poland at the time many of the references and satirical digs were lost on me, but what wasn't was the sheer anger of Skolimowski's bought full force in this mesmerising and radical film. 8.5/10

Let It Be
dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg/1970/1h29m

This newly restored version of Michael Lindsay-Hogg's documentary sees The Beatles gather together in January 1969 to write and record the songs that would make up their final album, Let It Be, in their Apple Corps offices. It culminates with their final live performance on the rooftop, with John Lennon joking at the end “I hope we passed the audition.” What's amazing about watching these men work is that they are clearly geniuses from another world, but at the same time they are so normal and, well, scouse. The moment when Paul stares right into the camera and into your soul while he performs the title song totally broke me, it was so beautiful. What can you say about this? It's like if there was a documentary crew around to film DaVinci paint the Mona Lisa or Shakespeare write Hamlet. But better, becase this also has Billy Preston on keys. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Meet the Robinsons
dir. Stephen J. Anderson/2007/1h35m

Genius twelve year old inventor Lewis (Daniel Hansen) gets caught up in an overly complicated time-travel plot (aren't they all?) involving the villanous Bowler Hat Guy (director Anderson) and mysterious teenager from the future Wilbur (Wesley Singerman). This is a huge step up from Chicken Little, although some of the character designs are still a little grotesque. The biggest difference here is the lighting which really brings some life to the scenes, something lacking from the last Disney film. A pretty decent Danny Elfman score and some genuine laughs elevate this above average, and I loved Adam West as a superhero pizza delivery guy. Not brilliant, but a big step in the right direction. 6.5/10

May 21

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) dir Baz Luhrman

Baz Luhrman's second feature film is a slick and s*xy, modern day adaptation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. The script is all Shakespeare's words (as far as I am aware), but it's set in the late 20^th century, with some clever use of situations and backgrounds to make those words work in that setting. Verona, Italy, becomes the fictitious Verona Beach, USA, (filmed in Mexico); the city's leader becomes Chief Prince of the VBPD; the swords in the fight scenes become the “Sword 9mm” pistol and it starts and ends with the Chorus (narrator) as a TV news presenter. It was probably the big breakthrough performances for Leonardo di Caprio (far from my favourite actor) and Claire Danes in the lead roles, although he clearly went on to much bigger things than she did. They both do well, but the best performances, for me, are some of the support roles. Pete Postlethwaite as Father Lawrence and Miriam Margolyes as Juliet's Nurse are great as the adult confidantes of the teenage leads. Harrold Perrineau (The Matrix, Lost) is very good as Romeo's friend Mercutio but the best performance is John Leguizamo as Juliet's cousin Tibalt. He really ramps up the hate and loathing he has for anyone of Romeo's family and at times seems like he can hardly allow himself to breath the very same air that may have been tainted by a “dog of the house of Montague”. It's visually stunning, with great sets and costumes. It has a brilliant, modern, sound track with songs by Radiohead, Garbage, Kim Mazelle, Des'ree and many more. Once upon a time I would have said this was one of my all time favourite films, I still rate it very highly, but I've seen a lot more films since this first came out.

9 / 10

May 22

The Coffee Table (2022)

If you never heard of this. Don’t look it up. Don’t spoil it. All you need to know is that a couple buys a coffee table that is going to bring them a lifetime of happiness.
You will need a strong healthy horror heart and mind for this one.
While this isn’t gory or ultra violent, the inciting incident is the horror, and could be given away in summaries and descriptions of the film. Avoid them.
This is not for the tame. But not because it’s bloody or gory, it’s just worse than that.
I watched it not knowing what to expect, I had my own idea of what the film was going to be about, but the film quickly put me in my f*cking place.
I hope some of you are brave enough to watch it, so we can discuss it.
It is just well crafted in every aspect. Some say the dialogue was too much when it came to the dark comedy, but those folks don’t realize that the genius of it is the fact that the dialogue is NOT meant to come across as funny. We just become conditioned to have no choice but to chuckle, when we know damn well, we shouldn’t be. I love that the exchanges serve as HAMMERS to “remind” us.
Final Verdict…..4/5…..I watched it twice in one sitting. Not a full score because the ending, while very good, I felt that at that point, could have been exceptional. It is in Spanish with English subtitles, and I can assure you, nothing is lost in translation.

Edited May 22 by Con

May 22

@Con nice to see you in here again dude 🙂

May 22

On 5/22/2024 at 2:30 PM, LimeGreenLegend said:

@Con nice to see you in here again dude 🙂

Yes. Me too. I’ve watched several horror movies recently…will rewatch them to get nice reviews up. Glad I can count on you and DJ keeping this alive. Thank you both of you.

When Evil Lurks - 5/5….this is terror, wrapped in horror.

The Zone of Interest (2024) - 5/5....Phenomenal.

Late Night with the Devil (2024) - 4/5

No One Will Save You - 4/5

It Comes At Night - 3/5

Satanic Hispanics - 3/5

Black Phone - 3/5

Abigail - 2/5

Saw X - 1/5 (didn’t finish, I stopped it 20 minutes in. DO NOT MAKE GORE ACCIDENTALLY FUNNY. GORE IS NOT A GAME.)

Edited May 28 by Con

May 22

2 hours ago, Con said:

DO NOT MAKE GORE FUNNY

You ever see the Peter Jackson film Brain Dead (I think it's called Dead Alive in the US)? It's pretty funny and disgustingly gory, holding the record for most fake blood used on a film for a long time (it may still hold it). I can't believe they let this guy make Lord of the Rings.

May 23

3 hours ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

You ever see the Peter Jackson film Brain Dead (I think it's called Dead Alive in the US)? It's pretty funny and disgustingly gory, holding the record for most fake blood used on a film for a long time (it may still hold it). I can't believe they let this guy make Lord of the Rings.

I should have said…Do Not Make Gore Accidentally Funny.
I love when it’s done on purpose like in Dead Alive.
I was really enjoying the new angle to the Jigsaw’s story in Saw X, the setup was so brilliant, the impetus for him to kill is fantastic.

But after the first death, the characters need something to reach an item. I hate that characters are wearing BELTS AND LONG SLEEVE CLOTHING AND PANTS. Yet, they decide to go with the UNNECESSARY solution, so that already was stupid to watch, and I understand that the writers wanted to get that shock factor in early, but in this scene it is goofy to choose not just the gory solution, but then it becomes comical and not practical.
Now write that scene with NUDE characters, and then you’d get double the credibility for their actions and triple the grossness as they now have to catch the bloody item while naked.
So that’s why I stopped Saw X very early. I love gore, but don’t chop bodies up, just for shock.

Edited May 23 by Con

May 26

Henry V (1989) dir Kenneth Branagh

I've seen three versions of this Shakespeare play, and this is my favourite, but given I do like the director and his regular cast of actors, that's probably not surprising. Brannagh takes the lead, as usual. Set when the actual events happened (1415), this is a work of historical fiction, but the basics are accurate. King Henry V of England presses his claim to be the rightful King of France. He invades, spends too long capturing a strategically vital port, so attempts to lead his army north to his allies' lands. The French, lead by a king reluctant to force a battle, amass a larger army and finally, near the village of Agincourt the battle happens on the eve of St Crispin's day. Shakespeare wrote it in an unashamedly pro-English way. The French are the bad guys. The plucky, outnumbered English (including a few Irish, Scots and Welsh) are the good guys.

Like all other films I have seen of the battle, Shakespeare adaptations and other, they don't portray how the battle was actually won, but they do highlight the importance of the difference in leadership, which is kind of what the play and film is about. For me Brannagh's pre-battle speech is more inspiring than Lawrence Olivier's. That's due to the difference in film making style between 1940s and 1980s, but also this one is set to music, and that makes a big difference to me. I don't know how any Englishman can fail to be inspired by this

Apparently former England football captain Tony Adams (not someone you'd think was that into Shakespeare) used this (not sure which version) before matches.

There is of course more to this than the battle. Emma Thompson as Princess Katherine and Geraldine McEwan as her maid have a very funny scene where the Princess is trying to learn English. Derick Jacobi plays the chorus who introduces and summarises the story, in modern day clothing as if you were watching a play. There's good music throughout, especially after the battle.

9 / 10

Edited May 26 by djw180

May 27

@djw180 I love that version of Henry V, one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. I love the staging of the "once more unto the breach" scene like they're charging into hell.

And as amazing as Derek Jacobi is, and he is amazing, every time I see him, especially in anything Shakespeare, I always think of his appearance in Frasier.

And if you're looking for more Shakespeare to watch you should check out the Akira Kurosawa adaptations of Macbeth - Throne of Blood, King Lear - Ran, and Hamlet - The Bad Sleep Well.

Edited May 27 by LimeGreenLegend

May 27

@LimeGreenLegend I have never seen that episode of Frasier. But Derek Jacobi's performance is very funny. I am sure I have seen him hamming it up like that somewhere else, I can't remember where though.

I have another couple of Shakespeare's to watch (I'm going through my DVC collection). I will try and get to see some of those Kurosawa's as well though.

May 30

What I Watched This Week #125 (May 20-26)

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
dir. Radu Jude/2023/2h44m

Jude's follow up to his audaciously shocking Bad Luck Banging or Loony p*rn (which has the best ending of any film ever), this sees overworked production assistant Angela (Ilinca Manolache) driving around Bucharest interviewing people who have suffered workplace injuries for a corporate health and safety video. When she has a spare moment she records foul mouthed misogynistic tirades for TikTok using a filter that makes herself look like Andrew Tate. Shot almost documentary style in grainy black and white this is slightly less formally experimental than Bad Luck Banging, but, like that film, this is full of references to Romanian history – the film is intercut with colour scenes from a pre-revolutionary film about a female cab driver – that are mostly lost on me. What's not lost is the incredibly nuanced and naturalistic lead performance from Manolache. She appears as a fully formed character that just gets more and more complicated and human as we follow her around for the day. The grand finale here is an extended scene shot from one static angle of the filming of the health and safety video where the story of the victim is edited and changed on the fly by a producer in order to make their corporate paymasters look good. Totally captivating and zeitgeist capturing, this is a film for our age. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Joan of Arc
dir. Georges Melies/1900/11m

Lost until 1982, this version of the story of Joan of Arc was one of the first big hits of Melies's career and the first one made for film. One thing that I always love about his films is the incredible attention to detail in the backdrops and sets, as if he were going to be filming in 8K for IMAX. The way his films are hand painted frame by frame in order to give them colour also gives the effect of a stained glass window come to life, very fitting for this film as Joan was granted sainthood just twenty years after it was released. This film has a much more serious tone than Melies's other big films which are usually very whimsical and fantastic full of fairies and devilish tricksters and people taking rocket ships to the moon or a train to the sun. This just reinforces the seriousness of Joan's martyrdom and how much it means to France as part of their national identity. I would score this slightly higher, but the whole time I couldn't help but to compare it to the best silent film I've ever seen, Carl Theodore Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc from 1928, which also features probably the best performance I've ever seen in any film, silent or otherwise, by Maria Falconetti as Joan. But if that is the definitive version of her story, then Melies's film is like the illustrated children's version, and I don't mean that as a pejorative. 8/10

Boudu Saved from Drowning
dir. Jean Renoir/1932/1h24m

Michel Simon stars as the titular Boudu, a homeless man who, after his dog runs away, tries to kill himself by jumping into the Seine river. He is promptly saved by book store owner Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval), who now feels that he is responsible for this man's life, but Boudu is not as thankful as he would have hoped. This film starts off like it's going to be about how Boudu is given a new lease on life and becomes a part of society thanks to his new friend but Boudu is a chaotic, mean spirited force of nature exposing the hypocrisy of the middle classes before moving on, totally unchanged, just a free spirit riding on the breeze. This is a satire on the notion that the bourgeoisie at the time treated poor people like little projects or pets rather than actual human beings (not like today of course), so here's Boudu to show them just how human the poor can be. I think this would've worked more if Boudu wasn't such an *sshole at times and played him as more of a prankster like Chaplin's Little tr*mp, but Simon's performance is always committed and you can't take your eyes off him when he's on screen, if only to make sure he doesn't steal your wallet. 7/10

Close-Up
dir. Abbas Kiarostami/1990/1h38m

In a breath-taking blend of fiction and documentary Iran's greatest filmmaker tells us the story of Hossain Sabzian who convinced a whole family, the Ahankhahs, that he was another legendary director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Over a couple of weeks he insinuates himself into the family, promising to give them roles in his next film and saying he wants to use their house as a location. With the help of journalist Hossain Farazmand he is exposed as a fraud and arrested. In this film all of these people play themselves and re-enact the entire story, from Sabzian's first chance meeting with the mother of the Ahankhah family on a bus up to his arrest. This is intercut with footage from Sabzian's trial, which Kiarostami got permission to film, and ends in a truly beautiful sequence where Sabzian gets to meet his hero Makhmalbaf and the two go to visit the Ahankhah house. This is a story about identity and what you do if you don't feel like you really have one. The performances, if you can even call them that, are all incredible, with Sabzian coming across quite sympathetically. The neorealist style of the filmmaking really helps to blur the line between fiction and reality perfectly, always making us question if what we're seeing is real or a reconstruction. Film as reality as film. 9/10

Ashkal
dir. Youssef Chebbi/2022/1h35m

This Tunisian police procedural follows two cops, Fatma (Fatma Oussaifi) and Batal (Mohamed Grayaa), as they investigate a series of murders where the victims are burned alive without resisting. Meanwhile, Fatma's father is leading a government inquiry on police corruption making her persona non grata in the force. This is a slow burn (pun intended) of a thriller with hints of noir and a fantastically oppressive atmosphere represented by Fatma spending a lot of time engulfed by the bare skeletons of the construction sites where a lot of the murders take place. The film strays into the supernatural as it progresses but it seems to be symbolic of the countries dictatorial past rather than anything actually spooky and, being as I know nothing about Tunisia, it just adds to the mystery of the film. Oussaifi is great in the lead, conveying a lot without much dialogue. Her determination in the face of the struggles she faces at work due to the political tensions caused by her father is written in her every expression. 9/10

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger/1943/2h36m

(surprisingly no trailer for this, so here's a short video about its restoration by Scorsese's Film Foundation)

General Candy (Roger Livesey), elderly leader of a home guard troop doesn't get the respect of his men who think he's old and past it. Through flashbacks we learn about his life and military career through both the Boer War and WWI. Most importantly of all is his lifelong friendship with German officer Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Adolf Wohlbruck), who he first meets as an opponent in a duel. A war film made during WWII could be nothing more than flag waving propaganda, but Powell and Pressburger are much better than that and here have the b*lls to make an anti-war film that doesn't present every German as a maniacal n*zi. The best scene in the film is Kretschmar-Schuldorff lamenting the loss of his family at the onset of WWII, not because they died but because his sons turned into “good n*zis”, and how he links that loss to the loss of WWI when he failed as an officer. It should go without saying that this is a gorgeously shot film with a use of colour that rivals The Red Shoes. The two lead performances are excellent and really compliment each other well. Their relationship and the way it develops over the years is done so naturally that you never doubt their friendship for a second. Not quite on the same level as Powell and Pressburger's very best films, this is still an impactful and touching portrait of enduring friendship. 8.5/10

The London Story
dir. Sally Potter/1986/15m

(no trailer for this)

Jack Winger (Jacky Langsley) is a mysterious woman creeping around Westminster recruiting a doorman who really loves opening doors (George Antoni), and an ex minister (Arthur Fincham) for a plot to overthrow the government. It ends with a dance routine by the Thames. This short film is very light on details and feels more like a satirical sketch by some students who recently discovered politics than a film by an accomplished director who would go on to make a masterpiece like Orlando. I did like the scene of the doorman practicing opening a door in his flat, and the dance routine is fun but otherwise this is pretty forgettable stuff. 4/10

Edited May 30 by LimeGreenLegend

June 1

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) dir Kenneth Brannagh

Kenneth Brannagh's second Shakespeare adaptation has a cast of his regulars and some Holywood actors. Duke Pedro (Denzil Washington) is returning home from a successful military campaign. Amongst his substantial entourage are best friend Benedick (Kenneth Brannagh), his brother John (Keanau Reeves) and the young Count Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard). They stop off for a while at the estate of two brothers, Leonato (Richard Briers) and Antonio (Brian Blessed), each of which has a daughter of marriageable age, Hero (Kate Beckinsale) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson). Hero and Claudio are in love, but John, the villain of the story, conspires to split them up. Beatrice and Benedick know each other well and love to verbally spar and mock each other, so Pedro, Claudio, Hero et al decide to get them to fall in love too. It's a romantic comedy, and as the title implies, there is really not much that important that happens, that's the point. It's just a nice story to provide light entertainment without trying to be deep and meaningful or too dramatic. It has a stunning setting, in Tuscany. This version is updated to what looks like the early 19^th century. The acting is great, especially between Brannagh and Thompson (then a couple in real life). There's also great, very funny, performance from Michael Keaton later on, as the inept constable investigating the misdemeanours of John's associates with his assistant played by Ben Elton. It's got a good sound-track too. I have watched this many time before and it remains one of my favourite films. I don't usually like films that get described as romantic comedy, because it seems that is often a kind of default categorisation for a a film that can't be classed as anything else. But this one is really good.

10 / 10

Edited June 2 by djw180

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