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Hard to Be a God - Aleksey German, 2013 Many reviews of this film provide a lengthy plot summary. I find this interesting because the film as it stands really has no plot. The book on which it's based definitely has one, so I suspect many people are using that as a basis to understand the film's story. But the film makes no effort to provide a narrative of any kind. Even the opening narration that ostensibly "explains" the setup is cryptic and brief. No, the film doesn't aim to tell a story. What it does aim to do is deeply immerse the viewer in a foreign world. And it succeeds amazingly. The camera itself acts as a tour guide through an impeccably detailed world of filth and depravity. I can't stress detailed enough. I have never seen a more thoroughly realized physical setting in all my years watching movies. It's stunningly impressive. Every inch of every shot - for three hours - is filled with some detail that helps bring this world to life. The sets and costumes are immaculate and the cast must be in the thousands. Every frame oozes with mud, sweat, blood, snot, feces, rain, smoke and entrails. Characters buzz around and in front of the camera. Objects swoop and dangle in the foreground. It's a frenzied barrage of motion and chaos, and the camera is always right there in the thick of it. The production design of this film puts every big budget Hollywood movie to shame. Director Aleksey German took 6 years to shoot Hard to Be a God. I get that. The passion and care with which it was produced is abundantly apparent. One gets the feeling that the vision he had for this project is precisely what we're seeing. His choice to present this world to us with little semblance of a story, as peculiar as that is, is exactly what he wanted to do. This is an uncompromised, ambitious work worthy of analysis and praise. There's never been another film quite like it, and there likely never will be. 5/5
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Jan 9, 2017 17:31
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The Love Witch - Anna Biller, 2016 Anna Biller has crafted a loving visual tribute to Italian films of the 60s and 70s. The colors, art direction, lighting and camerawork are all spot on. She really nailed it. Samantha Robinson is the perfect talent for the kinds of glamorous closeups in line with this style. But while the movie is visually top-notch, it has a lot of problems. First and foremost is the muddled script. The narrative is disastrously uneven. We jump from subplot to subplot, with some segments (such as the nightclub scene) feeling like something out of a different movie. The film's individual parts feel disparate from one another. The result is a rather tedious experience. With a running time of two hours, the film overstays its welcome. It's in desperate need of some serious edits. The movie is ostensibly a satire, but there are problems with this aspect as well. The best way I can describe the satirical nature of the movie is unfocused. Sometimes it feels like it's poking fun at the stilted acting and gaudy styles of the films after which it's modeled, but other times it feels genuinely silly. The effect is disorienting. An example: the actress who plays Elaine's friend Barbara - her acting is atrocious; one might assume this is intentional, but I'm really not sure. It's just confusing. While I love the ambition and passion that clearly went into this, I feel that Biller probably should have had some more chefs in the kitchen. Specifically a more meticulous screenwriter and a liberal editor. Tighter, leaner and more adept in its satire, this could have been something really great. 2.5/5
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Jan 12, 2017 17:31
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Horror Express - Eugenio Martín, 1972 Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee square off against a Thing-esque alien creature that absorbs the minds of its victims, set entirely on a trans-siberian passenger train. A pretty wonderful premise. And somehow the movie ends up being even more badass than it sounds. Its success lies in how marvelously unrestrained it is. It doesn't pull a single punch in executing its wacky premise. In the first five minutes we see a dude murdered, blood dripping from his eyes and mouth, his eyeballs turned a gruesome opaque white. And it doesn't let up from there. The skeletal ape-like creature, with its glowing red Terminator eye, starts offing people right away. And the death scenes are consistently satisfying. It goes without saying, but Cushing and Lee are endlessly watchable together, even if their characters aren't the most magnetic. Alberto de Mendoza as the monk is really good too, and his role becomes even more interesting as the story unfolds. And just when everything seemed like it couldn't get better, Telly Savalas appears in the third act. His character seems superfluous in the context of the story, almost as if his scene was a tacked on to the script as an afterthought. But it was most definitely the right decision, because he steals the loving show. I think every movie could benefit from a scenery-chewing Telly Savalas scene. And to top it all off, the film has interesting things to say about the moral consequences of scientific progression, as well as some sly humor. I can't think of anything I dislike about it. 5/5
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Jan 14, 2017 16:52
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Pieces - Juan Piquer Simón, 1982 So many slashers fail to stand out and make a name for themselves in the saturated early 80s slasher scene. I feel the worst sin a slasher can commit is that it isn't good enough to be great, and it's not bad enough to be memorable. Pieces doesn't commit this sin, as it's most definitely bad enough to be memorable. Director Juan Piquer Simón's attempt is sincere (which is integral to fulfilling the so-bad-it's-good requirement). The story is illogical, the acting is wooden and awkward, the editing is sloppy and the dialogue is hilariously awful ("Bastard! Bastaaard! Baaaastaaaaard!"). But Simón, in all his technical deficiency, knows how to keep us pining for that next gory death scene. Is it because we think it'll be shocking, or because we think it'll be comically inept? For me it's both. The kills really are something. The camera doesn't flinch as chainsaws rip through bare torsos and butcher knives impale heads. Even when we can see the rubber knife bend in half, we embrace this (yep, watch the waterbed scene closely). We're laughing while we're squirming. We also get some amazing non sequiturs. The girl on the skateboard at the beginning is presumably an attempt at light humor, but it's so jarringly out of place that it's just perplexing. And that ending, wow. Not the climax, which is actually pretty uneventful. I mean the final ten seconds of the movie. If there's an effective way for a film to imprint itself in my mind at the last moment, that's how to do it. 3/5
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Jan 18, 2017 17:02
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 - Tobe Hooper, 1986 (rewatch) Comparing this movie to its predecessor is like comparing Alien to Airplane. The two movies are driven by entirely different aims. While the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a gritty and terrifying piece of visceral horror, Part 2 is an hilarious, wacko decent into gore and insanity. "It's not as good as the original" almost doesn't apply here. There are so many darkly humorous moments: the opening car kill, Leatherface's sexual encounter, the skin mask, the chainsaw in the rear end. The cannibal family members are all hilariously over the top, with each actor doing tremendous work. I really love the underground lair set, which is full of macabre details that give the feeling of a surreal carnival attraction (there's no doubt Rob Zombie took a lot of cues from this film). Caroline Williams does a fine job as the always screaming but often clever lead. And Dennis Hopper's crazed chainsaw-wielding lieutenant absolutely brings down the house (ha). TCM2 should feel right at home alongside other great horror comedies like Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Braindead. It's pure maniacal fun. 4/5
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Jan 23, 2017 01:13
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Faust - F.W. Murnau, 1926 (rewatch) Watching this film again has opened my eyes to just how great it is. Aside from the timelessly engaging story, it's a technical miracle, with some of the most dazzling and clever special effects I've seen. It's right up there with Metropolis in this regard. With his supremely imaginative compositions, such as the enormous winged Mephisto looming ominously over the town, Murnau achieves a surreal, spooky quality. Some of the more atmospheric segments, like when Faust first encounters the glowing-eyed Mephisto, come off like a fevered nightmare. It's a haunting, dreamlike masterstroke, and the kind of film that was only seen during the silent era. Although even then there was nothing quite like this. Nosferatu gets all the buzz, but Faust is Murnau's masterpiece. 5/5
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Jan 27, 2017 18:37
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I Before E posted:They milked the premise for all it was worth. It was always pretty tough to latch on to.
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Feb 10, 2017 01:22
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Eastern Promises - David Cronenberg, 2007 (rewatch) Cronenberg at his most lean and efficient. In the hands of just about any other filmmaker, this movie would be at least two hours long and contain lots of extraneous scenes of plot exposition. But Cronenberg, like many great directors, has confidence in his audience to understand the implications of key lines and to grok the nuances of the characters without the need for hand holding. It's a film that really rewards repeat viewings. A key character revelation near the end, for instance, puts all of that character's prior actions in a different, more complex, light. The performances are solid across the board, with Mortensen being the standout. I feel he's often miscast in films that require him to be overly extroverted. His naturally calm, soft-spoken personality is a much better fit for parts like this. He's a marvel in this role. And I'd be remiss to not talk about the bath house scene. I've never seen a more perfectly choreographed and directed fight scene. It's so intense because we're not totally sure what the outcome will be. It's brutal and uncomfortable and just brilliant. 5/5
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Feb 12, 2017 22:10
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A History of Violence - David Cronenberg, 2005 (rewatch) My fourth viewing of this movie and I'm less vexed. It clicked a bit more. I also enjoyed it more than I ever have. I think the corniness of the first half is an intentional way of presenting the good-hearted small town innocence that makes the violence so jarring. I do, however, think there's just a bit of unintentional cheese in here too, such as some of the dialogue delivery by the son and the bully. But all of that is trumped by the intensity of the key scenes, the acting by the leads, and the last fifteen minutes. I could watch the William Hurt scene on loop ad infinitum and never get tired of it. Hurt's reaction to the failed kill is some of the most spot on acting I've ever seen. 3.5/5
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Feb 21, 2017 17:08
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The Unholy Three - Tod Browning, 1925 Browning excels at making movies you look at and realize would never in a million years get made today. Imagine this idea being pitched to a Hollywood studio in 2017: A strong man, a male ventriloquist dressed as an old lady, and a little person acting as a baby team up to burglarize people. They work out of a pet shop and case homes by conning people into buying non-talking birds (via the ventriloquist's skill) and then make a house call to the complaining customer. Oh, and they own a giant killer chimpanzee. It's absurd in the most charming way. But among the absurdity is some surprisingly dark material. A little kid gets intentionally kicked in the face, her mouth covered in blood. A murder is committed and then the victim is mocked for the way he pleaded for his life. And the aforementioned giant killer chimpanzee lives up to his namesake. Seriously that's the scariest chimp I've ever seen. This is probably the earliest black comedy I've seen. And it's a pitch black one. It's an absolute riot and I loved every second of it. 4/5
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Mar 2, 2017 16:26
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The Unknown - Tod Browning, 1927 What a bizarre and exciting movie. Although a bit on the contrived side, it's the kind of dark, ironic story that only Tod Browning in the pre-code era could pull off. It's like the prototype for every Tales from the Crypt episode. Even without his makeup, there's something indescribably menacing about Lon Chaney. There's a mania to his performance which is hinted at throughout the film but comes to the fore in the final few minutes. That finale is just insane. I love it. If I have one complaint about this film it's its brevity. I'm all in favor of short films, but at only 50 minutes I felt like the movie was too concise. I would have liked to see the love triangle plot more fleshed out. And call me sick, but seeing the actual surgical operation could have been fun. Regardless, this is a twisted, fun movie that should appeal to fans of both horror and silent cinema, both of which I am. 4.5/5
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Mar 5, 2017 19:32
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Egbert Souse posted:I don't mind loose narratives, but I felt Nashville just wandered a bit too much. American Graffiti is one of my favorite films, but it's a lot tighter in structure and has definite arcs. It seemed to me that Nashville did have definite arcs, they just weren't very punctuated. My favorite was the infidelity story with Lily Tomlin's character. I also really loved the one with the girl who had sex appeal but couldn't hold a tune to save her life. Most were definitely low key, but I found each one really compelling.
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Mar 13, 2017 15:04
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:The songs punctuate the character arcs - "I'm Easy", "Bluebird" and "Never Get Enough" are good examples but the best is "Idaho Home", where a mental breakdown leads directly from a song about a rambling reminiscence about hard living. Great point. The music was half of the story.
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Mar 13, 2017 15:32
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:39 |
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Criminal Minded posted:You have to justify why this isn't 100/100 For me it's because I watched the film three years ago and California Dreamin is STILL stuck in my loving head.
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Mar 31, 2017 05:06
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