I was suprised by how much I disliked that film and another starring both actors: 1941, directed by Spielberg. Actually, I haven’t seen either film for a long time, although I remember being puzzled by my reaction and trying to watch both a few more times before giving up. I could never figure out what went so wrong in either film. Nowadays I’m liable to suspect cocaine.
We watched Passing on Netflix last night. On the surface, it’s a movie about two black women friends, one of whom is passing as white. But it’s more about human nature and is a very thoughtful film.
“The Damned” (Les maudits), from 1947. A submarine full of Nazis and collaborators is escaping to South America. Also on board is a French doctor, kidnaped to tend a wounded passenger. Claustrophobia, suspicion and frayed nerves take hold in short order.
I like submarine movies. This one checks a lot of the boxes: stock footage of subs diving and surfacing, a horn that goes “Aoogah” when they’re about to dive, hatches that you seal by turning a wheel, an engine room with rows of pistons pistoning. It’s also the only movie sub I’ve seen with a cat. And the Nazis really look the part, their skin glistening with Nazi sweat.
On the minus side, it could have used more sub peril - other than an early sequence where they are getting depth charges dropped on them, they manage to avoid the worst things, like having to dive so deep that water starts to spurt through the seams; guess they didn’t have the budget for that. No, this is mostly about who is going to betray who. It gets somewhat confusing after they reach South America and discover the local industrialist who was supposed to help them had seen the writing on the wall and bailed. After that, they take off again but I’m not sure what they expect to happen. Eventually the crew starts to mutiny, and there’s some of the fakest-looking fist fighting this side of an old Tom Mix serial.
But it gets enough of the cramped quarters and associated high tension right to rate three out of five Das Boots. Catch it on Kanopy.
It does not.
I think a large amount of very bad art has come from cocaine. The massive confidence in their own abilities in the face of all to the contrary, produces films like these. But let’s face it there’s an occasional risky genius thing made. But yes, I blamed coke for this movie being made.
Archive A bland sounding title for what turned out to be a rather nifty scifi film. Almost a robo frankenhooker, with a scientist trying to build a robot to hold the stored (archived) version of their dead wife. Really rather good.
I agree that this movie got its footing wrong. But it at least made a good faith attempt to bring Thomas Berger to the screen. Little Big Man aside, Berger’s fiction often presented a protagonist who was afflicted with everyday naïveté or social awkwardness, who was then forced into conflict with monstrous evil. The movie follows the book pretty well, but for whatever reason didn’t carry its freight.
I watched The Death of Stalin last night
which was both hilarious and horrifying. The only thing that put me off was that Simon Russell Beale, who played Beria, looked a lot more like the Khrushchev I remember from the early '60s than Steve Buscemi.
Spoiler alert: Stalin dies.
You should shut …up before you get us both killed !
The Power of the Dog. We had just finished binging Breaking Bad, yeah, we’re late to that party, and watched this movie, and damn, there’s Todd! (Plemons) Cumberbatch was amazing as pretty much alway, (he has done some real dogs, IMHO), but overall the movie left us with WTF did we just spend out time on. Sorry, I can’t seem to figure out spoilers on Discourse, but I do have a question.
In the reply box, hit the gear symbol all the way to the right. One of the options is “blur spoiler”. It brings up spoiler tags with “This text will be blurred” in between. Replace that phrase with your questions.
Also, I found the Wikipedia article on the movie very good at clearing up questions I had (bad sound in the theater caused me to miss some dialog).
An apt description. Though I feel as though I live amidst a pack of philistines, I still have a hard time trying to describe this film those I would think would it would resonate with. A dark black comedy, or is it a deep drama with occasional comic reliefs?
A local museum has an exhibition of Wain’s works on (plus a couple of props from the film) that I went to see this weekend. Fascinating stuff and am looking forward to the film, if only to see the cat head masks in use.
It almost deserves it’s own genre. In a fictional world it’s a very black comedy (ie: like Gilliam’s Brazil), but when you bring in the fact that this was a definitely reality which existed and this is lampooning the utter absurdity of the darkest days of a real regime on earth, you almost have to treat it as real fiction, with an occasional bit of remembering this was a real place and time.
And it’s not short of absurdities. All the bad doctors, because all the other doctors murdered. The traitorous dead wife which isn’t dead. Everyone getting rounded up, the conductor saying goodbye to his wife, when answering the door to the getting dragged back to the concert. Stalin’s children. Nobody wanting to touch Stalin while lying on the floor dying. Malenkov in white. The funeral. The army turning up. Oh, the dark references to Beria’s reputation (supposed he raped/murdered hundreds of women with impunity).
Only criticism I’d say is that it dragged towards the end. But such a work to both lampoon and clearly describe such horrifying times.
PM me if you like and I’ll explain what I know or just tell you I"m clueless too!
It’s been a few years since I saw Death of Stalin (and on a plane, to boot) but I recall a scene where Jeffrey Tambor (as Malenkov) is pressed as to which way he plans to vote on an important topic…and his reply is a masterpiece of gobbledygook that manages to land squarely on both sides of the question. I need to watch this again!
Another here who watched The Power of the Dog (and loved it). Perhaps it needs its own thread. I felt downright triumphant at the end. I loved that the whole film was slow and seemed to go in one direction but then took a turn. Maybe some saw it coming but I didn’t realize what Peter was planning until he offered up the hide he had gotten when he was by himself.
Michael Palin does this too, at the hand-raising vote of the central committee. (It’s not just a Soviet thing: I’ve seen it done in corporate meetings as a loyalty test, and I’ve read where David Lloyd George did it deliberately when he had his faculties and even more frequently when he was getting old and dotty).
Since the Death of Stalin (as well as Enemy at the Gates) uses a Shostakovich-esque, I recommend Testimony with Ben Kingsley. Not as silly but still as absurdist.
I attempt to find diamonds in the rough and put them on my watch lists for later. Some dude will post 5 of his favorite movies and if I liked the 3 or so I’ve seen I’ll put the remainder on my list no matter the genre or cast. Whoever it was the recommended these did the job. We wanted spooky stuff this weekend and so watched-
Girl on the Third Floor (2019, Netflix) - A haunted house flick that was pretty engaging. Far more thriller/mystery than horror I was convinced throughout the movie the lead played the creepy agent in The Frighteners (Jeffry Combs) and I was glad he finally got some more work. Turns out nope, it was CM Punk, a Wrestler in his film debut. Not a lot was asked of his role, but I thought he did a solid job. There were some small silly plot holes that my wife and I enjoyed riffing on but in all we were glad we watched it. The Film Critics on Rotten Tomatoes agreed and gave it 84%, the audience score was 22%…so, maybe some haters in the wrasslin’ community?
I See You (2019, Amazon) - Strange occurrences plague a small-town detective and his family as he investigates the disappearance of a boy. Not intended to be scary, but definitely fits in the thriller category. My wife and I enjoyed this one as well, the many twists and turns kept us excited. I really can’t say much without ruining it and I wouldn’t do that to you guys.
I watched Night Of The Living Dead for the first time last night, courtesy of Rifftrax on youtube. Mike, Bill and Kevin made it utterly hilarious, by the way.
Okay, I’m new to zombies and don’t know all the rules. So, zombies eat human flesh? Then why don’t they just eat other zombies? There are plenty of them, at least in this movie, and they don’t move any too fast. Should be easy to catch dinner.
I’m not clear on what turns you into a zombie. At one point in the movie it was said that getting touched by zombies infected you and you became a zombie. At another point they said that it was recently dead people who (something something radiation) arose from their graves as fully-invested zombies. Which is it?