It’s a great example of appropriately giving fans what they want. Not overly indulgent or long, but well earned and an awesome moment. My crowd did not roar, but there were audible “No way!” type noises all through out the theater.
The Princess (2022) on Hulu. Video game script where each level of a medieval tower (from the top down) is completed with swords, knives, and a lot of kicking. No real story; just a lot of fairy tale martial arts with the title character backing her anachronistic feminism with super-fighting skills . Entertaining as long as you keep your brain switched off.
Leave No Trace
A lovely intimate film with Thomasin Mackenzie in her breakout role. About a PTSD vet raising his daughter solo camping in a wild forest park next to Portland Oregon. Never over-dramatic, never over-explained, never cliched. Stellar.
Ha! I’m watching this (Leave No Trace) right now, and enjoying it very much. So far it’s reminding me somewhat of The Maid, a single parent trying to survive with a child.
I couldn’t figure out who is Thomasin Mackenzie? Coincidentally I watched One Night in Soho last night, and finally made the connection. She’s good.
I love this movie. The first time I saw it, I told everyone about it. A couple of years later, I was on a plane flipping through the available movies thinking of watching something new, and there it was - so I watched it again.
In addition to Thomasin McKenzie (also in JoJo Rabbit), that was my first view of Ben Foster, who’s great. (and who was just as good later in Hell or High Water)
The War Zone, from 1999, directed by Tim Roth. I saw this when it came out, and was astonished by it; now it’s on Tubi and other streaming platforms, so rewatched it, and I can’t think of a movie where raw emotion that seethes and then explodes is more believable.
Tom is a sullen teenager in a family that recently moved from London to an isolated house in a coastal town; he’s having a hard time of it anyway but is burdened with a secret he can’t come to terms with. His older sister Jessie deeply cares for him, but when he tries to talk about it she pushes him away, a situation that has to boil over at some point, and that point is made more urgent by their new baby sister that has just arrived.
This is like a Harold Pinter drama, where the bad hidden things must ultimately come out, but there’s no clever dialogue, in fact everyone speaks so plainly and quietly you might miss a lot of it. Don’t worry, what is said matters less than what is left unsaid, and when it inevitably bursts forth the effect is searing.
I recall this got strong reviews when it came out, but not many people went to see it, and it doesn’t seem to have lasted in the cinema pantheon, but I can’t think of a film with so many brave performances, the two young leads especially, both making their first appearances, and I can’t imagine this film being made today.
And I have to ask, why is this Tim Roth’s only directorial credit?
The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft
A must see for everyone. I am a Werner Herzog fan, but I can admit when he makes a movie that isn’t great. This movie, however, is one his absolute finest.
Did you see Grizzly Man, the movie about Timothy Treadwell and his obsession with bears that got him…eaten by a bear? This movie is also about a couple who loved something so much it got them killed. This time, it’s volcanoes. Katia and Maruice Krafft loved volcanoes so much, they filmed them and traveled to see them. Yes, they died in 1991 from a pyroclastic flow off a volcano in Japan.
The footage is almost all from the Kraffts and Herzog has made another masterpiece. It’s everything you want or expect from a Werner Herzog movie.
I hope it wins Best Documentary at the Oscars next year. I loved it and it will likely be in my top 10 of the year at the end of the year.
Rentable on Amazon for $2.99.
Watched Sid and Nancy (an awesome Date-Night Movie!) tonight. Always entertaining. Great acting, great story, great movie.
Nancy reminds me a little bit of my sister. Complete nutcase.
I was reading Total Film, an in print movie mag recently and this was mentioned as being problematic, and sort of brushed over.
But just looking at the subject and reviews from the time now, it seems as if there was backlash against an “incest movie”, which I don’t think got Roth a lot more offers.
Tim Roth didn’t write the movie, it was scripted by the man who wrote the novel it was based on. Hard to watch (I tried not to mention the incest theme, but never mind), but Roth shows a great flair for directing actors and I can’t see how this would have harmed his future prospects, unless of course he chose not to do any more.
Which he has chosen, at least for now,
Do you think there’s a chance you’ll ever want to direct something again?
I’ve got two scripts right now that I am interested in doing, but do I think I’ll do it again? Probably not. If those scripts are good, I’ll pass them on to somebody I think would be great for them, but I don’t think that’s in my future anymore. I got it outta my system.
There’s another new film about the Kraffts!? I just saw Fire of Love, also a documentary entirely made from their footage detailing their romance and love of volcanoes.
This is a Debra Granik film. In a 25 year career, she’s only made three feature films (sort of the Terrence Malick of female directors). Down to the Bone (one Vera Farmiga’s early roles), Winter’s Bone (Oscar nominated, and the film that jump started Jennifer Lawrence), and Leave No Trace.
She also directed a 2014 film called Stray Dog. Of her four films, two have Rotten Tomatoes scores of 100% and two have scores of 94%. This is the critics score, not the audience.
Don’t give up on the Conan Doyle tale! I highly recommend the 1988 version with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFXT7_cKgKo
I’ll second that. This has to be the most-filmed Sherlock Holmes story, and there are lots of bad versions out there. One of them has William Shatner as Stapleton (shudder).
Actually, the version with Basil Rathbone (1939) is pretty good. It was Rathbone’s first outing as Sherlock Holmes, in what would eventually become a long-running series. They were so unsure of how it would go over that he didn’t even get top billing (or even his picture) on the poster.
as a follow up, they made The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes later the same year. Supposedly based on the William Gillette play (it isn’t – it’s an original story), it’s still relatively faithful to the character, and set in the proper time period. With the next film, though, they switched Holmes to the then-present-day, with disastrous results.
Agree. The “modern day” movies were nearly as bad as the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marples.
In the last few days or so, I’ve watched (from my DVD collection):
Avalon (the Mamoru Oshii sci-fi-movie);
M (the Fritz Lang movie);
Doctor Faustus (with Richard Burton);
Henry V (the Kenneth Branagh movie);
Richard III (with Ian McKellen);
Justice League Unlimited (Season One) (the animated series)
Appreciate the recommendation. I’m looking for this now.
Here’s a piece about the two restorations. As I said, I like the Shepard version (I’ve got both)
https://silentmoviemonsters.tripod.com/TheLostWorld/LWRESTORATION.html
This appears to be the Shepard restoration:
As a companion volume , I recommend The Annotated Lost World, with annotations by Pilot and Rodin. If you can find it. I see that Abe Books is selling it for $100, which is pretty steep.