Hardcore (1979). The movie opens with snowy winter scenes of children playing, and from the outdoor decorations it’s obviously Christmas. The first 15 minutes or so is spent establishing the pious nature of a typical church-going midwestern family, especially the religious father. When the young daughter of the family is sent on a church-sponsored trip to California with a bunch of other kids, she suddenly goes missing.
The movie concerns the efforts of the father, excellently portrayed by George C Scott, to find his daughter, which takes him into the seedy underworld of pornographic film-making and prostitution, a world in which he distinctly doesn’t belong but in which he must prevail. One of the lines near the end of the film, said to the father by a private detective he had hired, when he asks him if the detective can do something for the sex worker who had helped him in the search for his daughter (paraphrased from memory) “Go home, pilgrim, you don’t belong here. There’s nothing you can do.”
This blast from the past is surprisingly effective, and though the film is disturbing at times, the cars, clothing, and hairstyles of the era are nostalgic to us geezers. This is not something I’d go out of my way to see, but if it comes your way, it’s worth the time.
I remember watching this on HBO decades ago. And I also remember being incredibly impressed by George C Scott. A good movie about a very depressing subject.
Wikipedia says Roger Ebert gave the movie a four-out-of-four-star review for its “moments of pure revelation”, particularly in the scenes between Scott and Hubley. [Season Hubley played the sex worker whose aid the father enlisted to help in the search for his daughter.] Gene Siskel gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and called it “both a rich film of ideas and of strikingly real characters”. He thought George C. Scott gave “one of his finest performances” in the film. Also of interest, Warren Beatty was originally supposed to be both producer and actor in the role of the father, but left the project over disagreements with writer and director Paul Schrader.
I just finished watching Final Destination (2000). I almost turned it off at several points because I started to think that it sucked so bad. I stuck it out until the end and you know what? It sucked so bad. The order that ‘death’ planned, or whatever, made little sense. The deaths weren’t that clever. What was with the killer sentient liquid in the bathroom? Even the cinematography was half-assed.
I saw one of the sequels a few years back and at least I enjoyed the cartoony death scenes in that one. This one just sucked.
Are they all like what? There are some similarities in Wes Anderson’s films. For any director or screenwriter or certain other movie cast or crew positions there are often similarities in all the films they are in. It may be true that the similarities for Wes Anderson are more obvious than in most cases. That doesn’t mean that they are all equally good or bad. Wes Anderson’s movies vary between great and not very good, in the opinion of people who have seen a lot of then, although there is no consistent ranking of them. Tell us what you noticed in particular in The Phoenician Scheme and we’ll tell you if that quality exists in all his films.
Sort of stylized to the point of being disorienting. It’s not set in the real world, but it’s not a classic fantasy setting, either. Somewhere between Coen and Kubrick.
I saw it at a theater in an area I worked in about 20 years ago, but has changed quite a bit since then. It was very quiet, too, for a Saturday night. I walked around a bit. After a movie with such old-fashioned trappings, strolling around an area of modern offices felt like being in a very sterile, science-fiction setting..
Here’s a long article about why his films feel so different:
There are books about his style, like Wes Anderson’s Symbolic Storyworld: A Semiotic Analysis by Warren Buckland and Wes Anderson: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work by Ian Nathan.
I took film courses in Uni and benefitted however at times the act of dissection conflicted with the ability to suspend disbelief and just enjoy. To a lesser degr ee dissecting poetry or other works of art can interfere with the enjoyment.
To point I suffer from the same issue after a career supplying professional Mac users with equipment and in particular monitors/screens.
It’s too easy to look critically at the tech rather than the work /story itself.
I’m in conflict right now trying to get by the technical frustrations with the quality of Wicked and lose myself in the story.
Trap (2024). I think this film has been discussed before along with a more general discussion of the works of M. Night Shyamalan. I think we can agree that although he’s done some good stuff the quality of his films is inconsistent.
There’s no supernatural stuff in this one; here, Shyamalan sets out to do a conventional thriller. Part of the problem is the incredibly improbable premises it makes to set up the drama, like setting up a massive police cordon to try to trap a serial killer believed to be in attendance at a huge concert (I was amused to immediately recognize the exterior shots as being the Rogers Centre in Toronto). But despite significant flaws, it actually does manage to build suspense at some points and has a few interesting twists. Mildly recommended, with particular reservations for those who might be put off by the lack of believable realism.
As my free AppleTV+ subscription is about to run out, I made it a point to watch Sir Steve McQueen’s “Blitz.” Though critical opinions were split (some finding it tedious and slow-moving) most reviews leaned toward the positive.
Set during the Nazi “blitz” of London during the Second World War, the story centers on a 9-year-old boy named George (an amazingly good Elliott Heffernan) whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) sends him off with a trainload of other children to the perceived safety of the English countryside. George will have none of it, and leaps off the train at his earliest convenience. As he tries to find his way home again, he meets grave danger (and dangerous people) time and again. A parallel story has his mother searching for her missing son.
The special effects depicting the blitz are harrowing. What those people went through is hard to imagine. The acting is great. I found myself believing in all the characters without reservation. Slow-moving and tedious it is not.
I often judge a movie on my emotional response to it. As long as I don’t feel I’ve been crassly manipulated, if the story moves me in some way, it’s done its job.
And there’s not a single “F-word” spoken. That in itself gave it another star in my book. I get so tired of being assaulted by profanity in just about every movie and TV show I watch, often for no purpose than to shock.
“Blitz” is recommended if an historical drama with a gripping story and believable characters appeals to you. Run time is just over two hours.
An understatement. I was at a theater when I first saw a trailer for Asteroid City, and from the color palette of the first frame (lots of pink and yellow) I knew it was going to be a Wes Anderson.
I am not really a Wes Anderson film. They are all just too twee. Phoenician Scheme was fine, it had moments I enjoyed but his overly stylized aesthetic just does not appeal to me.
Hustle (Netflix). (I have to assume it was made for Netflix as I don’t recall a theatrical distribution.) Adam Sandler plays an NBA scout who finds a diamond-in-the-rough playing on a playground in Spain and shepherds him, against adversity, into an NBA tryout. With Queen Latifah, an unknown playing the diamond, and a lot of cameos from past and current NBA stars.
Not particularly an Adam Sandler fan (or a basketball fan, for that matter) so I had low expectations, but it was quite enjoyable. Cliched – if you like training montages, you’ll love this – but that’s OK.
ee dissecting poetry or other works of art can interfere with the enjoyment.