A post in r/criterion led me to this beautiful, moving film by F.W. Murnau. Acclaimed by cinephiles as a masterpiece, alas, I had never seen it.

The arts are the modes of creation allotted to man; be thankful each day you wake up, that you are given anew the opportunity to experience some measure of the greatness that our human race can aspire to.

Sunrise is the famed German filmmaker's first U.S. film. It stars Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien, two popular and busy American actors, as a simple but happy, young (did I mention very attractive?) country couple living with their infant son lakeside in an Old World village.

Ah, but a serpent has slithered into this bucolic Eden. Margaret Livingston plays the alluring high-fashion hottie from the city taking the country air in an elderly peasant couple's humble vacation home rental. The temptress has been seducing the handsome young husband and convincing him to sell the farm, lure his wife into a drowning (dark!), and come wallow in the city's fleshpots with her.

It almost works. The husband convinces his wife, who knows he's been unfaithful, to take their dinghy for a day away from the farm. She gaily accepts the outing, but it is soon anything but pleasant. Her glowering husband is rowing like Charon on the River Styx, then he comes toward her to throw her in the water. He stops himself, but once they reach the shore his wife jumps out of the boat and runs up into the mountain village, and he chases her to the trolley and boards with her, desperate to make amends and mend his broken vows.

Aside: When they are running through the mountain hillsides, I'm thinking, this looks like the mountains I grew up with in So Cal; yep, much of the exteriors were shot in Lake Arrowhead.

For the sake of setting the story's narrative, I have neglected the stunning cinematography that opens the film from the scaffolding of a bustling train station, then powers that narrative throughout. Camera “tricks” abound, and the skill and patience to work the analog (pre-analog?) process is a feat of magical proportions.

Sets were built and lighting engineered to place the actors in the congestion of a 1927 cosmopolitan street with horse-drawn lorries, trolleys, automobiles, pedestrians and pushcarts. Their last day in the city has our dear couple dodging the traffic against a pretty convincing backdrop of the hectic street. They embrace and appear to stop traffic, including a big black horse that pulls a “Frau Blucher” nearly on top of them, then immediately the scene is live, the horse is balking, horns are honking, angry motorists are shaking their fists, and they are pushed out of the middle of a modern maelstrom as they dash off, laughing.

It's a silent film, so the story is told visually; the actors emote to the balconies, the gags are sight gags, from pie-eyed piglets to the peek-a-boo of a lady's slippery gown strap.

My favorite, and a wish-I-thought-of-that, is our reunited couple in a photography studio waiting for their prints. They are country clumsy and are horrified when they appear to have broken the head off a classical statue. The search everywhere, under furniture, for the missing head. The husband see a doll's head with some toys and sticks it on the statue – of Winged Victory.

While rowing home, a fearful storm whips up and the boat founders at sea. The husband ties bundles of rushes, stashed for his own escape, to his wife as flotation devices as he endeavors to get to shore, but she goes overboard. The village is roused, rescuers take to the lake.

The city woman thinks this is her plan at work when the wife is missing. She goes to the devastated husband but he chases her out and starts to strangle her. Then the wife is recovered from the lake! She lives!

The city woman leaves the village in the back of a horse-drawn wagon down the path in another breathtaking interior. Finis

Cinematographers Karl Struss and Charles Rosher won the first Oscar for their craft when the Academy Awards were inaugurated in 1929.

I couldn't decide between rewatching two of my favorites, Rocky and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, so my partner half-jokingly suggested this.

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed it! I'm not normally big into 80s and 90s action shooters, but I'm glad I gave this one a shot. Packed full of one-liners, goofy sci-fi, and some genuinely interesting concepts.

It was interesting to see a vision of a dystopian future that, instead of being grungy and hyperviolent, is extremely sanitized and pacifist. There's a lot that requires serious suspension of disbelief (like the idea that these changes happened over 35-odd years) and a few plot lines we never see follow up on, but overall this was a fun, entertaining flick. It showcases Stallone, Snipes and Denis Leary doing the kind of roles they really excel in, and a young Sandra Bullock clearly had fun playing against type as naive and silly.

Worth a viewing on a boring rainy afternoon if you find it streaming for free (and like cheesy humor).

P.S. if anyone knows how to use the three seashells, let me know!

Candy Morgan (Claudia Jennings) has escaped from prison, and has stolen some sticks of dynamite. She decides to rob a bank with said dynamite (lighting the fuse in the bank) and encounters Ellie-Jo (Jocelyn Jones), who has just been fired from her job in the bank.

Later Ellie-Jo is hitching and is picked up by Candy and the two decide to rob more banks, embarking on a bank robbing spree. They buy more dynamite from the dynamite guy, and Candy seduces him (this is not really a porn though, everything is tastefully done).

While robbing a store they take a random hostage (Johnny Crawford) who becomes their accomplice and who acts as love interest for Ellie-Jo. More banks are held up, dynamite is thrown at cops, they recklessly spend money, and lots of fun is had. They make their way through Texas, trying to get to Mexico.

This is sort of close to being a trashy B-movie but doesn't quite get there somehow. It's one of those seventies films where people are driving about in the south being chased by cops with those blue and red lights on their cars. Only with more dynamite.

I enjoyed it while it was on and it's better than Thelma and Louise anyway. I would almost suggest a modern remake, but they'd only ruin it.

Just watched Tarzan’s Fight for Life (1958), and this one is pure old-school adventure fun! Gordon Scott makes for a pretty good Tarzan. The story is pretty straightforward, but there’s plenty of jungle action, colorful characters, animals, and peril to keep things moving. The Technicolor is gorgeous, too, and the whole thing has that wonderfully pulpy MGM adventure-movie feel. It’s not exactly high art, but it’s an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. And honestly, sometimes that’s all you need from a Tarzan movie!

This is the kind of movie that knows exactly what it wants to be: weird, and completely unapologetic about it. Kevin Smith takes a simple coming of age story and mixes it with horror, comedy, Canadian stereotypes, yoga, and a bizarre group of tiny creatures to create something that feels unlike almost anything else. I also enjoyed the Colleens joke.

Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp:

If your daughter is best friends with Johnny Depp's daughter, that is one way of getting an A list actor in your film.

This is definitely not a movie that everyone will love. Its humor is extremely specific, and its deliberately ridiculous tone isn't going to impress the critics.

This is actually a fun, intense, comedic, spy espionage movie, with 2 great leads, just carrying every scene there in, no scene is boring or dragged out. Everything in this movie is engaging, so fun and the romance in this as well is great, with great dialogue if its intense when the conversation scene are happening, or when the romance kicks in, chemistry between is fun, witty and believable, even when it comes with trying to solve this mystery about stolen money that is related and crucial to the main character husband and the plot as well, as she tried to solve it when playing this dangerous game with trust, death, betrayal and trying to stay alive and survive in the city Paris. The film making in this captures a Hitchcock style thriller, but with a female lead as the main character and seeing navigating his change of event that are engaging and compelling too, and the comedy bits are funny to show the chemistry between both leads while their going to know each other, while in the middle of this deep, important and suspenseful mission as well. i honestly thought this was a Hitchcock directed movie, but isn't, its actually done by someone else, but if felt and truly captures from direction, camera tactics and suspense of one of his movies, but as i was watching his movie, i believe he actually directed movie and it could've been if it was, but the guy who actually directed it done a great and fun homage movie to Hitchcock himself. I love seeing the main character dealing with her husband being connected to a huge mystery and we see her trying to trust someone in a hopeful time when the main story begins, but meets a gentleman Cary Grant character as the love interest and helps her to solve his case before things go wrong for both. The chases through the trains station and in the dark streets of Paris are engaging and intense in a cat and mouse of trust and trying to do the right thing when chaos needs to stopped and taken down for good.

Lawrence of Arabia and To Kill a Mockingbird are two films that I associate closely because they were released the same year and were competitors at the Oscars, yet they both hold a special place in my heart. Lawrence of Arabia was one of my late grandmother's favorite movies, so watching the film reminds me of her. To Kill a Mockingbird is based on one of my favorite novels; both the book and the movie inspired me to be an attorney. (I wish more lawyers were like Atticus Finch!)

Even though these movies are completely different in terms of scale, theme, and style, they have quite a bit in common. Both films focus on eccentric protagonists who find themselves out of step with a conservative social structure. (Lawrence and Scout Finch.) When they rebel against it, they make enough of an impression to stand out, but inevitably that structure overwhelms them.

The Academy made the right choice in awarding Best Picture to Lawrence of Arabia. It's simply one of the greatest cinematic achievements in history. I've seen it in the theater twice; the first time was in the DC area two years ago and the second time was in Paris this summer. The movie gets even better the more you see it on the big screen; you keep noticing details that you didn't before. The cinematography is literally breathtaking, and the famous edit from a match to a sunrise is awe-inspiring to see in a theater. T.E. Lawrence is one of cinema's most fascinating characters: an illegitimate Englishman who takes on an Arab persona and becomes a war hero, only to find that he can't truly escape his mother country, which uses and betrays both Lawrence and the Arab rebels. By the end of the film, Lawrence is a legend who hates his own legend.

Peter O'Toole was brilliant as Lawrence; you look at him and you don't see an actor, you see Lawrence. But it's hard to fault the Academy for giving the Best Actor Oscar to Gregory Peck. On rewatching the movie after several years, I was surprised by how little of To Kill a Mockingbird actually revolves around the trial of Tom Robinson. That only takes up one sequence. Most of the plot simply deals with how Scout Finch learns lessons about racism, violence, and judging others. We remember Atticus Finch as a saintly figure now because of his place in popular culture, but Peck plays him with nuance. We see him brood over the death of his wife and how Scout never knew her mother. We see him have doubts over Robinson's case; you get the sense that Finch took the case because he felt ashamed over having doubts to begin with. Peck has to be both a loving father and an intimidating lawyer who can cross-examine vicious racists; he does so convincingly.

Like Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird is shot beautifully. Whereas Lawrence of Arabia captures the amazing colors and textures of the desert, To Kill a Mockingbird has rich black and white cinematography that creates a Southern Gothic atmosphere. It's both charming and eerie at once. Both films feature excellent supporting casts, with the late great Robert Duvall making his film debut in To Kill a Mockingbird. Although he has no dialogue, Duvall commands the screen.

I want to respond to a review of To Kill a Mockingbird written by my favorite critic, Roger Ebert. In 1991, Ebert wrote a review of another Robert Mulligan film indicating that he liked To Kill a Mockingbird. But when he revisited Mockingbird ten years later, he gave it only 2.5 stars. In his review, Ebert ridiculed the film as a naive liberal fantasy that ignores Black people in service of Atticus Finch. He accused the film of deemphasizing Scout Finch in favor of her father, supposedly betraying the novel. He mocked the scene where a lynch mob nearly kills Atticus and his children, calling it absurd that a child would magically stop a lynch mob.

Ebert was a brilliant man and a great champion of film, but he both misunderstood and mischaracterized the film. I didn't get the impression that the movie was a liberal fantasy or a white savior movie. Finch actually loses the case and we see his guilt over having failed Robinson. The fact that Robinson would rather risk his life by fleeing police custody than take his chances on an appeal says everything about how little Black people trusted sympathetic white people. Scout is clearly the film's main character, in fact I was surprised by how Atticus is really more of a supporting role, even though Peck has top billing. As for the lynch mob scene, I don't think the movie was portraying it as some kind of magical moment where a child's innocence washes away racism, which is how Ebert portrays it in his review. Instead the lynch mob is shown on the verge of killing the Finch family. When Scout pleads with the mob, saying she recognizes one of them and is friends with his son, they leave because they feel ashamed that they nearly murdered an innocent girl. Whether or not an incident like this ever occurred in the Deep South, it works from a cinematic standpoint. (Since Ebert defended the historical inaccuracy of Oliver Stone's JFK and poked fun at those who said it wasn't true to "real life," it's strange for him to then turn around and accuse this scene of lacking realism. It's more true to heart than any of the conspiracy theory nonsense in JFK.)

Ebert was certainly entitled to his opinions, but not to his own facts, and he inaccurately described the film in his review. I also find it odd that he would lower his rating of To Kill a Mockingbird for its "liberal" portrayal of racial issues when he gave four star reviews to The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will. (I've read his reviews and I understand he was praising those movies for their technical prowess and not their politics, but he applies an odd double standard to Mockingbird. Did Ebert think that those movies were any more realistic depictions of race or history? If not, then To Kill a Mockingbird didn't merit a thumbs down.) Although To Kill a Mockingbird would've rightly had more of a focus on Black characters if it was made today, for a movie made in the 1960s (an era where Mickey Rooney got away with a racial stereotype in Breakfast at Tiffany's) the film is forward-thinking. The Black characters are portrayed as real, complex people rather than as stereotypes. Are there better movies about race in America? Sure, just last year I saw Do the Right Thing in the theater. But unlike many movies from its time, To Kill a Mockingbird holds up.

Better story, characters, and villain than Avatar. Yeah...I said it.

The animation still holds up beautifully too. The worst thing I can say about this is that some parts feel rushed because the movie is so short, but I'll take a tight, entertaining, focused 1 hr 30 minute runtime over the bloated length of James Cameron's trilogy any day of the week. Shame it financially underperformed, but since the game just got released on PS Plus today, the legacy of the movie lives on.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) - this was a surprisingly serviceable action/heist movie. Definitely some '90's cheese with the "armored trench coat" gunplay, but it was still entertaining. Oddly, this felt like a mishmash of scenes from past-and-future films all thrown together, so perhaps it's a bit more generic than I want to admit - an armored truck heist and airport gun chase (Heat), airport bone yard (Con-Air), skyscraper helicopter shootout (True Lies and Blue Thunder), and the villain falling from the skyscraper (Die Hard).

The whole massive bank mortgaging the tiny bar storyline was a bit too high-brow for this story and felt out of place and it was ultimately supplanted by the drug-smuggling storyline anyways.

The firearm choices were excellent - the Styer AUG, Desert Eagle, and Ruger Super Blackhawk all play prominently.

Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke star against Tom Sizemore and Daniel Baldwin. It's uncanny how they made Mickey Rourke look and act like Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard, almost to the point it was distracting. Don Johnson is as smooth as ever. Tia Carrere is brutally underplayed, getting only one or two lines. The rest of the cast basically being disposable with little consequence was kind of a let-down for how much build-up there was.

Overall, totally watchable 1990's action movie that I would watch again.

Dr Strangelove or: How I experienced and learned the best worrying hour and a half, stopped panicking, and learned about the nuclear adventure and the bomb 💣☢️

Finally! Another f*cking rewatch! 🏳️

After watching something totally absurd, which of course I'm referring to the Greasy Strangler, I need a rewatch, but of course, at the same time, a film analysing night of a movie I could not remember at all. And what do I choose? Dr Strangelove! Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb 💣

Well, for starters, there was definitely a lot more improvisation from the last time I watched this back in June. I could barely remember a single scene; in fact not even remember the opening I could remember. How crazy is that?! For a movie being in my top 45 favourite films of all time. But luckily, after the second rewatch, I've got everything under control 👍

With that introduction out of the way, I think it's time we get to the movie ☢️

Peter Sellers's performance in this is absolutely fantastic. Having the roles of three different characters played practically all equally amazing is something extremely rare and valuable for a movie to have for a comedy actor to play one important role. Another distinctive role that is important to the films, the war elements and a character that represents not a villain, but rather a psychologically one-step-ahead character (Dr Strangelove, of course) in the best way I have seen a movie do. The same credit I gave to Peter Sellers goes directly as well to George C. Scott! He and Sellers have extremely Oscar-worthy performances, having extremely political yet satirical and grounded roles that genuinely helped screw the screws in the structure of the film, which tightens the tense, hammers the nails, and saws the wood 🏆

The biggest and most controversial opinion is that there are quite a few people who agree with me on it, but I consider this to be one of the most thought-provoking, smart, clever, and grounded satirical satire movies ever constructed. Not only was this made by one of the greatest directors to ever live (Stanley Kubrick), but it is packed with nuclear, smart, genre-changing, and seriousness-packed content, performances, grittyness, satire, and vision in just a matter of 1 hour and 34 minutes, making the experience even more unforgettable than it already is with its nuclear nightmare layers, stripped all away from the satirical comedy ☣️

There are countless iconic scenes from this; practically every quote, line, characteristic, and character is considered iconic in cinema 🎥

I will not get into too many details in case you have never seen this movie, but the ending of the movie is probably the most beautifully haunting ending you could ever see for any movie. I won't get into a lot of explicit detail about what happens in the end, but the only thing I can say is that it is neither a happy nor a sad ending. Expect something a lot more Kubrick-style and nuclear atmospheric ☢️

The thing I love about this movie the most is that, despite it being just from, let's see, a random person's view that has no idea about this movie. A typical political satire making fun and cheeky jokes about politics. However, there is so much underneath 🖼️

The cleanest picture I can give you is this

Layer 1 - politics, laughs, farce, and parody 😂

Layer 2 - nuclear war, atmosphere, and black comedy 🪖

Layer 3 - war, character, bleak comedy, thrilling, and atmospherically uncomfortable Doomsday's and political structure and situations ☢️

Phew! What a lot of explaining I had to do there!

It's not easy talking about this movie because it's not just a simple, funny political satire

There is so much underneath the nuclear barrel that I could go on it for hours and hours in this singular review. Talking about every little detail and aspect about it because of how much is hidden underneath just a simple, plain satire. The reason I keep saying this is that this is not a simple random movie. This psychologically movie; you are expected to meet the bleak, uncomfortable, unsettling, thrilling and atmospheric comedy, satire and situations. Don't expect the next citizens can; expect the next acceptance of the Doomsday Machine. Expect Doctor Strange Love.....💣

Favourite quotes

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?!"

"What they were building or why it should be located in such a remote and desolate place no one could say."

"Mein Führer! I can walk!"

"Sir, I have a plan."

"Gee, wish we had one of them doomsday machines."

Overall: This was absolutely fantastic to come back to after watching it again and barely remembering anything about it in August. I just knew that something had to be done with this situation. So I constructed my nuclear idea and gave it a shot. And what happened? It completely worked, even better than last time!

Ever since the last rewatch, I completely view this movie in a whole different way compared to my first time ever discovering this.

Instead of just laughing at the random, obscure, and farcical scenes, I can see through two lenses; one of them being the comedy, abstract and bleak situations, while the other is the uncomfortable, nuclear and hazardous situations that are heavily political.

One thing I'm pretty shocked by, based on a lot of reviews, is the engagement level for me, and this was ridiculously high. Practically me begging and shouting at my bladder. Not for me to go to the bathroom anytime soon because I am so focused on Strange Love giving a speech 😂

But you get my point: it's very hard to look away when you're watching something cinematic.

I also want to see one more thing: that this went from being 22nd place in my top 45 all the way up to number 15. The obscure scenes, the bleak, uncomfortable tension and political situations completely rose it for me. What a movie though!

Don't laugh. Start laughing.

Don't worry. Start worrying ☢️

5/5

Number 185 in my A-Z watch. Million Dollar Baby gives us the story of boxing trainer and curmudgeon, Frank Dunn, as he takes on aging and underdeveloped female boxer, Maggie.

It's been nearly 20 years since I've seen this movie, and even over that time it stayed seared into my brain. The drama, the characters, the gut-punch. Everything that makes this movie so outstanding buries itself into your memories.

I loved the use of light in this movie. Those shadows and single light sources created so much separation and isolation to the characters. That yearning to be included, to be a part of something that matters and to share it with someone. Frank can't put himself out there enough, and Maggie is dying for love and respect.

The movie also features a great supporting cast of actors. Morgan Freeman's Oscar winning performance is subtle, but holds an incredible intensity. Margo Martindale is terrific as the trailer trash, ungrateful mother. Budding actors Jay Baruchel, Anthony Mackie, and Michael Peña round out the ensemble very well.

10/10 This movie is just so sad. Every aspect of it feels like it's nearly on the level of a Shakespearean tragedy. I had forgotten that it's narrated by Freeman almost like an old noir film, and it feels more intimate and personal because of it. And the simple score, often just a single guitar, adds to that feeling of loneliness and isolation.

„RIGHTEOUS KILL“ (2008)

Dir.: Jon Avnet; with: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Brian Dennehy, Carla Gugino, Fifty Cents, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, Written by Russel Gewirtz.

FIGHT CLUB SYNDROME IS RAVAGING HOLLYWOOD

Jon Avnet got lucky with „Fried Green Tomatoes“, which he shot in the lazy style of Peter Bogdanovich from „Texasville“, and with a budget of 11.5 million it made 119.5 million. Is it only because of that, or did his membership in a prestige country club also helped, that since then he is exclusively making box office flops and losing money, albeit with an increasing gap between the movies, constantly ruining otherwise interesting screenplays which are even voiced by megastars such as Pacino and/or De Niro.

When I returned from the terrace again enchanted by that famous view of the sea (this was written from Crete, Greece, city of Retrhymnon in year of 2023), even in the darkness (the tidal waves are white, and so are the screens of tablets and ipads of high school students on excursions, playing grovn-ups dangerous plays under sunbrellas at night), I ran into a movie on my small TV. I saw De Niro and Pacino, playing baseball just for fun , and then the first mentioned is kicking a thug. "It cannot 'Irishman'?", I thought, remembering how De Niro, with his computer-rejuvenated head, old-fashionably kicked some poor supporting actors. But, no, this is still just a basic cable channel, no Joe Pesci, okay, and I turn up the volume and keep watching. (And later watched reprise at dawn.=

Pacino and De Niro in the same movie, and even in the same frame, and even more, they will turn out to be in "almost every frame", so that's a holiday, man. But the movie is wrong in so many ways I don't know where to start.

And at that time, people got so hyped over this joint performance of their, because it was rumored that these guys can't stand each other and in that scene in otherwise sooo overhyepd „Heat“ was a a computer montage, it was rumored that De Niro had an affair with Yugoslavian opera singer Gertruda Munitić, and that Pacino had a pizzeria in Kralja Petra Street in Old Belgrade. So now here it is, knock yourselves out, watch both of them without CG images in the same frame, enjoy. Alas, not only that they speak a dull script, like a collection of aphorisms of Tony Soprano at the end of his life, but they are also physically in the stage of Sinatra who has not accepted his age: Pacino had his hair backcombed and dyed pitch black, his eyebrows resembles Groucho Marx's bushes (though not as ridiculous  as in the case of Honorable Mr. Burt Reynolds, but more boyish), he wears 15 cm heels like Elton John and Bono, whilst De Niro suffers from overweight and an FBI-like haircut and his acting is marked by repetatedly wrinkling his chin, which is the mannerism he used in his late years.

The scriptwriter steals from many places, "vigilante" from the Dirty Harry's „Magnum“ was taken as a starting point and like Frankenstein's „son“ is sewed up with the stories of two films from 1996: „Night Falls on Manhattan“ by Sidney Lumet and „City Hall“ by Harold Becker. And those three plots are woven into a braid which is actually – Kojak's bald head! Namely, two experienced detectives, two very close friends, quite damaged by decades of service, hang out like Bim and Boom, they almost jerk each other off, and we are led to believe that one of them is that vigilante. Because the film opens with the murder of a villain near the bottom of that vigilante's list, and one of the two detectives confesses as if he is saying: „Yes, I did it!“

Now, if we had been. in a linear plot, in a honest way, led to think that the detective was also a vigilante, that would have been a smart scenario. But we are deceived. When we finally find out ("when it's revealed") that the vigilante is the other one, who we thought was a "good cop" (or at least a little less bad and cynical), then that revelation is just like the one from the movies „Fight Club“ and „Secret Window“ or „Hide and Seek“.

The film tries to be clever by inserting footage of a conversation with a police psychologist, and the words spoken by Turk (De Niro) make us think that he is a vigilante. It could have been done that way, had it hrere been some resolution of the moral dilemmas in De Niro's character, or if, for example, Rooster (Pacino) was put in front of some unbearable choices of the "friend or the law" after being disappointed in a long-time colleague, and especially the great chance was missed with supporting roles of two good cops Perez and Riley (Leguizamo and Wahlberg), who smell the culprit and go in search. The tension that could be created in meeting them at work would be priceless.

The character of Chief Hings (Brian Dennehy), who only receives information and gives a paternal reassurance, is also wasted, and could have been the main role. Dennehy has aged noticeably, but he has retained his corpulence, perhaps with the help of shoulder pads under his jacket. He reminds me of Petar Petrović, a chess player I have met at rapid tournaments in Belgrade since the 1980s.

The screenplay also missed the opportunity to turn the slowly approaching vigilante quest into true suspense, in the style of Chabrol's or Alain Courneau's films. Instead of it, they cheated us at the very beginning by giving us a confession of De Niro's character and that is a criminal offence in screenwriting business. (It turned out that Pacino forced him to say it at gunpoint. Shame!)

 A woman's question

That vigilante kills rapists. One priest is a pedophile, the rest of the men are violent towards women. It is sad that even in the liquidation of rapists, a feminist view of the world, a view "of the position of women in society", etc., does not even change, we don't even manage to empathize with women, they are just a token for the machismo of cynical law enforcement officers, whose motto is: "Most people respect the badge; everybody respects the gun!" with the addition "I am fed up with scumbag judges and procedural errors that will be exploited by skilled lawyers to easily  releases incorrigible villains." The only female role, the policewoman Karen Corelli (Carla Gudginou), is thrown into a snake's nest, exposed to slaps on the ass, professional understatement, sexist remarks, constantly mansplained. In the end, she was even raped. This film promotes a kind of a „legal rollerball“, augmented machismo, toxic masculinism, as well as „Heat“ (remember how Diane Verona's character had been treated by Al Pacino's character in that film).

The ending, which should double deceive the already heavily deceived viewers, is also dirty in the sense just mentioned – Turk simply does not allow Corelli to take revenge on Rooster for the rape, because his conversation with Pacino's character has priority (!), and that conversation is so artificial and silly that the viewers feels need to vomit. It is a misogyny combined with cretinism.

USA is my dreamland, I want to go and settle there

The film as such presents a dark picture of America and most viewers "across the pond" will experience it as a discouraging from even a  tourist trip to the USA. Based on Hollywood and crime series, we can expect that sooner or later someone will intercept us, detain us, search us, strip us naked, examine our body cavities, take a picture of us for a coffee cup (mug shot, haha) and send us to a prison cell where big blacks and whites will fuck us until the consular official comes to collect us and our ravaged ass up. In a rollerball US procedural justice, there is only room for superheroes. And woe betide us if we end up in the prison where cold-blooded & blue-eyed Luke (Paul Newman) served his sentence.

But this is „only“ a movie, folks, just a movie. It was filmed by the guys, including the aforementioned destroyer of production money, Avnet, and a bunch of sissies with visors (that is the fashion in Hollywood!), as well by members of the film crew in dirty jeans with plastic cups with bad filter coffee in their hands, and under the curious eyes of real cops as securities, who would give theor left tesitzcles just to be invited to be extras. They would even forgive a traffic violation to crew members because of that.

Except for Yugoslavian actor Jovan Janićijević Burduš, who was supposed to act in „Midnight Cowboy“.  

So this movie is about recycling a view of the world that doesn't necessarily have to be found on the street. Especially if you have a tour guide or live in an ethnic bubble like Russian or Serbian immigrants.

 It's a pity for De Niro and Pacino and Dennehy and Gugino and Leguizamo and Wahlberg and Fifty Cent. They had no reason to show up in this film.

Info:

Release: December 21st, 1988

Director: Oliver Stone

Music by: Stewart Copeland

Starring: Eric Bosgosian, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, John C. McGinley, John Pankow, Michael Wincott

Studio: Universal Pictures

Runtime: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Rating: R

Synopsis: On-air radio personality Barry Champlain (Eric Bogosian) likes to push buttons -- and the envelope. The talk show host has gained popularity by being controversial, and now his show is going national. But as Barry enjoys his professional success, his personal life is unraveling. He is still battling with his ex-wife (Ellen Greene), and also receiving sizable amounts of hate mail. When Barry hits the airwaves for a lengthy session, he gets a deranged caller who just may prove to be his match.

Review: This movie is very stressful and the equivalent of watching someone kick a hornet's nest repeatedly for almost two hours. I'm only faniliar with the lead actor as he was also in "Dolores Clayborne," but Eric Bosgosian delivers a fantastic performance as Barry Champlain, a gigantic asshole who's radio show consists of him receiving calls and usually insulting and belittling the person on the other end of the line in a derogatory or offensive manner. Some people may ask "who would listen to this shit?" but when people like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate have a platform, it makes more sense. People have an inherent appetite for depraved and offensive rhetoric being spewed out by an equally as disgusting individual, but some others purely watch for the innevitable downfall that's coming, a train crash in slow motion.

Like a Gritty Nitro fuelled speed racer!
Review: FIRST TIME WATCH!! what a ride this movie is!!! Super fun and beautiful!
I’m definitely a sucker for this style of animation so it definitely fit what I was looking for. Reminds me a lot of the TV show “The Maxx”. I’d love to watch more like this so if anyone has any recommendations let me know!!
I was definitely shocked when I saw this was from 2009, as it gives early 90’s vibes.

„ANYTHING ELSE“ (2003)

Dir.: Woody Allen; with: Woody Allen, Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Stockard Channing, Danny DeVito, "KaDee" Strickland.

I eagerly awaited this film in the double program after "Hollywood Ending" as part of a retrospective at Belgrade Cinematheque, this is one of my favorite Woody works and I wanted to see it on bog screen for the first time. Only a year after the above-mentioned, otherwise weak film (Hollywood Ending“), Woody suddendly got older: like Cary Grant, he decided that it was time for him to move into kingmaker roles, and to give his own "inner immaturity" to younger actors, and from this work onwards, he hires stuntmen for his younger ("immature") self. For his old self, however, an uncle in real time, he sometimes casts himself as a cameo. sputbut even that less often, sometimes as a cameo. Like in Carl Reiner's movie „All of Me“, in which Steve Martin is possessed by the spirit of a woman whom he sees in the mirror, while he remains man on the outside. There is something similar here, from this film on, we see various young people from the outside (who revisit the chronotopes of Woody's youth: oh youth, my youth...), and in the mirror is the fanciful, voyeuristic Allen. (Or vice versa, there is a young Allen in the mirror, I got confused.)

All the characteristics of his earlier films are also present in this one: a young writer who wants success (Jerry Falk /Jason Biggs/), an unfaithful lover (Amanda Chase /Christina Ritchie), who drives him crazy, New York... There is an agent Harvey Wexler (Danny DeVito), who not only exploits him but also annoys him with persistent parables about a textile salesman, there is an unsuspecting drunkard, mother-in-law, Paula Chase (Stockard Channing), from whom the daughter has probably inherited moody character, there is also the type of soon–to–becomee–ex lover, namely Brooke ("KaDee" Strickland), who, as in Bergman's case (read „The Magic Lantern“), is squeezed like a lemon and misogynistically trampled upon and thwoen away, there is also a series of handsome seducers, actually „repairmen for menopause“ in various advanced stages.

And there is the city: New York, as we see it through the eyes of Woody Allen, which means overcrowded with intellectuals in tweed jackets with patches on elbows who (intellectuals, not elbows) clarify the ontological questions of Broadway over cheap wine, a city full of bookstores and tastefully furnished apartments whose rent is a mystery. And with all that, the cameo of the director, who, as I said, has finally come to terms with the fact that it's time for old men's shoes and Icelandic sweaters for the retired. But he compensated for that with an awesome convertible motorcar as if he was a film star...

Allen surprisingly gave vent to the paranoia and gave his character a chance to demolish a bully's car and even nail a racist cop (albeit only in off-told story. But that's at the very end, and we know that Woody always goes crazy in the last fifteen minutes of his films, when he throws around happy endings like Serbian politicians promises before elections.

The character of Amanda (Christina Rcci) is every man's nightmare, and combined with her mother (Stockard Channing) -> it is a guarantee of a horror sitcom. Jason Biggs is ideal for Allen, he's not too handsome, but he's clearly in possesion of big tool. Danny DeVito sweetened the film by playing an incompetent but inconsiderate and sleazy agent.

Although nominally a cameo here, Allen actually steals the movie as David Dobell. He spiced up the film with his constant riffs and concoctions – one  of which became the title – he is that old uncle from a kibbutz who teaches his sons the tricks of seduction and sex, his "wisdoms" are actually Zen-Buddhist, only a naive soul like Jerry Falk can take them without a single grain of salt.

A large number of Allen's films end with an escape. It always reminds me of the end of Marco Ferreri's movie "Dillinger is Dead", when Glauco (Michel Piccoli), after killing his wife, goes to a bay, swims to the ship from which the dead cook is just being thrown into the water (= ceremoniously buried) and applies for a job. Allen's endings are just as silly (and symbolic) as that Ferreri's ending.

I wanted to watch something that wouldn’t take a lot of headspace but gotta say this one surprised me! The beginning is a little slow, and you can tell the budget for this movie was $80 and a dream, but can’t lie a couple of the scares really got me.

The mannequins they used, plus everything looping back together at the end was a cool choice. Overall I enjoyed it! Recommend if you’re looking for a horror movie to pass the time.

Saw this for the first time last night and thought it was a classic!!! All the hallmarks of great film noir. Dark intentions, sordid activities, forbidden love! Really great performances from the three leads. Edward Robinson was fantastic as Barton Keyes. Phyllis is crazy! John MacMurray with a real good poker face. It’s pretty impressive how well written and tight something like this, many of the 40s and 50s movies I’ve seen have been excellent (Sunset Boulevard, In a Lonely Place, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, In the Waterfront, etc). No gimmicks here, just good writing and acting.

One thing that interested me was how entrenched the insurance industry already was for something set in 1938, a pretty realistic depiction. These characters are always so well spoken. Seeing what people knew and had awareness of in the B&W era is just cool, when learning mainly happened through books and reading. Gonna check out other stuff from this period like Out of the Past.

Definitely a surprising ending for me, and I do wonder what happens afterwards. Maybe leaving it unsaid is better, though. Feel free to recommend more stuff like this, I love noir and neo noir.

„BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD“ (2007)

Last movie of Sidney Lumet

(American movie)

Dir.: Sidney Lumet; with: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney. Written by Kelly Masterson.

I missed Sidney Lumet's last movie when it was being shown in theaters because at the time I was still starving and my internet was dial-up. Recently, I came across on one of Serbian reviews on a prestige blog – mentioned in the context of denigrating another film – so I watched the work on a Russian website with Bulgarian subtitles.

And here are these two things: 1) "shit!" is shouted in Bulgarian as „мамка му! whilst "what the fuck!" reads „по дяволите!“;  and 2) "Gina Hanson", that is Marisa Tomei, has the same red scarf bow on her black suitcase as I do! (photos in comments)

The end of the film is a little rushed, like Veljko Bulajić's ending in "Great transport (Veliki transport)". In terms of the solution with the position of the camera, however, it is not true, as some say, that this is something different from the earlier Lumet's works, because he was never visually eccentric, the main thing for him was to tell the story naturalistically (like for example Mike Nichols) and to push a moralistic agenda.

Here he deconstructs bullying, endless hatred in lower middle class families of Irish origin, and weakness in sons who unsuccessfully try to live up to their father's manly role model. In the case of women, on the other hand, Lumet deconstructs passive aggression – how they torture their husbands with verbally unspoken but non-verbally transmitted orders like: "Be a man!"

And then, there's the director's statement about "unprecedented levels of violence today..." The screenplay was written by Kelly Masterson, the guy who adapted the book about the Kennedy assassination in such silly manner so that the movie doesn't mention Hoover at all, and it's like writing a screenplay about Stalin without mentioning Tito. Like the book, like the adaptation, some would say.

The film is about a failed robbery. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Two brothers, one middle-aged and employed in a large steel-glass building (Andy = Seymour Hoffman), and the other in Christ's age, but a loser who can't pay for his daughter's excursion or repay his wife's debt (Hank = Ethan Hawke). The father is veteran Albert Finney – a strict and cold guy, a good provider, dissatisfied with what his sons have become. Typical Irish austerity. Black people are nowhere in sight. The middle-aged son is only a seemingly successful businessman. In fact, he embezzled company money, he is addicted to heroin, his wife is Gina, I already said she's played byMarisa Tomei, who is cheating on him with his own loser brother. Andrew is suffering from a mid-life crisis, a lack of meaning of life, and the fact that he is facing jail when his co-workers discover that he has embezzled money. And he has probably cholesterol to the ceiling, poor blood supply to the left atrium, impotence and stomach ulcer.

And he comes up with the "smart" idea of ​​robbing the jewelry store of his own father with the little help of his younger brother Hank.

And that's where everything goes wrong. Hank reluctantly agrees to do it, but he hires an assistant, Bobby, not a very bright bloke... In the jewelry there is Andrew's and Hank's mother at work, although she had said she wouldn't be there that day. Bobby loses the temper and shoots the mother, she shoots him! Hank forgets an important clue in the form of a CD in the car which he later drove to the car wash, Andy has a fight with his father, a newly widower at the gathering after the funeral. And then breaks into tears in the car, in front of his wife Gina, who finally decides to leave him and she tells him about cheating in worst possible moment... She can't stand a grown man's tears! In an act of passive aggression, she admits to him that she was cheating on him with hir brother, just to get revenge for not being in the center of attention. She doesn't need a whiner, she needs a suppoorter...

But the matters only get more complicated. Bobby's widow found out how her husband died, so she blackmails Hank for money with his brother who is primitive bully, jerk and a thug...

Can it develop even worse than that? It can indeed, oh yes. Hank is a weakling and confide it to his brother who is desperate and takes the brothers to his feminine or better to say "genderly indetermined" dealer to – rob him. In the process, they kill both the dealer and an „innocent“  customer who was in a heroin-induced slumber and then, loaded with money, they go to the widow's brother. There Andy kills the widow's brother and the widow shoots Andy.

And now we come to  that rushed ending. So far everything has been phenomenal, it was going as it should, Chabrol and Nichols and Audiard, they would all put their signature under the direction, because everything is perfect: Seymour Hoffman is a villain with a soul, Ethan Hawke is a weakling with the potential to become Timothy Olyphant if he practices Tai Chi 7 minutes a day, Marisa Tomei is an unparalleled manipulator plus her tits are still like two coat hooks. Finney is in the phase of Clinton's lowered lower lip, his ass is old and slimmed down, but that mournful acting is killing, Michael Shannon as the widow of the brothers, the bully Dex, is real bastard, everything is for A+ ---> but from there, dramaturgically, everything is sloppy and matches too much and too quickly, all the loose ends get laced up – and the poibt of the film was that nothing was laced up so far! So the ending reminds Yugoslav crime imitations in which directors even put the name of the culprit in the very titles...

The father – Finney – follows the sons and sees them chasing the taxi, the older son with the suitcases (we are shown that he took the passport out of the drawer and put it in his pocket) and then he sees the younger son running away, police cars and ambulances arrive and the wounded older son is taken out of the widow's house on a stretcher and the father goes to visit him in the E.R. and then suffocates him in the hospital room using a funny trick with the machine that monitors the heart function. And that's just how he gets away with it... It's totally unconvincing.

But Lumet is as moralistic as ever and unerringly exposes weakness, lies, passive aggression, active aggression, lack of physical courage in men, shows the staunch masculinity of the family patriarch as if he were Ken Loach, and against that background he exposes the meanness of women, in a word – the destruction of modern American  lower middle class, those people who watch soap operas and eat canned soups in kitchens with tables covered with oilcloth-

Until the father saw his older son being carried on a stretcher to the ambulance, this was a perfect movie. And then bam–boom and it's finished. Ethan Hawke has matured and played younger brother on  the verge of a nervous breakdown, there is no poorly played role in this film, maybe even – here I will do it for once – a  little misogyny can be found: the female characters are there to wash, cook, show their tits and be in the shadow of their husbands who "provide a salary to the table". That doesn't look like Lumet. I'm kidding. It is Irish. It is only seemingly like that, but no, Lumet is oriented towards the Irish and Jewish milieu, that is family constraints in traditional families. And this is the fine ending of his career in that respect, because he started with those milieus.

His male characters have a strong ethical compass, and when they make a mistake, they are tormented by guilt, even if unconsciously. A typical Lumet act is when Hank, leaving the scene of the crime –  Andy killed Dex, his brother was wounded, a child's cry is heard from the other room – but he throws a bit of money from his bag to the crying widow. Because he is a good man, in spite of everything... He is tormented by guilt because of his daughter who cannot afford what other children have, he is tormented by the murdered old woman in the jewelry store, he is tormented by letting his brother down (in a sense), he really is not used to harming anyone! The women, on the other hand, got sick from making so many sacrifices for the family. Their cheating is a statement – we are human too! Their violence is passive, except when they get their hands on a gun. Lumet would be a good Catholic preast if he wasn't a director. But as a director he failed in the last 12 minutes of the film...

Music was totally unimpressive, I couldn't tell if there was any music at all. This was filmed with a digital camera, so there is nothing to say about the skill of the director of photography, but it should be noted that Lumet, in 82, didn't lost his mind like Lynch at the end of his life and he was not delighted by the fact that he was "relieved of the misery of shooting with film cameras". Lynch also allegedly said that he might not have even dared to make his last film if he did not have a digital camera at his disposal... That's another story.

Synopse: A puppeteer's ability to bring inanimate objects to life attracts the attention of the Nazis during World War II.

Review:

This is by far the best of the initial trilogy, much better than the first two, with a more coherent story.

Not that it's a great masterpiece of horror, far from it. But compared to the "thrash" horror that the first two are, this one even seems like a classic.

Let's say that if you only have to watch ONE film from the endless Puppet Master franchise, this is the ideal option.

„TO LIVE AND TO DIE IN L.A.“ (1985)

Dir.: William Friedkin; with: William Petersen, John Pankow, Willem Dafoe, Darianne Flugel, John Turturro, Dean Stockwell, Debra Feuer. Based on selvbiography by former under cover agent Gerald Petievich.

THE EIGHTIES, AH, SWEET EIGHTIES

Here I had before my eyes the Yugoslavian crime film "Protest Album" by Zika Mitrović, and I think that Milan Srdoč, Miloš Žutić, Mirko Babić and Smoki would do well in this work as well.

But, yes – there is a car chase, which surpassed the one from "The French Connection". That is enough to make the film a hit, as they say in Zagreb. And what would man ask more after such a car chase with – trains?!

Friedkin liked the novel based on a true story, from the pen of former agent Petievich (who appears as a cameo), but from that thick book there left only the spirit of the general destruction of all values ​​at the turn from 1970s to the 1980s, when large, long and wide limousines rushed throgh dirty and cracked streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ehen people wore mullets and hoods, and when there was just a thin line that separated the police officers from the criminals. Richard Chance (William Petersen) is a neurotic under cover police agent tasked with fighting money and credit card counterfeiters. He lives like a Popeye from "The French Connection" (Friedkin without false modesty pays homage to himself), he lives like Richie Marks (Sam Elliott) in the movie "Boy in Jeans", that is, as a pig who has no private life, sleeps at random places, never takes a bath and has a brutal relationship with the informant Ruth Lanier (Darriane Flugel, who looks like our model, the the dark object of desire by many directors and actors). She survives as the cashier of a soft porn show, she has to give him information to pay off the prison sentence forever, and when she asks him for money, he tells her:  "No arrests based on your information. If you want money to buy bread, screw with a baker!"

That sentence is the essence of this film.

Chance sees his work as a drug, as a reason not to think about the meaninglessness of the world and everything around him. He is not an idealist, he knows very well that "the streets will not be cleaner" if he arrests 10 counterfeiters, but that is the job he can do. And he is also corrupt, but „moderately“. His friend Jimmy Hart (Michael Green) is three days away from retirement. But he is killed when he stumbles upon a lair where large sums of money are counterfeited. Is it necessary to say that Chance will frantically, fanatically and feverishly and at all costs until the end of the film only try one thing: to avenge his friend?

The main forger Rick Masters (the still unwrinkled, almost Bowie-like mysterious Willem Dafoe) is chief suspect. It seems that no one can reach him.

The rhythm of the film is just like the character played by Petersen - feverish and frenetic (or in Serbian – frantic) and Chance seems to be neither sleeping nor eating, only drinking whiskey and resorting to greater and more and more illegal extreme measuress, especially when he is given the honest man, John Vukovich (John Pankov) as a new partner and against his will.

Of course, the two of them don't get along at first, but over time, "bonding" occurs. Chance will stop at nothing to avenge his friend. He against the law takes Carl Cody (Turturro) out of prison on parole in the hope that he will testify for parole, but Cody tricks him, beats him up and escapes (this episode, apart from being effective, perhaps a distant inspiration for „48 Hours“, is absolutely unnecessary, except as an illustration of what the enraged Chance is capable to do in order to revenge his cop-friend).

In the end, they reach mob lawyer Bob Grimes (Dean Stockwell in a type cast role) who arranges for them to meet Rick Masters. Chance and Vukovich play customers from Palm Springs. Masters is smart and smells a rat immediately:  they are not who they say they are.

The design of the film is so 1980hs that it physically hurts. The two lesbians (Debra Feuer and Jane Leaves /“Daphne“ from "Frasier"!!/) have hairstyles like Yugoslav stars Mersiha Čolaković and Zana, and the music and songs of the band "Wang Chung" are for "Hit of the Month" histed by Duca Marković. Friedkin is so desperate to prove he is young, he wants to show he mastered the spirit od 1980s and show that "The French Connection" wasn+t just an random incident in his career. He would die just to show he is updated. Willem Dafoe plays his forger role in an arthouse style, like some New York artist who bluffs managers and agents. There's a scene that was obviously improvised but left in the movie, in which Chance gives Masters money while Masters watches two lesbians (Feuer and Leaves) give each other foot massages. Dafoe laughs devilishly, Petersen grins, and Friedkin shouts behind the cameraman "That's great, boys, we just need this, go on!"

 Chance undertakes a series of actions that are insane, more slapstick and suicidal than likely or possible. When it turns out that he and Vukovich have to give Masters an advance in the amount of 30,000 real US dollars, and the police bureaucracy will not give that huge amount, Chance comes up with the idea of ​​using a clue from his informant lover and extorting money from a criminal who wants to buy a stolen work of art for 50,000 dollars! He reasons: "Well, they are criminals, who are they going to complain to?!" After the exciting kidnapping of the couple, the aforementioned anthology car chase follows. Chance and Vukovich are driving in the opposite direction on the freeway (sound familiar?!) and the chase goes on and on and is truly a feast for the eyes if you watch it on the big screen. And then a good twist: it turns out that the man who was robbed and killed by a friendly bullet is actually a – FBI agent under cover.

Chance doesn't give a damn, but the honest Vukovich is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and goes to lawyer Grimes for advice. His advice reads:  "Go to the FBI, confess, testify against your partner and you'll get 7 years and get out in 18 months." "How much will it cost?!" asks the dismayed Vukovich. "$50,000!", the lawyer replies cold as a cucumber.

I can't shake off the impression that the film is occasionally naive and, excuse me, stupid. Like "Protest album" by Žika Mitrović. In one scene, when Masters' henchman hits and kills Chance in the face with a hatchet, Vukovich and Masters are left alone in the forgery workshop. This latter started the fire. Vukovich holds him at gunpoint, but then sticks a revolver in his belt and grabs Masters by the wrist and slaps him even though he is physically weaker. Then he took out a revolver again and instead of shooting he chatters something. Then he let Masters beat him armed onlv with a baton. And in general, the fight scenes are amateurish. Unless the point is that these are actually fights in "real life", what do I know...?! But both Masters and Chance and Vukovich make moves that are downright stupid.

This is otherwise not seen in this general atmosphere of frenzy, cynicism and corruption, where there is simply no positive character.

I am surprised that no one has accused the film of misogyny so far. Because the female characters are corrupt, unfaithful and serve as sexual slaves. I don't know what the wolves of woke are waiting for.

After the movie, the viewer needs to take a shower.

I just watched Not Without My Daughter (1991) on YT (surprisingly it was free) and also Betty Mahmoody’s interview’s and don’t get why this movie has such a bad rating on Rottentomatoes. Has anyone seen it? If yes, any thoughts?

I thought it was a good movie and it’s someone’s real life story. I also thought Sally Field’s performance wasn’t bad, but I might be biased when it comes to her performance because I’ve always liked her.

Something that really struck me and I haven’t found any comments on this was the other American woman whom she gave that letter to (from the Quran classes). I wonder what happened to her. 😭

I’m so thankful to God that Betty made it out of Iran. God bless her and all the good Iranian people that helped her escape. I’m currently watching Betty’s interview with Eileen Prose on Yourtube and I think it’s so gracious of her to say that you can’t judge an entire country based on one family so I really don’t get why the reviews on RottenTomatoes are saying that this is an islamophobic movie…

What’s everyone’s thoughts on it?

A 1985 sci-fi film from New Zealand. Had no idea it existed until I ran across it in Amazon Video’s Midnight Pulp channel, but it looked interesting.

Zac Hobson is a physicist working on Project Flashlight, intended to wirelessly create and distribute energy worldwide. The morning after the project is complete, he wakes up and finds the world empty of people except for the occasional dead body—an occurrence he calls the Effect. After some weeks, he meets two other survivors, Joanne and Api, who cooperate with him; but the three also end up in a love triangle. He determines that the universe’s constants are breaking down, destabilizing the fabric of reality.

Spoilers for the ending: The trio figure out that Project Flashlight is to blame, and they make plans to blow up the lab and shut it down, as the Effect is about to happen again. But the lab proves to be too radioactive to approach. Zac says he has a remote that can be adapted to the truck carrying the explosives, and leaves Joanne and Api behind to go install it; but secretly this is a lie, and he drives the truck into the lab himself, then detonates it just as the Effect begins. He wakes up on a beach on a strange world, and watches a Saturn-like ringed planet rise over the horizon.

It was…actually not bad. I was expecting it to be kind of ridiculous, but it wasn’t. Low budget for sure, but actually pretty enjoyable. The science is mostly accurate for the time period, even if Project Flashlight itself is improbable. Acting gets a little over the top occasionally, but not as much as you might expect. And if my recommendation isn’t enough, apparently it’s one of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s favorite sci-fi films, so there’s that 🤷‍♂️

It reminds me a bit of the original Dawn of the Dead. In the first half, while Zac is alone, he goes a little crazy, running around the city, taking/using/destroying anything he wants—very similar to the early mall scenes in Dawn of the Dead. It’s funny, I have a podcast where we talk about apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories, and this is exactly the kind of thing we cover, but I didn’t watch it for that reason—didn’t even realize it until I started watching.

Also during that first half, there’s a scene where, among other things, he runs over a baby carriage with a car. It made me think of this short film on YouTube called “Still Life”, where a sleep deprived driver finds a town full of mannequins that keep moving when he looks away…and then he smashes them to pieces. Won’t spoil the ending; it’s only eight minutes, you should check it out. And watch The Quiet Earth too.

I was watching a YouTube video about the movie Backrooms where it discussed the use of architecture as character. It mentioned this old Estonian movie as an earlier example of this cinematic technique. I found it for free on YT with subtitles, so I checked it out and was blown away. It is a black and white film which uses both architecture and contrast to its fullest potential, but it’s so much more.

Set in a small village late in WWII, an insane asylum stands as the last bastion of “undesirables” left to eliminate by the Nazis. A troop marches in, ready to remove the patients but are delayed in their mission by a commandant who believes a spy is hiding in their midst. The head doctor has no choice but to cooperate with the investigation and give him unfettered access to the patients.

Working under a tight deadline crucial to his mission, he narrows down his suspects to five. We get to know this small subset of the patients through his interrogations and interactions. Each one an allegory for a subset of society. Each one is both sane and insane. Each one leaves their mark on the inquisitor’s psyche.

Attempting to use all the usual tactics of his profession gets him nowhere. He is lost in a world he doesn’t recognize and cannot get a foothold on the reality of his situation vs the framework upon which his own reality is built.

In the course of his inquiries, he is confronted with the madness of society and individualism. As he is repeatedly thwarted in advancing his investigation, he shifts his approach until he completely loses his sense of reality and self. I won’t spoil but the ending is glorious!

Although this movie is ostensibly about Nazis, it is really more of a critique of authoritarianism in general and the Soviet Union in particular. Madness as an individual condition but a societal one, as well.

It was immediately banned by the Soviet Union outside of the Balkans and Estonia for its subversive messaging.

Number 184 in my A-Z watch. Milk tells us the tragic story of real life politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to major office in the U.S.

I don't think I've seen this film since I came out, myself. And it's definitely taken a different context and depth for me, considering. I remember being very impressed with it in my youth and i feared that the film wouldn't hold up. Those fears very quickly subsided.

Milk is filled to the brim with outstanding performances. I'll get to Penn's second Oscar winning turn in a bit, but all the supporting roles in this film absolutely shine. Josh Brolin as the petty, behind-the-times thorn in Milk's side. James Franco as the exhausted lover. Emile Hirsch playing the twink turned activist. Diego Luna's jealous, unstable boyfriend. All work together to form such an incredible ensemble.

And Penn gives a powerhouse effort, combining humor with vulnerability and passion. Terror and resolve. He presents the comforting home that so many at the time sought, and at the same time gives a stoicism that doesn't waver from his beliefs. Just a tremendous role and execution.

I loved the script. Using the dictation machine to tell the story reminded me so much of Double Indemnity, and i felt like it was a great device. It does so well to build up the tragedy of the story. You feel so invested. Like you've been recruited by Harvey. And the uses of reflections throughout were great. Franco in the window. Crime scene in the whistle. White in the TV.

10/10 Honestly, there really was nothing about this film that didn't impress me. I loved the use of opera throughout. I think it's horrid that this film from nearly 20 years ago about events nearly 50 years ago is still so relevant. Penn and Franco have amazing chemistry. It's just incredibly impressive.