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Avgrunden (2023)
Surprisingly high thrill level!
Most Swedes are probably aware that the entire city of Kiruna in northern Sweden town has been been moved (and is still in the process of being moved) due to the LKAB mine expanding and the risk of cave ins are therefore substantial.
...or something along those lines.
This well-made and fantastically exciting Swedish disaster movie paints a scenario in which the impending collapse becomes fact.
Frigga (Tuva Novotny) is in charge of safety in the mine, and she tries to balance the relationship she has with her demanding job with the relationship she has with her two children and her ex-husband (David Franzén), and now also her new boyfriend (Kardo Razzazi) - who have just come up from Uppsala to surprise her in Kiruna, right on time for when everything starts going to hell.
Avgrunden certainly lives up to all the usual disaster movie standards:
From a slow build of tension, to the total disaster - and everything in between.
It has characters with history, and whose personal lives you actually invest in - and to keep the tension high, the movie doesn't shy away from sacrificing a few of them.
But even if it is "standard", it is GOOD standard!
The scenes in the mine are claustrophobic on an unexpectedly high level, and the "crawling through the narrow passage" sequence in particular left me short of breath!
The chaos out on the street lacks those real mammoth proportions, but for a Swedish movie it was still impressive!
The last bit felt a little drawn out, and I would have preferred to instead see it woven into a longer disaster sequence, with the big collapse as the climax.
Richard Holm directs, and he has also written the screenplay together with his son Robin Holm aswell as Nicola Sinclair.
I have a difficult relationship with Swedish cinema, so I always get extra happy when a movie made in my home country surprises me, and this was 105 unexpectedly thrilling minutes in the movie theater!
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
70s aethetics and a great Redford
A desk riding bookworm working for the CIA returns to his office after lunch to find all of his colleagues murdered. When he leaves the building, he realizes that can no longer trust anyone.
The 70s was THE decade for conspiracy movies, with everything from war- and moon landing conspiracies to all kinds of government conspiracies - like, for example, this one; Sydney Pollack's conspiracy movie where the governing authority is - as in so many other cases - the CIA, which, to be honest, are grateful targets in these kinds of movies.
-To paraphrase Tony Stark; "Even their secrets have secrets!"
Robert Redford plays Tucker, the lone surviving CIA agent, codenamed "Condor," who spends the story's three days being justifiably paranoid.
Cliff Robertson is Agent Higgins, who you never really trust - just like pretty much ALL the characters, except Kathy (played by Faye Dunaway), who is a sort of textbook example of Stockholm Syndrome.
Tucker kidnaps her, forces her to lie next to him when he needs to rest, leaves her gagged and tied up while he runs an errand...and when he comes back they make love, and the next morning she's ready to help him with whatever he needs .
Her character is the movie's biggest flaw.
But she is outweighed by Redford and the many spy moves he executes in order to survive and at the same time seek answers to the many questions he has.
My favorite line is when Condor says to Higgins, with disgust in his voice; "What is it with you people? You think not being caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth!"
This definitely gets two above average, although I probably won't watch it again.
Paddington 2 (2017)
Absolute perfection!
Both 'Paddington' (2014) and this one are directed by Paul King, but somewhere in the middle - the first time I watched this sequel - I had to stop and check if it wasn't in fact directed by Wes Anderson...
The aesthetic is 100% Anderson, and the tone of the story (the strange sense of a "heightened reality" fairy tale) is also something Anderson is an expert at.
But no, no matter how you twist and turn it, it's not a complex and aesthetically perfected arthouse film aimed at an adult cineaste audience, but rather a cozy and very funny family movie about a Peruvian bear who is wrongly convicted of theft and winds up in prison - where he accidentally dyes all the prisoners' clothes pink, and now works as a marmalade cook in the prison kitchen.
-BUT... somehow it STILL manages to also be a complex and aesthetically perfected arthouse film!
The entire Brown family reprises their roles, with new additions in the form of Brendan Gleeson and Hugh Grant - both giving great performances! Grant in particular is insanely entertaining here!
'Paddington 2' has nods to so many other famous films, characters and actors that many of them woosh by unnoticed the first time around.
The details are all the way down to micro level, and 'Paddington 2' has a sky-high replay value (I think I've seen it at least five times in less than two years).
I don't know if this is a children's movie in an adult costume, or an adult movie in children's clothes... But I do know that this one, for me, is one of the best sequels ever made, and as a movie it is absolute perfection!
Paddington (2014)
Really - REALLY good!
I remember having zero interest in this one when it came out. I saw a trailer, and as far as I could tell it was a CGI fest aimed entirely at children.
So I ignored it.
But then a few years ago it appeared on one of the streaming services we have, and I just figured what the hell...
Nothing makes me happier than to see that I was wrong about how bad a movie was going to be - and here I was definitely wrong!
'Paddington' is a funny and intelligent movie, which with its colorful design is stylistically reminiscent of those artsy movies made by the great Wes Anderson.
The story, about the young Peruvian bear who comes to London to find a new home, may sound like something intended almost exclusively for children, but there is so much more to take from it, not least themes of exclusion and xenophobia.
A truckload of great actors (not least Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins and Julie Walters) make this pretty mucg a must-watch. And Paddington's pleasant voice (Ben Wishaw) gives the hapless bear an air of gentle innocence... Because, you know, it wasn't actually his fault that the house flooded, or almost burned down... It was just a set of unfortunate circumstances.
Above all, 'Paddington' is fun, with subtle quirky details to be found just about everywhere.
But the very best thing about it is that when you've seen it - and liked it (because you will like it) - you are ready to take on the absolutely fantastic sequel!
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
It got worse the more I thought about it...
It's been so long since I've seen many of these older Disney classics that when I rewatch them now, it's often like seeing them for the first time.
The characters are not as horrible as in 'Cinderella' (1950) but the story - which is based on a tale that is almost 700 years old - is boring...
In medieval France, a princess is born, who is named Aurora and who is betrothed to Prince Phillip already from the cradle.
At the festivities to celebrate her birth, she is given by the fairies the gifts of "beauty" and "song", and by the evil Maleficent - simply because no one invited her to the party - Aurora is given a death curse for her sixteenth birthday... This is, mildly put, an overreaction.
The fairies save it by changing the death sentence to "a deep sleep until she receives True Love's First Kiss", and then hides her away in a cabin in the woods, where they will watch over her until she passes the set death date.
We then quickly jump to that particular day, and get to see the three fairies stumble on the finish line... Because reason.
Sleepy time.
The prince to the rescue!
Hacking through thorn bushes.
Hacking through the Dragon.
Big kiss!
And they lived happily ever after.
I have a faint memory of not liking this one, even as a child - and I was an EASILY AMUSED kid!
Eyvind Earle's edgy cartoon style doesn't work for me, and it doesn't mesh with the prince/princess (the only two characters drawn as real people), and it makes the movie look like a Hanna-Barbera production.
Yes yes, I'm whining, I know.
But as much of a "classic" as this is, I find it a bland film with hopelessly stereotypical and useless characters.
-And it's not even beautifully drawn!
Marathon Man (1976)
Slightly disappointing 70s thriller
This was my first time watching this John Schlesinger directed classic, starring Dustin Hoffman.
The only reason I - who enjoy the 70's aesthetics, and who is also a fan of Hoffman - have avoided this one, is because one of the things it is known for is scenes of dental torture...
-And I suffer from severe odontophobia.
But I guess sooner or later I would have to take it on (this movie, not my phobia).
-I do have to say that I don't think it met my expectations.
It's a pretty messy story, which doesn't reveal much.
Most of the time, that's a story telling method I enjoy, the need to sit through 30-40 minutes before everything happening gets some sort of explanation.
Here, though, it's takes more than half the movie before Janeway (William Devane) gives Babe (Hoffman) answers to the questions he's asking...and since it turns out he might not have been truthful, I don't even know if it counts.
Anyway, when the credits started rolling, I still had lots of questions about some of the characters.
Hoffman shares the spotlight with Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier - as well as Marthe Keller, who plays Elsa Opel, a character whose shift in loyalty in the third act should probably come as a surprise, but she was either poorly written or poorly acted, because the surprise was non existent.
Like so many other 70's thrillers, 'Marathon Man' leaves its audience in a grim and dejected mood. Everyone is dead, the answers are few, and life sucks.
One extra point for Hoffman, who despite being way too old (39) to play a college student, is actually really good here!
PS. For those wondering; Yes, I sat with my hand over my mouth, kneading my mouth, and writhing awkwardly on the couch during the two dental torture scenes, I then kept feeling phantom pains in my teeth every time Hoffman's character showed signs of discomfort. DS.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
A bit too silly, but with well written characters.
It's been 33 years since I last saw this comedy - about how a murder is witnessed by two men, one of them deaf, the other blind.
Richard Pryor has heard the gunshot and smelled the killer's perfume, Gene Wilder saw the killer on her way out the door and knows she has nice legs - together they make almost one whole semi-reliable witness.
While there were definitely times when I laughed out loud at situations in this movie, I think it might have been funnier when I was younger.
What it does get right, however, is how it handles the humor around the two main characters' disabilities.
It could so easily have been a tasteless mess, and apparently the original script was more in that direction, but Gene Wilder (who because of that turned it down twice) was offered to rewrite it, and the result is a movie that actually gives us two main characters you can laugh with - instead of at.
Wilder and Pryor collaborates for the third time (out of a total of four) and they are pitted against Joan Severance and Kevin Spacey playing the villains, with Alan North, Anthony Zerbe and Kirsten Childs in minor roles.
Directed by Arthur Hiller, who also made Wilder & Pryor's first collaboration, and one on my top 20, 'Silver Streak' (1976).
'See No Evil, Hear No Evil' has a little too much silliness for my taste, but partly well-written characters, and some funny situations makes it worth one up from average.
April Fool's Day (1986)
Great whodunit, with more brains than brawn
I saw this for the first time over 35 years ago (and have seen it several times since then), and have always liked it!
It's quite an intricate whodunit, with a youthful touch - giving it the appearance of being a cheap Friday The 13th ripoff.
But there are good actors here, who play interesting characters that you want to know more about, and a story that for the first time viewer is pretty damn exciting!
In a large house on an isolated island, a group of young college students gather, invited there by Muffy St John, the future heir to a family fortune. She has planned a weekend full of April fools pranks, and so have the participants.
After a while, it seems that someone is hell bent on taking the pranks to a whole other level...
Deborah Foreman, Amy Steel, Ken Olandt, Jay Baker, Deborah Goodrich, Clayton Rohner, Leah Pinsent, Tom Wilson and Griffin O'Neal inhabit the island, and it is they, and Danilo Bach's story, that make this as watchable as it actually is.
Charles Bernstein's music adds to the mood, and I wish it had been used more.
-But, having said that, the lack of music during the first half of the movie is also what creates the atmosphere. The muffled sounds of footsteps, drawers being opened, and doors being closed, as the party-goers familiarize themselves with their rooms, feel uncomfortable.
And letting them make various unpleasant discoveries in their rooms, during complete silence, is effective.
The whoduni-story should mean that the replay value is low, but I've seen this a number of times, and still think it's pretty damn entertaining.
The Big Kahuna (1999)
An actor's movie!
This fascinating 90-minute movie takes place almost entirely in a hotel suite, and the cast pretty much consist of just the three names; Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli, playing two hard nosed salesmen, Larry & Phil (Spacey & DeVito) and one newly graduated product developer, Bob (Facinelli), at a sales conference in Wichita, Kansas.
Based on a play ('Hospitality Suite' by Roger Rueff), consisting of almost non-stop dialogue or monologue for an hour and a half.
Much of it delivered by Spacey.
This is an actor's movie, and all three deliver!
Biting sarcasm, resignation and incomprehension, all gathered in the same pot.
The story is really about the contradictions and differences of the various characters.
Phil, who has worked in the business for decades, is painfully aware that he peaked long ago, and now mostly just trods along in the hamster wheel. Deep down wanting to quit being a salesman and do something else - or kill himself (both seem just as tempting depending on which day it is).
Larry has also worked in the industry for a long time, but still runs full steam ahead like a runaway freight train, with all his thorns pointing outwards. He has no time for introspection (and even if he did there wouldn't be anything in there to find).
Bob is a newly married, newly graduated and traditionally religious young man, living in a reality bubble.
In his world, he lives a righteous life, and therefore do no wrong, so he has no regrets - and that, according to Phil, means he will never have any character.
If you're in the mood for something like this, the 90 dialogue-filled minutes will absolutely fly by!
Shimmer Lake (2017)
Simple entertaining intricacy
The movie opens with the text "Friday", and after showing 20 minutes of something that's exciting but a bit confusing, it suddenly fades to black, and the text "Thursday" appears.
Then "Wednesday", and finally "Tuesday".
This is a perfect movie for those who would like to enjoy Christopher Nolan's films, but feel that they need a kind of stepping stool to get their brain in gear before taking it to Nolan-level.
It's a bit like a light version of 'Memento' (2000), written by Oren Uziel, who also makes his directorial debut.
In all simplicity, this 86 minute movie is actually really good!
It has a decently intricate storyline, with characters whose purpose and loyalties are revealed as the plot moves backwards.
It even leaves one wanting more information about some of them.
For example, I would have liked to know more about Deputy Sheriff Reed (Adam Pally), whose surface is barely scratched, but there's definitely a lot more interesting stuff underneath.
When the movie suddenly ended - without fanfare, it perhaps felt a little like I had just watched an episode of a TV series, but it was a GOOD one!
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
If seen as art, it's incredible!
Most people have probably heard of this one - but most people have probably also never seen it.
I saw it for the first time in the early 90s, on laserdisc, at a friend's house.
My biggest memory from that showing was a feeling of discomfort and almost nausea, and I instinctively never wanted to watch it again.
-But I did, of course, at least once more.
However, it was well over 20 years since I last saw it, and last week was the first time I saw it in the cinema - together with my dear wife who kindly agreed to see it with me.
Her assessment, as the end credits rolled across the screen, was: "That was an absolutely awful movie".
-And in a way I can understand her.
Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' can definitely be perceived as bad, with some questionable acting, a story that seem to lack a proper beginning and a conclusive ending, and with an excruciatingly long scene at the end that in many ways just consists of a lot of screaming.
I understand her, and am actually grateful that she didn't up and leave the theatre towards the end.
But in my eyes this is a great movie!
The grainy, documentary-like image style gives it an uncomfortably realistic feel, and Daniel Pearl's cinematography is absolutely incredible! The long lens used as Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) chases Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) through the woods makes him look like a rampaging monster, waving his chainsaw mere inches from her back.
The extended dinner scene is anxiety and panic caught on film, and the abrupt ending shortly afterwards is almost like a slap in the face, as it goes from the sharp light of the rising sun, Leatherface's chaotic thrashing on screen and the roar of the chainsaw - to pitch black silence, in a microsecond...
I'll skip over the debacle with 'Studio S', video violence and the Great Swedish Moral Panic, which gave this film the rotten reputation it had to live with in this country for almost 30 years.
Maybe not a great movie, but great film art!
Fright Night (1985)
I shouldn't have rewatched it...
Charlie Brewster doesn't just suspect - he KNOWS that his new neighbor, Jerry Dandridge, is a vampire responsible for the many dead bodies recently found in his small town.
And Charlie is determined to kill him!
A cult movie that for some reason is still dear to many people's hearts.
I saw it many years ago, and what I remembered from it then were amazing makeup effects.
Unfortunately, yesterday's reprisal was not beneficial for those memories, and not for very much else either for that matter.
Among the good things is Chris Sarandon (playing the vampire Jerry Dandridge), who seems to have had a lot of fun with his character. He really feels like a classic vampire! He is well-dressed and eloquent, charming, attractive to women and - when all hell breaks lose - also a total monster.
Roddy McDowall was greatm playing Peter Vincent, a has been b-actor, who is best known for his recurring role as a vampire slayer in a handful of really bad horror films.
Brad Fiedel's 80s synthesizer music ism also a plus.
But after that it's kind of done.
There's some questionable acting and dull characters.
Awful environments - where the hell does Charlie actually live? The entire neighborhood seem deserted as if it were the apocalypse, and just about everything has a plastic studio feel.
The effects must have been amazing to my 12-13-year-old eyes, but as soon as the movie was over, I looked up the 4 year older werewolf transformation scene from 'An American Werewolf In London' (1981) and watched it, to sort of make sure I wasn't making unreasonable demands.
-But no, I don't think I was.
This would have fared better if I had left it as a nostalgic memory from my childhood.
Chaos Walking (2021)
Underdeveloped, but ok entertainment
I had intended to watch this in the cinema, but the pandemic made those plans fall through, and I instead saw it yesterday, on TV, via streaming media.
The plot takes place on "The New World", where people in a village try to make their society work. The village consists only of men, all the women have died in a previous war.
All the men's thoughts are heard out loud, buzzing around their heads like a sparkling aura. When a woman crash-lands on the planet, she is found by Todd Hewitt, who has never seen a girl before, and now can't hide his curious, panicked and confused thoughts...
The biggest flaws here are how little background information you get about the planet and the population, as well as how and why they ended up there. It takes an unreasonably long time before you even get a clear indication in the right direction, and most characters are completely lacking their own story to dig deeper into.
Even the two main characters aren't given any further depth, and beyond them everyone else is almost interchangeable.
It's a pretty interesting story though, and the thing with the visible and audible thoughts is in itself intriguing.
It's also hard not to draw societal parallels around men's chaotic thoughts being heard, while women's are not, and that the fact that men cannot see or hear what women are thinking has led them to believe that women "lack a soul".
-Subtle, Mr. Ness. Very subtle.
I haven't read Patrick Ness's books, but as far as I know this is based on the first book in a series of three. But parts two and three will probably never be produced, due to this one losing $100 million.
The story needs more development, but this was still ok as entertainment for the moment.
Near Dark (1987)
Interesting but slightly disappointing vampire tale
A modern vampire story, written by Eric Red and Kathryn Bigelow, with Bigelow in the director's chair - her first solo directorial job.
I know this movie has a huge cult following, and is well regarded by many... which is why it feels a little awkward for me not to feel as strongly about it.
'Near Dark' has a great cast, beautiful cinematography - especially during the many night scenes, moody music (Tangerine Dream!) and a sometimes seamless combination of visual effects and awesome fire stunts.
So, after I finished watching it, I could at first not really put my finger on what it was that I didn't really like, I just knew that I wasn't excited about it.
But then I watched the 47-minute documentary (included on the Blu-Ray), and after listening to Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton tell long, detailed and incredibly interesting backstories that they themselves invented for their respective characters, before they started filming, I figured out what was lacking - and that's exactly it; Backstories! Depth! A more far-reaching story in terms of time!
The vampires Jesse, Diamondback, Severen, Mae and Homer are far more interesting than the human protagonist, Caleb. But as the movie is laid out, it is Caleb's story, and his fate, we are to invest in.
Everything Henriksen, Goldstein and Paxton said about their characters - that's what I would have liked to see, rather than an action thriller that takes place over a few days and doesn't even scratch the surface of its characters.
'Near Dark' has a very unique take on the vampire mythology, plus it's stylish and has a good cast, so it still ends up above average.
The Horror Show (1989)
Brion James saves it from rock bottom
Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen) hunts, fights and finally catches the serial killer Max Jenke (Brion James). But after Lucas witnesses Jenke's drawn-out and violent execution - via the electric chair - he instead begins to see and hear him everywhere!
Lance Henriksen is as always great, and much of the movie's appeal comes from him - and, even more so, from a completely insane Brion James!! His totally unrestrained scenery chewing is exactly the right tactic in a film like this. If you blend into the background, you will definitely become part of the crappy movie, but if you stand out from the crowd, you have a 50% chance of being the positive thing that people remember afterwards.
-And Brion James, in the role of Max Jenke, is hard to forget!
On the plus side is also KNB Effects (Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger), who went all-in and created lots of grotesque and disgusting makeup effects and loose body parts....most of which both the American and in particular the Swedish censors then hacked away (however, I did watch an almost completely intact Blu-Ray release).
The story (what story?) is completely bonkers, most of the supporting characters are made of see through plastic played by b-actors, and the very sudden happy ending feels like a bizarre tacked-on solution.
Lance Henriksen, a madly entertaining Brion James and KNB rescue it from the bottom of the barrel, and they - and ONLY they - are what makes me give it a pass.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Awful characters in an epic movie
I had planned to watch this four-hour epic for the first time in 2020, when it was scheduled for a cinema screening. But things went the way they went - and it has taken until now for me to set aside time for it.
The film, based on Margaret Mitchell's 1000-page book (published in 1936), revolves around Scarlett O'Hara, Ashley Wilkes, Melanie Hamilton and Rhett Butler (Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Haviland and Clark Gable), in the American South, during and after the Civil War.
If I were to focus solely on story and characters, this one would rank way down.
It's TOO long - four hours is well over the limit of megalomania.
The focus is on Scarlett, and it feels like the story is supposed to be told from her perspective - but it also portrays her as a horrible character! For three hours and fifty minutes, she lies and manipulates, steals boyfriends, marries for money and forces people close to her into terrible situations entirely for her own gain.
In the last five minutes, she sees the light and makes amends - but too little too late!
Rhett Butler, who see right through Scarlett and laughs at her, is the highlight of the movie for three hours - until he, at that time being her (third) husband, sexually forces himself on her... I had a hard time seeing anything positive about him after that.
The fact that this 84-year-old movie clearly shows how Scarlett is pleasantly satisfied the morning after does NOT make things better.
The cinematography and epic production is what makes this a must-see!
Scenes with hundreds of extras, grand vistas and that gigantic fire!
Fourteen years earlier, one of the most popular films was a black and white silent film, so the very audacity to in 1939 even DARE to produce a four-hour long colour epic makes me now glad I have finally watched 'Gone With The Wind ', even though I loathed the story and the characters in it.
Epic grandeur with minus points for horrible characters and an insanely tiresome and drawn-out storyline.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
The actors make it worth it!
Paul Mazursky's drama-comedy, based on René Fauchoi's 1919 play 'Boudu sauvé des eaux', was marketed as a noisy and crazy comedy in the mid-80s, which is probably why I first saw it as a 12-year-old, and I didn't like it!
I understand this movie more now than I did then, and that's not surprising, because what twelve-year-old would NOT find it difficult to understand things like rich people's guilt, class differences, suicide attempts, sexual frustrations, identity crises, and a bum shagging his way through a family of egomaniacal capitalists?
Nick Nolte is the film's biggest bright spot, as the filthy homeless bum Jerry Baskin. Apparently he wasn't the first choice for that part, but I can't think of anyone other than Nolte - nearing the absolute bottom of his alcohol and drug phase - who could have better played Jerry Baskin, and some of Baskins made-up background even has facts plucked directly from Nolte's own life.
Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler are Dave and Barbara Whitman, who live in a luxury house in Beverly Hills, and in whose pool Jerry tries to drown himself.
The frustrated Dave comes from nothing, has worked his way into his fortune, and has obvious problems with it. He's constantly looking for opportunities to ease his filthy rich but guilty conscience, and a bum trying to kill himself in his pool is a godsend!
Barbara is so preoccupied with her spiritual development and her fifteen different attempts to relax - that she is completely stressed out.
Their marriage is in the dumps, they have an anorexic daughter, a son with an identity crisis, an Hispanic housekeeper (whom Dave cheats with) and an anxiety-ridden dog.
Jerry's presence affects them all in different ways, and it's never entirely clear whether it's for good or bad.
What IS clear, however, is that Jerry is intelligent, and that he lies about pretty much everything.
The actors, especially Nolte, make it worth my time!
Leatherface (2017)
Grisly effects, but that's about it.
Unlike the disappointment 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning' (2006), it actually shows how it started, or at least how the character Bubba "Leatherface" Sawyer in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (1974) came to be.
No direct surprises in the story though...
White trash inbreeding family Sawyer's youngest son is put in a mental hospital after he participated in the murder of the local sheriff's daughter. Ten years later, he flees the institution during a riot caused by his rabid mother.
Bloody and grisly horror made after the same sad template, where frustratingly stupid characters make a series of idiotic decisions...
A couple of recognizable names in the cast (Stephen Dorff and Lily Tomlin), but nothing that contributed to me choosing to watch this. It is the connection to the macabre world that Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper created in 1974 that draws me in. There is something about that dirty, rotten and generally disgusting feeling that permeates just about everything!
It's a (groteque) fantasy, of course! Because even though I have reservations about the mentality of some Texas people, I really do not think that the whole of Texas, or even rural Texas, looks like a rotten slaughterhouse... Not even in the 50s and 60s!
But in these films it does, and they are mostly extremely well made, at least from a production design perspective.
As with all other Chainsaw sequels, remakes and prequels, it differs from the original in the amount of in-camera violence. Where the original only hints, and allows the brain to effectively fill in the rest, this one runs the line all the way to the end.
Satisfyingly disgusting, yes, but at the same time very simple and boring filmmaking.
The only interesting thing was the mystery surrounding which of the three escaped male patients we get to follow is going to turn out to be the future Leatherface. You never get to see the boy's face during the opening scene, and the film then jumps forward ten years, so that was a pretty effective way to almost force interest in a basically uninteresting film.
Well-crafted effects and the guessing game surrounding the title character lift it one step up from 2.
The House (2022)
Unnerving, offputting, awesome!
A collection of stop-motion animated films, which all revolve around a house (three different houses, or one and the same during different eras - who knows).
In style and execution, it is very reminiscent of Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' (2009) and 'Isle Of Dogs' (2018). Stop-motion movies that on the surface may look like children's movies, but are definitely made for an adult audience.
'The House', with its three stories - each with its own creative team, has three distinctly different styles.
Part 1 is a surreal and actually quite nasty story, about a poor family who signs a contract with an eccentric person, where he builds them a luxury house that they can live in, but once moved in, the parents start to change, and the house seems to be rebuilt every night!
The figures, who are human, are felted - and they have tiny little scary eyes. The voice work (by Mark Heap, among others) and the animation are absolutely brilliant, and so is the music!
Part 2 is reminiscent of 'They're Creeping Up On You', from the horror collection 'Creepshow' (1982).
After renovating a dilapidated house - and battling with thousands of nasty bugs - it's finally time for the big showing! But two enthusiastic but unpleasant viewers refuse to go home, and instead settle in - and invite their huge family!
A very odd story, where all the characters are rats (and insects). However, the animation is fantastic, albeit a little disgusting at times!
Part 3 is a frustrating story about a property owner who stubbornly tries to renovate her large house, despite a cataclysmic flood slowly but surely drowning the whole world.
All the characters here are cats, and it feels like the underlying message is that sometimes you have to let go of your set goals (especially if they risk dragging you down into the depths), and dare to drift freely!
Slightly slower than the two previous parts, but still extremely well done, and with superb voice work (by Susan Wokoma and Helena Bonham Carter, among others)!
Bewitched (2005)
One of my favourite Ferrell movies!
Two quick confessions of mine;
1) I have never seen the tv-show 'Bewitched'.
2) I usually do NOT like movies with Will Ferrell.
I do like the twist of this not being a remake of the tv-show, but rather a movie ABOUT a remake of the tv-show. Because even if I haven't seen the show, I know enough about it to see how a flat out remake would have been pretty uninteresting.
So, about the Ferrell dislike.
I just can't stand his usual man-baby awkwardness, over acting and the overbearing sillyness.
-Now, essentially these ARE the traits of Will Ferrells character, 'Jack', in this movie aswell....but the difference here is that you are SUPPOSED to hate him! 'Jack' is a whining, spoiled actor - and a BAD actor at that!
So, here all that awfulness works perfect!
His counterpart is one of the best actors of our time, Nicole Kidman. She is the necessary island of reality in Ferrells ocean of insanity, perfectly embodying the childlike joy of a real life witch discovering the everyday miracles of light dimmers and microwave popcorn.
Every tiny bit-part and co-star is great, and help set the tone of the film - which is a tone of not altogether serious, but enough - and the set decoration follows suit, with slightly too bright interiors - landing somewhere between a sitcom-look and cinema-reality.
Anyway, I digress.
I can't for the life of me understand where the 1s, 2s and 3s comes from. I've seen this several times over the past 10-15 years, and I find it wonderfully entertaining!
The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)
So awesome I can forgive the missteps from reality!
The biggest draw for me was Paul Rudd (because who doesn't like Paul Rudd?!).
Besides seeing his ever young face in the trailer I didn't catch much else, except quirky sarcastic comedy about a kid in a wheelchair who takes a roadtrip.
My face lit up when finding out about his condition!
I worked as a caregiver, for five years, for a guy with Duchennes Muscle Dystrophy. We were the same age (he was one year younger than me) and just like with Ben starting to work for Trevor, this guy (we'll call him S) was the first person I ever worked as caregiver for... He was also the only one.
He was an awesome guy, really funny, with a shaved bald head, a goatee and a spikey piercing sticking out underneath his bottom lip.
We took roadtrips, went to music festivals, saw concerts and movies, went to restaurants (he even got himself drunk on a few occasions) and we once drove 500 miles across the country to visit a huge amusement park... I was adamant that we would ride everything that was physically possible for him to ride.
He figured it would be the ferris wheel and nothing else, but I wouldn't have that! So we also went to the 4D cinema (you know with the shakey chairs and all that), and we rode the Rapid River, and the Flume Ride...TWICE!
I never heard him happier than on that Flume Ride. Howling with laughter, screaming from the top of his very weak lungs: "AGAAAIIIN!!!"
I took a lot of photos during my five years working for him, shots of us headbanging to Ozzy Osbourne and Korn (while we were at the Hultsfred Festival), a cool shot of him together with Pablo Francisco when he was on tour in northern Sweden, both of us at the Dublin Zoo and out getting our buzz on during a Dublin Pub crawl (yes, even I got a bit blurry that night) - running across the cobblestones with him laughing in a tilted back manual wheelchair.
And of course, the on-ride action snapshot I bought at that Flume Ride attraction, perfectly capturing him screaming with joy.
My favourite photo I took of him was at the Hultsfred Festival. It was taken late at night - and It's just him riding his electric wheelchair about 30 feet ahead of me, right through a hoard of drunk partying people, the tubes and wires from his travel cpap sticking out around his silhouetted bald head as he rode straight into the setting sun. He looked out of place, and right where he belonged, both at the same time.
My second favourite photo was a low angle shot I took of him in front of a backlit waterfall inside the Guinness Museum in Dublin. He looked like Professor X! 😁
I turned all the photos into a book, titled "When it was the most fun...", and gave it to him on my last day working for him.
I know he liked me, and he thought I was good at my job, but he also knew that I was quitting because I was getting tired of it, and that feeling would sooner or later lead to me NOT doing a good job anymore. I wanted to quit while I was still on his good side.
So the title of the book meant exactly that, these were the fun moments - the rest of them.....not so much.
(All the wiping scenes in the world doesn't come close to capturing everything that comes with caring for someone who is unable to care for himself).
However, 'The Fundamentals Of Caring' perfectly capture the feeling of being left taking care of someone else, when you have ZERO experience of doing so.
It deals beautifully with the topic of a fully functioning mind being trapped inside a body that just won't work anymore.
And most of all it shows that the caregiver/patient relationship can be just like any friendship, with all that it entails in the way of exchanging looks, insults, giving care, cussing each other out, and pisstaking (both literally and figuratively).
So, I can easily ignore every sidestep around some of the problems that makes certain parts of the story in this movie a bit improbable.
It doesn't matter.
The spirit of it is what matters, and that spirit is golden!
By the way; I worked as a caretaker for S from 2007-2012, and he is still alive today - 46 years old.
But sadly his muscles have seriously deteriorated during the past 10 years, and he is almost fully paralyzed today, using a cpap 24/7.
I doubt he will make it to 50. 🙁
Idiocracy (2006)
No longer a comedy...
I saw this sometime back in 2009-10, and thought it was kind of fun, but completely over the top and ridiculous.
It felt like a wafer thin plot used to run one cheap joke after the other, all based on roughly the same premise. That humanity's race towards stupidity, in 500 years time, has reached maximum peak.
Well... Guess what...
It is now August 2020 and I just saw this again, for the second time in my life.
It turns out Idiocracy has transformed into some sort of Kafka'esque nightmare!
When watching those first ten minutes after Joe wakes up in 2505, when he's walking around trying to get his bearings in the sea of morons, getting assaulted because he sounds smart, I wasn't thinking "this is beyond ridiculous" (like I did 11-12 years ago). Now I just couldn't help feeling totally frustrated about the whole situation, and empathetic with Joe. My wife, who was seeing it for the first time, reacted with a blunt "This is a total nightmare!".
Don't get me wrong now.
This is still a great comedy, it has just gone from an over-the-top ridiculous one, to a prophetic piece of commentary on current society.
It was of course just that even back in 2006, but it was just NO WAY to imagine how far (or low) we would have come in a mere 14 years.
I think Mike Judge's estimate of 500 years is far too generous.
We'll reach Idiocracy in no more than 100 - unless we manage to blow ourselves up before that, which actually seem far more likely.
Bill Burr: Paper Tiger (2019)
Triggering, but not like you think...
Bill Burr from before and Bill Burr now are quite similar. His delivery and timing is on point, as were they always. His angry joe-schmo persona is basically the same, he just has less hair and a bit less energy.
But he's older. I can relate.
This show is definately triggering people, but not like you think.
It's not really surprising, or even slightly upsetting, to hear Burr belittle Michelle Obama and ridicule her for a book she wrote, or to hear him glorify republican presidents for "keeping their wives in line".
That's who he is, and that's how this angry guy he shields himself with thinks on his behalf.
So if you are a feminist, or perhaps just a normal decent human being, and you get pissed off by this. Don't!
This isn't worth your emotion. It isn't even meant to upset you. It's too obvious! It's like getting angry at someone staring at you on the subway while saying "Is me staring at you making you angry? Huh?!"
Getting angry would only play right into their hands.
Still, this is a VERY triggering show...
And the ones it triggers are the ones who it is directed at. Burr doesn't make shows to piss people off (that's just a bonus), he used to do it to make people laugh. Now though, he does it to make people pump their fist in the air and with clenched jaw scream out "YEAH! YOU TELL EM! WE'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS ****!!"
Those are the ones he's triggering.
The ones with itchy trigger fingers.
Those who really needs very little to trigger them in the first place.
He rallies them up, and they're not laughing, they're frothing... Which is never a good sign.
So yes, Burr triggers the hell out of people, but that means absolutely nothing, since those triggered are part of the choir to which he is preaching.
Friends (1994)
Ross & Rachel brings the score down...
I've been a fan of Friends since it first ran on TV.
I had most of it on VHS, then got the DVD-box, and now just a week ago the Bluray-box.
I've been watching it from the start, aiming to go through the whole series again. It's probably been a decade and a half since I saw it last.
I love this show, I really do.
There are a few episodes that feel kind of throwaway, but most are solid entertainment, and quite a few are really - REALLY - good!
My absolute favourite character is Chandler, but Joey and Phoebe aren't far behind.
Monica is kind of a 50/50 thing for me...
But Ross and Rachel, sadly, are what keeps this show from being a 10 for me. Ross is an annoying moper at first, then rolls over into obsessed and creepy, and somewhere right before the end of the series (where they try to take him back to "normal", but it's too late) he just seem like a mentally disturbed sociopath.
Combine this with his weird love for Rachel, the most manipulative and psychpathically indecisive sitcom character ever, and the two of them keep Friends from top spot.
I still love the show, and I'll still watch it every now and again. But if I can I'll skip over the Ross&Rachel heavy episodes.
Word of warning for anyone thinking of buying this on dvd - DON'T!
The remastering on the DVD's is nonexistant! The picture is grainy and blurry and pretty much awful!
The relatively recent bluray-box however is created from the 35mm originals, and looks pretty spectacular in comparison!
-Worth it!
Lord of the Flies (1963)
Story kept me watching.
This was one of those movies that "everyone" had seen, but me (neither have I read the book). So when I found it at a flea market, for basically nothing, I decided to give it a go.
I just finished it (12 January 2019) and I have to admit being of two minds about it.
One part of me found it really terrible, because of awful direction, obvious low budget production decisions and - I hate to say it - some really bad acting...
But the other part of me, the part that made me keep at it all the way through, loved the story! The engaging dynamics and struggles between the different factions of society (which is what the island is, a microcosm of democracy VS totalitarianism).
So,despite being utterly frustrated and bored by the low budget look and the lack in direction and acting, the story kept me watching.
An obvious sign that I should read the book, n'est ce pas?