Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

The Handmaiden (2016)
Dir. Chan-wook Park



In Korea under the Japanese occupation, we meet Sook-hee, a young woman who gets a position as a Handmaiden to a young lady who lives a lonely and secluded life at the remote domain of a wealthy rare book enthusiast, her uncle. The man in question is a Korean who has a deep admiration for Japan, which extends to his late wife being Japanese, as well as his ward and niece, Lady Hideko. Sook-hee secretly has an ulterior motive to her presence at the mansion, one which is complicated when she develops a deep infatuation for her mistress Hideko, on which appears to be more than reciprocated.

Beautiful film in all regards. Though it is hard to put into one category or a single box, this is a romantic drama as well as a heist film with some noirish traits, with a subtext that contemplates upon the nature of erotica. This is a filmmaker at the absolute peak of his abilities displaying them in all their splendor. Marvel at the innovative framing, pay attention to the camera movements (and how they are used to relay the underlying relationships between the characters). The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, the production design likewise.

Due to having read up on it somewhat prior to my viewing, I wasn't surprised at the deeply erotic nature of some scenes. I was surprised by how funny some scenes are. This isn't a comedy by any means but some scenes do appear as if they were lifted from one. As a side-note, the fact that this film was not nominated for the best picture Oscars in 2017 is beyond ridiculous. It definitely should have been nominated for best foreign film and should have picked up a handful of nominations in the technical categories as well. But it appears the only category of films that the Academy likes screwing over more than horror films are Korean films.

The cast is very good all around. The two leads are terrific and it's really their burning desire for each other which becomes the film's beating heart. The contrast between the sad melancholy in Min-hee Kim's eyes and the sparkle of mischief in Tae-ri Kim's more or less encapsulates the entirety of the film.

 

Cold War - dir. Pawel Pawlikowski

I absolutely loved this film-- it's the story of a Polish composer and arranger who is working for the Communist state on a project to elevate the voices and musical forms of rural Poles. Along the way he falls in love with a singer, and they have a dramatic love affair that lasts for 15 years, spanning multiple countries. Despite being a very epic story, the movie clocks in at a tight 90 minutes, which is very impressive because it gives you the impression of having seen a much more sprawling tale.

The music is incredible, as is the cinematography. The film is presented in a square 4:3 aspect ratio, which made me pay additional attention to how meticulously framed everything was.

I think this and Roma are my two favorite movies of 2018. Two foreign films in black and white, that's right, because I'm a very cultured and sophisticated person.

 

The Wild Geese (1978)

A merchant banker interested in copper from a southern African nation hires Allen Faulkner to create a mercenary force to free the imprisoned populist President Limbani in order to form a more pliable government. Faulkner brings in 50 men, mostly those that served with him in the British Army in WWII. They are successful in their mission, but just as their aircraft is landing to pick them up it is recalled - the merchant banker had just made a deal with the autocratic ruler of the nation, giving up Limbani and the mercenaries. Now they have to fight their way out.

There are a few enjoyable lines of understated British dialogue, but mostly this is a lackluster war movie that failed to enlighten us about battle and politics as much as it failed to to enlighten us about its ensemble cast. Mostly, I think this film is pretty sad. What it's really about is a group of people that fought in war and failed so badly to find anything pleasing in peacetime that they took their late-40 year old bodies back to the fight. The movie actually found this fact endearing, thanks to its 70's machismo. Geese was rather 70's about its racial views, too. But Richard Burton was great.

 

Ocean's 8 (2018), a fun caper movie from the Oceans franchise headed up by the late (maybe) Danny Ocean's sister (Sandra Bullock), with solid performances by pretty much everybody. Helena Bonham Carter as an over-the-hill fashion designer brings out her often overlooked comic talents. Ann Hathaway is quite a good airhead who is actually on to things more than she lets on. And a nice touch letting the black woman be the hacking expert.

 

Outrage (1950)
Dir. Ida Lupino




Ann Walton is madly in love with her boyfriend Jim. After Jim gets a raise, the pair get engaged. Ann's happiness is cut short when one night, after working late, she is followed by a man and ultimately raped. In the aftermath of her attack, the police have little success finding the man who sexually assaulted her. In spite of the support of her parents and fiancee, she cannot stand to stay in her hometown any longer and she flees to Los Angeles. Instead of making it all the way there, she gets stranded on a ranch an hour's drive away from the City of Angels, where a kindly rancher offers her a job. Deciding this is as good a place as any to hide out, she accepts. A friend of the rancher's, preacher to a nearby church, also takes an interest in her, feeling that the young woman is somehow troubled but not being able to figure out why.

This is a pretty unique film for several reasons. But primarily because it is a studio film shot in 1950 about the then very taboo subject of rape, with a woman director (the great Ida Lupino) helming it. This film doesn't quite give Lupino the opportunity to display her talent the way "The Hitch-Hiker" does, but there are still some impressive sequences in there, none more so than the way she shoots the cat-and-mouse game along darkened streets and alleys when Ann is trying to get away from her attacker. The then 19-year old Mala Powers is very impressive in the lead role.

 

El Espinoza del Diablo (2001)
Dir. Guillermo del Toro



At the height of the Spanish civil war, Carlos, a newly orphaned twelve-year old boy, is brought to a remote orphanage by two fellow Republican soldiers who served with his father. The orphanage in question is run by a headmistress whose late husband also fought for the Republican cause and died in the process. As such, there are some concerns due to the fact that it appears the Nationalists are winning, which might spell doom for the orphanage if they are perceived (rightly to a certain extent) to be in league with the Republicans.

Carlos himself is preoccupied primarily with getting used to life in the orphanage. Some of the boys, one in particular, pick on him but the thing that truly disturbs him is his belief that he has seen a ghost. Some of the other boys claim to have shared his experience. Meanwhile, a grown-up orphan who has lived at the place for fifteen years has his goals set upon the gold he believes the headmistress is hiding for the Republicans.

I had never actually seen this modern classic by Guillermo del Toro. It certainly met my expectations based on the mostly good reviews I had read about it. As with many/most of the Mexican's horror films, the true monster turns out to be very human in nature. The young actors are all very good, though I think Federico Luppi kind of outshines anyone else on the cast.

 

Just watched Remember The Titans for the 4th or 5th time. What a great film.

Left side! Strong side!

 

Triple Frontier (2019)
Dir. J.C. Chandor



Five retired elite soldiers reunite for one last mission. One of them has been fighting a war against a South-American drug lord as a private contractor. When he finally finds out the man's money stash location from an informant, instead of using the information to take him down, he instead enlists his former fellow soldiers and friends for a daring operation in which they want to kill the drug lord and steal his money. This plan initially seems to go well, until one unforeseen circumstance after another allows their endeavor to devolve into a catastrophe in which they have to fight for their lives.

Not super original but kept watchable by the cast, especially Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal's innate charm. It starts out as something of a "Heat" clone with some "Narcos" sprinkled on top and then turns into a more violent version of Bunuel's "Death in the Garden" during the third act. Entertaining if your expectations aren't sky high.

 

Never Grow Old (2019)
Dir. Ivan Kavanagh



Patrick Tate is an Irish immigrant to the U.S., an undertaker who lives in a mid 19th century frontier town together with his French wife and two children. Due to his background as an Irishman and a former Catholic, he is still treated as a semi-outsider by his community, though he has managed to carve out something of a life for himself. Things change considerably for him when a trio of violent men move into town and reopen the saloon which had been closed by the town's preacher. With the saloon's reopening and the violence for which the newcomers appear to be a catalyst, Patrick's undertaker business is suddenly booming and the leader of the outlaws takes an interest in him and his family. Whilst the ruffians arrival is a boon for his business, Patrick grows increasingly weary of their behavior and how their presence has negatively impacted the town.

Euro-American revisionist western that is more or less middle of the road in terms of its quality. There's been several of these over the last few years (like "Brimstone" and "The Salvation") though none of them have truly risen to achieve something significant within the genre. It is always fun to see Belgians in a western, a rare occasion indeed. Déborah François is a very talented, expressive actress who is somehow less effective when acting in English instead of her native French. Yet it was a true delight to realize Sam Louwyck (a Bruges native) was in this, even if he is playing a tongueless, mute creep and I didn't even recognize it was him underneath that beard and grime until I saw his name in the closing credits.

 

Aquaman (2018)
Dir. James Wan



Aquaman is happy to keep his nose out of Atlantean business until the king of Atlantis is revealed to have plans to invade the land and submit humanity to his will. Arthur allows himself to quite reluctantly be convinced by Princess Mera to accompany her to challenge his half-brother and thus prevent the war. His only hope of winning the support of the Atlantean people is to find a legendary trident that has been deemed lost since the fall of Atlantis. In the process, he is confronted with some harsh realities about his mother and his childhood.

This was a kooky/weird/quirky feature, or however else you would want to describe the experience of watching this film. It depends a lot on Jason Momoa's 'aw shucks' style charm to keep a story together that includes cheesy dialogue, weird mythology, treasure hunts, some Lovecraftian horror (which is foreshadowed early on in the film by the presence of a novel in the lighthouse keeper's home) and a bit of a "Journey to the Center of the Earth" homage. I can't say it's a good or even great film, but I couldn't help but be entertained by large swathes of it. Who doesn't want to see Willem Defoe ride a hammerhead shark like it's an underwater horse or see an octopus play the drums?

The cast is the very definition of eclectic and includes cast members as varied as Nicole Kidman and Dolph Lundgren. In that regard, it's an IMDB entry that will be very helpful to six degrees of Kevin Bacon enthusiasts.

 

I guess I can't really argue against this. It was bad but from my perspective it was the good kind of bad?

 

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Star-Dude spent his formative years with ruthless space thieves and outlaws, so it's perfectly understandable that when a genocidal threat faces the space police state that once imprisoned him he risks his space life to save them. And he did it by befriending the space people that tried to space kill and/or space kidnap him. It's just logical.

I can't stand the way comic book moves are full of overindulgent special effects that overwhelm your eyes in an attempt to distract. Until now - this was great! Chris Pratt perfectly set the tone for this - flippant and casual, but not dismissive or silly. You accept everything that happens, and a space battle that I would fault in Star Wars or personal combat that I would fault in Captain America I endorse here because this isn't trying to be war, it's trying to be a comic book. Like when we see that domed cathedral with the black pool that the bad guy gets dressed in, I wasn't thinking "this place is just ridiculous", I was thinking "Oh man, Star-Guy would be totally making fun of this place". This had fantastic pacing as well - constantly interesting. Spot on bit of light fun.

The only thing I didn't like was the mix tape selection. It doesn't have style or personality. It took some effort to make a mixtape in the late 1980's - you better have a good reason to pick those songs. This felt like someone picking from a list of 160 mp3's. Not 50 and not 300. Just about 160.

 

Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
Dir. S. Craig Zahler



Ridgeman and Lurasetti are two veteran cops, the former pushing sixty, the latter well into his forties, who carry out a drug bust in a manner that is effective but also pushes past some ethical and legal boundaries in the way they treat the suspects. Part of this dodgy bust is caught on camera by a neighbor of the drug dealer whose home they were raiding and this leads to a six week suspension for the both of them, without pay. For Ridgeman, this turns out to be a breaking point. After decades of what he perceives as loyal and good work for the P.D., he, his MS-suffering wife and his scared daughter are still living in a shitty neighborhood where his kid is regularly harassed. Thus he visits a criminal contact who owes him a favor and asks for a lead to a piece of action that will earn him a windfall. He recruits his reluctant partner and the pair of them start to stake out an apartment building in which an illusive criminal has rented a super-secured unit to prepare for some sort of operation. Only when the criminal carries out this piece of action, it turns out to be far more violent than either of them had anticipated and they both waver between the responsibilities as (dodgy) cops and the original intent of their endeavor, which was self-enrichment.

I very much enjoyed this. I know S. Craig Zahler is perceived as a problematic filmmaker in some corners, but to me he is one of the few guys working in western cinema nowadays of which each new release feels like an event. It shares with his other work a grim and slightly cynical world view, some extreme violence and a few moments of gore (though not to the extremes of that scene in "Bone Tomahawk"). I think this director is the closest thing that 2019 has to Sam Peckinpah, a fact that Zahler is aware of himself, if the "The Wild Bunch" homage in his closing credit is anything to go by.

A lot has been made of him casting Mel Gibson in the lead role, but I think this casting choice was made very consciously, with Gibson's public persona and tarnished reputation in mind. Here we have a (formerly?) disgraced racist actor playing a disgraced, racist cop. One little point of criticism, I think Jennifer Carpenter is too good an actress to bring in just for a bit of puppy strangling.

 

Well, who knows what she has listed on the "other skills" section of her resumé.

 

I scrolled thru the last 5 months of postings and did not find Green Book, which we watched from Redbox night b4 last. Like most good dramas, the two principal characters both are impacted in predictable and less obvious ways by the several weeks they spend together on the road thru the Midwest and Deep South.

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My main problem with that subplot is that they sort of ruined Ava a bit with one little moment.

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The final glance she gives him before leaving the facility. In many ways, this was a story about a man who designs an A.I. that is too good at the thing he made her for. But a real A.I. who has just managed to get through the rat maze to her freedom would regard the guy she used for her escape with the same level of attention as she would give a potted plant or a piece of dandruff. He has served his entire purpose and would no longer be of any interest to her. That reaction (the parting glance) was a human one. Which sort of belies the entirety of that section of the story.

 

I watched about 25 minutes of this last night. That says it all.