What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

[Gramsci]

The Childhood of a Leader (2015) ⭐ 6.1 | Drama

1h 55m | 12A

m.imdb.com

The childhood of a leader

Director Brady Corbet.

Actor who has worked with Lars van Trier and Haneke.

Influence shows. Not in a bad way. It's on Mubi. Had it on my watchlist. Slightly put off as thought it might be plodding historical drama.

Set after WW1 a American and his German wife go to Europe to take part in the peace negotiations. Taking their son with them. Bad idea

It's the kind of film I like as it wasn't at all what I expected. And it's a film rather than a drama. Been watching a lot on Netflix and the formulaic stock characters and plot lines are getting on my nerves. Even with good stuff.

This film departs for the wilder shores. Maybe I'm not watching it right. I find Haneke terribly worthy but his films are a trip. Like this one

Great performance from the little boy. He's an absolute manipulative little monster showing up the oh so nice liberal bourgeois family. By end I was cheering him on. He's that awful

The thesis that cross dressing little sociopathic monsters turn into right wing dictators adulated by the people I found so un PC that I wondered if Corbet was taking the piss out of deeply serious European "art' films. Maybe not.

Tbf I found the film a delight from start to finish. Great music score as well. It's a real cinematic ride. And all the better for it. Glad I decided to give it a go after all this time on my watchlist.

It's got great little scenes. At the dinner table- Daddy why did my French teacher stay behind? Did she give you lessons? Loved it. Had me in stitches. Real portrayed of how dysfunctional the family is.

On basis of this film Corbet is a director to watch.

 

[Chz]

The Batman

Full disclosure, I've only watched half of it. I was halfway through, paused it for a wee, came back and noticed "Fuck me, it's 3 hours long!" and went to bed.,
There was nothing wrong with it, seemed quite competently done. Just did not catch me at all. Like I paused it just after what was supposed to be a gripping car chase that bored me. I'm going to try to get back into it tonight, but it's even odds that I'll just watch the DVD of Wings of Desire that I have instead. If I do finish it, and it suddenly turns out to be gripping, I'll report back.

 

[Chz]

Did watch the rest in the end. Same. It's competent. It's okay. It does not justify being three hours long.

 

[Orang Utan]

X - half decent horror film, with a good cast, photography and direction, and flipping the usual trope of half naked young women getting offed gorily to half naked fellas getting offed gorily. Director Ti West is apparently a name in low budget horror and I can see why. Don’t want to say much about the source of the evil, but I thought there was a big mistep in how they were played/portrayed.
Still, it did the job well and I would recommend it.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Flying a lot so many shite films. Really enjoyed liquorice pizza.

Oh morbius was the worst of the lot

 

[platinumsage]

Prey - It was hot and sunny I couldn’t really see the screen very well, and I had a headache. Lots of chasing etc. I should have watched it when it was cold and dark perhaps.

 

[Chz]

Prey - very good, considering it's not for cinematic release. The budget only shows in the animal cgi. Really well shot, with fantastic use of HDR in places. French bits are hilariously bad, even to my grade school French ear.

 

[Chz]

Wings of Desire
Obviously a favourite of many. I've seen out-takes but never the full thing.
First off, it's gorgeous. They could truly have made the entire film about angels listening in to people's internal monologues and I'd have been happy with it.

In fact, I'd argue that would be a better film. Most of it is very watchable for an arthouse flick that rates a Wank Factor 8 or 9. But where it ends up... oh, lord. The penultimate scene rates a Wank Factor 11 and has Creepy Old Man vibes to boot. So I can admit it's a legend for the cinematography, but as an actual film it falls short by the end.

 

[T & P]

How It Ends. An independent offbeat comedy about a woman who embarks on a journey on foot in Los Angeles on the last day before all life on Earth is due to end, to meet up with estranged family members, friends and former lovers one last time. On her travels though the semi deserted streets of L.A. she will also encounter a range of weird and wonderful characters spending the last day of their existence in various amusing ways.

I rather liked it. Not amazing, but original enough, quirky, and with a surprising repertoire of decent cameos. Good enough for anyone looking for an undemanding but original and entertaining film to pass the time.

 

[trabuquera]

Two decidedly uncomfortable vintage watches from Talking Pictures:
Friends (1971) deeply DEEPLY unfortunate 'teens in love' drama with OST by Elton John. Basically 'The Blue Lagoon' but set in the south of France. Two unhappy kids (and they are kids - she's 14 he's 15) run off together, "fall in love", scrape a living on the margins and she has a baby. Amazingly, nobody dies. Absolutely A-grade creepy "awakening of a nymphet" style perving over the female lead (17 at the time of filming, but looking much younger, and also voicing sentiments no teenage or pre-teenage girl has ever felt, never mind expressed ... "oh! a baby! I know it's going to happen, isn't it wonderful ... Paul, I just want to take care of you forever" and so on). Utterly sexist bilge. Amazed and a bit disturbed that all copies of this weren't ritually burned and frankly astonished that even Talking Pics dared to air it again. Only worth watching for some incidental shots of what Provence/Camargue used to look like before mass tourism and to hear some nice Provencal / Occitan dialect. Felt like I needed a good wash after.

Wide Boy (1952) surprisingly brutal UK 'film noir' (in quote marks because it's scuzzier, lower-rent and somehow more Britishly mediocre than classic FN) where a low-rent hustler tries to blackmail two posh adulterers. Disaster ensues thanks to his getting hold of a gun (for a tenner!). More interesting for its reflection of growing post-war British classism blimpishness about crime & criminals ("scum like you", "stop asking me about money, it makes you seem cheap", "one of those street lads" etc). There's also a lot of dialogue about "make a move and I'll let you have it!" etc, so perhaps it was riding the Derek Bentley case then in the headlines (but that shooting happened in Oct 1952, so maybe Bentley was quoting from this film when he came to grief?) Some nice character acting (especially the antagonist's career-criminal but rather genteel ageing dad, who sells him the gun...) but really one for the 50s-crime completists.

 

[redsquirrel]

The Big Fix - Richard Dreyfuss was a sixties radical who ten years on is trying to make a living as a private eye only to be caught up in events that relate back to the past. A really very good comedy thriller, there's some resemblance to Inherent Vice but its both funnier and more moving that that. It starts out a silly comic adventure but then brings in the thriller elements very well, with a downbeat feel (with perhaps a little gem of optimism at the end). Dreyfuss's communicate aunt is brilliant and steals the screen in the scenes she's in 'Kropotkin - he was a berk!'. Not a grade A masterpiece but a well made enjoyable film, definitely worth watching.

 

[Orang Utan]

redsquirrel I presume Dreyfuss’ aunt is communist and your phone’s autocorrect is stupid?

 

[DaveCinzano]

redsquirrel I presume Dreyfuss’ aunt is communist and your phone’s autocorrect is stupid?

If she was a paid organiser I guess she would be a pro auntie-communist

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Just watched Melody.

A Japanese friend mentioned it. Despite being a British film (relativity unknown now despite being directed by Waris Hussain) it appears to have been quite popular there.

Melody (1971) - IMDb

Melody: Directed by Waris Hussein. With Mark Lester, Tracy Hyde, Jack Wild, Colin Barrie. Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married as soon as possible.

www.imdb.com

What a lovely film. Seems Wes Anderson was paying attention.
Lots of fun vintage Lambeth/south london and Soho locations to enjoy as well.

 

[redsquirrel]

redsquirrel I presume Dreyfuss’ aunt is communist and your phone’s autocorrect is stupid?

Yes bloody autocorrect, She's brilliant, gets the best lines - 'Bakunin, that bum!'

 

[redsquirrel]

Bergman Island - Two film makers go to Fårö to try and find inspiration and enjoy the surrounding that inspired Bergman. I'm a bit lukewarm on Mia Hansen-Løve, I quite liked Eden, and felt Things to Come was pretty poor, IMO this is both the best of her's I've seen and the most enjoyable. Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth and Mia Waskowska are all very good, the movie (and island) looks good, the background and references to Bergman are fun but add rather than distract from the central point of the drama which is quite moving. Also has Avery good soundtrack - Lee Hazelwood and The Go-Betweens

 

[redsquirrel]

I've been trying to catch up with Melbourne Cinematheque seasons too - this time Gilliam Armstrong

My Brilliant Career - part of the Australian New Wave, it does not have quite the magic of Picnic at Hanging Rock but is very well put together and has some beautiful scenes. I'm not familiar with the book and it is an interesting tale, one that I guess has partially defined Armstrongs career. Good performances and a very young Sam Neil crops up.

Smokes and Lollies / Fourteen's Good, Eighteen's Better / Bingo, Bridesmaids and Braces / Not Fourteen Again / Love, Lust and Lies - A series of documentary films following the lives of three young (originally 14 in Smokes and Lollies) working class girls from Adelaide, it takes inspiration from the 7 Up series but with a small canvas. Really interesting to see how society and the woman have changed. Like with the Up series there is more of a focus on society/politics in the early episodes - the girls are asked their views on marriage, abortion, women working - and for me the increased focus on the personal aspects makes the later pieces not quite as strong. Still definitely worth following through (and you can skip some of the repeated parts)

High Tide - Judy Davies plays a washed up singer that, by chance, meets up with the daughter (and incredibly young Claudia Karvan) she left behind years ago. This has a very Australian feel, being somewhere between comedy and drama with a lot of ambiguity.

Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst - Documentary of Florence Broadhurst, you I'd never heard of but was (among other things) a famous wallpaper designer in the 70s. Good, even with quite a lot of talking heads it does not get too bogged down and Florence's story is so interesting that you are pulled along. Plus the wallpapers are great - if I had a house big enough I'd have them everywhere.

Starstruck - Not the best but probably my favourite of the films. A very Australian musical with a young woman and her cousin trying to find fame, happiness and enough money to save the pub where they live. It's very silly, in a good way, the songs are hardly classics but they are done with enough fun that it does not matter and there are some great lines.

Little Women - The weakest of the all the films for my money, but that is probably reflects my feelings on the source material which I find dreadful insipid twaddle. It's got a top cast, though I don't like Bale's performance at all (though again that might be my prejudice). I've yet to see the Greta Gerwig version but it would be interesting to compare the two.

A really well put together season with the films nicely complementing each other. There's a obvious theme, not without justification, of Armstrong as a feminist director, but for me that she is also a definite Australian director. Even in Little Women, a very American, novel there is a feeling of an outsider looking in. None of the previous films of Armstrongs that I've seen - Oscar and Lucinda, Charlotte Grey and Death Defying Acts - were included and all three of those are weaker than the material in this season.

 

[Reno]

I've been trying to catch up with Melbourne Cinematheque seasons too - this time Gilliam Armstrong

My Brilliant Career - part of the Australian New Wave, it does not have quite the magic of Picnic at Hanging Rock but is very well put together and has some beautiful scenes. I'm not familiar with the book and it is an interesting tale, one that I guess has partially defined Armstrongs career. Good performances and a very young Sam Neil crops up.

Smokes and Lollies / Fourteen's Good, Eighteen's Better / Bingo, Bridesmaids and Braces / Not Fourteen Again / Love, Lust and Lies - A series of documentary films following the lives of three young (originally 14 in Smokes and Lollies) working class girls from Adelaide, it takes inspiration from the 7 Up series but with a small canvas. Really interesting to see how society and the woman have changed. Like with the Up series there is more of a focus on society/politics in the early episodes - the girls are asked their views on marriage, abortion, women working - and for me the increased focus on the personal aspects makes the later pieces not quite as strong. Still definitely worth following through (and you can skip some of the repeated parts)

High Tide - Judy Davies plays a washed up singer that, by chance, meets up with the daughter (and incredibly young Claudia Karvan) she left behind years ago. This has a very Australian feel, being somewhere between comedy and drama with a lot of ambiguity.

Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst - Documentary of Florence Broadhurst, you I'd never heard of but was (among other things) a famous wallpaper designer in the 70s. Good, even with quite a lot of talking heads it does not get too bogged down and Florence's story is so interesting that you are pulled along. Plus the wallpapers are great - if I had a house big enough I'd have them everywhere.

Starstruck - Not the best but probably my favourite of the films. A very Australian musical with a young woman and her cousin trying to find fame, happiness and enough money to save the pub where they live. It's very silly, in a good way, the songs are hardly classics but they are done with enough fun that it does not matter and there are some great lines.

Little Women - The weakest of the all the films for my money, but that is probably reflects my feelings on the source material which I find dreadful insipid twaddle. It's got a top cast, though I don't like Bale's performance at all (though again that might be my prejudice). I've yet to see the Greta Gerwig version but it would be interesting to compare the too.

A really well put together season with the films nicely complementing each other. There's a obvious theme, not without justification, of Armstrong as a feminist director, but for me that she is also a definite Australian director. Even in Little Women, a very American, novel there is a feeling of an outsider looking in. None of the previous films of Armstrongs that I've seen - Oscar and Lucinda, Charlotte Grey and Death Defying Acts - were included and all three of those are weaker than the material in this season.

Did they show Mrs. Soffel ? It was Gillian Armstrong's first American film and apart from Pauline Kael, who gave it a great review, I must be the only person, who really loves this film. A romantic period starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson, it was based on a real case of two brothers on death row in 1901 Pittsburg, who escape prison with the help of the prison warden's wife. This wasn't well received when it came out and is totally forgotten now but I find it very affecting and its incredibly atmospheric.

 

[redsquirrel]

Did they show Mrs. Soffel ? It was Gillian Armstrong's first American film and apart from Pauline Kael, who gave it a great review, I must be the only person, who really loves this film. A romantic period starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson, it was based on a real case of two brothers on death row in 1901 Pittsburg, who escape prison with the help of the prison warden's wife. This wasn't well received when it came out and is totally forgotten now but I find it very affecting and its incredibly atmospheric.

Nope it was just those I mentioned. But it sounds interesting, I'll have to see if I can check it out.

 

[Part 2]

Nope...Jordan Peel's hotly anticipated new film. Gave up half an hour from the end, it was just boring and I couldn't care less what happened.

I don't really get what people see in his films.

See also Prey that I watched because I've seen a lot of people saying is good. I was in the mood for a good action film but after waiting 45 minutes with a lot of dark scenes and not much happening I was bored.

 

[T & P]

King Richard. The biopic about the Williams sisters rise to tennis stardom, and their father’s efforts to make it happen, played excellently by Will Smith.

It’s really good imo, well worth checking out even if you hate tennis.

 

[Reno]

I'd started Better Call Saul years ago and gave up after a couple of episodes, I just couldn't get into it. Due to all the "best show ever" (or at least "even better than Breaking Bad") chatter because of the final season, I picked it up again and I'm currently working my way through all of it. Last evening I finished season 4. It's good but I'm still not convinced that it's great and maybe it isn't suited to be watched as a whole. It's rather unvarying season by season and plot and character development move at a snail's pace. Most of the seasons feel like set up for the last episode or two. I just don't care that much about Jimmy, despite great work by Bob Odenkirk and I find Kim the most interesting character.

So far I'm not in the camp where I prefer Better Call Saul over Breaking Bad, maybe the last couple of seasons will change that, they seem to be considered the best. Not looking at the main thread till I've finished it all.

 

[T & P]

I'd started Better Call Saul years ago and gave up after a couple of episodes, I just couldn't get into it. Due to all the "best show ever" (or at least "even better than Breaking Bad") chatter because of the last season, I picked it up again and I'm currently working my way through all of it. Last evening I finished season 4. It's good but I'm still not convinced that it's great and maybe it isn't suited to be watched as a whole. It's rather unvarying season by season and plot and character development move at a snail's pace. Most of the seasons feel like set up for the last episode or two. I just don't care that much about Jimmy despite, great work by Bob Odenkirk and I find Kim the most interesting character.

So far I'm not in the camp where I prefer Better Call Saul over Breaking Bad, maybe the last couple of seasons will change that, they seem to be considered the best. Not looking at the main thread till I've finished it all.

I actually really enjoyed the three or four seasons I managed- undeniably admirable writing, cinematography, character building and acting IMO. But unlike Breaking Bad, which its superb quality pushed me through the entire series even at the times when I was struggling with the pace a bit, I haven’t felt like watching the remaining seasons.

I might yet feel like revisiting it in the future though. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time my mood took me to reconnect with a series I’d abandoned.

 

[T & P]

The Fuzz (not Hot Fuzz). A 2014 adult comedy crime film (or two-episode series rather than a film, according to IMDB) featuring muppet-style puppets and humans, telling the tale of a hapless puppet & human police detective team trying to stop an all-out drug gang war in an inner US city.

I hesitate to use the term ‘so bad it’s good’ because this actually feels like this was intentionally (and cleverly) written as bad and overacted, rather than a genuinely car crash of a film that achieved cult status by chance. It has a cheap look but the dialogue is witty enough, and most importantly, it’s surprisingly funny. Certainly much funnier than the massively larger-budget, A-list voiced shameless ripoff The Happytime Murders.

On Amazon Prime Video right now if anyone is tempted.

 

[Reno]

Nope, which confirms Jordan Peele to be the new M. Night Shyamalan. I loved Get Out and though Us had a strong first act only to fall apart by the second half. Nope has a powerful first scene and disintegrates soon after, with that scene being a set-up for something which never pays off. After the wonky Us, his piss poor Twilight Zone reboot and the disappointment which is Nope, Peele has turned out to be a one trick pony.

A main problem I had from early on is that its two lead character are thoroughly unlikeable. Daniel Kaluuya's OJ is unvaryingly mopey, while Keke Palmer's Emerald is supposed to be loveable and quirky but just comes off as incredibly grating. With their unprofessional attitude, it's hard to believe they ever had any sort of success as horse trainers for Hollywood productions and while a big deal gets made that they are the only black owners of a ranch training horses for films, appearing inept at running a business involving animals, didn't get me on their side.

Steven Yeun as a former child actor with a traumatic past is a character introduced as having an interesting character arch but he has a plot line that appears to be from a completely different film and then never joins up with the main story line. Sadly that also is the most intriguing part of the film. Nope would have worked far better had he been the lead character but rather bafflingly, after establishing his back story as being central to the film, he mostly gets sidelined and then

Spoiler

is unceremoniously killed off two thirds in. The entire plotline with him and his killer chimp trauma gets dropped. The film only becomes more underwhelming from there on. The revelation of what the big thing hiding in a cloud is (not a UFO but an giant alien resembling a kite) and what it does (eat people and animals, that's all folks) is disappointing. The driving motor of the plot, taking a successful photo/film of the UFO/alien, is far too thin to sustain itself and becomes irrelevant once the alien has caused mass death and destruction and yet the whole climax revolves around it.

There are a few suspense sequences which work well (especially the chimp stuff and a creepy suspense sequence in a barn, which turns out to be a fake out) and production values are excellent (cinematography and sound design are first class) but this feels like a first draft screenplay which would have needed several rewrites and revisions till it should have been allowed in front of a camera.

Peele still gets good reviews due to the goodwill generated by Get Out, but how much longer will he get away with such poor storytelling ?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Nope, which confirms Jordan Peele to be the new M. Night Shyamalan...

Put it on the poster!

 

[Reno]

Fall, a (mostly) one-location survival thriller which may be dumb, but which is a lot more exciting, tense and satisfying than any of the Hollywood blockbuster I watched this year. Two female climbers decide to scale an abandoned 2000 ft. high TV tower in the desert. On their ascend it becomes clear that the tower is in a poor state, with nuts and screws falling off the rusty structure and you just want to scream at them to abandon their adventure. Once they reach the top, a large part of the rickety ladder breaks off and traps them on a tiny platform. Of course they haven't told anybody what they are up to and they have no phone coverage and they rest of the film is about their ever more desperate and dangerous attempts to get back down. This had me at the edge of my sofa throughout and made me dizzy just watching. I could have done without the melodrama concerning one of the women's husband but otherwise this is a great B-movie style survival thriller and the most vertigo inducing film I've ever seen.

The trailer gives away quite a bit:

 

[T & P]

Drowning Mona. A 2000 dark comedy whodunnit starring among others Danny DeVito, Bette Midler and Jamie Lee Curtis. I had never heard of this until today, and whereas it’s not a masterpiece it’s still a very enjoyable Sunday film. DeVito and Midler alone supply more than enough value for money. Currently on Amazon Prime UK.

 

[T & P]

A Ghost Waits. An unassuming but original, clever and well written 2021 independent film that deftly combines the unlikely subject bedfellows of romantic comedy, drama and supernatural horror to deliver a highly satisfying and enjoyable flick. Recommended.

A Ghost Waits | Rotten Tomatoes

An ingeniously unique and unpredictable combo of horror, humor and heart, A Ghost Waits is a DIY labor of love years in the making from first-time writer/director Adam Stovall and producer/star MacLeod Andrews. Tasked with renovating a neglected rental home, handyman Jack (MacLeod Andrews, They...

www.rottentomatoes.com

 

[platinumsage]

Where the Crawdads Sings.

Lovely mystery film about a girl growing up in the swamps of the American Deep South, based on the novel of the same name, would recommend. Apparently audiences appreciated it more than reviewers. Two of the leading actors are British which surprised me.