Category: *.AVI

I’ve watched a few YouTube documentaries about Naseem Hamed after seeing posters for the movie. The depictions of his boxing style as well as his final entrance are pretty accurate. Of course there’s plenty of “Brits are racists” and “Brits don’t differ between a Paki and an Arab”, and nobody challenges him for why if Allah is so great he didn’t produce more champions like him, while his coach actually did.
The only good part besides the fights is the false ending, where Pierce Brosnan has a heart to heart talk with the Prince. Except it’s only in his head.

It’s fascinating and confusing at the same time.
When we watch movies about vampires or zombies we have some context: like markings on the neck or how decease spreads, things like that. We have no such context for Korean mythology. So when a family member develops sores across their body and kills everyone in the house, we don’t go “ah, it’s a vampire!”. And there’s also what I guess some kind of folk believes or just puns, like the bizarre episode when the poacher is struck by a lightning. Or when shaman gets bird poop on his car.
In addition, there’s no separation between dream and reality I could notice. The policeman meets the vagrant girl, makes a call, turns the corner, meets the Japanese “vampire” and wakes up. But the call was real.
At the end, I felt like there’s not even cause-and-effect than one might expect with a curse, when one family member does something bad, and other family members get punished, but instead, they get punished even before “sin” has happened.

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I don’t understand anything about music in general, and for sure not about jazz in particular. All the terminology, “tempo”, “rushing”, “dragging”, “bar 45”, is way above my head.
What I do understand is the concept of chasing a dream. Not that I ever did.
But I like the writing, how understated it is, phrases dropped and just left there.
“His opinion means a lot to you, doesn’t it? Pass the shakers.”
The blood dripping as metaphor for sacrifice is a bit on the nose.
And the final betrayal doesn’t make much sense, as Fletcher would needed to come up with the setup on the spot. And Neiman wasn’t even playing, so there was no career to try and ruin.
Still, it was worth it if only for Fletcher’s monologue about “good job”.

Secret Level follows the same format of Love Death Robots. The W40K episode is incredible. Full 10 minutes of not a single line of dialogue, just pure brutal visuals.

This wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought it will be a take on haunted house. Maybe some commentary on how Grandma tries to control the family in her death, same as she did in life. Then I thought that maybe Grandma groomed the granddaughter to be her host. Then the car scene happened.
And it’s interesting how abrupt the transition is. We don’t see the police. We don’t hear how the brother explains his sister’s disappearance. And when then accident happens, we also aren’t shown anything, because the brother is afraid to look. But then when he sits in the classroom, the rearview mirror appears in his mind.
Really enjoyed the dinner scene, this is probably my favourite scene in the movie. There’s nothing remotely paranormal happening, just a family dinner, but it’s filmed brilliantly. And the way it mirrors the dollhouse is just beautiful.
One character I really felt sorry for was Steve, the father. Annie has her flaws, and Peter could be negligent, but Steve tried to keep this shitshow together.
The finalle went slightly above my head (pun intended).

I haven’t seen so much tits since forever. Jokes aside though, I know Demi Moore is portrayed as “old and ugly”, but looking like that when you’re 60 is still impressive. If it’s not all as CGI as Margaret Qualley’s tits are.
Now, once I covered the topic of high culture, time to discuss how technically impressive the movie is. It’s not subtle, but I also don’t do subtle. So Elisabeth / Demi passing through the orange corridor with her posters ageing works for me. I also like symmetry, symmetry is great.
The obvious layer is “be careful what you wish for”, kind of like more recent Obsession. There’s even unsettling help line. Who isn’t afraid of terrible customer service after all? And the parallels with beauty surgery is clear. You want not just to preserve your looks, you want to look better than before. And for that, you’re cut open, then sewn back together. And maybe you even inject some suspicious substances in your leg, or maybe your face.
Also similar to Obsession, there’s a theme of making conscious choices to continue down this path. Elisabeth is offered to stop when only her finger is transformed, she’s offered to stop when she’s all shriveled, but she just can’t, because of the sunken costs.
I enjoyed the most the horror of the mundane. The close up shots of cooking and eating. As I get older, I do spend more and more time in the kitchen, so it hits home.
And there’s clearly a generational relationship, where Elisabeth blames Sue for partying, while Sue blames Elisabeth for gluttony and sloth. Speaking of which, I think it’s possible to find all 7 deadly sins in Elisabeth and Sue combined.
Speaking of combined, the 3rd and final act is designed to be grotesque. If it was less grotesque, I think it could be far more unsettling. Stephen King level of falling out teeth and nails was far more gruesome to me. But that way, you can just laugh it off.
There’s something to be said about asymmetry of the relationship as well. The borrowing works only in one direction. So while Sue can take something from Elisabeth, the only thing Elisabeth can take back from Sue is her life.
I didn’t expect the 3rd act to work out the way it did. I thought that Sue and Elisabeth will now join forces and show those Evil Men their place. Or maybe Elisabeth just goes back to herself after the second injection. But that would be sucking all the tragedy from the story.

Detail that I missed: the story is inspired by Jane Fonda, a name I’ve heard, but wasn’t familiar with. One look at her picture tells a story. Jane Fonda’s Workout was the highest selling VHS ever.

I rarely watch horror movies. But this one is so memed I had to.
The movie is impressive in its simplicity. Almost static camera, plain focus, plain pans. The story premise reminded me of King’s novels, especially Thinner: be careful what you wish for.
Ironic that the previous horror movie I watched, Midsommar, was also in part about toxic relationship, and with plenty of hidden cues.
One of my favorite parts is when Nikki reads a perverted version of Hansel and Grettel. Because that’s what most romantasies are, perverted versions of fairy tales.

I’ve seen this movie back in the day, but remembered almost nothing, so rewatched it.
I kept thinking of Mariupol, and how people there had to survive postaplocalyptic conditions for months, running out of food and water.
The movie on the second viewing is more of a form over substance.
The Boy acts as he wasn’t born into postaplocalyptic world, but is a modern day child. In Sweettooth, character innocent made more sense, as he was living in a compound. But with his attitude and skills it’s not clear how he survived anything.
Storywise, my main issue is that episodes feel disjointed. It’s almost as if you could shuffle them in any order and get away with it. All except taking arrow to the knee. But even that comes at the very end, and that’s not even the reason Father dies.

I’m not sure what they were going for. There is some good old acting, with close-ups to boot. And I can see how some pieces fit in, like twins switching clothes, then trading places on a deathbed. Or how Agnes is able to predict that one of her kids will not survive, but being wrong which.

But what was the point of William’s father beating him for being a bad tailor, then William standing up to him? The father literally disappeared from that point, although they were still leaving in his house.
Or what about the bees? Do the bees predict plague somehow?
And the whole point of Agnes not being able to give birth to the twins in the forest. You’d assume that why one of them died, witch curse or something, but it is also forgotten.
When the camera is not closing up on someone crying, there are those zoomed out shots, which aren’t exactly still, but almost.

Seing The Globe and the final play was emotional. So at least it ended on a high note for me.

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I watched this movie some 20 years ago, so I didn’t remember many of the details.
I do detest Al Pacino, though. Alongside De Niro, I think those are the two worst actors of the past 50 years. In every movie Al Pacino always wears that expression like he forgot what day of the week it is, and it all started with Godfather.
Another thing is how awkward time jumps are: Michael says to Kay he’s been back for a year, then we are shown that they already have a child which is 3 years old, then he’s the godfather of his sister’s child, but she was pregnant like 4 years ago, but either she had miscarriage after her beating or her child is never shown.
And the whole episode is Italy doesn’t even add much: Michael never mentions Apolonia once after she gets blown in a car.
Also, it left me wondering what The Family even does officially? Like, what was Vito writing in his tax declaration? They had to have some official business,

It’s a movie that requires prior knowledge, as it doesn’t explain a lot. Hard to discern who’s in Navy and who’s in the Army. But it also doesn’t matter much. I thought that it would be a story of heroic stand, or of some struggle, but it is mostly just a collection of anecdotes, without any moral judgement.

It’s an interesting movie, but not a movie you supposed to enjoy, as there is no rhyme or reason to it. Passing of time is convoluted, it is not clear if the siege of the island took a week or a month, the only indications is that at some point they say that they spend 5 days before the final assault.

There is some irony, like the story of the lieutenant that wanted to blow himself with a tank, didn’t find any tanks, and eventually survived. But there isn’t much.
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It’s like two movies rolled into one. First is a school drama about female teacher dating her student, quite badly written. Second is a fenomenal air combat action.
The most interesting aspect is that Val Kilmer is supposed to be the antagonist, but he’s actually the sanest person.
Meg Ryan also surprised me in this one, because I always remembered her as this quite plain pretty face, while here she actually delivers.
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This one surprised me a lot. Not only because, unlike “For a Fistful of Dollars” it doesn’t repeat any story I know. But because of its characters. First, I’d say Clint Eastwood isn’t the main hero of that story, it’s Colonel Mortimer. He’s introduced first, has far more agency, and a revenge arc. You can argue that Eastwood’s character goes through a development as well, but not as significant. It’s almost bait’n’switch, I’d say: you came for Eastwood, but stayed for Van Cleef.
The second surprise is how diabolically evil Indio is. The last such unapologetically evil character I can remember was Henry Drax played by Farrel in “North Water”. Indio orders family of the man he betrayed shot, and then challenges him to a duel. Here I thought that after the duel, they’ll be shown alive, as just giving more motivation, but no.
Then Indio is showing shooting another woman’s fiance, then raping her. And I thought there will be some story of how she rejected him because he was Mexican or something, but no. He just decided to burglar into someone’s house.
The movie is long, almost two hours, and not entirely for good reasons. Some of the scenes are too long.
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After Outlaws remake I suddenly understood I actually haven’t watched any of the classical Westerns as an adult: no Sergio Leone trilogy, no “Once Upon a Time” or “Magnificent Seven”. So I decided to start with Fistful of Dollars.

From the outset, I understood that I’ve seen the Eastern version, Yojimbo, and the version with Bruce Willis, “Last Man Standing”. All the key plots are there: Outsider pitting two rival gangs against each other, moral turning point with Mirasol’s rescue, the recovery in a mine, secret technique (in form of a steel bullet vest) and the final duel.

The dialogue works, because the characters don’t say much. Also, the camera work is interesting, although I’m not sure if it was innovative at the time. What don’t work are the shooting scenes: there’s no blood (cost and censorship), so people just fall akwardly. And those are very, very long. Like I get the soldiers were shot from a gatling gun, no need to spend minutes on that.
Also, the lipsync is completely off, because only Clint Eastwood was speaking English. Everyone else was speaking Italian or German, and later dubbed.
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This isn’t what I expected, as most of the movie isn’t actually dedicated to capturing Eichmann or to dramatising the escape. Instead, it’s a dialogue between Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley.
Melanie Laurent is best known for Shoshanna in Inglorious Bastards. So seing her play another Jewish lady hero is nice.
But I’m not sure what point this movie was trying to make, unlike “Munich” or even “Golda”.
Which is strange, because Oscar’s character arc is solid: he’s this egoistic, rash and haunted by his past failures agent, not the first to be picked, and not the one expect to handle interrogations. And in the end he fights to keep Eichman alive, and almost sacrifices himself in order to let others escape Argentina.
I think I mostly don’t understand Kingsley’s Eichmann. Is he a calculated and violet wolf hiding among sheep? Is he just a German bueracrat judged for crimes of the entire nation? It feels like instead of being ambigous, he’s just confusing.

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The cigarettes are a common motive. Golda smokes all the time, and so is her cabinet.
The meeting of the cabinet is almost comical. No, it actually is comical, as Ariel Sharon steals two pieces of cake on his way out.
This is all filmed within just a few rooms: Golda’s apartment, the cabinet, courtroom and hospital, with Golda’s visit to the frontlines being played alongside real historical footage of her, and all the action replaced by real historical footage as well.
Despite a couple over dramatic cancer scenes, I really liked the dialogue. It does gives an impression of a chess game, where one side not understanding it mahave won if only just.
Lev is too handsome to play such a slug as Kissinger was, but I still liked the “torture by borscht” scene.

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