Category: *.AVI

Absolutely fascinating. Watched in one go. Although certainly not what I expected. I expected more scares.
There is no one evil mastermind. Instead there is a web of lies that also evolves over time.
It’s easy to look at everything with a modern cynical eye. But it’s important to remember those people honestly believed in things like Hell and Purgatory.
There’s a lot of subtelty in the dialogs, without them being vague. Like: “He went to school, and I didn’t”. In 1860, 40% of women in the UK were illeterate.
Poor box is an interesting detail. The local church may be monetarily benefiting from a local Saint or miracle, but not the family. The family gets the house at best.
Another interesting detail: chickens in the main room. Although I guess the family could be considered a lower-middleclass: they have chickens, and a maid!

Midsommar does all the usual horror movie things: plenty of gore, cult village you cannot leave alive, bunch of outsiders (different clothing, speak English instead of Swedish) that get picked off one by one. Not much screamers, but they do have corpses that open their eyes. But it does a lot of things also differently.

Most things happen during daytime. Or, to be more precise, it’s hard to distinguish between day and night. I learned that there’s even a name for that: “daylight horror”.
Turns out that we watched the regular version, which is already 2:30 hours long. But I can’t complain: watched it in one go, and the amount of detail and characters do make up for the length.
There’s also a Director’s Cut, which is almost three hours.
Sharp transitions. Danni walks into a bathroom in Christians apartment, and she’s in the bathroom of the airplane. Josh is sitting at the table during day, then he’s sitting on his bed at night, thinking of sneaking into the temple.

Reflections. Danni sees a scary reflection after taking the mushroom tea. Josh sees the reflection of what he thinks is Mark. The table they use for celebrations is reflective.

Bear. There’s the bear poster, a live bear in the cage, bear in the Matron’s house, and of course the bear ending.

Distortions. When heroes take hallucionogenic mushrooms, viewers experience this as well, from a 3rd person view.

That goes with the 4th wall stares: different characters have that long stare into the camera, when there’s nothing for them to look at.

Things I didn’t get at all: Scissors under the pillow and inbread oracle.
Although maybe oracle supposted to be vague: can the Elders really interpret his drawings? Or are they just using him as an excuse to promote their own plans?

One thing that Director’s Cut explains, though, is why the British girl is shown drowned and in some kind of a fishnet with pictures in the last scenes of the movie.
There’s another scene, when a ritual of sacrifice to the river happens. And one of the boys is offered, wearing a fishnet (he is sacrificed to the water) and probably the most precious things (pictures of his relatives and child toys, I assume). Then the ritual is interrupted. Guess that’s because they found a replacement.

DRC was ruled between 71-97 by a dictator. Then from 2001-2019 there was a “President”. 2019 was the first time of peaceful transition of power.
Rwanda’s “President” rules since 2000, indefinitely.
In between those two countries, there’s the Virunga national park, protected by a bunch of dedicated rangers.
The most impressive part of this documentary is the undercover filming: Congo official trying to bribe the rangers, corporation mercenaries, sorry, contractors, discussing between themselves how Europe should recolonize Africa. What you get when you scratch the civility.

Very good character exposition. Notice how literally all of the characters are in the same scene, and each has a different pose that tells something about them.

The 3D elements are literally in the face.

There are some annoying screamers. But they got the atmosphere of Lovecraftian horror just right.

Moreover, the concept of a spaceship that traveled places and became a living organism is very W40K. Suprisingly, this is not even a coincidence, as the writer admitted he was inspired by W40K.

Second part of the movie does feel cramped. Guess that’s where they cut the 40 minutes out.

It’s a joy to watch, because it’s all filmed in London. Some places are very recognizable. Elephant and Castle, for example, before it was demolished.
The narrative reminded me of Sharp Objects quite a bit. Women can be abusive and dangerous. Not just men. Marcella stalks and even hits her husband that decided to leave her. And the camgirl portrayed by Florence Pugh beats a guy and steals his stuff. But there are also a lot of men with different levels of abusiveness. It’s like every episode we have a new suspect.
The idea of protagonist having blackouts or fits of rage to the point they aren’t sure if they may be the killer without knowing it is for sure isn’t new. Taboo, also set in London, is just one example. But I think it’s the first time when it’s a female protagonist.
Also, some themes I don’t encounter much. Like dealing with your kids while separated.

Blacksplotation movies are back!
So, you have a very advanced civilization, and you put as the head of all the research a teenager, that also happens to be the princess? That’s not suspicious at all!

Then, you have all that technological advancement, but you still… train fighting rhinos? And you have street markets. Yeah.

Northern niggas confused me a lot. Although alright, technically Kilimanjaro is high enough to have an arctic climate.

I guess it’s considered a funny joke by some to call every white American “a colonizer”?

Why does your council looks like a bunch of clowns?

The first half of the movie is just setting the stage with a long chase in South Korea.

The second half is a strange combination of fighting and dancing. Neither is particularly enjoyable.

I was planning to write some more about how bad that movie is, but someone already did this job better than I ever could:

Plenty to unpack there, and I’m sure I’ve missed most of it.
“Social-democrats that sold out the country”. French unwilling to negotiate and forcing a humiliating treaty. I had to check to make sure that the original book wasn’t written well after World War 2. But no, 1929. Now we can say that “the writing was on the wall”.
A lot of symmetrical shots. And some still nature shots as well. We can kill each other, and life will go on, maybe?
A lot of closeups, especially of Kat and Paul, but also others.
Kat’s monologue on not rather not returning home and eating potatoes with his comrades sounds relevant to this day (see Hurt Locker and American Sniper, for example).
Note how much attention is dedicated to food: Kat sharing bread with Paul on the first day, the joy of stealing a geese, eating French food while their corpses are still warm.
The scene with tanks and flamethrowers looks so alien, that even “Dune” seems closer to us than this. Yet this is historically true.

Clash between “two good guys” was already tried in Avengers 2, between Iron Man and Hulk. And someone decided it’s an opportunity to make an entire movie out of it. Just without Hulk.

Main conflict can be described as “Lawful Good vs Chaotic Good”. Irony being that a rather chaotic Iron Man is on the side of Lawful.

One of the main problems is that since it’s a Captain America movie, there’s a lot of Winter Soldier in it. I don’t like how Sebastian Stan plays, and his superhero is boring as well. The only interesting part about him is this piece of hardware he totes as some point:

The “threat of the week” is revealed an hour into the movie. And honestly, it doesn’t even sound that threatening. What’s a few Russian assassins after you dealer with a full scale alien invasion and an army of robots?
Twist with them being offed in their sleep is actually good, though.

Idea of a “regular guy” trying to get revenge on superheroes for inadvertently killing his family is alright. At least it’s not yet another Ultron this time.

Galadriel plot is full of coincidences. Her jumping into the ocean without any planned, picked up by some random survivors of a shipwreck that just happened to be escaping from the orcs she hates so much, then picked up again by some ship.
Eldond plot with dwarfs is brilliant, though. From Elrond taking on a challenge he can’t win and not winning, to grudge because as and elf. For him it was okay to disappear for 20 years, to secrets from the elves.

Not sure what to make of the hobbit plotline. They act as a comic relief. A good one, though, I must admit.

Mundane horror, is that even a thing? Not so much about monster or psychopaths, but about guilt, loneliness, fatigue.

Very loosely based on Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy. The original lighthouse wasn’t even on an island. It was a cabin standing in the middle of the sea. That is why, when one of the Thomases died, the other one came up with the idea of building him a coffin and securing it OUTSIDE.

The real life story took place in 1800, while the movie takes place around 1890. This is probably to introduce the wicked machinery, and especially the horn, a sound that surely could drive anyone crazy after a time.

Filmed in black and white, and in 4:3 aspect ratio, and with a grain film effect on the top.

The starting scene impressed me. While the previous shift carry their luggage together, the new shift are separate.

I didn’t get most of the references. Well, I didn’t get half of what the characters were saying, really, without the subtitles. There is Moby Dick, and probably Prometheus at the very end, but that’s about it.

There is an interesting look into a structure of a lie. At one point Thomas says that the previous keeper went crazy, believed that something got into the lighthouse. While in fact he’s the one that believes in it.

Some of the monologues do sound Lovecraftian, and Eggers admitted that it was intentional. But the more I think about it, the more it seems that this is just a story of going mad from everything around you: the abuse, the solitude, the harsh conditions and too much alcohol.

At the beginning of the film Ephraim is bullied by a one-eyed seagull. Later Thomas tells him that seagulls are souls of dead sailors. And then Ephraim tells Thomas that he has found the “head of your one-eyed wickie”. We also see glimpses of Thomas stabbing something or someone with a harpoon. So I would hazard a guess that the previous wickie wasn’t one-eyed his entire life, but probably got pocked by Thomas during an intercourse with a mermaid.

Also worth noticing is how the cabin is a reflection of the mental state of Ephraim. At first he tried to fix and clean it, but after he starts drinking, the roof begins to leak, and there is the final episode of ocean bursting the window: going completely crazy metaphor.

Thomas getting angry with Ephraim for not liking his cooking, and especially the lobster: sea god furious with rejecting his gifts. That’s why Thomas literally curses Ephraim.

If your newborn disappears, it’s a witch. If your 12-year-old dies in agony, it’s a witch. If your doe gives blood instead of milk, it’s a witch. If your goat gets angry, it’s because he’s literally Hitler.
You’re born in sin. You don’t have wheat, you don’t have crops, apples are only in your dreams. That, and Jesus.
I couldn’t find any morals in this movie. This is more like an account of a calamity.
There are a few screamer moments, but most of the time it’s just about the athmosphere of isolation and fear of the unknown.
Some peculiar details: a silver cup is the most expensive item the family possesses. Which is traded for a few snairs. The value of snairs is not in enabling catching rabbits for food, but for their pelts.

What I expected: some viking brutal power fantasy.

What I got: rather historically-accurate interpretation of Hamlet.

Father killed by his brother, mother taken by the same brother, prince returning from exile and all that. Even “poor Yorick” is there.

When I say “historically accurate” I mean that those vikings look a lot like slavs, and not like “vikings from the movies”.

Also, there are a lot of unexpected elements of culture. Like the game they play, some mix of baseball and rugby (I didn’t actually check what it’s called, and don’t really care).

There is also a strange mix of reality and dreams. At one point Hamlet fights an undead warrior, but it’s all in his head.

The most impressive role is Fjolnir, the same uncle. Yes, he’s an asshole. But who wasn’t back then?

Amleth/Hamlet on the other hand is just a vengeful bastard, that enjoys killing people.

The final duel is impressive. No shaking camera or anything like that. Just two men hitting each other with a sword.

The moral is simple: vengeance doesn’t bring joy to anyone.