Monday, August 16, 2021
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
This film really stands out. It’s not pure action, it’s not a character study, it’s not beholden to a specific genre. I can be entertained by a number of things, but to be this entertained takes something beyond typical well-received cinema.
I can enjoy this film despite it having no personal significance to me. My appreciation of it does not depend on external circumstances. This is a mainstream popcorn flick, and it’s also culturally significant and a work of art. Peak Tarantino content.
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Jackie Brown (1997)
A tightly-woven story, great technical filmcraft, and more superstar actors than you can shake a .45 at, all within a $12 million budget. You just don’t see this kind of movie anymore.
Monday, July 26, 2021
Heavy Metal (1981)
The Heavy Metal/Métal hurlant franchise is awesome, if you are familiar with the material then you probably love it. That is a testament to the fantastic work of French comic artists and the animators who made this first American film. The anthology format of this and subsequent adaptations lends itself well to stories of raw passion and violence.
What is perhaps most interesting about Heavy Metal is that it crosses time and space to tell stories of human triumph over enemies, society, and life in general. It does not falter in its unflinching awareness of how the universe really is. It doesn’t lie as much as the Disney shit.
Monday, July 19, 2021
Melancholia (2011)
Melancholia is a senior-safe introduction to Lars von Trier. If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know who he is, von Trier is a filmmaker from the distant land of Germany who is known for boundary-pushing avant-garde cinema. Most of his films are released unrated to cinephile audiences. This is one of the exceptions.
Melancholia was released America-style mainstream for whiskey-drinking simpletons. It has few “genre” elements and stays within the self-imposed prison of the “drama” category through most of the film. There is some sci-fi brewing in the background, but 95% of the film could play for a geriatric home.
Friday, July 16, 2021
Dogs Don’t Wear Pants / Koirat eivät käytä housuja (2019)
A softcore erotic film about S&M. It feels like the film barely got produced, with concessions made to focus more on family than pain. Awkward intangible bullshit does not a tense thriller make. The frame story gets so much screen time that I am left wondering what the film could have been.
This is far from a perfect film, but compared to the more mainstream fare the likes of Amazon are trying to push, it’s nice to see a Finnish product.