The Quiet Family (1998)

 

As it can be seen, since a while ago, my entries start to become more seldom. I've chosen to write now because I have stuff on my brain that doesn't let me sleep, but I'm not gonna throw that up on a public blog, especially a thematic one. The idea is that I don't know for how long I can keep it going, but I still hope that "the life flow" surrounding me to become more "peaceful" and to give me time and comfort to see a movie from beginning to an end without any related stress. For the current entry I made some time late in the night during last week, feeling the need for something without much substance only for moving the mind to other stuff than the usual lurking in my brain. So, a horror with some comedy in it, made in South Korea, seemed to be the perfect choice. It's a bit ironic what I've actually stumbled upon in "The Quiet Family", but getting over that the movie got to its purpose.

I've always been a bit circumspect about the Asian humor in dramas, thrillers or action movies. It's about the culture I suspect, because I don't know, for me is in general a bit too .. childish up to sometimes stupid (the classic example being Jackie Chan's Hong Kong early B series movies and others like that). Eventually I learned to accept it, as well as the over-dramatization of some scenes here and there (as I said, probably is culture related), and that because there are movies made in the East which actually wipe the floor with U.S. productions having ten times the budget at many chapters: story, subtlety, feeling, and even technical sometimes. All these are usually found in dramas or even action movies. But since the humor, is like I said, the piece that drives away an Asian production from perfection, I used to avoid the comedies made in that part of the world until now. I start to wonder if I'm not terribly wrong about that.

After this double intro, maybe I should talk about the movie. As I was saying it's a black comedy. The subject might not be 100% original (somehow it was familiar): a family buys a lodge somewhere in the mountains with the purpose of getting money from the tourists spending the night there, and the "luck" makes that their first customer after a long waiting to be a suicidal one; and since the business wasn't going very well, the decision is to hide the body for the moment to avoid the police investigation and creating a bad image. So, "The Family" ends up passing through a series of grim events starting with this one and continuing with others chained in a way that each new one is as more hilarious as dark it gets. Surprisingly the humor is a good one, sometimes dry, sometimes more "explosive" and in most of the case actually believable despite the lack of probability of the situation. To compare the movie with something I would say that's actually a sort of "Addams family" in a more credible fashion.

The production is pretty old and the budget quite low. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by some scenes that are a subtle sending to the '90s horrors (like "I Know What you did Last Summer"). The movie is not a very violent one being more focused on the comic side than on horror. And for that it deserves to be appreciated that besides the story and script it has some other strong points ranging from the cast to the soundtrack which is one made from a couple of oldies "synced" a la Tarantino with the action on the screen.

The verdict is a clear recommend to see. Especially if a dose of dark humor helps you from time to time to take easier harsh situations that you would like to forget.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Screamers (1995)

As it can be seen I'm a bit out of subject. I had to recycle something from memories, movie that I recalled by chance after I finally finished reading "The Man in the High Castle" by P.K. Dick. By chance = I've checked IMDb to see what are the chances of the mentioned title to still get on screen (seems they're fine), and I've parsed the list of movies based on PKD material released until now. I've forgotten about "Screamers", so let me try forcing a bit my brain to see what I can remember ...

The movie is a Canadian production (as far as I remember), quite old as it can be seen, with not too many actors, Peter Weller ("Robocop") being probably the most known of them. The story goes like this: somewhere on a planet colonized for mining purposes, two sides are at war for quite a while, one using as weapons the "screamers". A sort of subterranean robots able to detect living beings and having attached some very sharp blades - in other words a sort of mobile and reusable anti-personal mines. On top of that in the features is included also an advanced AI = self-repairing and maintenance. I think it starts to be obvious where this is going, right ? ;) Well, one day, after a long period of silence in the conflict, the commander of one side receives a truce message from the adverse party and leaves the camp to check what's behind this. What he finds .. you can see in the movie :) (I don't remember very exactly anyway).

The production is low-budget, and from what I remember not very spectacular = probably resembles quite a lot an episode from "The Outer Limits", at least much more than a mainstream movie. But the story is ok and it gets a bit more alert towards the end ( I recall an ending twist, or something around there ). What's interesting to see is that even though the movie was released in '95 the base material, much more older, can be considered as an inspiration source for quite many films where the AI in robots/machines gets crazy, exponential being obviously "Terminator" and being followed by many others. So, to conclude, if you're in the mood for a decent SciFi without expecting much as production value, give it a chance ;)

Rating: 3 out of 5

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

With the risk to lose my credibility for good ( even if I managed to nail some Oscars, so it might have risen a bit ;) ) I've decided to write this entry. "Die Hard" was for me, and still remains the best action movie franchise. The second would be "Lethal Weapon", and the third is too far to think on which is exactly. Maybe the "fault" for this lies in the fact that the decades '80-'90 mostly covered both = I was easier to impress at that age. In any case, when I heard that "Die Hard 5" was bashed by everybody I thought that I'll change my top. As I was saying, still, it remains (as a series) there on the 1st place :)

I have to admit that the movie is quite weak. But not that pathetic as I was expecting and as I was made to believe by all the reviews that I've went over. The directing and the editing are indeed a disaster (John Moore - "Max Payne" was enough to expect that). The script though, that everybody complains of, is not that bad, but I have to admit that it looks a bit .. mutilated = cut from an extended version. To add more to the downsides, Bruce Willis seems a bit too bored of life in his role (even if he acts as John McClane). And still ...

The story itself wasn't bad, but was brought down by the rest of the production which as I was saying seems that shortened the script. Even so, we have a twist towards the end, but again it could have probably handled better on screen. There are a couple of action sequences that are above everything I've seen in "Transformers" for example, and we're not talking about 3D here. Despite the lack of realism, these still look more believable than what we had in the previous. From what I'm usually writing it should be clear that I'm not the one to fall for something like that, but in this case I've actually felt the need to mention it. Besides that, the cinematography is decently worked out, with quite powerful filters on some scenes, which remind me more about the first three movies in the series than the fourth did. To conclude, I have to admit that the directing makes a difference. Unfortunately John McTiernan is not active anymore to see any chances to get to what it was for the 6th part (and since I was mentioning "Lethal Weapon" I don't think Richard Donner will direct either for the fifth which seems to have chances to get produced). Even so, I would still give some chance to another "Die Hard". Who knows ;) ...

Rating: 3 out of 5