Again, due to lack of time, I chose the shortest option available = "The Guilty", for this week. It's a Danish production that got enough awards around two years ago to make me notice it and check it as "must watch". It's a good movie, but as usual, when the expectancy is high, the final impression is not that good (valid for the opposite too - check my previous blog entry).
The subject in "The Guilty" fits well for a theatrical representation. Asger Holm e is an impulsive police officer, under investigation for killing a suspect during an intervention, and temporarily sent to a desk job as an operator for emergency calls. The entire development of the movie is basically built on that: phone calls. The first couple have a role to define an initial profile of the character we have in front of us, in brief: a guy who seems well-intended but a bit too much self-confident. Afterwards, we're getting into the main story - Iben, mother of two children, claims to be abducted, apparently by her ex-husband after a violent conflict in front of their kids. It's the first call that seems important enough to Asger to catch his full attention.
The whole impact of "The Guilty" is based on the case evolving with each call that brings new elements in the story. I already advanced a bit too much with the info there, to even give some hint that twists are present. I'd just say more that in the end it's easy to draw some conclusion on the main subject of the movie, which is actually on the other side of the phone compared to what you might think it the beginning. Precisely, the movie is less about Iben, and more about Asger, ending as a characterization that evolves from the start profile to a morale saying that following your first impulse is not the best option. Well, that's debatable... or at least to me the movie seemed a bit one-sided on this, which can be discussed if you remove the context (despite the fact that in general I'd agree with the idea).
Anyway, to slowly move towards conclusion, there are a couple more things to mention. For a movie that lasts below 90 minutes, out of which most are audio phone calls, we have something that's a bit weird... it's both impressive how much it can get from the sound effects, but I can't get over some parts where the sound editing gets sloppy. That's valid also for the realism of the script, which in might make it hard to watch as drama intensity, but at a certain point it's getting a bit exaggerated in regard to what you could do undisturbed in an emergency calls office, where you're not the only operator. So, I'll stick to the opinion that the movie is ok, but it could've been better.
There are two of "The Lighthouse" released in latest years, both inspired by the same incident. At some point during the 19th century on a small island close to the coast of Wales two lighthouse keepers got stranded from any passing ship due to a storm that kept going for weeks. In brief, history says that one of them died in an accident and the other went through a terrible episode of cabin fever, and never recovered completely. The first movie of something like three years ago is apparently a more accurate representation of the events, the one we have here being just loosely based = indeed, we have two lighthouse keepers isolated somewhere, but both of them slowly advance in their madness. Actually, half of the movie is the prologue for that, and half of the movie is the effective manifestation. In other words, what we have here is a sort of "symphony of madness". In some sense might be seen as a horror, in some other sense like a sort of psychoanalysis of a human being in isolation, but in any of these senses I'd say it finally fails. Maybe I'm subjective because I didn't like it. What I can objectively say is that leaving aside the subject and the action development, it's the only movie until now that convinced me that Robert Pattinson can act (by faaaaar his best role of what I've seen with him - shouldn't mistake him for Hayden Christensen anymore after this), and this + the camera work and the sound, which send you somewhere close to Hitchcock make the movie watchable. That's about it.
Is it the pill, or it's not the pill? That's the essential question in "Side Effects". And which sticks up to the end. It's been a while since I've watched a movie that gives you that feeling of "I know who did it!" and change it after. And I think it does it more than once.
The setup goes like this. Emily is a depressive woman, whose husband is jailed for something like evading taxes (you're not told that, but it's probably something like that) being released after four years. Unfortunately from the status of former prosperous businessman, the guy now lives out his wife's salary who meanwhile wishing or not, had to find a job. Unfortunately neither his release, nor his efforts to get back his life seem to comfort the woman, who reaches out for a psychiatrist. The doctor switches her between several prescriptions, until we're getting to one with side effects. Bad, terrible, side effects... Since, up to this point you have to get through what I could name the boring area, with an extra touch for some moment trademarked Soderbergh (the director) that seem way longer than it's needed although you can't tell clearly what's the extra part, I will give a light spoiler: somebody dies (which makes you think if there aren't too many faces on the poster...). After that... is it the pill? :)
Risking another spoiler, between the lines, looking at the ending, I can say that the movie is quite disturbing. I mean, I would've taken the first "I know who did it!" and left it there. Although the action is quite different it reminded me somehow of "Gone Girl". Even though there you know quite well who's guilty. Here, as I said, you're induced of believing something, after which something else, and so on, and the development is subtle enough to not let you know until close to the finish if you're taking the right side.
Rating: 4 out of 5 (objectively, subjectively we stick to the standard 3.5 :) )
Old movie - short entry: "Session 9" is an example of a horror movie in the real sense of a horror, not the typical action disguised as a horror = lots of blood, screams and a stupid subject. It's not exactly "It Follows", but I think that in the last two and a half years I didn't see anything else that transpired such a tense feeling as I've got here. The movie was shot in a place that seems to actually be a former closed asylum left to decay, Danvers State Asylum, a building that I guess beats any other in a top of creepy/haunted places I've seen in a movie. And yes, that counts also the Overlook Hotel in Shining... The story starts relatively simple - a crew of 5 men working as a team of cleaning/decontamination for asbestos constructions is contracted to take care of the mentioned building. As a detail, the team leader offers an apparently impossible time of a week for getting the job done to secure the contract. Things go obviously bad ... and again obviously we have something bad in the building. The action follows a sort of classic development, day by day, which is one of the aspects that seem to lose its sense since we only get to Friday (well, seems I gave a spoiler...). What's nice is that each character is really carefully constructed, the script exploiting very well the more or less obvious personal fears. That's actually so well done that (again...) I reached the conclusion that I probably got too old for psychological horrors, the everyday life stress is enough. What's not that nice is that the movie, an indie, feels a bit unpolished leaving a lot to the viewer to figure out. Including that "something bad" from above, at least partially - although the fact that we don't have a solid clarification contributes on making the movie more real, and implicitly more scary. But, enough spoilers :) ...
It took me four days to watch "Beyond the Black Rainbow". And not because it's split in four parts or has four hours. It's just an excellent sleeping pill replacement, despite the apparent promises of a tensed subject with nightmare potential. Well ... it actually might have nightmare potential (for who's brain is rested enough to make a difference), but tension .. zero. I'm not going to give details on the "action". The movie develops very very slowly like a "poor man's David Lynch" film. I decided to write this short entry for just one reason. Actually, two ... cinematography & sound. The visuals and the audio are excellent. Probably the frame composition was the main reason that kept me (sort of) awake. And the score complements perfectly the time setting, which is somewhere in the '70s (= we have again a lot of synth use a la John Carpenter as in "It Follows"). Unfortunately, after days with waking at 8:00 and failed attempts to go to bed at 2:00 I wasn't able to observe more than the technical side. If there is more ... Which felt missing. So ...
If you're scared by David Lynch, you should not watch "Enemy" ...
If you're arachnophobic, you should not watch "Enemy" ...
If you're given chills by syndromes like multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia, you should not watch "Enemy" ...
Maybe you should watch "Enemy" ...
What could I say more than the clip and trailer posted below ? I don't know... Jake Gyllenhaal plays a double part, a lonely history professor who discovers he has an identical lookalike in a B-movies actor. As expected, up to the end you'll probably get sort of convinced that the two are one and the same. Sort of .. because unlike, let's say "Fight Club", here the movie doesn't bother that much to connect the dots in order to avoid loopholes (well ... you probably can explain everything as a hallucination of the main character = problem solved).
I'm not really in the mood to get into other details on the subject. I still should point other stuff though. The movie is directed by Denis Villeneuve ("Prisoners"). I doubt it could've got any better on the script it has = yet another proof that the director's quite promising. Besides that I can add also the brilliant cinematography (Nicolas Bolduc - never heard of him before). It's simply put in perfect tone with the subject. And the comparison with David Lynch in the beginning comes mostly from the atmosphere created that's mainly based on the visuals.
I'd keep for myself the end note philosophy, but... At least, I'd like to believe that the movie ending interpretation is that people with some kind of problems, at some point, and with somebody close to them, can become aware. If not about themselves, at least about the effects on others around them. The reality is chillin' though. And .. that's all.
"Lambert are you married ?" "Yes. Nearly 30 years." "What's it like, living with a woman?" "Like taking part in an auction. You never know if yours will be the best offer."
I've reached again Friday without any options available for a blog entry. Therefore, I decided to throw a look on the European Film Awards given last week, to see if I can find something interesting. Since the main winner, "La grande bellezza", seemed dangerous enough to completely bury my already lately awful mood, I picked another Italian production among the nominees - "La migliore offerta". Horrible error ... beautiful movie ...
I don't really know how to start this, at the current impossible hour, after a "sleep-cutting" movie ... and topping all with some dizziness (no, I didn't get my hands on any bottle yet, although I'm quite tempted). I'll try a more ... lighthearted approach, although it's not that easy = I don't know what follows. But let's try to be pragmatic for starters ... As the beginning quote suggests, the movie is a coproduction, the dialogue being in English. The main character in the story is Virgil Oldman, the owner and lead manager of a successful auction house, a guy that passed his youth, expert evaluator in paintings and antiques, quite lonely, eccentric, and with a consistent fortune gathered through the business he's leading. One day he's getting a request from a young woman, Claire Ibbetson, to evaluate the goods she inherited from her late parents, objects stacked somewhere in an old villa. Although reluctant, he finally accepts but .. ends up waiting in the rain for 40 minutes in front of a closed gate (don't worry, in movie minutes is a shorter time). The client calls again though, and after complicated excuses and tearful insistence she manages to get a second meeting appointment. Surprise again, the young lady is not present at the place .. again. However, the gate is opened by a guy employed to take care of the house, who's instructed to give details to our auctioneer. Point where mister Oldman discovers two things: 1) his client was not seen by anybody for years, apparently suffering of agoraphobia and 2) in the basement of the building are lying around some contraptions which are apparently pieces of an old, unique and expensive humanoid automaton.
That's enough. I shouldn't tell more from the subject. The movie is .. painfully predictable, where "painfully" doesn't refer to the fact of being predictable, but to what you don't want to happen and you know it will. As suggested between the lines by the opening quote, the story takes at some point a turn to a romance .. between a sort of weird guy who meets an apparently even weirder girl. I'm not really in the mood now (and I think I didn't have a proper mood for that in years, so it won't happen soon) to get into details about the potential complicated twists arising in such context, either in the movie (which anyway would generate a flood of spoilers) or situation-wise by itself. What can I do is to get back to the script. I doubt the writing has much purpose in not disclosing the ending. However, it manages to discreetly hide many many other aspects, which if discovered, considerably amplify the impact of the final part. I could start with the automaton construction, that progresses in parallel with the main character "deconstruction", and I could go down to minor stuff like the allegory in choosing the character names - Virgil + Oldman vs. Claire + Ibbetson. I might be rambling without any accuracy here, but give a thought on it after seeing the movie (before it doesn't tell you anything anyway), and if you only have the last name for which you still don't find an allegoric sense just google for "Peter Ibbetson".
Let me get a bit into the production part. Practically the movie has Giuseppe Tornatore written all over it in big letters. For me he's still the best Italian director at the moment, although I seldom see Italian movies. The script is also written by him, and I'll just add that, besides the recently watched "Prisoners" (on a total different niche though), it's probably one of the most intelligent I've seen in the last years (although it's not plothole free). About the actors .. well, good and bad - Geoffrey Rush makes a good role, but he seemed a bit too theatrical for me in some scenes. An interesting surprise was Sylvia Hoeks who initially seemed to be amateurishly inexpressive, but the story gradually explains a lot ... Technically, the cinematography (Fabio Zamarion) is probably the best I've seen this year in a non-action movie (by the way, talking about "Prisoners", what Roger Deakins did there is left behind by far, at least on framing and chromatic-wise, because on the visual space of expression the movies are not the same). The score, probably the best Morricone product since "Untouchables", follows a pretty calm theme, but it has also some vocal nuances which make it feel uneasy at some points (as a positive remark).
I'll get back to the opening quote ... It's just an out-of-context discussion with a secondary character in the movie, apparently unrelated to the main action. However, you can get some sense of it at some point after the credits end, if you take a minute to reflect on "the best offer". Maybe you don't know if it's the best, but what does it mean to be the best ? Is it too low, or too high ? Do you need the object after all, or not ? Do you know for sure if you bid for an original, or maybe for a fake ? Finally though .. "There's something authentic in every forgery." And how bitter it might be, maybe sometimes it's better if you managed to bid "the best offer" and won that small something ;) Just pay attention it's not getting too expensive, because it can ...
I'm not in the best psychic mood to write an entry, and the current subject it's really "appropriate". I'll dig right into the the subject, "Red Lights", a quite obscure thriller from last year = no marketing, despite the names written on the poster.
The movie's action is focused on a team from a Psychology department in an university, team that has as main activity .. "myth busting" to cut it shortly, or more exactly unmasking supposed paranormal gifted people. The main subject is a blind guy, Simon Silver = a sort of Uri Geller (at least he's bending spoons live on TV), who after disappearing from the public eye for 30 years stages a comeback meant to prove the public that the unreal is real.
Why ? That's a question stated at some point in the movie. Why is it needed to unmask a supposed-to-be medium, mentalist, etc ? And again in the movie somebody gives an answer. Which sounds more or less like this: Let's say that some day a women in pain prefers to ask a so called alternate therapist who impressed her through his miraculous curing sessions. The guy comforts her after "healing" her energetic aura and tells her that everything will be ok. Later, when the situation gets worse the woman finds out that she has cancer in a stage that wasn't treated at the right time.
I could have started a long debate related to the movie message, but I guess that the "approximate" quoting above is sufficient. Moreover, I'd rather not get deeper into the subject because I would be too subjective (although I don't know if I can hold it). "The sleep of reason gives birth to monsters" says a sketch by Goya. And a pretty long part of the movie follows this line (in a less radical manner though). As any driven-by-reason scientist (although the movie offers also a counterexample) the "myth busters" team doesn't believe in unexplained phenomenons. Actually .. and well, I'm already taking it personal :) more correct for the movie would be that they don't believe in paranormal. In what concerns me I'll stick to "unexplained", in the sense that sooner or later (= 0 - millions of years) the unexplained becomes perfectly explainable, and probably way less spectacular and much more reasonable than you might think of it. Probably the fire was a surreal sorcery for the first homo sapiens who lost a spark in a pile of dry wood. But the fire burns if you don't know how to handle it. Stuff that probably applies to many unexplained phenomenons which many claim they can successfully manipulate. The movie drives less on this lane (of burning yourself with the "fire") and more into the world of fake healers (who have no idea how to make "fire" but they're selling heat). Somewhere between the lines though, and in the final conclusion (light spoiler), the directions connect in the sense that somebody who can actually do something out of common would probably keep it as possible out of the world's eyes.
Sorry .. I said I can't hold it :) ... Let me get back to more objective stuff. The movie itself is an average one. We have a neo-noir atmosphere which is captured quite well. The story though, which I don't want to reveal more than I did, has many plotholes. Besides that there are some hard to believe scenes, action threads left unfinished, and other problems in the script. As a conclusion, the script .. effectively as script, could've been written much better than it is. It compensates a lot through actors: Robert de Niro, Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy and also ironically, despite what I just said ... through the story. More exactly through a twist which you don't see coming, and not the least .. through a sufficiently deep message to take it first time either as white, either as black, but in reality is a pretty inexact shade of grey.
Last time I was complaining that the movie fails as horror, the supposed-to-be genre. Well, the wheel turned (sort of speaking) and this time I stumbled into a much more darker thriller than I was expecting. Actually, sufficiently uneasy that half an hour ago I seriously considered to find another movie as topic, because I didn't have the mood to write about "Stoker". Unfortunately the memory doesn't help me to find something else about which to have something to say now, so ...
Very briefly, the plot starts with the death of Richard Stoker in a hard to explain accident (carbonized in his own car), event that is followed by the unexpected appearance at the funeral of Charlie Stoker, the brother who no one saw before. A guy who decides to remain for a while in the house of the deceased, keeping company to his widow - a woman seeming often under the effect of a Xanax and vodka combination, along her daughter India - a mix between a far relative of the Addams family, Stephen King's Carrie and the living sister from "A Tale of Two Sisters"/"The Uninvited" (as light spoiler for who has seen one of the two versions, this movie might generate relatively close interpretations). Further, in the first half we have slow run, in a very "hitchcockian" style, targeting mostly the build-up of a malefic aura surrounding the freshly arrived uncle (who some say he was in Europe before and some others in Asia, but nobody knows what he was doing there). In the second half of the movie you get a sort of "mystery solving", and I'll resume just on saying that the transition to this part is done quite abruptly and .. how to put it .. pretty sick, even for my level of tolerance.
For who has seen something directed by Park Chan-wook ("Thirst", "Oldboy", "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance", "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance") it shouldn't be a surprise that this is not an easily digestible production. The movies get sometimes to the darkest corners of the human behavior. All in all the impact and the story "solution" which is quite tangled sometimes, puts the productions somewhere at the top of the Asian cinema of the last 15 years ("Oldboy" got an award at Cannes too). "Stoker" is his first movie in the States, and I also think the the first of the mentioned where he didn't write the script. The result is that despite of the above, what we have here proves to be the lightest Park production. Objectively speaking ...
Subjectively I prefer not to comment too much, and limit myself to a personal opinion that every human being on this planet has a degree of insanity, many times latent, about whose level and development degree potential unfortunately not everybody is aware, and capable to hold it, at least in regard to the ones around. And when it "escapes" it becomes quite hard to control ... But it's just a personal opinion, and we're not on a philosophy blog ;) Unfortunately the movie left me with a pretty bad state, bad enough to influence my rating sufficiently to have no idea idea how I would give if I would be objective. I'm sorry but I'll spoil a bit too much. The movie doesn't have a happy-end (don't worry, I didn't say everything). Stuff that normally doesn't bother me, but here I would have liked a positive ending (although more unrealistic). I didn't like it but this doesn't really matter .. (I gave it a 5 on IMDb and I'll leave it like this).
To end though in a recommendation note, I have to give a major plus as artistic product which is absolutely memorable. Everything, cinematography, score, sound effects, acting are so well done in respect to hold on with the subject that I think they reach the level of the best moments of mystery construction in Hitchcock's movies and of the tension build-up in David Lynch's productions. If I would do a atmospheric characterization the result is somewhere between "Psycho" and "Mulholland Drive". Even so, concerning my private opinion ...
I've chosen this poster with a purpose. Two reasons: 1. it's pretty much as .. "dry" as the movie 2. the other main version has upfront exactly the "weakest link" from all the cast. And the cast is in my opinion one of the few reasons for which "A Dangerous Method" doesn't sink into mediocrity ...
I won't spend time telling stories, describing a subject that it's pretty loose. Not that I expected more consistency, and not that this would be a problem - the movie is an adaptation after a book describing a short period (probably keeping a strong element of fiction, I don't really know ...) from the lives of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Or better said the moments when these intersected .. the intersection "point" being a female patient, future disciple, and who is the reference on item 2. above, being interpreted by Keira Knightley .. well, not exactly lame, but far far from something credible. Fortunately, as I was saying we still have the rest of the cast where Michael Fassbender (Jung) and Viggo Mortensen (Freud) deal well enough with their parts to save the movie. I could even mention Vincent Cassel on this actually, with a very short role, because much else to say on the positive side ...
Well .. there is the soundtrack by Howard Shore that can be felt as positive, probably because (except for the actors) you won't feel much else. As I said in the beginning, the movie is "dry". For who has seen something by David Cronenberg (especially the newest productions - "Eastern Promises", "A History of Violence") probably can recognize the same sensation of .. how to say this .. well, again, dry mixed with slow and with an action thread (or subthreads) that either is left somewhere "in limbo", either is cut and patched again after. The difference here is this sensation is kept for pretty much of the movie length. Pretty much from the beginning to the end. I don't know, maybe I wasn't in a good day for a Cronenberg move. Besides this, his stuff is not exactly mainstream = you have to like him, and even then it's not guaranteed that you'll digest everything (same as for others like Lynch, Almodovar, etc). Still, in what I'm concerned, especially for the last period of his directorial activity, I wasn't very dissapointed. From the older productions I don't think I have anything good to say besides "eXistenZ" and "Dead Zone", the rest for me were a bit too disgusting. Especially for this, I would have never thought, considering how "A Dangerous Method" was, that I would get to the point to be tempted to say that maybe a bit more violence, blood, etc ... is recommended .. because the "philosophical" part might be there, but is not that deep to put your brain at work and keep your eyes on the screen.
Rating: 3 out of 5 .. with generosity ..
(.. "big spoiler": because the movie still somehow managed not to bore me completely = it's the type that it seems like telling you permanently that smth will happen soon but it never does)
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