Blog Archives

Tokyo Vampire Hotel

31/7/2018

TOKYO VAMPIRE HOTEL [season one] ★★☆☆☆
I’ve watched 12 movies from cult director Sion Sono. However, his new television show has been a chore (until episode 7, which is KILL BILL/13 ASSASSINS good). The rest is mostly drawn out, repetitive nonsense.

Wesley Snipes - birthday

31/7/2018

It is actor Wesley Snipes’s birthday. His top 5 films:

- BLADE
- BROOKLYN’S FINEST
- DEMOLITION MAN
- CHI-RAQ
- MO’ BETTER BLUES

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn

30/7/2018

AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN ★½☆☆☆
D: Jim Hosking (The Greasy Strangler).
S: Aubrey Plaza, Jemaine Clement, Emile Hirsch, Craig Robinson, Matt Berry.

Even with top comedians like Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Rec), Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), Craig Robinson (This Is the End), and Matt Berry (Toast of London), there is just one laugh in the entire runtime.

Out to Own Today: Journeyman, My Friend Dahmer and Wonderstruck

30/7/2018

Out to own today:

Journeyman

“Do you feel legit now?” Emma (Jodie Whittaker)

JOURNEYMAN is a boxing movie tear-jerker. It sidesteps sports genre hackneyed plotting, to be about something bigger: The aftermath of debilitating injury. Don’t worry, thankfully there is no cliché comeback story. However, the lead’s journey would not be out of place on an afternoon TV-movie-of-the-week. Everyone learns some lessons. The audience is reassured. But when that happens, doesn’t the movie leave the mind too quickly? Unbalancing the viewer makes them engage, and ask themselves why they are troubled.
[To read more, click here.]

My Friend Dahmer

“Friends are our connection with this world,” Lionel Dahmer (Dallas Roberts)

He killed 17 people from 1978-91. MY FRIEND DAHMER is a speculation on the last year of high school of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Like Netflix television show, MINDHUNTER, about the birth of criminal psychological profiling, one wonders how much of this film is factual. Either way, it is an upsetting portrait. Is there a 2017 trend to move away from these murderers as geniuses and instead portray them as disturbed individuals, who have been abused or neglected? They are not shown to be created in a vacuum (à la a demon from another dimension in horror fantasy, e.g. IT). Excuses are not on the agenda, but examination of cause and effect. They are de-glamorised, currently being moved away from Hannibal Lector and Dexter. HOUNDS OF LOVE released this year is sordid and depraved. No catharsis is offered. MY FRIEND DAHMER is similarly without relief.
[To read more, click here.]

Wonderstruck

"It is never the right time," Ben (Oakes Fegley)

How did director Todd Haynes go from I'M NOT THERE (one of the most accomplished biopics), and then CAROL, to this? Almost interminable, who is the film aimed at? It's too dull for adults. Surely it's also too dull for kids? It brings to mind his unnecessary five hour take on MILDRED PIERCE. WONDERSTRUCK contains only one ace scene in 117 minutes: An unusual, exciting three-way communication.
[To read more, click here.]

Arnold Schwarzenegger - birthday

30/7/2018

It is actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s birthday. His top 5 films:

- CONAN THE BARBARIAN
- LAST ACTION HERO
- PREDATOR
- TERMINATOR 2
- TOTAL RECALL

Cold War - film review

29/7/2018

COLD WAR ★★★★½
D: Pawel Pawlikowski (Ida, The Woman in the Fifth, My Summer of Love, Last Resort).
S: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza, Jeanne Balibar, Cédric Kahn.

A love story about incandescent passion and mutual destruction that we cannot look away from.
My review: http://www.filmaluation.com/cold-war.html