avis de indy-39

I've seen all of Osgood perkins films and I've liked them all. I especially liked "Longlegs" a film who's detractors didn't really understand it. "The Monkey" is another animal altogether (no pun intended). Black comedies are rare- gory, horriffic ones are even rarer. The film begins (after a brief opening) with children( I love children in real life- in movies I hate children...I particularly hate Stephen King children) so it was rather difficult for me to connect for the first 30 minutes.

Less than halfway through this film, though, I caught the thread of the film and it immediately reminded me of the amazing Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetary Man for you phillistines out there). It's just a crazy, wild ride and you either go with it or not. I'm always happy to see a director take chances and so I support Perkins here. Is it as good as DD? No. But, perhaps upon rewatching I may warm to the beginning more and that 7 might become an 8. Takeaway here...if you haven't ever seen DD, you're missing out.

When I have great anticpation to see a film, it generally ends up with disappointment. Come to think of it, when I don't have great anticipation it pretty much ends the same way. Frewaka was that rare film fulfilled my hopes. I'd only seen "The Devil's Doorway" a few weeks ago and the promise I saw in that film (which had some great moments but was weighed down by the anchor that is "found footage ") was realized here.

I probably know a little more about Irish folklore than most, so that helps., but this is a really coherent cohesive work. If you're like me, when the film is over you'll go back and re examine the beginning and you'll find that this is a well thought out tale that holds together. First rate performances by all enhanced by strong camerawork, most importantly it sticks the ending unlike 95% of horror- though you'll have to endure the credits to find out how. Didn't give it a 10- because I never give out 10's.

Wow, is this movie full of itself. It jumps back and forth in time more than Once Upon A Time in America which indeed is "challenging" but, unlike the Leone masterpiece, this film has nothing to say. These guys should have cut the pretense and had all three leads be homosexual or bisexual males- something they know something about. They obviously know little about how heterosexual males act and react (I know, I know, to someone gay all males are either gay or pretending not to be-thus my title). Zendaya's character is obviously a gay guy in drag- they do give her a kid as cover- but there's little that's female about her. The film is overlong and obvious with an absolutely idiotic ending- but it is filmed with style and the script isn't all bad. It's just that it betrays the audience- it's "time jumping" gimmmick seems to be more a device to cover up it's flaws and inconsistentcy than anything else. I will say that it was somewhat refreshing to watch a film where all three leads were pretty unattractive and I admire the effort that it must have taken to find even less attractive extras to prop them up.

In my wildest dreams, I never hoped that anyone would ever do a Dario Argento doc that would seriously delve into what makes Argento one of my favorite filmmakers. Indeed, I often vacillate myself between seeing him as a guilty pleasure and a true visionary in the horror genre. Dario Argento: Panico lays out a sound case for placing him at the top of the pantheon of greats.

I enjoyed the film with a rare relish and was very impressed that the exploration was not top heavy with Suspiria- but rather doled out equal time to so many other films. It made me want to go out and revisit some of the work I haven't seen in a while. (I'd just seen Inferno recently in the Blu Underground print and was blown away by the film for the first time- after three previous viewings. ) My high praise, however, comes with a warning- I think if you have limited exposure to all of his work you will be at a severe disadvantage here. This is a deep dive and the film doesn't take time to get you up to speed on the work- but that's how it should be when dealing with the "Maestro". (If Fellini called him that, how could I possibly disagree?)

After reading a number of reviews here about how unique this film and this character is I just had to jump in. First let's talk about this "precious" film...and "precious beyond words" it is. (That's a criticism folks). The film itself is a mess and feels to me like it's been cut up. Things don't always make sense- some characters don't make sense- there's pop music interjected at every turn (you will have to listen to Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" multiple times- I believe that's against the Geneva Convention). The whole thing, that's supposed to be so original, comes off as formulaic and forced with phony emotional scene after scene.

In 1975 they made a very similar film and it was everything that BOP wanted to be. You've never seen it, but I'll bet Neil Jordan has. It was called "The Naked Civil Servant" and it was innovative and coherent and really, really memorable. And it contained a performance by John Hurt that blows away the lead performance in this film. All art is derivative, I know, but you have to improve on the source or risk being called out. I'm calling Neil Jordan out.

Don't let the phony bot reviews fool you, this is a piece of garbage. Obviously Crowe is better than the material because you can't fall off the floor. I had trouble keeping my eyes open for much of it since we've seen it all before. Only Franco Nero escaped this unscathed- all the other actors (sans Crowe) turned in boring and one dimensional performances. The direction was basic with nothing to raise your interest. I figure this was a tax write off that got everyone involved a nice vacation to Italy- it's good to see Russell is still eating well...next up "The Citizen's Kane". Blah, blah, blah (to fill out the review- not worthy of 600 characters).

This recently aired on TCM Imports and man is it shockingly bad. Like a really weak DePalma film (think Femme Fatale) that was clearly influenced by Desperately Seeking Susan (which was made two years prior). So many interesting scenes- that we never get to see. Sex between the two main characters (we come in well after the deed), girl locked in steamroom while unconscious (cut to her in the hospital bed recovering) , girl falls off boat (cut to her soaking wet walking on the road). You get the idea. There's not one moment of suspense in the whole film. Someone said the editing was good. Huh? It was embarrassing, with some cuts making me think this was a tv movie and there were cuts for commercials. I only wrote this review to save others from watching if TCM cues it up again. I'll never listen to Alicia Malone again- she obviously had not seen this. Hitchcock? She said "Hitchcock". Straight garbage.

I am not someone who was wowed by Hereditary or Midsommer (in fact conjuring up the image of the guy in the bear costume burning up can still cause to to laugh out loud) so I don't hold Aster in the high regard as many of the other reviewers here. I know young people are easily manipulated by popular opinion and idol worship, but surely even they could see through this garbage heap. This film was painfully bad and, although creative, was just flat out embarrassing to watch. The use of water in the film was most appropriate as the director is way out of his depth here. My head was cocked for so much of this that I ended up with a stiff neck (one of the few analogies Aster failed to use).

Tried to watch a few episodes of this series- from season one(you know, the good season) and found it to be weak. The biggest problem or, at least, the biggest sin here is that the show is supposed to be about a stand up comic/writer but whenever she does stand up it's not funny. Now, if the point of the show is that she was going to fail at this job the lack of humor would be okay. The film "Funny Bones" comes to mind every time I check into the later seasons (I know someone on the show)- where Jerry Lewis tells his son "It's no use. You're not funny. You've got to have Funny Bones." Certainly, if this had been about an aspiring young male comic it would have been dead in the water unless it was pure genius. You know, they say the great Neil Simon wrote at least five pages of dialog a day whether he used it or not. I have a feeling someone must have raided his trash can.

I was really not sure about watching "Hellbender"- the reviews here on IMDB were all over the place and, confidentially, it didn't really seem like my kind of horror film. Thank goodness I decided to give this little indie feature a try. There's a lot here that's really well done- first of all it puts a new spin on the ball which I won't give away . I thought the performances were very good and the script, while somewhat thin on dialogue, was crisp. The story holds together and the ending is solid. It's a quirky film where the atmosphere creeps you out- no real jump scares for the "Boo!" crowd (which I assume is where a lot of the hate comes from). This film is a good measuring stick for viewers: those who rated this a "1" or even less than "3" - it's back to film school for you- if you ever attended at all- and this time try to stay awake.

I'm not a huge scifi fan- I much prefer horror, and so it took me quite a long time to come around to watching Bava's "Planet Of The Vampires" even though I've seen virtually all his other work. I was thunderstruck by how good it was. The comparisons to "Alien" are very valid and, although it's done on the cheap, there's nothing cheap about the atmosphere here and it doesn't punk out on the payoff. When you factor in that this is 1965- pre "2001" this is quite an achievement- though nothing should ever surprise you about this master director. Get past the cheesy costumes and scenery and marvel at how he pulls this off.

Some films require your full attention and some films require both your full attention and submission. "After Sun" is an example of the latter. An amazing directorial debut (that will be nearly impossible to match) that attempts, and for the most part succeeds, the very difficult task of a slow reveal by bits and pieces...indeed fragments of memories...of a landmark in an eleven year old girl's life- a demarcation that has both molded her adult life and haunted her as she tries to put together the puzzle pieces to come up with a coherent picture of her then 31 year old father. Trying to finally resolve empathy and reality as she views the past from an older and perhaps more informed (if not wiser) perch. The performances are magnificent and the message powerful- you will, very much like the protagonist, find yourself doubling back to accord new meaning to scenes you only thought you understood. Strongly recommended to those who long to put all the residual noise of life aside and immerse themselves in contemplative film.

Imagine the Hallmark Channel decided to change up their usual insipid love stories for horror and The Harbinger is kind of what you might get. It has all the weaknesses of those romances: incredibly over scored, full of tropes strung together like ornaments on a Christmas tree, love with no passion (here its manifests as almost all the horror taking place off screen), played out (fairly well) by stock characters. There's not a surprise to be found in the story and the ending feels tacked on from a totally different film. As the "action" part of the film commenced I was actually embarrassed to still be watching. However, I wanted to review it to prevent others from the same fate, since it was some IMDB reviews that finally pushed me over the edge into viewing this. For horror newbies and, perhaps, Hallmark romance lovers only.