Tag: Movies

1983, Movies

Space Raiders (1983, Howard R. Cohen)

When this movie came out, somebody noticed some of the spaceship fighting scenes were the same as Battle Beyond the Stars. And somebody noticed the score was the same too. Remarkably, despite those hilarious facts, this is not among the worst movies ever made. SPOILERS?

1974, Movies, TV

Edvard Munch (1974, Peter Watkins)

This film was actually a Norwegian TV series that was slightly abridged for a theatrical release in the rest of the world. (Unfortunately I watched the abridged version.) It’s a typical Peter Watkins approach to a documentary about a historical subject – filmed as if the film crew had travelled into the past.

1981, Movies

Home Sweet Home aka Slasher in the House (1981, Nettie Pena)

We were looking for a Thanksgiving horror film and so we found our way to this god-awful mess, featuring some of the worst lighting you will ever see in a movie. The director has a single credit after this film, and I suspect it’s because nobody believes they can light a film.

1987, Movies

Yuki yukite, shingun aka The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987, Kazuo Hara)

This is a bonkers documentary about one man’s quest to expose the truth about what happened to two Japanese soldiers in his regiment in New Guinea at the end of WWII. I can honestly say I’ve seen few films like it. I also think it’s a bit of a landmark as, though this type of …

2022, Basketball, Movies, Sports, TV

Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul (2022, David Terry Fine)

This is an interesting, compelling and entertaining documentary about Tim Donaghy for most of its run, and then it runs into conspiracy territory at the end and becomes rather frustrating.

2022, Movies

The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival

This was my first time attending TIFF in person in 3 years. It was a little exhausting, given how far out of downtown we now live but, once I got the hang of it, I fell back into the rhythm of it and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It also helped that, after a few movies that …

2022, Movies

Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Hong-Sung Kim)

This is an extremely gory, bloody and bonkers action/horror film about a ship of inmates travelling from the Philippines to Korea. The theme of it is basically overkill – don’t just hit somebody once, do it seven times. Why shoot at someone once when you can use the entire magazine? It’s quite funny and entertaining …

2022, Movies

Chevalier (2022, Stephen Williams)

This film purports to tell the story of the first major black composer. But it’s a fantasy, not a real biography, and it spends much of its runtime obsessing about a made up love triangle and focusing on the friendships of the composer that are likely also made up. It’s a ridiculous movie. SPOILERS

2022, Movies

The Banshees of Innisherin (2022, Martin McDonagh)

This is an extremely funny dark comedy that takes a turn for the tragic. It was introduced to us as a fable, and I think it has to be viewed that way given the basically inexplicable behaviour of Brendan Gleeson’s character. SPOILERS

2022, Movies

Triangle of Sadness (2022, Ruben Östlund)

This is a satire cum gross-out comedy about the world’s 1%, broken up into 3 parts with a prologue. It won the Palme d’Or so there was more than a little hype going into it. What I can say is that it is very funny and it is breezy 147 minutes. So that’s something.

2022, Movies

Holy Spider (2022, Ali Abbasi)

For most of this film’s run-time, it’s a conventional, perhaps a little contrived, serial killer film, with a great opening sequence, that is otherwise mostly distinguished by the fact it is set in Mashad, Iran. And then it goes to a place that these films don’t. But that’s a spoiler so SPOILERS

2022, Movies

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022, Laura Poitras)

This film tells the story of the (formerly controversial) photographer Nan Goldin through the lens of her crusade to convince the major art galleries of the world to stop receiving money from the Sacklers (the former owners of Purdue Pharma) and to remove the Sackler name from their institutions.

2022, Movies

Free Money (2022, Lauren DeFilippo, Sam Soko)

This is a brief but reasonably compelling and entertaining documentary about a UBI experiment in Kenya by the charity GiveDirectly. Full disclosure: I have complete drunk the Universal Basic Income Kool-Aid so I am not going to be the most critical reviewer of anything about UBI. You have been warned.

2022, Movies

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2022, Aitch Alberto)

This is a coming of age drama about two teenage boys in El Paso in the late 1980s. Jenn and I were not warned it was based on a YA novel and so we did not know what we were getting into. (To clarify: we knew it was based on a novel, we just didn’t …

2022, Movies

Emily (2022, Frances O’Connor)

I normally hate when biopics deviate wildly from the historical record but, in this case, it really doesn’t bother me as much. And I think that’s because the director essentially admitted it was all made up in her introduction. I have more time for these historical inaccuracies if only because I know it’s fantasy. Mild …

2018, Movies

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018, Morgan Neville)

This is a super arty, slightly hagiographic documentary about The Other Side of the Wind, a film Orson Welles never released but apparently completed. If I knew, I had forgotten that the film was released with this documentary. (I have not yet watched the movie.)

2022, Movies

Death on the Nile (2022, Kenneth Branagh)

This is a bloated, basically humourless, and simply ridiculous version of Death on the Nile that makes the campy 1978 version look pretty great. I remember, when I saw Hamlet in theatres over two decades ago, an audience member loudly complained about Branagh’s ego in the intermission. I thought, “But it’s Hamlet. He is the …

2022, Movies

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022, Sam Raimi)

Can you tell me why some characters in other universes are played by the same actors and others aren’t? In this film Dr. Strange is always the same actor but in other films of the MCU Spider-Man is played by different actors. Jenn suggested it was British cast who stayed the same and American cast …

2014, Movies

Viy aka Forbidden Empire aka Forbidden Kingdom (2014, Oleg Stepchenko)

This is a bizarre Russian horror film starring an English actor (and so dubbed into English, at least on streaming services) that was made in 3D, so it looks extra bizarre on your TV. It is bizarrely listed as “Fantasy” on IMDB and, hence, on streaming services, but it’s horror (ish). I actually saw a …