The Official Movie Thread

[CiG]

Speaking of folk horror:

‘You Won’t Be Alone’ Is a Sensory Examination of Humanity Through Witchy Folk Horror.

You Won’t Be Alone reframes life and its stages through the lens of a witch, creating a sensory experience that’s artful, languid meditation with a helping of blood and entrails.

In an isolated Macedonian mountain village in the 19th century, a woman goes about her daily chores until she discovers an old witch (Annamaria Marinca) standing over her baby. After pleading and a blood exchange, a bargain is struck, though the woman soon after attempts to hide the baby until she’s sixteen. The witch eventually returns to claim the sheltered teen Nevena (Sara Klimoska), transforming then abandoning her. The feral girl soon finds herself borrowing the skins of others, assuming their lives, and observing human behavior.

Almost like a series of vignettes that skip through some of life’s most important milestones, You Won’t Be Alone is a heady mood piece that can get a bit unwieldy in its most prolonged, quietest stretches. And there are many. Stolevski favors aesthetics over dialogue and a conventional narrative. Nevena grew up in a cave before being tossed old coldly into the world like a newborn. Her savage curiosity leads to harsh and primal lessons on life and death, as well as the cruel, superstitious world that created an ancient witch shaped in the first place.

Actors Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, and Carloto Cotta stand out as borrowed skins for the young witch to observe humanity firsthand. They provide emotion and introspection, a contrast to Nevena’s blank slate. They offer near silent contemplations on the tangible world around them. Nevena’s curiosity is insatiable; she explores childhood, sexuality, all genders, and ages. It’s often without purpose; Nevena’s explorations are impulsive and aimless.

 

[rms]

I saw Chucky when I was like 5, hated dolls since but nothing really petrifies me. Still get the heebie heebie-jeebies when I watch the original Halloween... remember Blair witch being scary when it came out, hard to build an atmosphere that really gets you into the oh shit scary mood.

Think I watched the conjuring for the first time in Thanksgiving night maybe 6-7 years ago, really got me going, was awhile before I got that spooked.

I remember having dreams as a kid whenever I watched a scary movie that the villain would be walking a train track coming to get me never was a nightmare kid or anything though. Ah, youth. Fuck.

 

[CiG]

Saw my first 2022 movie, a Stan Original called Gold.



Directed by actor Anthony Hayes (Animal Kingdom, Cargo, Beneath Hill 60, Mystery Road) and it's similar in spirit to stuff like Cargo and The Rover with the whole dirty dusty headache-inducingly hot outback setting.



I thoroughly enjoyed Zac Efron which is something I didn't think I'd ever say. Basically it's set in some sort of vague post-apocalyptic near-future Australia and Efron pays a guy to drive him across the outback to find work at an outpost. They stop to deal with the car and Efron discovers a gigantic submerged boulder of gold.



After digging it up and realising how huge it is, Anthony Hayes drives off to get an excavator leaving Efron behind to guard it, saying he'll be gone for roughly 5 days. Limited food and water, a pack of stray dogs that grow increasingly braver, snakes, scorpions, sand storms and more.



Awesome understated little outback psychological thriller gem to kick off the year.

 

[CiG]

Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Alien: Resurrection, Amélie) has a new sci-fi comedy coming out.

Looks pretty fucking weird.

 

[Bloopy]

Looks like a spiritual continuation of the Vacuubot episode from Love Death & Robots. I just saw The City of Lost Children recently and will get around to seeing Amélie eventually. I'll have to catch that one too.

 

[challenge_everything]

Annette was truly dreadful. Which is a pity because there is the kernel of a good movie with Adam Driver as the bitter, self-destructive comedian. But it has some of the worst music I've ever come across in a musical, which is saying something. Musically bland and even worse, lyrically banal, often used for lazy exposition as they sing shit like "we're so in love" or "we're travelling the world" over and over. Yuck. No subtlety or craft to be seen; I couldn't wait for each song to end (and they take up about two thirds of the movie).

I'm also not convinced the puppet conceit added much, other than avoiding Carax having to grapple with how to show a real singing baby.

 

[CiG]

Hardcore disagree. I thought the songs really fit the story perfectly. I think it's unfair to call it lyrically bland, the seemingly shallow nature of the lyrics are supposed to reflect the superficial romance between the main characters in my view. It's almost like if they repeat the line "We Love Each Other So Much" it'll eventually come true.

Spoiler

I'm also not convinced the puppet conceit added much, other than avoiding Carax having to grapple with how to show a real singing baby.

Other than the singing baby issue it solved, I felt like the marionette daughter symbolised Driver's fear of fatherhood and his inability to connect with his daughter. He completely objectifies her, treating her as little more than a thing he uses to make money. But also her mother used her as a vehicle to take revenge on Driver, so in a sense she is literally and figuratively a puppet for her parents' desires.

This is why she's a real girl at the end, once she's no longer having her strings pulled by her parents.

 

[challenge_everything]

It's almost like if they repeat the line "We Love Each Other So Much" it'll eventually come true.

I accept that, I thought the same during that song. But the pattern continues throughout the movie.

Spoiler

But also her mother used her as a vehicle to take revenge on Driver, so in a sense she is literally and figuratively a puppet for her parents' desires.

This is why she's a real girl at the end, once she's no longer having her strings pulled by her parents.

I got that, it was subtle as a sledgehammer. I didn't express myself very well. I just don't think the metaphor was particularly effective, and the theme of parental exploitation would have resonated better using a real child actress. This wasn't really a deal breaker for me though, my main issue was the music.

 

[CiG]

Fair enough, I guess I appreciated the weirdness of using a marionette.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Had a piece published on a personal favorite film. Of limited appeal, but not weird 90's porn either. https://diaboliquemagazine.com/ever...y3AwIiimZkpK2plZAWkLp8OjuNZdC-HapUvoMjJ6wZZKk

 

[RadicalThrasher]

Watching

Released in theaters in 1977, not seen since. No vhs, dvd, no tv screenings, etc. Rights for the film finally cleared or sorted out.

Spoiler

 

[Vegard Pompey]

First time watch. Instant favorite Kubrick and all-time top 10.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i suspect it'll be my favourite kubrick too when i eventually rewatch it.

 

[AbelTim]

Watched this one the other day. Ted Bundy films and docs have certainly been done to death, but I've got to say that Luke Kirby was pretty spot on as Bundy. The mannerisms, speech were all on point. Elijah Wood was solid as FBI profiler Bill Hagmaier as well. My only gripes with the film were the inclusions of excerpts from home footage and scenery akin to dump/kills sites that really didn't add anything of value to the film. Also, some of the minor character's could have had their character's fleshed out a bit more.

 

[CiG]

Bong Joon-ho and Robert Pattinson are giving the people what they want by pairing up for a new sci-fi film.

From what we know about the book, the film will follow Mickey7, an expendable employee who is part of a human effort to colonise the frozen planet Niflheim. Mickey7's role is to step in whenever a job is considered too risky or even suicidal and sacrifice himself for the rest of the team. When we meet Mickey7 there have already been six others like him, a new body created after each death.

When a routine scouting mission goes awry, Mickey7 is lost and presumed dead. When he finally arrives back to the colony after being aided by the natives, he finds that another Mickey has been created in his place. As duplicate expendables are considered loathsome, he must hide the truth about his survival. Meanwhile all around him Niflheim is in chaos: food supplies are low, the atmosphere is unsuitable for humans and the native species are growing restless. We think we have a fair idea of how this will end.

 

[no country for old wainds]

some lesser known stuff i've watched recently and want to recommend:

highly recommend this one to @Slayed Necros in particular. a countryfied repo man type deal starring fred ward as a waylon jennings wannabe, harry dean stanton as a shady preacher etc, loads of country music on the soundtrack. never been released on DVD (according to IMDB trivia, might not be true anymore), director doesn't even have a wiki page and never directed another feature.

immediately one of my upper tier female character studies. fuck movies about personal growth (ew), gimme more about pathetic manipulative poverty-stricken narcissists without the slightest possibility of ever changing or realising their dreams. the feelies did the soundtrack, punk legend richard hell plays a pretty major role.

(AKA time for revenge) has an insanely high rating on letterboxd, but among almost exclusively argentine viewers. it's a bit like if the conversation was amped up by righteous political anger into a unionist revenge movie, made in the middle of an oppressive dictatorship. watch this if you've ever worked in a quarry and/or hated your bosses and/or liked movies made with evidently huge cajones. central performance is great too.

(aka city of pirates) this has a monster reputation among those who know it and it still exceeded my expectations. one of the most haunted, dreamlike movies, unlocking the chest of the mind and consuming the rotten hallucinogenic fruits then sleepsailing the waves of hysteria, decay and despair in search of an anchor. fans of surreal cinema from bunuel to maddin would probably dig.

(aka august in the water) file next to kurosawa's charisma as a very eerie apocalyptic ecological sci-fi. could see everyone from @Einherjar86 to @Oblivious Maximus liking this.

dunno if this is obscure but i don't think it's very well liked, which is a shame 'cause it's glorious trash for john waters fans (he loves it and included it on his 'movies that will corrupt you' programme) starring reese witherspoon and kiefer sutherland. i've heard the sequel is good as well.

 

[CiG]

I've only seen Freeway out of those, I definitely don't like it as much as those who consider it a cult classic but it's a cool movie. Reminded me a bit of Guncrazy, another underrated 90's 'corrupted youth' flick.

UFOria sounds great, wishlisted with the quickness.

I've been watching so much stuff lately. Rewatched the whole MCU catalogue (just waiting to see the new Spider-Man now), saw Dune which was amazing and I've been slowly going through a huge list of action movies (The Mechanic remake, Hardcore Henry, Kiss of the Dragon etc). These are some I want to highlight though:



Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (2013) More Adkins stanning from me. The sequel to Ninja from 2009 that was not very good. Scott Adkins himself dislikes the movie and specifically because he did a bad job bringing the character to life. He sought to rectify that with the sequel and he pretty much accomplished that, even though the acting, script and directing style is hardly masterful, for a b-movie it's solid. Most importantly the violence, action choreography and ninja aesthetic is utterly insane. Some of the best fight scenes Adkins has ever done are in this movie and the BTS stuff is crazy, the injuries are almost Hong Kong-tier in how much he had to work through. @RadicalThrasher I know you dig ninja shit and martial arts action so I'd definitely recommend this for you.

Spoiler

Brubaker (1980) A cool prison flick by Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke, The Pope of Greenwich Village, The Amityville Horror etc) inspired by a pretty unbelievable true story about a prison warden who enters a prison he's about to take over as an inmate (like Undercover Boss lol) in order to witness the prison system's corruption first-hand. Great cast of familiar faces if you watch a lot of 70's and 80's 'blue collar' movies.

Spoiler

Boiling Point (2021) Philip Barantini is a cool new British director digging into working class stories which is pretty refreshing after a lot of the Bond/Kingsman type shit coming out lately. His first feature was Villain with Craig Fairbrass in the lead, that was killer but ultimately pretty conventional. Boiling Point is another level though. Stephen Graham plays a chef who left his old boss and opened his own restaurant, and it's slowly boiling over into a disaster. This is a 'one-shot' movie which is already immediately impressive, the whole movie takes place over a single night's service and it's incredibly tense. Probably very triggering for people who have experienced the horrors of the service industry lmao.




Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) Navot Papushado's solo debut (he usually works as a duo with Aharon Keshales, they directed Big Bad Wolves) and the best way I could describe it is Kill Bill meets John Wick meets Free Fire meets Kate. A lady hitman is given a job to kill a man that goes wrong, resulting in her basically going to war with her own organisation. Beautifully filmed, the blood often looks like red Kool-Aid, everything is so vibrant and popping. But it's also extremely violent and over-the-top. Great support cast with Lena Headey, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh and Angela Bassett, and Karen Gillan is amazing in the lead doing all kinds of crazy choreography and stuntwork. It's not a deep movie, some might even handwave it as feminist porn, but I found it to be insanely entertaining and visually stunning.

Spoiler

 

[no country for old wainds]

you should wishlist smithereens and time for revenge too, think you’d like both.

boiling point sounds like my kinda shit.

 

[CiG]

Yeah I wishlisted everything.

 

[RadicalThrasher]

Tonight

Gritty, 70's cop/crime film

Spoiler