list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Japanese film about a teenage boy who murders his father, afterwards struggling with both his guilty conscience and an accidental witness trying to blackmail him. It's very different than I expected, had thought this would be an extremely disturbing horror film but it's instead more of a dark existentialist drama that's not very bloody instead spending more time inside the protagonist's fracturing psyche. I still found it quite worthwhile, the glacial pace and fantastic command of the minimalistic visual storytelling remind me of a more accessible version of Kim Ki-duk's earlier films if nowhere as memorable for the same reasons.


There seems to be a huge untapped market for action movies with female protagonists if the breakaway success of The Hunger Games and Lucy are any indication, and after watching this I hope that Gina Carano becomes an A-list action star. I enjoyed that it's not just much more serious in tone than most other action movies on the era, but also has an exceptionally complex and well-thought out espionage thriller plot. The action cinematography and stunt work are also for the most part way above average for modern Hollywood even considering the star is a former professional kickboxer.

Also, if the Occidental version of Ghost in the Shell ever gets off the ground Ms. Carano would make an ideal choice as the Major if they absolutely have to cast a roundeye.

Sleep Tight (Mientras duermes) (2011) - very unusual type of Home Invasion movie, definitely not horror, you end up being sort of for and disgusted by the main character - 7/10

coupla of old school Home Invasion movies:

Lady in a Cage (1964) - classic one here, probably more disturbing than most nowadays Home Invasion flicks, super young James Caan also plays such a sleazy villain - 8/10

Wait Until Dark (1967) -  another unique take on Home Invasion making the protagonist blind played by Audrey Hepburn, one or two things you question 'well why didn't she do this or that?' but over all pretty darn clever,  super young villain played by Alan Arkin too 7/10

House on the Edge of the Park (1980) - Fresh off of Cannibal Holocaust Ruggero Deodato recruits David Hess for this Italian sleaze-fest of a Home Invasionspoitation flick.  With those elements in play who could go wrong?  Honestly though I was hoping for something a little more disturbing and visceral, even though there were a few decent moments.  Some people hate the ending, I thought it was a bit clever, even though it was all pretty sloppy, but hey this is B-grade Italian cinema from the grimy era of the early 80s, what more could you expect or want? - 6.5/10

Mad Max: Fury Road - What made this so good is that it seemed like it was made in the spirit of the early 80s. Like this could have easily been made in 1981 had the budget and technology been there. An example: You would never see that crazy guitar guy in a nowadays film, but for the early 80s, it fits perfectly! Those vehicles were absolutely amazing, who ever put those together must have had a helluva fun time! So much eyecandy in this film, definitely like to see it again just to take it all in. One of my all time favorite moments in cinema is the final act of The Road Warrior, to see that they made this movie about 85% just that, it's like a dream come true! 10/10!

Toaster Mantis wrote: I keep wondering if the extraordinary f**ked-up-ness of Italian and Japanese exploitation film is in large part a consequence of repressed collective guilt over WW2.

Interesting idea certainly. If you can cite similar examples of German exploitation f**ked up-ness in this genre, you might be on to something

Toaster Mantis wrote: Germany was much more thoroughly de-Nazified after the war than the other Axis Powers, though.

I'm not convinced of this (and neither were the Red Army Faction)

ExittheLemming wrote: Toaster Mantis wrote: Germany was much more thoroughly de-Nazified after the war than the other Axis Powers, though. I'm not convinced of this (and neither were the Red Army Faction)

Maybe not completely de-Nazified, but I don't think post-WW2 Germany ever elected a party as directly descended from the NSDAP as Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance from the National Fascist Party (through the MSI) to junior partner in a gov't coalition, nor can I imagine Angela Merkel getting away with denying Axis war crimes during WW2 the way Shinzô Abe does on a regular basis. (that stuff's actually a core part of modern Japanese conservatism)

This film I watched yesterday seems to comment on something similar as subtext:


Very different than what I expected on the basis of Takeshi Kitano's Hana-bi (or Fireworks), the only other film directed by him I've seen which was a curious but well-made hybrid of a moody introverted philosophical drama and the "cop on the edge" genre as incepted by Bullitt and Dirty Harry. This plays more like a Martin Scorcese-style crime drama providing no-nonsense look at the hidden business workings of the organized crime world, and the conflicts within that underworld social structure, just with a characteristically Japanese sense of morbid humour.

It gets a lot of mileage out of contrasting an artful minimalistic visual style and characters boldly proclaiming their dedication to Yakuza codes of traditional Japanese values of honour and loyalty and brotherhood with those moral virtues in practice being used to justify ever more grotesque acts of murder and torture committed over the pettiest business disputes. It's for the most part played with a completely straight face, but the dissonance is so clear that there's no way the intent isn't satirical, same thing with the chain reaction of escalating violence over the ever more trivial backstabbings making up the plot.

The whole thing comes back to what I mentioned about Japanese exploitation film perhaps manifesting the country's collective repressed memories of its unsavoury past history, and if "using high-minded talk of honour and loyalty to justify committing horrifying violence over material business issues" isn't a good metaphor for historical Japanese imperialism then what is? I got the idea from when I on YouTube wandered across an interview with a Japanese art historian specializing in pornographic art, who voiced that exact theory. Cross-ref. the Yakuza's connections to Japanese hardline nationalist political movements, which is briefly alluded to here in a subplot involving blackmail of a foreign diplomat.

As far as Italy goes, I think Pier Paolo Pasolini's adaptation of 120 Days of Sodom being set in Fascist Italy actually brings that up to the level of text.

Edge of Tomorrow  with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

Extremely bloody South Korean murder mystery that's got a fantastically well-realized atmospheric style of rain-dripping urban sleaze and decay, somewhere halfways between an 1980s exploitation film and Kim Ki-duk's early works. The plot is rather inventive, spending almost as much time getting inside the characters' heads as upon the formal aspects of investigation and ends up making some rather interesting commentary on gender roles that nonetheless are difficult to explain in detail without spoiling some major plot twists.