Last movie you watched

[Zunu]

Living (2022)

Bill Nighy is quietly extraordinary in this film about an aging (or ageing, as it's known across the pond) civil service department head who realizes that he's led a mundane life and finds himself desperately wanting to change. There's little action to speak of, it's all quiet and mostly terse conversations, "a bit on the frosty side," yet the story moves along briskly, with sprinkles of humo(u)r, and by its conclusion is certain to make viewers reflect upon their own lives. The cinematography is excellent, mimicking the grain and saturation of films from 70 years ago. The screenplay is written by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro of the books/films "Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go," as a thoroughly English adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 Ikiru (To Live). If you like Ishiguro's mannered, reserved, economical writing style, then this motion picture will appeal to you. I'm a big fan of Ishiguro's so I loved it.

[erilaz]

^ I didn't realize that had opened yet — even though it's playing at the theater where I saw the 2023 Oscar-nominated animated shorts this afternoon. I loved Kurosawa's Ikiru, and Bill Nighy is always great, so I definitely intend to see it.

Also today, I bought a used Blu-ray of Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010) for $2.99 and just watched it. One of the most hilariously awful movies ever made, with jaw-droppingly inept CGI effects.

[erilaz]

The cinematography is excellent, mimicking the grain and saturation of films from 70 years ago.

Yes, they really captured that look, right down to the font choices for the opening credits. All the more reason to see it in an actual cinema (which I did today).

[Zunu]

Cinematography aside, I hope you enjoyed the story. I love the supreme confidence by which Ishiguro is able to map quintessential Japaneseness onto quintessential Britishness. It's a seamless bijection.

[erilaz]

Heavy Trip (Hevi reissu) (2018) — Impaled Rektum, an unknown band from a small town in rural Finland, goes on a quest to play their "symphonic, post-apocalyptic, reindeer-grinding, Christ-abusing, extreme war pagan Fennoscandic metal" at Northern Damnation, the biggest metal festival in Norway. Absolutely hilarious! I loved it!

[erilaz]

J.R.R. Tolkien — The 1998 BBC documentary, directed by Julian Birkett. It's a very good introduction to Tolkien, with a fine mix of "talking heads" and archival footage, including interviews with Tolkien himself. I watched it for the first time in many years, since I finally got around to buying the DVD to upgrade from my old VHS dub. It's a joy to watch Tolkien as he writes in Tengwar ("I've made a mistake, haven't I?" — actually more than one), to see Denis Bridoux by Tolkien's grave, chanting the early version of "Namárië" (as Tolkien recorded it, before he reached the version published in The Lord of the Rings), and to see some familiar faces from the Tolkien Society discussing one of the Elvish poems from "A Secret Vice". Several of the people who appear in the documentary are either friends or acquaintances of mine, so it was fun seeing them again as they were a quarter-century ago.

[erilaz]

Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer fait tousser) (2022) — A group of five superheroes called the Tobacco Force aren't at the top of their game, so their Chief (who looks a lot like Trevor from Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles) sends them to a retreat, where they tell each other scary stories while an extraterrestrial villain plans to destroy the Earth.

John Waters raves: "A superhero movie for idiots! One of the best films of the year!” It's pretty deranged and a lot of fun, but I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the director's 2010 film, Rubber, in which a car tire becomes sentient and develops homicidal telekinetic powers.

[Moh]

Today I actually went to the theatre and saw John Wick: Chapter 4. This movie kicked ass tbh. The choreography was awesome!

A few days ago I watched Kimi ni Todoke (君に届け). The manga hadn't been completed at the time of the movie's release, so they kinda fudged a few details. It was still very cute though! Miura Haruma was quite charming in it.

[erilaz]

Renfield (2023) — Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) is attending support group meetings at a local church, because he's stuck in a toxic, co-dependent relationship with his horrible boss. Renfield's boss is worse than your shitty boss, and even worse than mine, because he's none other than Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage being typically over-the-top Nicolas Cage). It's a fun spin on the Dracula mythos, loaded with humor, action, and extreme gore.

[rikkikow]

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2022)
“A young girl escapes from an asylum in New Orleans and makes some surprising allies.”


Closing credits tune

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