Last 5 Viewed
Riddick (David Twohy | 2013 | USA/UK)
Night Across the Street (Raoul Ruiz | 2012 | Chile/France)*
Pain & Gain (Michael Bay | 2013 | USA)*
You're Next (Adam Wingard | 2011 | USA)
Little Odessa (James Gray | 1994 | USA)*
*recommended *highly recommended
“It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.” -- Rainer Werner Fassbinder
twitter | next projection | criticker | frames within frames
Red Lights left me a bit bewildered since I was so enthralled, then the rug was pulled out at the end and I'm unsure how I feel about it. I'll say this, though: it uses the transcendent fictive powers of the medium it allegorically interrogates very cleverly. What we have is essentially a film about fiction. Half the film is spent with skeptics detailing the manners in which a person who claims to have supernatural abilities manipulates and uses sensorial trickery to accomplish their feats of para-psychological phenomenon all while employing the very same artifice to draw you in and subject you to the same types of sensual incitement that allows those of us to "believe". Is Silver a fraud, or is he the one that's real? The director stages and edits the film in such a fashion that will allow for the existence of doubt in the skeptic's mind initially, then carefully switches gears and seems to take both sides. Scenes of explanatory science are juxtaposed with those of allegedly supernatural phenomenon; the close edits exposing the vulnerability of the mindful viewer and placing them within an agnostic populace. We're made to submit to the same psychological game being denounced by the leads via the natural transformative abilities of cinema. Both sound and visual stimuli are employed to pull the thought process in opposing directions. The actual telling of the story matters, but the inherent influence of the cinematic medium -- and most importantly the fact that we are all able to be manipulated with the power of suggestion -- gives the film a baseline to jump from in its surreptitious invocation.
Last 5 Viewed
Riddick (David Twohy | 2013 | USA/UK)
Night Across the Street (Raoul Ruiz | 2012 | Chile/France)*
Pain & Gain (Michael Bay | 2013 | USA)*
You're Next (Adam Wingard | 2011 | USA)
Little Odessa (James Gray | 1994 | USA)*
*recommended *highly recommended
“It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.” -- Rainer Werner Fassbinder
twitter | next projection | criticker | frames within frames
I wonder: is this film good in a "this film is really good" kind of way, or a "Top Gun is a masterpiece" kind of way?
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
I have a thing for these kinds of flawed off-beat genre flicks, so I voted yay.
I actually like the extra layer a third act revelation adds to the movie, but I wish it wasn't as underdeveloped.
Last movies seen
Frank: Good
Mistaken for Strangers: Good
Guardians of the Galaxy: Good
Last TV seasons watched
Treme (S04): Good
The Legend of Korra (S03): Good
Currently reading
This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Both?Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Last 5 Viewed
Riddick (David Twohy | 2013 | USA/UK)
Night Across the Street (Raoul Ruiz | 2012 | Chile/France)*
Pain & Gain (Michael Bay | 2013 | USA)*
You're Next (Adam Wingard | 2011 | USA)
Little Odessa (James Gray | 1994 | USA)*
*recommended *highly recommended
“It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.” -- Rainer Werner Fassbinder
twitter | next projection | criticker | frames within frames
Oh.Quoting B-side (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
This was so bad, you guys.
So bad!Quoting eternity (view post)
Much of this doesn't work, and yet I found it a moderately interesting failure with many redeeming facets. Even the much-derided twist ending, while ludicrous and self-negating, is very similar to that of a certain early-00s film I love.
Letterboxd rating scale:
The Long Riders (Hill) ***
Furious 7 (Wan) **½
Hard Times (Hill) ****½
Another 48 Hrs. (Hill) ***
/48 Hrs./ (Hill) ***½
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Besson) ***
/Unknown/ (Collet-Serra) ***½
Animal (Simmons) **
I was really enjoying this until the end when I didn't get the answers to the questions I was asking.
Then the rug yank that showed I was looking in the wrong place and asking the wrong questions.
I want to cry foul...but they repeatedly told me to quit being distracted and looking where they told me to look. I have to say thumbs up.