Log: week 15 / 2023

A film with an interesting premise, but it never quite fulfilled its promise. A cremator gone mad during WWII and a director with an eye for styling sounds like a perfect mix for an off-kilter horror flick, but somewhat I'd hoped for something a bit weirder and more explicit, instead, the film offers a slower and more subdued experience.

The inevitable sequel. The first film was China's biggest sci-fi film ever, so of course a second one would follow. What could and should've been a massive blockbuster, turned into a somewhat bloated and drama-heavy follow-up. The middle part in particular really holds up the film.

An interesting film. Mati Dop swings Senegalese cinema in a European arthouse direction. With some fantastical elements that find their footing during the second half of the film, she steers clear of a purer drama, but the genre elements end up feeling a bit underwhelming and don't do enough to really set Atlantics apart from its peers.

Östlund's latest came with a lot of buzz, but like his previous films, it's a bit hard to pinpoint why exactly this film stands out for so many. It does feature the popular "rich people are bastards" theme, which seems to be a shortcut to success, but the film doesn't really do much with it.

I'm not quite sure why I lost track of Ozon's work, but he used to be a director who I kept a close eye on two decades ago. Maybe because his dramas started to feel a bit too pedestrian, even though the base quality is definitely still present, as that is exactly how I'd describe Summer of 85.

One of Fritz Lang's final films. Lang isn't my favorite 20s German director, but he certainly was a man with talent and vision. A lot of that went missing when he moved to America, where he ended up doing mediocre genre fluff. Point in case, this generic film-noir, which feels much older than it is.

Oliver Stone is going for a fairly simple and commercial crime flick. It's a bit of a random film for Stone but after a bunch of engaged biopics, it feels like a breath of fresh air. I didn't mind Savages so much, at the same time, it's not really a film I'll fondly remember if I remember it at all.

Chinese streamer films keep getting better, though the gains are marginal and there's still some way to go before I could start calling them personal favorites. Tale of the Mural contains some exceptional scenes, but overall it's too formulaic and not all genre elements work as well as they should (the comedy in particular is rather distracting and ill-fitting).

This was a very nice surprise. Miss China's Ring is a lo-fi sci-fi tale with some pretty cool animation and an attractive art style. I hadn't heard about the film before, which is a tad surprising considering its relatively broader appeal, but it's always cool to bump into a hidden gem. It's not grand enough to be a true anime classic, but that's about the only negative I can come up with.

Where to even begin? The absurdist comedy of Dupieux has found its way to both genre and arthouse fans, a rare feat indeed. Smoking Causes Coughing is a dry parody of the Tokusatsu niche (think Power Rangers), but that doesn't even begin to describe what Dupieux has in store for his audience. A mix of monster cheese, wonky sci-fi, and horror rambles on, often reminiscent of the statement he made so eloquently in his breakthrough film Rubber: no reason. It's a small miracle his films find funding these days, it's a complete mystery how they find praise, but I'm not complaining. I love every single on of them.

I never watched the series, but I was already familiar with the concept of this film, so the discovery phase was pretty much wasted on me. It sounded like a bit of generic tech doom and that is exactly what I got. It's not a film that aged very well, but the pacing is pretty decent and the runtime is short enough to keep my interest.

Familiar territory. Blind people regaining their sight or deaf people regaining their hearing: it's a perfect recipe for mysterious hauntings. The Unheard goes down this very route, the only real issue is that it takes more than two hours to get to the end of it. Way too long for this type of film.

A typical Japanese island film, only executed as animation. It's not something I've really encountered before, but in the wake of Shinkai's success, it's not all that weird to see films like this emerge. It works pretty well too, especially with the added LGBTQ+ angle, the only problem is that it gets a little too dramatic during the second half.

Fun, but not quite as funny as it tries to be. Films like Blasted can be a little crummy and cheesy by design in the name of comedy, but they can never cross over into full-on lazy and/or cheap. It never does, but it gets uncomfortably close sometimes, and that takes away from the amusement.

The sequel. While I could understand the first film making a good buck (the book was immensely popular after all), I was way more surprised this sequel actually landed on its legs. The first film was pretty bland, yet people still turned up for this equally uninteresting follow-up. Remarkable indeed.

Kazuya Shiraishi doing what he does best: digging into the creepy crevices of the human mind. Regardless of genre, Shiraishi always finds characters that are deeply unrooted and struggling to fit in, and Lesson in Murder is no exception. I kinda like his approach, so it's no surprise I ended up liking this film.

Bit of a cheesy Cowboys and Indians flick, but at least it's not quite as wannabe tough and/or cool as some of its more illustrious peers. That makes it much easier to sit through, even though the runtime does its best to get in the way of any enjoyment. Not sure who thought it a good idea to turn this into a 140-minute film.

One of Delon's first big roles and a story that's a spin-off from The Talented Mr. Ripley, there are your two main reasons a film like Purple Noon has somehow remained relevant after all these years. Other than that, it's just a very basic crime thriller that overstays its welcome and doesn't have too much on offer.