Log: week 18 / 2024

The film zones in on a couple of Manhatten women, Mary Haines in particular. She is happily married, or at least that's what she believes. Her world shatters when she finds out about her husband's infidelity. For the time she condones Crystal, the new woman her husband is keeping, but the status quo is fragile.

There are some big names attached to this project, so it's no surprise this film had little trouble keeping its classic status. It is built around annoying stereotypes though (these women never shut up and are shallow as hell), and the dialogues aren't funny at all. What remains is very little, apart from a lighter mood, making it a tiny bit easier to get through.

The Bellas are back together, after struggling to get their lives in order. They get the opportunity to go to Europe in order to impress DJ Khaled, an offer they gladly accept. Once there they realize they're no real competition for the other groups competing, personal traumas only push the group further apart.

The jokes are pretty repetitive, the plot is a complete mess and the music is very shallow and poppy. It's still a pretty lighthearted affair and the film's a fair bit shorter compared to the first two, but it's not enough to make this a better film. It's a good thing they stopped after this one, though I'm sure a reboot won't be too far off.

When Kersey returns to New York, he finds his friend lying dead in the house. Right at that time the police arrive, taking Kersey in for questioning. The chief recognizes him and locks him up. But crime is on the rise in New York, and the chief of police figures he could use someone like Kersey to take on the criminals.

The finale is pretty preposterous but by far the best part of the film. The lead-up is rather boring though, and the romance is one of the cringiest I've ever seen. At least the pacing is somewhat decent and the film isn't too long, so it never gets too boring. But great cinema this is not.

Police chief Whitlock is secretly dating a colleague's wife. She is a cancer patient and doesn't have long to live, so he wants to try and help her. They decide to skip town, but on the night they plan to leave her house burns down. Whitlock is assigned to the case, but all evidence starts to point to him.

Out of Time is a film that goes through the motions. The plot isn't too exciting, the characters are a little dim and the twists aren't incredibly surprising, but the pacing is solid, and while there's never any doubt about the outcome, there is a nice build-up of tension. Not great, but not all that bad either.

A film crew lands in a small town after being shunned by another. They're shooting The Old Mill, but then they find out the town's Mill burned down almost 40 years ago. The scriptwriter is struggling to rewrite, the main actor's taste for young girls is becoming problematic and the female lead starts to question some contractual obligations.

Macy and Hoffman add some flair to the cast, there is some witty dialogue and the more dramatic scenes aren't that bad either. It makes for an entertaining watch, but it's not enough to keep it among my personal favorites. Taste evolves and the more you watch, the more you crave films that manage to stand out. Still, it's good fun if you haven't seen it yet.

Mark Dixon is a cop who doesn't like to play to the rules. His bosses think of him as a pain in the ass, and things get worse when he inadvertently kills a suspect. Trying to cover his tracks, Dixon does his best to pin the death on a hustler he despises, but his plan isn't as watertight as he'd hoped.

The performances were slightly better than the norm here, Tierney in particular put in a good effort. The rest of the film is quite straightforward though. Noir films will no doubt love it, if you're not that taken with the genre there isn't much here for you. Not the worst noir I've seen though.

Warhead is a small team within the NIA. They're secret agents and the best in their field, but they get framed by a crime syndicate and suddenly they become the target. They won't just yield though and through some tricky operations they'll hope to figure out who was behind the setup.

You could make three separate films out of this one, which is not bad for a film that only lasts 70 minutes. Because of that, it does feel a bit too much like a cut-and-paste job of various other genre classics, a tiny bit more focus would've been nice. But if it's fast-paced genre fun you're after, you won't be disappointed by Lui's latest.

As the title explains, we're 28 weeks into the outbreak that turned Britain into a zombie graveyard. A small city of survivors has been established, where people try to get back to their regular lives. With the outbreak slowly becoming a more distant memory, security starts to drift, which will have dire consequences.

It takes a while before the outbreak rekindles, some flashbacks make sure the first half sports the necessary horror moments. The cinematography is a little messy though, and the film wasn't as tense as I remembered it to be. It's still fun to see a young Imogen Poots and Jeremy Renner (completely forgot about them), but it's simply not as exciting anymore.

Rusty is a respected lawyer, but when a colleague of his is brutally murdered, he is looking at some tough time ahead. He is assigned to investigate the case. Many of the clues seem to lead back to him, and the fact that he used to have an affair with this colleague. Before he knows it, Rusty's the one on trial.

There are some twists and turns scattered throughout, but as I didn't care for the character or the plot, they weren't all that rewarding in the first place. The performances are plain, the presentation is dire and two hours is quite long for a film that never excites. Like many 90s thrillers, this one didn't age very well.

A young kid drives out to the skater park, takes out a gun, and kills himself. It's merely an introduction for a group of friends that like to hang out together. They knew the kid but weren't that closely connected. The youngsters aren't all that shocked by the suicide, as they all have problems of their own.

Clark doesn't shun controversy, resulting in some pretty graphic scenes (both sexual content and violence). If you want to take this as a realistic drama then it's probably a bit much, as a more tailored film narrative it makes plenty of sense though. It's not quite as good or enticing as I remembered it to be, but still a very worthy film.

During the Afghan war, a Russian police officer who operates in a small provincial town close to Leningrad goes mad. He kidnaps a girl and keeps her as a slave. He also abuses her, while his wife can only watch from the sidelines. People are looking for the girl though, and the officer isn't too careful.

I'm not entirely sure whether the film had the 80s look down, or Russian films generally look a bit more dated. The setting is dreary though and the characters are dull, but the events are dark and the stark, cold presentation helps to increase the impact. Not bad, but a bit too barren for my taste.

If you look up Okamura on the internet (a mysterious samurai who is said to chop off your head in one clean sweep), he'll appear right in front of you and kill you on the spot. People become obsessed with the phenomenon and all non-believers end up dead within minutes of their attempt to debunk the story.

It's a pretty decent attempt to marry two opposing sides of the Japanese horror genre (less is more meets maximalism), but you're not getting the best of both worlds here. There's no real tension, and the gore is a bit simple and repetitive. There's some quirkiness that helps keep things interesting and the short runtime is pleasant, but it's far from a future horror classic.

London has become the playground for the excessively wealthy, the rest of the civilians are forced to live in designated communities. Izi lives in The Kitchen, one of the final strongholds, but he isn't content living there and he plans to move away. Then he meets Benji, a young boy who messes up his plans.

There's relatively little world-building and half the time the film doesn't even look all that futuristic, even though it's set in 2040. The performances are solid though and the drama is pretty decent. It's certainly not as bad as most ratings suggest, but I would've liked it better if it had stronger genre elements.

Alfred De Carter is a famous conductor who works in the US. He is happily married to Daphne, but he is a jealous and suspicious man who believes his wife is cheating on him. To calm his mind, he comes up with several ways of trapping her, but none of his schemes go according to plan.

The characters are annoying, a lot of the comedy hinges on the rapid banter (which lacks edge), and the noir elements don't fit in all that well with the rest of the film. It's also a tad long, but that's probably because I didn't care for any of it. It's not my kind of film, and Sturges couldn't convince me otherwise.