#MOST HARROWING FILM I'VE EVER SEEN | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jxnisnotfunny · 2 months

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before i go to bed once again. i just saw the most disturbing thing. and ofc i must talk about it, because it's ever so important.

(tw: discussion and censored presentation of extreme graphic violence)

honestly there's no beating around the bush here, i'm just gonna get to the point.

(additional note from op: "Btw I censored the @ cause it was censoredmen which I heard is a right wing account using palestine for clicks")

i saw the uncensored image too. just about an hour ago. on here, in fact, through a screenshotted instagram(?) post from motaz... idk WHAT within me wrenched the second i saw it, but something did. this photo is absolutely horrifying, harrowing and disturbing.

before anyone gets morbidly curious, let me describe the image. and let it be known that i'm not trying to be funny when i say this:

imagine if someone was lying on the ground, and all of a sudden, 90% of their body turned into splattered tomatoes. no face or head, no torso, no legs. that's what it looks like. that was a man. maybe even a boy. he was someone's someone. and now he's gone. in this most mangled form, no less... and it doesn't even stop there. the exposed right arm (still uncensored even in the embedded tweet)? you can tell where the treads ran this man over because his upper arm is completely flattened. his other arm is indiscernible. his right leg was completely destroyed into nothing but saggy flesh and a protruding tibia bone. you can't even see his organs clearly, he's just a heaping mound of red and yellow, with the only things "remaining"- aside from his right arm- being his clothes... my explanation hasn't even scratched the surface.

listen. i'm not easily disturbed by things. i've seen and heard a lot about this world and how scummy people can be... but this did it for me. i can't believe my eyes. my body is actually still somewhat shaking and sore from shock. if you're one to get easily sick from violence even leagues less gruesome than this... welp, this is your warning.

frankly, i really ought to have stopped looking at the picture longer ago, but part of me couldn't... everyone says "don't look away" when referring to the silence of you and the world as these atrocities are photographed, filmed and posted in real time... but for a good 10-20 minutes, if not more, i just kept looking. part of me wanted to argue morbid curiosity, but at the same time, it couldn't be...

i think of it now more as the epitome. the weight of the situation was just presented to me, clear as crystal. this is what palestinians are dealing with constantly while i'm safe and well at home. i couldn't imagine what this feels like, physically or mentally, but they're experiencing it right now. meanwhile, "israelis" are living as usual, pretending this is actually a two-sided war...

"israel" and everyone else complicit and/or participating must never be forgiven. this needs to end. NOW.

and the timing could've have been better for me to see this and make this post. today is the global shutdown for palestine. today is the day where we can show the world that these actions are beyond unacceptable. this picture, censored or not, should fuel your rage and urge you to take action. the plight and suffering of palestinians will end someday, as long as we keep working as a collective society and fight like hell. it HAS to.

#jxnistalking #extreme violence #graphic violence #palestine #free palestine #from the river to the sea #long post

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polyhexian · 1 year

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Nate ranks every transformers thing ever

What:

- Eugenesis

i have no idea how i can ethically rank this as good or bad. its good. its bad. its canon. its fanfiction. it is what it is. dont read eugenesis. please read eugenesis.

God tier:

- Rescue bots

i am not joking. i am not memeing. rescue bots is the best thing to ever come out of the transformers franchise. its the only series to break the three season curse and get a fourth season. it has more episodes than any other series, over 100. it didn’t get cancelled because it wasn’t popular, it ended because they ran out of stories they wanted to tell. then they dropped a sequel series with TWO more seasons. they gave nicole duboc a mainline series for this.

- Mtmte/lost light

life changing. incredible. ruined my life. saved my life. jro is my enemy. jro is my best friend. jro is my dad. i met him once. i showed him my hard copy of eugenesis i paid 150 dollars for and had him sign it. he probably thinks im insane. he DID sign it tho. i think about whirl and cdrw every day of my life

- Cyberverse

I LOVE CYBERVERSE SO MUCH... I don't think any series has captured the pure unbridled chaos of the entire franchise so well. It has so many characters and all of them feel RIGHT. I love the art style. I Love this unhinged soundwave. I LOVE the fresh and interesting new ideas if brought to the table. Season 3 was incredible. The season 4 specials destroyed me. TARN??? TARN IS HERE???

- Rescue bots academy

- Rise of the Beasts

I think that Bumblebee is an objectively better film, I just had more fun watching ROTB lol

- Bumblebee movie

BABY GIRL MY BABY DAUGHTER BABY GIRL BABY BABY

- Earthspark

- Botbots

Yes I am in fact putting botbots this high. This show was so unrepentantly funny. The goof at the beginning show us like oooh space ENERGON crashed to earth the war... Anyway none of that matters lets go to the mall. That is SO funny. They did a chopping mall parody and a Hamilton parody. The protagonist is an unhinged megalomaniac burger.

- Beast wars

don't worry about the visuals you get used to them so fucking fast. beast wars is incredible. the storytelling has so much depth. tigatrons big episode about the cost of their war against the planet and defining what protecting the planet even means changed me. theres an entire episode about farting and rampage and depth charge wanna hate fuck SO bad its fucking unreal

- Recordicons

you WILL acknowledge david willis’s contribution to lgbt history and you WILL laugh at his very funny memes

Great tier:

- Transformers Prime

- Transformers Animated

waspy baby.....

- Idw shattered glass

IM UNHINGED ABOUT SG STARSCREAM AND SG STARFIRE IM ABSOLUTELY UNHINGED

- 86 movie (Bluray remaster)

-the five minutes at the end of earthrise when cog became the main character for some reason

This was the funniest shit I've ever seen. One of the worst most boring shitty tf shows I've sat through with characters I truly care nothing for suddenly lurched sideways as out of fucking nowhere and for no reason at all a random background character suddenly took over the plot and gave the most harrowing performance I've seen in awhile in this horrifically tragic death scene that had my jaw on the floor. And then we just moved on and never spoke of it again ckdhzhcjof. WHAT WAS THAT.... LITERALLY WHAT WAS THAT AND WHY DID THAT HAPPEN....

- Armada (the starscream and Optimus parts)

It is UNREAL how good the starscream and Optimus bits are in this show. When the rest of it is pretty terrible. I would say after starscream dies it's pretty meh but not outright bad, just sort of nothin. The first couple episodes tho are so funny because they're so bad they had no script and were all but ad-libbing the whole thing. They couldn't go two minutes without getting a characters name wrong. Incredible. Anyway this starscream is legendary for being such an interesting and dynamic character with the best design ever. And just like. The coolest character arc.

Okay but also just like do not watch this show in English. The English version is awful and it is More than just a dub!! The Japanese version was finished AFTER the American version despite being animated in Japan!! Because the show! Was not! Done!!! The Japanese version of the show is called micron legend and it's practically a different show. Do yourself a favor and watched micron legend subbed.

- Victory

STAR SABER IS MY DAD OK

also the plot hinges around the premise that current autobot commander star saber found a human infant floating through space and legally adopted him. That's incredible come on

- IDW windblade mini

saren stone could kill me with a brick and i would thank them

- Transformers RiD15 IDW comic

Good tier:

- IDW2

- MMC mnemo/notif comic *

- Transformers go!

FUCK YEAH DRAGONS

- Funpub shattered glass

- Beast Wars uprising

DID YOU KNOW EJECT HAS A FUCKING SON?

Okay Tier:

- Wfc: Siege

- Zone

homosexual

- Challenge of the Go Bots *

Bad tier:

- The rest of IDW1

- G1

I'm not sorry for this. I don't like it. Boo

- Japanese headmasters

- Armada (the rest of it)

- Energon

- American headmasters

- Robotix *

im fucking unironically convinced when this flopped they just reused the plot for headmasters

- Wfc: earthrise

- Super god masterforce

- Beast wars 2

- Beast wars neo

- Beast machines

- RiD 2001

- 86 movie (pre bluray remaster)

- Cybertron

- Vanpires *

the wildest shit ive ever seen. ive watched every episode. imagine the cgi of beast wars season 1 with integrated live action. theres vampire cars and they "drain the gas from innocent cars" when cars??? not sentient???? the human children got irradiated and now they can turn into fucking horrible car beasts. why was this fucking made

- Bayverse

- Machinama’s Prime Wars

You know a series is bad when the first thing I want to complain about is the sound mixing

- Go-bots (transformers branded)

- Wfc: kingdom

Elite one my beloved I am so fucking sorry

Burn in hell tier:

- Rid15

Copaganda to rival paw patrol

- Exodus

This book called me a slur

- Hayato sakamoto’s Transformers Legends

- Kiss players

The worst thing transformers has ever done

??? (I still havent read/watched these) tier:

- Robot Masters

- Devastation

I played twenty minutes of this

- WfC

I’ve actually played a few hours of this but i got bored and didn’t finish so I don’t feel like i should rate it, but ultimately i just found it kind of generic and it didnt grab me

-FoC

-Wings Universe

-Unite Warriors

this is illustrated by hayato sakamoto and ive seen enough of like, the horny bathtub art and oversexualized female characters to assume its most likely shit tier, but i think he also brought breakdown back to life and canonized kobd? I do legitimately want to read this eventually

-Transtech

-Marvel comics

-GI Joe transformers crossover comics

-Dreamwave comics

-new energon universe image comic

-Q transformers

I have actually watched the subbed episodes of this but, there’s so few of them and its so clearly not intended for me since this is like a little silly flash cartoon specifically for japanese fans of transformers that its like, of course i dont really get the jokes or anything so even though i found this kind of boring i dont think its bad and i dont feel comfortable putting it on a tier

- TFP tie in games

- Bayverse tie in games

- Earth Wars

Energon enema though

- IDW MLP crossover

- Nezha

Nezha is lost media but it has toys and I have one so uhhhh I guess I'm acknowledging it theoretically exists

* don't act like this doesn't count, once you're deep enough to make a list ranking every transformers thing ever made you have to start counting this type of shit too

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yourdailykitsch · 10 months

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Why Taylor Kitsch had to take Painkiller

The actor and his frequent collaborator Peter Berg pop the lid off their opioid-crisis drama.

Since 2006, Peter Berg has cast Taylor Kitsch as an all-American football player in Friday Night Lights, a recalcitrant Naval officer in Battleship and a Taliban-fighting Navy SEAL in Lone Survivor. All of those collaborations, it turns out, have been building towards something: the most personal story they've worked on together yet. "Taylor's always a motivated, focused actor," Berg tells Empire, "But every once in a while something hits just a little bit harder. We fall in love with all our projects but, like your kids, sometimes you secretly love one a little more!"

In Painkiller, Kitsch plays garage mechanic Glen Kryger, whose life is turned upside-down after he suffers an injury at work and becomes hooked on the powerful painkiller OxyContin. The series itself might be a fictionalized account of America's ongoing opioid crisis, with made-up plots and character, but the sort of addiction it portrays is very real - as Kitsch knows all too well. The actor spent years helping a loved one get clean. "She's a nurse now," Kitsch beams of this person, who recently celebrated seven years of sobriety. "In my family, addiction is pretty prevalent, so to come in and serve this story was incredibly meaningful to me."

In an early episode, Kryger returns home from being feted by drug manufacturers Purdue Pharma as the new poster boy for the benefits of OxyContin - only to end up turning over his kitchen in a desperate rage when he can't find his pills. It's a harrowing scene, and one for which Kitsch says he drew directly on his own experience. "I've seen those moments, so it wasn't tough to understand," he says. "When I read the script for the first time, I couldn't get through the first episode. Everything started to come up again. I just had to listen to that, and realize it could be cathartic. I could go back to those moments that I'd witnessed first-hand."

Kitsch's deep understanding of the nature of addiction also made Berg's life easier. "I've never had to give less direction, ever," the director said. "he knew the reality of what he was doing before he even got the script." It's a series that further bolstered their creative love-in, leading to the pair wasting no time planning their fifth collaboration: American Primeval, a violent drama about the birth of the American West, coming soon to Netflix. "Taylor and I have known each other a long time and made different types of films together, but as we grow the type of work we do is going to change," says Berg. "We're exploring complex themes in Painkiller, and American Primeval is a further departure from anything we've done before. If we succeed, it should be quite an epic tale." For now, though, it's Painkiller they're focused on: a story that, for Kitsch, cuts agonizingly close to home.

#taylor kitsch

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e-s-willswriting · 22 days

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The Zone of Interest (2023) Review

(Crossposted from my Letterboxd)

I have 3 films that I would describe as the most harrowing film experiences: A Serbian Film, Skinamarink, and this.

A Serbian Film was egregiously depraved and I could not finish it. However, I personally felt that its depravity didn't communicate much nor did it do it in an interesting way compared to other disturbing films I've seen. Censorship bad, yes absolutely, but I personally needed more to hook me on why I witnessed what I did. I may rewatch it through to the end, but only to certify my thoughts on the film.

Skinamarink shocked me more than I expected it would and was another I could not finish. It was simply that the events halfway through the film were filled with so much helplessness that I ended up crying. I've never cried at a horror film before or since.

And then there is Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest (arguably a horror film as well as a Holocaust film). Of those 3 films, I finished this one and I'm so glad I did because the ending is phenomenal. (Watch in cinemas if you get the chance, or with a quality sound system).

Admittedly the film is intentionally boring. There's little in terms of surface level plot (Glazer stripped away aspects of the original book's narrative embellishments in order to make the film more realistic) and a particular office meeting scene accurately depicts the mundane aspects of life that I even found myself yawning in spite of the subject matter discussed. But the mundane is all deliberate since its paired with the sound.

The sounds of real horror. Constant. Present. Past. Close. Distant. Quiet. Deafening.

Lives taken each second as the central cast (perpetrators and those complicit with the genocide) go about life and work. A notable scene occurs where Hoss and his wife Hedwig argue about moving and underlying it all is gunshots. Their worries are their comfort. People die across the wall as they speak.

The Holocaust is the periphery of the film, and this serves as a powerful and poignant way to communicate the topic to our generation. For many of us, we continue our lives as atrocities occur worldwide to this day, and there's often a helplessness with that feeling (we see more about these things than our ancestors, but what can we do to stop the war machine?)

WW2 and the Holocaust feel distant, present in textbooks and statistics but losing their immediacy (especially as those born within that generation and those that experienced it first hand pass away). But the choice to focus on the mundane allows us to identify with the Hoss family, as horrific an idea that is. We know what it's like to sit through a work meeting or to chat late into the night or to play with our family. The film forces us to ask if we want to identify fully with the Hoss family. Do we want to be complicit, or silent, or ignorant, to atrocities?

Or do we choose to listen? Like the piano sheet and the story of the little Polish girl. Do we choose instead to hear and boost the voices of those killed and those that survive. Learn their stories. Carry their light with us. Fight for better.

I don't think I could ever forget this film. It's left a deep impact on me both as a writer, a lover of film, and as a person who navigates the world. It is a harrowing film, a dark and depressing film, but it is not devoid of light.

It's one of those films everyone should experience.

#the zone of interest #film review #writeblr #writer #writing blog #writing #writers on tumblr #letterboxd #movie review #jonathan glazer

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deafmangoes · 1 year

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An Album of Christmas Carols - 2

This older, black-and-white adaptation of A Christmas Carol has a very, very dear place in my heart. Let's get into it.

(The film, not my heart).

"Scrooge" (1951, Alistair Sim)

He has this expression for most of the film. In this 1951 adaptation, we get some real mileage out of exploring the dynamic between Scrooge and Marley, including the touching scene of Scrooge waiting until after business hours to visit his dying "friend", then complaining he can't hear him through the death-rattle. Also the undertaker is my spirit animal. I love him.

Ghosts? Ghosts!

This version of the story spends a little time with some original scenes establishing Scrooge as a miser. He eats thin soup in a dimly lit tavern and reconsiders ordering more bread when the innkeep informs him it's tuppence.

We get the usual appearances from Marley, via door knocker and servants' bells, before the man himself appears before Scrooge in the woobiest fashion I've ever seen. Some Marleys seem actively delighted to torment their former partner, this one really drums home the despair of eternal damnation, and oh boy can he scream. We also get a harrowing scene of shades throwing ghostly money at a starving, freezing mother and child, lamenting that they can no longer help - and should have done before.

Scrooge runs under the covers and - I guess - somehow still manages to fall asleep.

Christmas Past appears like a wise, ancient figure who has possibly escaped from a care home in their pyjamas. The filmmakers do a good job of making him look 'eerie' and do manage to keep a bit of that androgyny, Scrooge is shown his school, his sister, his apprenticeship, his failed engagement, and then - my favourite part of the film - the extended original scenes of Scrooge and Marley's partnership. We see them grow up as businessmen, then ruthless capitalists, and finally Marley dying and Scrooge barely giving a fuck.

Scrooge turns up to the home to visit the ailing Marley and meets an undertaker waiting.

Scrooge: "Who's that, the doctor?"

Housekeeper: "No sir, the undertaker..."

Scrooge: "Don't believe in letting the grass grow under your feet, do you?"

Undertaker: "Ours is a highly competitive profession, sir."

He's great, I love him.

Christmas Present goes right for the jugular and even gets some good ol' Christian message in about Scrooge not having properly sought the Jesus. We see the Cratchits' dinner, the nephew's party, a few blistering remarks from Christmas Present and the object lesson of Ignorance and Want (which incidentally always comes off very strange emerging from a grown man's fur-lined dressing gown). He disappears off-screen to an echoing "are there no prisons!?" and blam:

Christmas Yet To Come blasts into existence with a pale hand and a big black robe and Scrooge reluctantly follows to see the Cratchits mourning Tiny Tim, and the vultures selling Scrooge's belongings at Old Joe's - with bonus extra appearance from the undertaker!

Scrooge is shown his own tombstone, which elicits as 12-second long wail as he collapses on his face (great lung capacity for an old geezer) and he awakes in his bedroom. Giddy for joy, he scares the living daylights out of his housekeeper by flashing her.

(Okay, he actually does a handstand on a chair but his nightgown kinda slips and the housekeeper screams after throwing her apron into her face for modesty).

Highlights & Humbugs

I didn't say much about Bob and Nephew Fred because they're both a bit wet blankets in this film - the best bits are all the original additions, from the undertaker, to the extended role given to Marley's (later Scrooge's) housekeeper Mrs Dilber, as well as Alistair Sim's constantly shocked/confused/digusted/bug-eyed expression throughout most of the proceedings.

For an older film I still feel it's held up pretty well. Pacing is a lot slower than you'd find these days but it lets the humour (and drama) hit hard. A strong 9/10 Humbugs. One deducted for not enough undertaker.

"I always know."

#deafmangoes #scrooge #a christmas carol #christmas carol #scrooge (1951)#alistair sim #dickens december #ebenezer scrooge #jacob marley

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pink-evilette · 1 year

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Nymph 💘

OK this way really difficult because I love films and I have a list of 100 favourites (even this was hard to narrow down) so here are just some that make me feel things (ew, emotions!) wether they be disgust, catharsis or comfort.

1) martyrs (2008)

this film affected me in a way I can't even explain and I struggle to watch it yet am also obsessed with it - the symbolism, imagery, and harrowing story really left a mark on me and I've even got a tattoo of Anna's eye

2) the secret garden (1993)

this film is so comforting in so many ways. the film is visually beautiful and the story never fails to make me cry, especially when colin walks again for the first time 💔 it's a beautiful and timeless movie and I could rewatch it forever

3) the piano teacher (2001)

another very depressing one, this film struck me straight in my soul and shattered my heart into a million pieces. erika kohut is a perfectionist, craves love yet is terrified of it, feels smothered by her mother's overprotection and is the most relatable character I've ever seen in a film in my life. go careful though, because this film will ruin your life

#love letter #meg's movie club

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frozen-fountain · 1 year

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youtube

This song is bar none the closest I've ever heard to capturing in sound and words what it's like to fight with your own brain - or at least my experience of it (in second place is the Ninth Wave suite by the same artist). It's like Emily Dickinson's funereal imagery made music, or the soundtrack to the climax of the most harrowing haunting and possession film you've never seen.

I had a lot of "Nothing you do has ever mattered" and "Whatever is the point of you?" thoughts creeping back in this week. But it's satisfying in its own way that these feelings are mostly just a nuisance to me at this point, rather than the spiral they used to entail. I changed into the mule, and I didn't let them in.

If you only know Kate for her hits, and maybe not even those, give it a try? And the rest of the album! There's nothing else out there quite like it, even as the years roll on.

#froze tunes #kate bush #i think if i was an album i would be the dreaming #Youtube

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caulifloodle · 2 months

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i've only seen three best picture nominees here are my thoughts:

barbie: extremely funny with two wonderful lead performances! very messy and strange in its political messaging! has an awful car chase that is actually just a commercial in the middle of it! very funny to watch people get genuinely mad about it as the Ultimate Libfem movie or whatever. have watched it more than once and will watch it again.

oppenheimer: expected going into it that i'd be annoyed by its politics but impressed by it as a piece of filmmaking, but ended up feeling the exact opposite way! as a political document it is... pretty decent! or at the very least better than you would expect given the popular american mythology of the atom bomb. as a film it is... absolutely unbearable! christopher nolan's worst ever, and i usually like the guy! edited like a three-hour long trailer for itself, almost never easing back from a rapid-cutting montage with an orchestral soundtrack that never stops building. what is the point?? the most adhd film i have ever seen that clearly doesn't trust its dialogue or story to keep the viewer engaged. "now i am become death" being read aloud during sex is the most embarrassing moment in any film this year, more so even than the closing monologue of saltburn! unforgivable waste of imax film stock. it mustn't win.

killers of the flower moon: masterpiece. could be scorsese's best. lily gladstone's performance is the main thing still generating buzz at this point but the laser-focus on that singular aspect frankly undermines how incredible the rest of this thing is. beautiful. overwhelming. harrowing. miserable. imagine making something like this at 80.

other than these i'm mostly interested in past lives and the zone of interest. wish i had gotten around to them by now. anyway, not watching the show, lmk who wins!

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tilbageidanmark · 9 months

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Movies I watched this Week #134 (Year 3/Week 30):

The Consequences Of Love, my 6th rewarding film by Paolo Sorrentino, an exceptional mature director. His usual collaborator Toni Servillo plays here a mysterious businessman, who's been staying alone for 8 years at a luxurious Lugano hotel. Rich, stylish and evocative. 8/10.

🍿

4 more by Buñuel:

🍿 The Milky Way, the first of his loose "Search for truth" trilogy, (together with the much better 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' and 'The Phantom of Liberty'). Some intricate heretic and blasphemous polemics against the church - and all believers. Clear inspiration to Jodorowsky. “Thank God I’m an atheist.” 5/10.

🍿 Re-watch: Tristana, a complex tragedy about the patriarchy, innocence, sexuality, obsessiveness and cruelty, offered as a simple soap opera. Fernando Rey is the decadent aristocrat who seduces his young niece, the deceitful Catherine Deneuve, who perversely rebels against this father-husband. That Mustache guard! The artificial leg laying on bed! The Don Lope Bell clapper! 8/10.

🍿 Robinson Crusoe, his first color film, and the first made in English, was a traditional re-telling of the famous story, with (few) subversive elements.

🍿 "...See you at the top, gumdrop..."

The young one (1960) was Buñuel's second film in English, an uncomfortable, disturbing drama, now considered to be one of his forgotten masterpieces. A tense and very disturbing story: A black clarinet player who is falsely accused of rape, finds refuge on an island off the Carolina coast. An unpleasant gamekeeper forces himself on a 13 year old innocent girl (who looks remarkably like Liv Tyler). The two men end up playing a bitter battle-of-wills game, full of tense and racist scenes. An odd morality play examining prejudices, racism and pedophilia.

🍿

The Letter Room, my first by Danish director Elvira Lind. She cast her real-life husband Oscar Isaac as a kind, mustachioed prison guard, who's assigned to go over the prisoners' mail. Ah, The American carceral system! The saddest film I've seen in a while. 9/10.

(Photo Above).

🍿

“Eat the watermelon - it’s yours now”.

Cameraperson, my second superb documentary by elite cinematographer Kristen Johnson (after her incredible 'Dick Johnson is dead').

Johnson shot dozens of films, and this personal collage is a collection of some of her background leftover titbits, establishing shots and related stuff from all over the world. Extremely powerful, even before she breaks out stuff from the most tragic and harrowing places around the world: Guantanamo, Sarajevo, Jasper, Texas, Kabul, Nigeria, Yemen and Mississippi. So much heartbreaks and suffering, told with so much restrain. "Donba!" 9/10.

I discovered this in a short Thomas Flight essay 'The Succession Character You Never See' which describes how important the invisible camera decisions are.

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First watch: Closely Watched Trains, the groundbreaking Czech New Wave classic. Cute, light erotic story about Premature ejaculation and anti-Nazi resistance.

🍿

A mighty wind, another of (Baron!) Christopher Guest's comedy-mockumentaries, this time about a television reunion of three folk bands from the 60's. With a scary-looking Harry Shearer (who later transition into a female), and all the members of the ensemble that made 'Spinal tap', 'Best in show' and others. Perfectly charming. 7/10.

🍿

Loft, the standard 'Erotic thriller' from Belgium was the most successful Flemish-speaking film ever by 2008. 5 successful yuppies, duplicitous swinging dicks, own a fancy loft together, to which they bring their mistresses to. But they are all married, and claim to be faithful when in public. When a woman is found murdered in the loft, it's unclear who killed her or why. 3/10.

🍿

Nine Queens is considered as one of Argentina's greatest films. A crime thriller of two small time street hustlers, who cross and double cross everybody around them again and again. With 2 surprising endings, one of which is typically Argentinian (The bank suddenly defaults!). 5/10.

🍿

My 9th and 10th by Wes Anderson:

🍿 The Darjeeling Limited, a movie about designer suitcases; A visually-provocative but emotionally stunted drama about 3 irritating brothers on an exotic 'spiritual trip' to India. With the first (?) sex scene in any of his movies. All style, no substance. I don't know why I keep watching his films, when I find him empty and pretentious. 4/10.

🍿 Hotel Chevalier was a 12 minutes film he released together with 'Darjeeling', like a Pixar "Short". A prequel with some background about Jack Whitman and his ex-girlfriend. Like 'Prada: Candy', Anderson's perfume ad with Léa Seydoux, shorter is better. This is actually a perfectly little story with the same "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" comment. 7/10.

🍿

The chase (1946), a second rate Noir by a second rate auteur. With Robert Cummings and Peter Lorre. 1/10.

🍿

The Beguiled, a moody Southern Gothic thriller by Sofia Coppola, about a wounded Union Corporal who was given shelter at a small girls school in Virginia in 1864. My second film about amputation this week (After 'Tristana'!). But the slow melodrama didn't speak to me at all.

🍿

In Ted Gioia's tribute to Tony Bennett, he claims that lounge-lizard Lou Canova is modeled after Bennett, at the lows of his career at that period. I haven't seen Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose since 1984. His cinematic personality as the 'nervous Jew' is highly-irritating. But Gordon Willis photography helped give the tight story 100% score on 'Rotten Tomatoes'.

Rip, Tony Bennett!

🍿

Fieldwork Footage is a 1928 short directed by Zora Neale Hurston. She was a central figure of the 'Harlem renaissance', an author and anthropologist and the first African-American female film maker.

🍿

I was sick for a day, so I watched Pineapple Express once again, the best action-stoner comedy ever? Convincing marijuana enthusiast Set Rogen against local mob guy Bill Lumbergh. It's a movie about escalation! Starts with weed jokes and ends with "Prepare to suck the cock of Karma" climax.

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The Quiet American, an adaptation of Graham Greene Foreign Service Saigon thriller, with Michael Caine and Brendan Frazer. The two engage in a ménage à trois over a pretty Vietnamese taxi dancer. This is 1952 when the CIA is just getting into the war there. Cinematography by Christopher Doyle, Wong Kar-wai's usual collaborator. 3/10.

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In the 1960's and 70's, the Montmartre Jazz club on Store Regnegade in Copenhagen was the center of world class jazz in Europe. Many of the greatest names in Jazz played there regularly. Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Muddy Waters, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, and of course the Danish bass player Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Blues for Montmartre is a nostalgic 2011 Danish documentary about the place and the people who frequented it. 9/10.

Here is Ben Webster playing Stardust in Montmartre in 1971.

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Related!

That’s my jazz: Pastry chef Milt Abel ll reflects on his relationship with his late father Milton Abel Sr., a legendary Kansas City jazz musician.

Surprisingly, he went to work at Noma, and stayed in Copenhagen to open his own Danish-style bakery!

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Just because I dislike science fiction as a genre, does not mean that I'm not ready to give it another chance every once in awhile (But always to be disappointed!). Gattaca seemed to be different: Dystopian bio-punk about eugenics with Gore Vidal and Ernest Borgnine... But I only lasted 30 minutes inside this shiny, sterile world: Pseudo-intellectual mambo-jumbo, horribly acted.

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Throw-back to the "Art project”:

Adora with Buñuel.

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(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

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average-guy-reviews · 1 year

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The Whale (2023)

"In a town in Idaho, Charlie, a reclusive and unhealthy English teacher, hides out in his flat and eats his way to death. He is desperate to reconnect with his teenage daughter for a last chance at redemption."

I went into watching this film aware of how well it was being received, and of some of the awards it has so far garnered. I hadn't seen it so I didn't know exactly why. Now I do.

I'm not going to mince words at all in this review. Darren Aronofsky has brought a goddamn cinematic masterpiece to the big screen. Based on the play, and written, by Samuel D. Hunter this is a heartbreaking, harrowing, tale of a man who knows he is in the endgame, the last few days of his life. Trying to reconnect with an estranged daughter, and deal with his life as normally as he is able, Charlie is fighting a losing battle.

It brought tears to my eyes on enough occasions that it almost seemed continuous. And yet despite that there were several occasions where I laughed. Some genuinely heart warming and funny moments, sandwiched into a story that tugged the hardest at my heart strings I think a movie, of any kind, has ever tugged.

Brendan Fraser is phenomenal as Charlie. His performance is sublime, and every note and every single word is laced with epic amounts of talent. I knew he was a good actor on the whole. I've seen his films. I honestly didn't realise that he was THIS good. The awards he has won, and the Oscar he should win, are deserved beyond belief. I know some people object to the use of fat suits on actors, but I suggest that in this case there was simply no other way to tell this tale. I doubt that there are any actors of Charlie's size and, even if there are, the tale and the outcome may have hit home a little too close.

I say this not to fat shame anyone. Quite the contrary, I am an obese man. Nowhere near as big as Charlie, but a damn sight bigger than I should be. This film struck some very hard and painful chords for me, on many levels. I do not believe that, given just a few small tweaks in my life, it would take that much for me to be in Charlie's position, and that is a damn scary thing to realise. Is it going to change my life? I don't honestly know, but it's certainly made me look at things really closely moving forward.

The rest of the cast is absolutely superb, including Hong Chau as Liz, Samantha Morton as Mary, Ty Simpkins as Thomas and even Sathya Sridharan as Dan the pizza man. There is not a performance I can fault in any way, but Sadie Sink as Ellie was eye opening. She has raised her game dramatically from her work on Stranger Things and put in an incredibly mature, and powerful performance, as Charlie's estranged daughter. She rides through the film on an emotional tidal wave that would test the talents of any actor. She comes out the other side, not only dry, but standing tall on top of the wave. She has an incredibly bright future ahead of her and I want to see it.

Overall this is, as I said before, a cinematic masterpiece. It is pure character driven brilliance and will take you on an emotional rollercoaster you are not ready for. I cried, I laughed, and I felt heartbroken for Charlie (and all the other characters) in a way I don't honestly think I ever have for a movie character. This is easily the most obvious 10/10 I have ever given to a film. I hate it for what it did to me, but I love it because it is simply just that good. I cannot recommend this film highly enough, but take tissues because you will need them.

#the whale #Charlie #teaching #obesity #death #family #lgbtqia #brendan fraser #sadie sink #movies #reviews #cinema #odeon

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