Closing out my 2018:
Drunken Master (Yuen, 1978) 
The Sisters Brothers (Audiard, 2018)
Party Party (Winsor, 1983)
The California Kid, 1974… I never know what to think of it. Great performances by Martin Sheen, Nick Nolte, Michelle Phillips, and Vic Morrow . But the plot never seems to say anything. I think what happened is that ABC Studios rushed the production so that the movie would ‘capture’ the audience that loved Steven Spielberg’s Duel, which premiered a few weeks earlier. Shot on the same locations, looks like.
It gets a 5-out-of-10.
Yes, wonderful
5 Days to Midnight (2004)
Originally a mini-series, made for cable, shown in five parts, with a total running time of 210 minutes. Timothy Hutton plays a physics professor who receives a message from the future that he will be shot within four days. Can he save his life without creating a time travel paradox that would rip the universe apart? Who wants to kill him and why? And what’s more: Who sent him this message?
Most critics thought 5 Days to Midnight was well acted (notably by Hutton and 10-year old Gage Golightly - looking like a young Drew Barrymore - who plays his daughter), but also thought it was way overlong and anti-climactic. It was re-edited and released on DVD, in two parts of 90 minutes, reducing the total running time by half an hour. It still looks a little overlong, and it takes a bit too much time to get going, but once it does, there are enough ideas, questions, twists and turns to keep you hooked. The ending is indeed a little anti-climactic, but the answer to the question who actually sent the message is quite intriguing.
I bought the DVD for less than 2 euros (3 DVDs for 5 euros). They were well-spent
3+
Let me guess, the message was from himself?
no
That’s then at least a surprise …
Yes, it was my idea as well that he himself sent the message
Changeling (2008, Clint Eastwood)
The movie chronicles the plight of a real-life mother, Christine Collins (played by Angelina Jolie), who comes home one day to find her son Walter missing; when the LA Police brings the boy home, she insists that the boy in question is not Walter. The police officer handling the case, has her then committed to a psychiatric hospital in LA.
Changeling must be one of Eastwood’s better directional efforts of his later career, even if it’s dramatically one-sided: there’s no doubt that Mrs. Collins was treated monstrously by the authorities, but her own conduct was not entirely irreproachable and for quite a while things were not as clear as presented in the script. The movie veers too much from thriller to courtroom drama and serial killer movie. But still … in spite of its obvious shortcomings, it’s a well-told, unsettling story that keeps you hooked from start to finish.
3+ (out of 5)
So far in 2019:
Five Element Ninjas (Chang, 1982)
Evil Dead II (Raimi, 1987)
Bird Box (Bier, 2018)
Requiem For Gringo (Merino, 1968)
House of Traps (Chang, 1982)
Harakiri (Kobayashi, 1962)
Kotoko (Tsukamoto, 2011)
Prince of Darkness (Carpenter, 1987)
The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2019)
Deadpool 2 (Leitch, 2018)
Constantine: City of Demons - The Movie (Murphy, 2018)
Prince of Darkness is somewhat of a boring siege film but I still love it because it’s Carpenter and it was his last film with Donald Pleasance…
1 Like
Enter the Ninja
Just a re-watch as childhood memory.
Where Nero was convincing in his wester roles, he is totally unbelievable as a Ninja.
And why are these gangsters always dressed in white and acting like they are dumbasses.
I got a couple of pinky violence dvds during the holiday and this week I watched Terrifying Girls’ High School quadrilogy and it’s pretty good…. some crazy stuff in these films.
1 Like
First 10 of 2019
- Desmares & Ekinci: Avril et le Monde Truqué 8/10
- de Oliveira: Sad Hill Unearthed (D) 7/10
- Coens: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs 8/10
- Scola: Concorrenza sleale 8/10
- Kurosawa: Yojimbo 9/10
- Gil: Blackthorn 6/10
- von Sternberg: Devil is a Woman 6/10
- Demy: Les demoiselles de Rochefort 7/10
- Fleischer: Fantastic Voyage 6/10
- van Sant: Elephant 7/10
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I bet that could make a pretty good Western.
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A Masterpiece for me. Very fascinating.
Yojimbo is less good than its reputation. Like all Kurosawa films btw …
2 Likes
I feel this way about Fellini 
I’ve only liked 3-4 Fellini films. La Strada, Amarcord, Le notti di Cabiria… I would like to see more of his earlier works as I prefer them to his more famous films. But I have to also admit I’ve only seen films like 8 and a half and La Dolce Vita 20 years ago or something like that, I might like them more now.
La Strada is definitely my favourite Fellini.
The only Kurosawa I’ve seen which I didn’t love was Rashomon.