Rebecca has the distinction of being the first film that Alfred Hitchcock made in the United States. I was surprised to note that his body of work prior to this while he was still based in England is quite significant beginning all the way back in 1925 with silent films. This makes it quite impossible to really watch his entire filmography. This one is not an especially notable work but it piqued my interest when it was subject of discussion on Broken Forum not too long ago.
By now, Iranian films have a rather respectable representation in this blog but this is the very first Iranian horror film I have ever watched. Indeed, I was somewhat surprised that they even made horror films. In truth, this is an international co-production but with Iranian directors, performers and being set in Tehran, I think it comes close enough to qualify as an Iranian film.
We’ve watched nearly the entire filmography of director Park Chan-Wook so I was only too happy to add his latest, much talked about, feature to our list. This one is an erotic thriller with steamy sex scenes and was brilliantly adapted from an English novel, its original Victorian England setting transposed to Korea under Japanese rule.
While I appreciated that the first Guardians of the Galaxy was trying to do something new, I didn’t particularly like it and therefore watching this sequel wasn’t a high priority for us. Still, as a good Marvel fanboy I duly trooped to the cinema and the result was pretty much in line with my expectations: passable comedic entertainment that isn’t awful but really anything notable either.
So this is a major animated feature made by US studios that has zero chance of ever making it to our shores. It has a decent enough budget to look comparable to other CGI cartoons in terms of quality and it even has a long list of famous names providing voices including James Franco, Edward Norton and Salma Hayek. But this is an American cartoon very much made for adults and is certain to cause offence almost everywhere so it was released only in Western countries.
We’ve been on a bit of roll lately in watching period British productions, starting with the famous 1995 BBC production of Pride & Prejudice and now moving onto Downton Abbey. Due to how much my wife turned out to love them, I thought that this recent adaptation of yet another Jane Austen work would slot right in. Note that this is actually an adaptation of the novel Lady Susan and not Love & Freindship.
I believe that this is the first Chinese documentary to be featured in this blog and I’m pleased that it’s very much a modern one, as much about China’s coming of age as that of the young man that is its subject. It’s directed by Du Haibin who has already made several such documentaries.