Kathryn Bigelow keeps doubling down on making these military thrillers which I think is a bit of a shame as I preferred her earlier, weirder work. I already knew going in that this wouldn’t be very good but I had to watch it anyway as it’s being talked about so much. Indeed, it is a very detailed procedural on how the US would respond to an unexpected nuclear missile so a lot of research must have gone into getting all of the agencies involved and the jargon right. Unfortunately the entire premise is unrealistic, it wastes all of its tension by showing the same set of events from three perspectives and in the end ducks out of having to say anything substantial at all.
This very old French film is so influential that it has been remade several times and even inspired a Looney Tunes character. Its setting of the Casbah of Algeria is exotically attractive thought unfortunately it’s mostly shot on sets made up to look like the real thing. It’s a rather simple plot but the setting as well as the sleazy charm of the Pépé character who actually longs after Paris all along, both make it work.
It’s hardly possible not to have heard of this film given how blatantly it sexualizes the bodies of its female stars. But that’s alright, because it was made by a female feminist director Coralie Fargeat and all that titillation soon turns to disgust as this is after all body horror at its goriest. The imagery is striking in a very visceral way and setting in a strange hyperreal world was certainly the right choice. Yet it’s psychologically very simple with the character having no backstory at all and drags on long past the point that we get all that the director has to say.
I first played the original Fantasy General during my schooling days. It was a pirated copy back then of course and without a manual, I never had a firm grasp of the ruleset and was never able to beat it. I never forgot the game however and it seems that it has its share of fans. More than twenty years, another company made a sequel and now here I am playing it, because I noticed that it was being given away free on Steam.
During the last years of the Second World War, the remote village in northern Italy boasts of gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains but its inhabitants are dirt poor. Centered around a large family led by stern teacher, this film does have a plot but mostly it serves as a way to remember their way of life. Director Maura Delpero says as much as her father was from the region and takes great care to depict their lives as authentically as possible. I don’t think the main story is anything special but I do love the film itself and its setting.
This animated film winning multiple awards should be reason enough to get it added to my watchlist but there’s also the fact that it was made using Blender. It’s a relatively short film but it still took the team more than five years to make it. With beautiful visuals, pleasant music and no dialogue, this sure is an easy film to watch and who could dislike its animal characters? It’s nice enough but there’s no plot, no world building and not much meaning at all. As its title suggests, it’s just one scene flowing into another with no direction so I’m not that impressed.
Here’s another fiction book that is closer to mainstream literature than genre and I expect I’ll be doing this more often. I first heard of this as a a recommendation from Broken Forum and liked the premise of an older childless couple in Alaska making a child out of snow that comes alive. It’s a familiar story as it was adapted from a Russian folk tale and feels like it might be the stuff of a Disney animated film. The challenge here is that as it needs to be true to fairy tale logic, we can already guess how it will end, so how could this be an interesting, engrossing read? Yet it truly is a wonderful book as it is the path to get to that ending that matters.
