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.
Based on the title and the poster, I’d thought that this was a supernatural horror film. But I should have known better, given that it was directed by Kaneto ShindÅ who was responsible for the excellent and very grounded The Naked Island. It is indeed horror but the evil is born from the hearts of people themselves. It’s a powerful retelling of a classic Buddhist parable set in so dystopic a world that it’s almost hell on Earth. My only complaint would be that it drags on a little with too many repetitive shots but it truly is a unique film with few contemporary peers.
Horrors movies have the advantage of usually being short and easy to watch but I find myself liking them less and less. This one has decent reviews and once again stars Nicolas Cage who seemingly will appear in any schlocky project these days. It’s decently put together and has strong vibes but that’s all it has. Not only is it a mishmash of the usual tropes: scary clown-like figure, Satanic cults, dolls and so on, it makes no attempt whatsoever at verisimilitude. The frustrating thing is that at times it’s reminiscent of David Fincher’s style but in the end it’s not a serious film at all.
