After finishing The Witcher 3 and getting a better idea of the story of Geralt and Yennefer, I thought I’d give the book series the games were based on a go. I remember looking into the series back when the first game was released but I recall that the English versions weren’t ready yet. The whole thing consists of two collections of short stories and a series of five novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The Last Wish is chronologically the earliest of the various works and indeed the English edition was only published in 2007, more or less at the same time as the first game.
This British drama made the rounds at film festivals and rated mentions from a number of critics, but it didn’t exactly blow people away. It was directed by Terence Davies, a director unknown to me, and is an adaptation of famous Scottish novel of the same name by Lewis Grassic Gibbon.
So here’s yet another South Korean horror film. This was a commercial and a critical success both within its country of origin and internationally. It was made by a director who is unknown to us, Na Hong-jin, but he has earned some plaudits. Unfortunately while there’s no doubt that it is very well made, both my wife and myself were frustrated by how little sense the story seems to make.
This looks like a tiny, simple game that seems like it should belong more on a phone than a PC but I heard about it on Broken Forum and wasn’t disappointed at all. It also has an interesting story behind it in it that it was headed towards being a failure until a critic drew attention to it, at which point it became a respectable success. In fact, its sequel is slated to be released later this month!
I probably got this as a pick from some critic’s list or other but I remember where exactly. It’s a low budget film that stars some of the regulars in such independent productions and is made by a director, John Carchietta, that I’ve never heard of before. Unfortunately I found nothing particularly noteworthy about this film that elevates it above its humble origins and was overall disappointed.
My blog posts have been full of more recent releases lately so I thought I’d go back to plumbing the back catalogue of some of the most highly regarded films of yesteryear. Robert Bresson is considered one of the greatest French directors ever but this is the first time I’ve watched one of his films. His work is cited by the French New Wave directors as one of their primary inspirations and I believe that A Man Escaped is his most famous film.
So I have to confess to feeling a bit tricked by this film. Some of its posters floating around prominently feature Marilyn Monroe but in fact she only has a very minor role here. I also thought that this was a noir but it’s really more of a heist film. It was directed by John Huston whose most famous work is probably The Maltese Falcon that we watched only recently.
