Movie Diary 2018 by pahaK

Y'know I like any type of cinema... from the sickest of the sick to comedy... but only comedy that is non-American.. so feel free to recommend me anything...

I have seen quite a few from the Nordic countries but always looking for something new...

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And life has the face of a morbid game.

You might be interested in The Door (2009), which is German, but stars Mads Mikkelsen. It's a good horror concept.

lol SIB, I have seen almost every Mads film that I can find... the only one I haven't seen is Monas Verden.. its very hard to find online anywhere...

Oh right, so you've seen The Door? I missed his voice I must say, with it being dubbed. Apparently he does do the audio for the Danish edition.

I posted about that in another thread... let me find it... on this page

https://www.movieforums.com/communit...36#post1948436

How weird I missed that – I was on that thread recently .

pahak, how many films do you figure you like a year? Like, there's at least a 30% thing going on here right, coz i feel sorry for you every or whatever i see.

I dunno, if i'd ever watch movies if i hated them as often as you, hopefully i'm missing some elaborate character thing here.

I didn't go more than two pages back so i've definitely not got the full picture, but man.

I've never really counted before but during my time in here I seem to average little over one film a day.

About the hating. I guess it's a combination of being (far too) stingy with points and focusing (too much) on negative things. On the OP I rank films bad if they get 1.5 popcorn or less but bad doesn't necessarily mean I hated it. Hatred is such a strong word I reserve only for films that really bug me.

To be honest I'm not happy with my ratings. When I joined here and started this thread I kinda promised myself that I'll try to utilize the full scale more but after four months or so I do notice myself still being way too harsh with points. It does bother me quite a bit especially as I firmly believe that 5 popcorn (when using halves as well) should mean nothing else than top 10% of the films (or like 9% because I use 0 as well for films I don't finish).

So in short it's an elaborate character thing you're missing

Sorry, i definitely worded that wrong because i asked how many films you like per year and you definitely don't like 365 unless you watch 12 thousand films a year haha.

I dunno. I was sorta excited to see your thread after your notoriety (at least with me personally) but this just depressed me, even taking your rating system into account you seem to be having a consistently miserable time here with movies.

That's it!

Oh, read that wrong. No idea as I've never consistently rated films for long periods of time. Quickly glancing over the OP it seems I've given good rating to little over 20% of films. And considering the way I rate it's pretty safe to say I liked a decent amount of films I've given OK rating too. Also notice that quite a few of those bad ratings are just incompatible films from HoFs I've been in

No need to pity me Despite of my ratings and the amount of films I don't like I still consider watching movies generally entertaining activity. I wouldn't do it otherwise. I may have to quit HoFs at some point if the ratio of bad films in them remains as high though

Man, you're difficult to hate pahaK or whatever you're called.

You're okay in my book.....for now.

Yeah pahaK is pretty cool person... got many good traits from what I can see.. I enjoy talking to you.

Mandy (2018) N

I haven't seen Beyond the Black Rainbow yet so I didn't really know what to expect from Panos Cosmatos. None the less Mandy wasn't even close to what I though it'd be.


Nicolas Cage lives with his wife Mandy in quite idyllic forested region. The peace is broken when the leader of Manson Family wannabees gets obsessed about Mandy after passing her once on the road. Mandy isn't willing disciple and her abduction leads to violence and a ton of movie references.

So about my expectations. I thought I was about to see a serious revenge film with quite a bit of art house elements and great cinematography. I wasn't expecting a grindhouse tribute to 80s B-movies (and some A-movies too I guess, at least depending on who you ask) that shamelessly copies visuals, scenes and dialogue. I also wasn't expecting a parody (or at least I hope it's parody) of... well, I don't really know; grindhouse films, art house films or Tarantino-like pastiches of old B-movies.

Mandy is at its best when there are no actors on screen or they're just standing there like a prop piece - only beautiful scenery and well composed shots accompanied by twisted soundtrack. Acting itself is terrible and the effect is amplified by laughably bad dialogue that can't have been written seriously. Fortunately Mandy is occasionally so bad it becomes mildly amusing.

I suppose the biggest effect the film had on me is that it pushed Beyond the Black Rainbow down a lot on my watchlist. One of the biggest disappointments this year. One of the two popcorn comes from being bad enough to be funny.

I'm expecting grindhouse meets Nic Cage, so maybe I won't be too disappointed.

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Probably not because that's pretty much what it is. At least it wasn't as boring as the Grindhouse double feature by Tarantino and Rodriguez. But seriously, large part of my disappointment is due to completely wrong expectations (had I known what it was my expectations would have been quite a bit lower).

I actually loved that. AND Hobo With a Shotgun.

Okay Then I'm guessing you'll love Mandy as well.

Let the Right One In (2008) RR

One of my favorite films and quite likely the holder of #1 spot on my lists at the moment.

12-year-old Oskar is a lonely kid who's bullied at school. When a girl his age moves to his neighbor with her caretaker he finds himself a friend. But there's something wrong with Eli, something dangerous and dark and violent. Do two lonely souls find comfort in each other or does the cruel world tear them apart.


Let the Right One In is very minimalist film that doesn't offer brilliant bright colors and wild tracking shots but grey ugliness of the real world and steady well placed shots. It's also very economic in its storytelling and doesn't waste practically a single second of its duration (some elements from the book are missing but other than that it's also very faithful filming).

Acting is great from the whole cast. Oskar feels like a school shooter or a psychopath in the making and as a whole is quite perfect mix of being hurt and wanting to hurt. Eli feels even more lonely than Oskar but she's also strong and fully aware of how effective tool violence can be, and her eyes are so expressive. Håkan, the local bar patrol and the bullies are also good in their roles.

I love how the film defies genre definitions. It's usually described as horror and while it certainly has horror elements I don't think it's primarily that. For me it's mostly a dark romantic drama with supernatural elements and horror imagery. It's style and themes are just so close to what I've had in mind if my writing ambition ever goes past aspirations (I think one of the reasons it hit me so hard is because it feels so familiar to me).


There's only two things worth critique in the film. First is the horrible CGI cat scene. It looks quite ridiculous and should have been toned down a lot to prevent that. Second issue is that approximately one second shot that I always pretend doesn't exist (the only thing the US remake does better is to skip that topic completely). Other than those two it's practically a perfect movie.

100% Awesome movie. Love to watch day and night. Keeping it up and making this types of more movies.

The Aviator (2004) N

Scorsese's biography of Howard Hughes covers both his movie and aviation careers starting from shooting Hell's Angels in late 1920s and ending in late 1940s after the successful test flight of Hercules. Along with his businesses it focuses on his romances, OCD and senate hearing about the government money spent during the WWII.


With wide coverage of a long period of time the film is fast paced even at its nearly three hour length. The passage of time isn't always very clear and without Googling the release date of Hell's Angels I wouldn't have guessed that from the start of the film to Howard's accident was almost 19 years. I would have wanted some clearer indications of time.

Most of the film is good. Beginning about the movie business and Hepburn romance is pretty light depicting most of the main characters as eccentric weirdos. After the accident the tone gets darker and the film starts to drag quite a bit. I usually like DiCaprio but here he felt little off, especially during the deepest depression of Howard. The dull part of the film ends with the senate hearing and rest is again quite entertaining.

The Aviator is somewhat typical modern biography focusing mainly on entertaining (which is not a bad thing). It caricatures it's characters and tries to make its world weird enough to capture the viewer's interest. There were also some short scenes / shots that seemed too theatrical for my tastes. I don't know enough about Hughes to comment historical accuracy.

Mostly entertaining biography that drags in the middle. I really should have watched this earlier.