My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

The Empty Man isn't your usual psychological horror romp - not nearly as much as the trailer would have you believe. It's a little messy, but tries hard to weave an undercurrent of philosophy and complexity into the narrative. It starts with a 15-minute (this film is in no hurry, it goes for 137-minutes - unusual for a horror film of this type) prologue set in the Ura Valley of Bhutan, with four hikers stumbling across something ancient buried in the rock - it's a short film in and of itself, with a beginning, middle and end. Cut forward 23 years, to the present day so to speak, and we're introduced to James Lasombra (James Badge Dale), an ex-cop who now works at a security/self defense shop. His neighbour, Nora Quail (Marin Ireland), whom he's close to has a daughter who has seemingly run away (but not before daubing "The Empty Man made me do it" in animal blood on a bathroom window.) James agrees to help Nora find this daughter, Amanda (Sasha Frolova), and so begins a The Ring-type investigation which will entangle James into the mythos of what The Empty Man really represents, and what it is.

I can't say too much, because this film is a journey of discovery, but I can say that there's a cult involved, and that Stephen Root pops up as leader Arthur Parsons, spouting much nihilist philosophy. I guess with a title like The Empty Man we shouldn't be surprised. I think, therefore I am, but what about the rest of it - isn't it dubious? I think about these things all of the time, and although this film dabbles, it is in the end a horror film and the plot must come first. Horror-wise, the film is pleasingly light on jump-scares and gets by with some decent imagery without over-exposing specifics. There's a creepy mass suicide which is going to stick with me. Does it all make perfect sense though? I'd have to look into the film more carefully to know that, although the golden caveat of "all of that wasn't actually real" can be applied so liberally in this movie, which makes just about anything dismissible. I have to re-emphasize - this is one damn long horror movie, and it crams a lot in.

So, I walked away from this movie thinking that I was happy that it was so ambitious (unusual these days), but unhappy that it ended up feeling a little muddled. Everything doesn't fit neatly into place, and making sense of it as a whole feels like it would be an exercise akin to formulating a modern conspiracy theory. I did like the effort the film went to in regards to including themes that link up with depression, loss, pain, anger, grief, and fear, while touching on suicide. We get a lot of warnings about triggers these days, but I guess if you decide to watch a horror film it's on you if you become messed up by watching it - chances are it will touch on many of these themes. What I hate the most is animal cruelty - and the only thing related to that in The Empty Man is an encounter with an already-dead dog. To those who constantly wish modern horror films would be a bit more intelligent and more meaningful, The Empty Man is a really ambitious try at doing just that. It doesn't all come off, and it doesn't spook or scare as much as it should, but there's a lot to it that's interesting and you walk away with a lot to think about. That's worth some praise, at least.

Glad to catch this one - it's based on Cullen Bunn & Vanesa R. Del Rey's The Empty Man graphic novel series published by Boom! Studios. Ended up being a box office bomb, but is picking up a strong cult following.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Empty Man.

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HyperNormalisation pretty much covers the history of the world during my time on it, which you could pretty much sum up as "less global conflict, but more corruption and craziness" - although let's face it, the world has always been a crazy place. It looks at a bunch of specifics in order to make it's points : New York City's financial crisis in the 70s, Henry Kissinger's influence on the Middle East, the 1982 Lebanon war and the birth of the suicide bomber, the birth of the internet, humanity's vision of what cyberspace could be, Ronald Reagan, Muammar Gaddafi, new military technology, Ulrich Beck's Managed Outcomes, the collapse of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, the civil war in Syria, the popularity of disaster films, 9/11, the Iraq war - and the repeated feeble lies that led to it, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Arab Spring revolts, the failures of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Arab Spring revolts, Vladimir Putin and his cynical politics, Trump's victory over facts and truth and Brexit. Of course, there's a lot more in it's 166-minute runtime, but this is a documentary that hones in on specifics. In the end, it tells us that we live in a world that's pretty close to what the Soviet Union was like towards it's collapse - one where dishonesty and cynicism is so widespread we just kind of expect and accept it.

This film is about a lot more than dishonesty and cynicism though - that is an oversimplification that doesn't do this justice. Hypernormalisation was Alexei Yurchak's term for the way Soviet citizens all walked around pretending everything was okay while their country was in freefall - politicians would make speeches about how wonderful everything was, and people would enthusiastically clap. No toilet paper, proper food or necessities? That's normal. Why complain? Why demand better? Adam Curtis argues that our new global community is too complex and unpredictable to govern in ways human beings have always done. Politicians no longer make plans, because they're invariably swept away in a world that has changed radically by the time the plan reaches it's half-way point. So, our leaders now mitigate risk, and try to foresee imminent dangers - managing nations, but no longer guiding them towards any kind of goal. It's a sad place for the human race to be, because we've always been such a goal-oriented species. We weren't built to just hang around - we want to achieve things! None of this can be talked about though, of course, without the central crux - the banks and financial institutions.

Adam Curtis also argues that banks, corporations and financial institutions now have far more power than politicians do, and that the resolution of New York's financial collapse in the 1970s was the start of a new way of thinking - which led to them basically taking over New York, and then the rest of the world. They're invincible - too important to society's functioning and the world economy to fail, or be held to account for the blazing corruption gutting the entire system. The presidents and kings have not only withdrawn from making plans, and having visions - they've also subjugated much of their power to these modern goliaths. It is these institutions who now have visions and plans - of plundering the earth for more resources, building more capital, squeezing more value out of labour and it's a process that won't stop - and can't be stopped. In the meantime, we go about our day pretending that everything we see happening is normal, and accepting it. The complexity of the world is now such that any attempt to fix it will have completely unpredictable and surprising consequences. I didn't even get around to the internet, and what that's doing - but c'mon. This is a 166-minute documentary. It's impressive in that it makes it's point while providing us with a steady stream of verifiable facts - and no conspiratorial conjecture. I only wish the last 8 years could be added to everything Curtis has done here.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for a Best Documentary BAFTA and Diversity in Media Awards' Movie of the Year. It makes extensive use of footage from the BBC Archives.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch HyperNormalisation.

Curtis' takes can be so historically incorrect and tinfoil hat, but I love the atmosphere of his films and Eno's music.

While I generally grasp Curtis’ intentions, his concepts, and his underlying messages, the examples he uses and the logical deductions he makes seldom stem from factual evidence. It’s not merely a question of historical coherence. It’s about how he reads a piece of information and extrapolates sweeping conclusions from it. He gives the impression of someone who has a superficial understanding of the subject, yet is quick to weave conspiracy theories. Adding a dash of populism, he oversimplifies complex issues by providing straightforward answers. This is particularly ironic and paradoxical, considering he has an entire film dedicated to how politicians nowadays oversimplify intricate matters and reduce reality to simple terms.

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

I haven't seen his other work, so I can't judge it as a whole - where I'd agree with you there is that he does make a few sweeping generalisations, especially in regards to Syria, financial institutions, the internet and politics. He's careful though - unlike your average, everyday conspiracy theorist you can't pin him down on interpreting hearsay or grab specific interpretations and prove him wrong. Depending on where you stand, he can be bothersome - and he can sound like a conspiracy theorist. He's one of the most vociferous critics of conspiracy theorists, theories and the like I've ever heard - and I can't say that I heard him expound on a conspiracy theory throughout HyperNormalisation. The closest he does come is attributing the Col. Gaddafi saga to a deliberate decision from the U.S. to use him as a visible political target to placate a public demanding action against U.S. causalities in suicide bombings and the like. He uses verifiable facts all the way through though - so it's up to our interpretation - and he paints it in a very similar light to the whole 'weapons of mass destruction' affair in '03. It sounded convincing, but of course it would be foolhardy of me to be convinced from this one source.

Now, there's another side to all of this, and it's one you alluded to as well - and that's the fact that he's entertaining us, and doing a damn good job. This isn't a complex manifesto, but entertainment. I think I forgot to mention the soundtrack and score in my review, which is a terrible oversight because it's one of the things which makes his documentary exciting and watchable. I'd like specific examples on where he's historically inaccurate though, and that's not me claiming the opposite - if he's hoodwinked me at times in that documentary I want to know, because I was sat there thinking that the show looked and sounded like any conspiratorial claptrap you'd see on the internet, except I was impressed by how it stuck to verifiable facts for the most part. If someone tells me a person is lying, I want to know specifics so I can agree or disagree! A blanket statement leaves me in no man's land. If tinfoil hats are on, it ought to be easy to point out a couple of whoppers right off the top of your head. That's what I had a hunger for after reading your comment, because I found myself unable to either agree or disagree with it - call me a dummy, but I need specifics pointed out to me that confirm your logic.

I'm proud to be able to say (before having watched this documentary) that I'd seen a few of Alice Guy's films - although this no doubt stems from the fact that there's been an explosive rebirth in recent years concerning her place in the history of cinema. I'm ashamed to have to say, however, that I didn't know the historical significance of what I was watching at the time. Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), the first female director and producer, and was a pioneer during cinemas earliest days. She began as a secretary at a photographic company that was taken over by Léon Gaumont, and as such became an expert when it came to cameras and attempts to produce moving pictures, getting to know the likes of Georges Demen˙ and the Lumičre brothers. She was in attendance at the famous 'surprise' Lumičre event on March 22, 1895, where Workers Leaving the Lumičre Factory was shown. She immediately grasped that this new technology could be used to tell stories, and Gaumont gave her permission to use the latest developments in moving picture cameras to make movies of her own. This led to her becoming a prodigious, prolific and well-regarded director of movies - many of which survive to this day.

Alice Guy made her first film in 1896 - it goes under various titles, and Letterboxd calls it The Cabbage-Patch Fairy. It shows Alice herself plucking real-life newborn infants from a cabbage-patch - and I'm sorry to say that when I first watched it I took it at face value, without considering the inventive leap forward films like this were. "Who wants to see this?" was probably my thought at the time. I feel a lot differently about it after watching this excellent documentary. Alice Guy would continue to make increasingly-popular films in France and The United States over the next 24 years, but was eventually squeezed out of the industry in America after Solax Studios, her film company, went broke. The industry as a whole turned on her, and despite being desperate to continue making films, she was never given another opportunity. This documentary gives us a narrative about her life in chronological order, and sometimes uses a recorded interview with Alice Guy-Blaché herself, made when she was near the end of her life. It also takes us along for the ride in hunting down various relatives, and relatives of her old friends, not to mention interviewing various famous faces of all sorts from the film industry and Hollywood about Guy-Blaché, her seeming anonymity in modern times, and her importance regarding the history of cinema.

This was simply a great documentary about a pioneer who we should all know more about - and even if the information was already out there in some form, bringing it together and providing it to a large audience should be applauded. Narrated by Jodie Foster, and directed by Pamela B. Green, one of it's thrusts is definitely aimed at gender equality by exemplifying just how capable women were when it came to making films, even in the late 19th Century. It also laments the way film historians shoved Alice Guy-Blaché into the margins, and often omitted her name altogether from film histories - often attributing her films to other directors! When Guy-Blaché died, she'd been misrepresented in almost all important film history books, and nobody would publish her memoirs. It was fascinating to see parts of her films, and it was especially interesting to be shown the fledgling technology being used in the 1890s to try and make moving pictures a reality. This documentary takes us along on the hunt for surviving cameras, the hunt for surviving films, and their eventual restoration. What else could be more fun for cinephiles and those interested in history? Be Natural was a real hoot, and I really appreciated it.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for the L'Śil d'or documentary prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. It won and was nominated for many other such awards worldwide..




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.

Well, this is certainly something. Cult favourite Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told certainly has the requisite energy to be a fun watch, and goes all-in with a bunch of performances that exemplify the best about low budget schlock horror comedies. Everything is dialled up, with a few standouts to make watching some characters better than watching others. It's a "The Munsters" kind of affair, with the 'Merrye' family (a group of young, inbred guys and girls with a hereditary, regressive disease of the mind) being looked after by Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.) in a dilapidated old house. There's Virginia (Jill Banner), who likes to play at being a spider, catching people in her "web" (some rope) and "stinging" (stabbing) them. Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) is the more responsible one, but that's not saying much. Ralph (Sid Haig) is pretty far gone, but although he can't speak, he sure can do sexual stuff. Distant relatives of the Merryes, Emily (Carol Ohmart) and her brother Peter Howe (Quinn Redeker) threaten this domestic bliss when they intrude with lawyer Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his secretary Ann (Mary Mitchel), hoping to claim the property as their own, and send the Merrye "children" to an institution.

I must say, Quinn Redeker was a surprise favourite for me amongst all of the crazy and silly - his good natured, naďve, happy-go-lucky goofball, who saw good in everything around him despite the creepy nastiness evident everywhere was so amusing to watch. As for Sid Haig, well, I now know that he and Jack Hill had a close working relationship dating back to 1960 - but I'd never seen him this young before. I'd never realised that he was in Diamonds Are Forever. I mustn't go on about Haig in general, but he's a fascinating actor to watch, and it's hard not to talk about him. Lon Chaney Jr.'s character, Bruno, is a strange bastion of upright morality and good sense amongst all the carnage that takes place in this film. "Just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad," is an oft-quoted line of his, and it can apply equally to life in general and this film as a whole. Beverly Washburn and Jill Banner also get to have a lot of fun overacting and generally acting like evil, and yet somewhat innocent, as young vamps. I also have to mention the legendary Mantan Moreland, who appears as a messenger who is unfortunately snared in one of Virginia's spider webs and dispatched with gusto - he plays up the 'scared stiff' comedy, which probably wouldn't fly today, but in the mid-60s was pretty much par for the course.

So, when watching Spider Baby it's obvious that this was made on a shoestring budget (some $65,000), and that this could only exist as a campy, humorous and wacky piece of entertainment that people love for the vibe and silly fun there is to be had. There's a whole load of freaky stuff to keep us all interested - the girls kiss an old, desiccated corpse goodnight each night. Virginia keeps a host of pet tarantulas in the writing desk near the dining room. There are a whole host of freaks, including what looks like a couple of wolfmen, locked up in the basement. The unfortunate dinner that the Merrye family all sit down to eat with their guests happens to be a stray cat, and included on the dinner table is a plate of suspect mushrooms, a bowl full of dead bugs, and a salad bowl full with what looks like hay and twigs in it. There's a whole load of sexually suggestive stuff, which I guess is to be expected in an exploitation film of this calibre. There's a rock musical version developed for the stage in 2004, attesting to it's undeniable cult status. This was assuredly a dose of fun, discovering Spider Baby during my long trawl through my watchlist.

Glad to catch this one - the low budget Dustin Ferguson-directed, schlocky 2023 remake looks terrible, and the fact that it feels the need to use CGI spiders means it's actually a step backwards from this one.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Spider Baby.

Luis Estrada's image of Mexico is as scathing as it ever was in 2010's El Infierno. I last caught up with him while watching his 1999 critically lauded breakthrough Herod's Law (La ley de Herodes), and I'd never seen such a grim portrayal of the country, both morally and culturally. Estrada's muse, Damián Alcázar, returns as lead once again - this time as Benny García, a washed up good-for-nothing who travels to the United States to support his family, but ends up in prison - returning to Mexico (by way of being deported) 20 years later to find out that his beloved younger brother turned to a life of crime, and ended up being murdered by an unknown assailant. Benny gets to know his brother's de facto widow, Lupe (Elizabeth Cervantes) on a very intimate level, and becomes something of a father figure to her son (his nephew), Benjamín (Kristian Ferrer). When Benjamin ends up in prison for theft, and the police demand 50,000 pesos for his release, Benny turns to the only person he knows can help him - old friend and drug dealer/gangster Cochiloco (Joaquín Cosio). From this moment on, Benny is working for crime lord don José Reyes (Ernesto Gómez Cruz) - making a fortune selling drugs, killing and torturing.

From the moment Benny returns to Mexico, we're given a glimpse of a country in complete freefall. Anarchy reins. Benny is robbed on the bus home, and later the cops stop the bus and shake everyone down for the money and valuables they managed to keep hidden. Once home, he can't help but notice that there is gunplay and murder occurring regularly on the streets - as if there's a civil war being fought. Benny may have thought things were bad in Mexico when he left all those years ago - but now it's descended into hell. Here you either live in poverty and fear, or you turn to a life of crime - and that is equally true of the nation's law enforcement, which is often making it's money from the mega-crooks that own their own sections of the country. Thank goodness then that Luis Estrada often turns to comedy to elevate our moods and see the farcical situation in a way that ridicules those who Dante Alighieri would have seen as demons with pitchforks. How else would we make sense of Benny's vacant grin, which remains stamped on his face right up until the tide turns against him? The ridiculous is funny, and there's a lot of that played with in El Infierno.

Rating a film like this can be hard. I have to take into consideration the fact that I enjoyed watching it - and that using comedy to lighten what would otherwise have been the bleakest of terrible stories really worked. I mean, I wasn't laughing, but it did balance out my mood. Looking back on it now, without contemplating it's more comedic moments, it's a depressing indictment of Luis Estrada Rodríguez's homeland. Crooks make great earnings, but never live long enough to justify this style of making money. The corruption is so endemic it's a part of the system. The cops are paid to protect criminals, and make their lives easier. So, when there are parades and the Mexican national anthem is sung out of tune, or there are bicentennial celebrations, they all ring so false - and those who are keeping the country down are the ones giving speeches about how great it is. Estrada wants there to be no doubt - Mexico has become hell, and there's little hope of change in the near future. How's that for the basis of a comedy? If we weren't amused, it'd be too depressing to justify watching. To get a true taste of Mexico, with it's Mariachi music, sombreros, siestas, murder, torture and drug cartels, just pop on El Infierno and witness Benny's travails once he returns from the United States. It's 150 minutes of fun and horror.

Glad to catch this one - it has a sizeable cult following in Mexico where it was a big success. It also won the Grand Coral – First Prize at the Havana Film Festival and Corazón Award (Best Film) at the San Diego Latino Film Festival, amongst many other wins.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Spider Baby.

There's a lot going on in Beau Travail, although I felt a little disoriented when I first started to watch it, because it's very different to the films I've been watching lately. Claire Denis is letting us see things both external and internal, specifically to do with masculinity and men, and she uses motion mixed with narration to do it. Adjudant-Chef Galoup (Denis Lavant) is a leader in the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti, serving under Commandant Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor) - a man he envies due to the ease with which Forestier can relate to the men under his command. One day a new recruit, Gilles Sentain (Grégoire Colin) is added to the section they're serving in, and Galoup is immediately struck by this young man. He becomes overwhelmingly jealous when Forestier strikes up a close relationship with Sentain, and his repressed desires lead him to become intensely hostile to this new Légionnaire. Unable to control his more base impulses, Galoup comes up with a plan that will forever alter his and Sentain's lives.

There are many scenes in this film of both men training, and men and women dancing. It strikes me that when the men are on duty they train for combat by performing rigorous movement, often of a set design (and in fact, most of this was tightly choreographed when the film was being made), and that when the men are off duty they're once again performing rigorous displays of movement when they're trying to attract women, and light up romances. There they have freedom of movement. This is why when Galoup and Forestier circle each other before a mandated wrestling match the lines become so blurred as to whether this is combat or passionate, emotional outpourings of physical desire. Through all of this moves cinematographer Agnčs Godard's camera, just as fluid in it's motion as the men are - searching and probing. We're searching also, because the meaning weaved into Beau Travail isn't pushed into the foreground like the physicality of these men is. Through the non-linear narrative it's a case of everything adding up as we make connections when recalling previous scenes, and thus make important discoveries.

So, I was really intrigued by this film about repressed desires and male physicality - along with jealousy and envy, the emotionally reactive component. It was really original and different - though I don't have any other Claire Denis films to compare it to, because it's the first of hers I've watched. (So interesting to read that she was an assistant director on Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas.) Much male passion is expended in energy, either through dance or through some kind of violence - both of which we see here. Denis really zeroes in on this and gives us a very close view while managing to poeticize it to a high degree, and adds an element of isolation by having her characters exist as part of the French Foreign Legion. That just seems to intensify everything the characters go through, and Galoup's relationship with his Djiboutian girlfriend feels distant with the two of them hardly ever interacting in the same shot. It's a focus on where movies rarely go, and an enjoyable change of pace. I left the film feeling like I'd learned something about masculinity, and both it's positives and negatives.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #1042, and in Stephen Jay Schneider's 1001 Moves You Must See Before You Die. In the 2022 Sight and Sound critic's poll, Beau Travail was ranked the 7th best movie of all time.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Beau Travail.

My Watchlist project ran up against real life in May, which crimped my output a bit - but I still ended up watching and reviewing 21 films. Way more than I thought I would considering my expectations. That means I've done a mind-boggling 142 films so far in this thread (not counting the incidental watchlist hits which I've simply noted as I went along.) Since I've only caught up by 20, that means an impressive number of movies have gone into my watchlist so far this year, despite my stringent screening. There's plenty of movie-watching in me yet! Lets hope this continues on.


A pretty good month when I sit back and look at the best films that came out of it. Maybe all of my ratings were half a point too harsh, but in the end what really matters is having watched them and hopefully encouraged somebody who hasn't seen this or that one to go out and find them. I'm still as enthusiastic as I ever was about this project, so on it goes - right to the end of the year, and there will probably end up being a 2025 version.

I've made a few attempts to fall in love with Beau Travail, but I keep falling short. I love the first and final act, but the middle section always loses me. I'm not sure if I can put my finger on why, but I felt Galoup's and Sentain's rivalry grew less evocative at that point and bordered on being aimless. Throughout my 3 or 4 viewings, I've somewhat chipped away at it, but I feel I still have a long way to go. Its best parts though are outstanding, so part of me hopes I'll finally click with it someday.

Also, I don't believe you mentioned it, but I have to give some serious credit to Lavant's narration. I normally don't pay attention to acting, but the subtle mournful regret and melancholia he displays throughout the film is utterly perfect. It works at foreshadowing the tone of the final act and adding nuance to Galoup's unlikable behavior.

At it's most basic, S&man is a documentary about a certain trend in extreme horror films, which try to emulate realistic, found footage snuff films. For example, Fred Vogel, director of August Underground, is one of the interviewees. Director J.T. Petty tries to weave a fictional narrative into his own documentary-making process, however, mixing genres in an attempt to make a more clever, interesting film. By his own admission, he's doing this because the subject this was initially going to be about - a peeping tom who recorded hundreds of hours of footage of his family's home - refused to be a part of his film. Go figure. So Petty takes the act of voyeurism and tries to make sense of why people want to watch what amounts to manufactured snuff films. He interviews film professor and author Carol J. Clover and horror director Bill Zebub, the latter of whom is drunk much of the time, dragging Petty's film project down further into the muck. When we get to watch Zebub attempting to film a scene from his next movie, he's so drunk he can hardly organise what's going on - and the scene takes so long to film that the girl who has to lay face down, still, for hours while make-up is applied ends up in tears.

S&man simply isn't that good a documentary. The fictional narrative inserted into it feels terribly awkward - and for something that was meant to be taken as possibly real, it really doesn't do a good job of selling it. Instead of subtle hints, Petty goes at it hard and completely shows his hand, ruining the effect. Filmmaker Eric Rost (Erik Marcisak), who is meant to be a real murderer masquerading as a filmmaker, isn't performed with any conviction or believability. It all comes off as silly and not very well edited. It really would have been better if Petty had of convinced his peeping tom to be a part of the movie, and by his own confession, he was pressed for time to think of an alternative seeing as his movie had already been financed. As much as I like horror, I didn't feel like I gained any insights, and the drunken Bill Zebub is a real slap in the face for people who want to see a good doc, and not a messy series of what should have been out-takes. It's good that Petty had enough insight to include some interviews with the girls who play victims in these movies - most of whom seem quite happy to get any kind of role they can get in a film, according to what they say.

I didn't enjoy S&man at all (S&man is what Eric Rost calls his series of snuff films.) Better execution, and Petty may have had something here - but I feel like I learned nearly nothing from his movie, and that's despite it covering territory that isn't explored very often. I've watched a couple of these "found footage snuff film" movies, and pretty much found them to be an ordeal. Since I liked horror, I had to give them a go - but I don't think they're for me. If people want to be shocked and horrified, it's better to add some degree of fun to the mix, instead of just assaulting them with realistic, gory, torture footage. In the end Carol J. Clover, whose segments are a rare bright spot in this documentary, goes on to note that real horror is starting to seep into the public consciousness, taking for an example what happened in Abu Ghraib, and how the world pored over the photographs and films that came out. Online, there are various beheadings, burnings, torture and murder out there - for the medieval among us, who crave the excitement of Ancient Rome and the horrors of the Colosseum. Apparently it's something in us that still needs to be fed.

Disappointed with this one - Meg Hewings of Hour Community reviewed the film negatively overall, describing it as "puzzling" and "somewhat pointless".




Sorry, to whomever inspired me to watch S&man.

The House on Telegraph Hill isn't included on Wikipedia's page on films related to the Holocaust, but that's where we start this twisted tale where the woman stealing someone's identity to inherit her wealth happens to the good one. Victoria Kowalska (Valentina Cortese) finds herself in Bergen-Belsen, going mad under the deprivation handed out by the Nazis, and drawn close to Karin Dernakova (Natasha Lytess) - whose son was sent to America to live with a wealthy aunt. When Karin dies, Victoria decides that, since the relatives in the United States never really saw Karin as an adult, she might possibly be able to exchange identities, and find a better life for herself. When she goes through with it, she ends up marrying Alan Spender (Richard Basehart), the guardian of Karin's son, Chris (Gordon Gebert), and sharing the house on Telegraph Hill that's now hers with her new family and the somewhat sinister nanny, Margaret (Fay Baker). Questions arise when Karin finds out the playhouse Chris used to play in has been blasted to smithereens, and soon enough Karin finds herself the target of a series of "accidents" that look like attempts to kill her. Is it all in her stricken, traumatized mind?

It feels a little unreal to see 1950s Hollywood try to tackle the complexities when it comes to concentration camps and the like. We kind of race through that introductory segment to The House on Telegraph Hill, as if the American writers were uncomfortable with the subject matter. Soon enough we're in familiar territory, with an "is my husband trying to murder me?" veil descending over proceedings, and darkening Karin/Victoria's new beginnings. Actually, it's easy to forget that Victoria has stolen someone's identity - which isn't exactly small potatoes! When Victoria finally confesses to someone, they brush it off and basically tell her that she deserves it after having survived the camps. I bet you the law would take a different approach to that - but it opens up one of the more interesting aspects to this film - ie, should we take that into account? There's an eerie pall over everything when the child's playhouse is discovered, and I thought the film benefitted from that as well. The film was nominated for a Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Oscar - it was all about mood and menace.

I don't know if this really followed through on a lot of the promise it had, but it's all up there as grist to really think about while watching the film. The fact that Victoria might be imagining threats because of what she went through in the camps. The fact that she's actually committing a pretty horrible and large-scale crime, but is so easily forgiven because of what she went through. The impossible combination of guilt, fear of discovery, and trauma that strikes this woman and practically tears her apart in front of our eyes. The natural jealousy that emenated from Margaret when the boy she's been looking after all of his life is suddenly giving all of his affections to someone else (someone who is much nicer to him.) In the midst of it all is Major Marc Bennett (William Lundigan), an outside party that decides to help Victoria because lord knows we need someone in this movie who is stable and not infected by the drama playing out on Telegraph Hill. I thought this was an average thriller elevated by the sinister mood it cultivates, and one that, while I don't think it's brilliant, will stick around in my mind I'm sure.

Glad to catch this one - Richard Basehart and Valentina Cortese ended up getting married soon after making this film, after meeting because of it. They got divorced nine years later.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The House on Telegraph Hill.

I've been meaning to watch The House on Telegraph Hill for years, well like we say on MoFo...one of these days.

This has really become one of my favorite movies over the last 5 or 6 years. I'd rather watch Spider Baby than most things.

From what I've learned on true crime shows and when reading, it's pretty hard to get away with murder - even more so if the case is high-profile. You leave hairs, dead skin, clothing fibers, tire tracks, footprints - and lord knows what else at the murder scene without even knowing it. Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) learns this the hard way after being lured by the beautiful Alice Reed (Joan Bennett) to her home, having to kill jealous boyfriend Claude Mazard (Arthur Loft) to save himself. Alice is the titular "woman in the window", at first a painting that transfixes Richard before appearing in the window's reflection - right there next to him on the street. Richard reckons they'd both serve prison sentences no matter how they explain what happened, so he decides they ought to just dump his body in the middle of nowhere. How could they be connected to this unidentified corpse? Well, turns out Claude (neither Richard nor girlfriend Alice know his real name) is kind of a big deal, and the cops aren't about to just shrug their shoulders on this case. They'll be doggedly following every clue as Richard and Alice doggedly try to erase each misstep they both took. Claude's bodyguard, a man named Heidt (Dan Duryea) knows what they've done however, and it just turns out that blackmail is his favourite game...

When this started I couldn't help but think to myself that Edward G. Robinson was the original Ernest Borgnine, except for the fact that Robinson would usually play characters that were a lot smarter. It's a bit of a mystery why a woman like Alice would pick him up like she does, but that mystery is somewhat solved during the film's ultimate denouement. Fritz Lang goes full film noir here, with darkness encroaching from every possible angle of each shot, and just like in Night and the City, there seems to be an endless number of blackened nooks and crannies where Richard and Alice live. What I enjoyed most was how the film directly pointed out to us each mistake Richard made as he tried to take care of the body, giving the audience many opportunities to facepalm or yell at the screen. We don't want this kindly, stocky, old professor to go to jail - lord knows how he'd deal with that. Robinson makes him appear tired beyond his years, right from the start. As the guilt and worry takes over, Richard gets even more sickly and world weary. It's a really good performance. Alice is harder to get a read on. Dan Duryea makes his awful character as slimy and awful as the grottiest *four letter word*, and succeeds in getting us to hate him.

Look - the ending of The Woman in the Window yanks the rug, and I don't think it serves the movie well at all. Everything apart from that is really good, and I enjoyed watching this 1940s film noir exercise by Fritz Lang. It was nominated for a 1946 (don't ask me) Oscar for Best Score - one aspect of much older films that I'm not completely in tune with, but given a second chance to watch the film I'd listen out more carefully to try and ascertain why it was that noteworthy. I usually turn the volume way down when these films start, because early opening title music was like being blasted by eight dozen howitzers. The opening titles here are no different. But there was a load of great suspense and tension in this film, which was probably exemplified by the music as Richard keeps on coming so close to being caught out by something. Pesky evidence. All this because of self-defense - and as it turns out, those in the know are well aware of Claude's jealous rages. It pays to call the police and stick to the truth 100% - I won't say you can't go wrong doing that, but it's a lot better than frantically dumping bodies on the fly and dodging police investigators who dig up evidence. Pretty good, edge of your seat stuff.

Glad to catch this one - The term "film noir" originated as a genre description in part because of The Woman in the Window, and in August 2015, the online entertainment magazine Paste named the film the best film noir of all time. They were all drinking absinthe the day they decided that I reckon, despite the film's qualities, is it the "best film noir of all time"?




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Woman in the Window.

It's a problem with found footage that the characters in The Blair Witch Project felt the need to address directly. Would these people still be recording when they're terrified? When snakes are attacking them and they're fighting a possessed lady over the fate of a young girl, and trying to rescue the woman herself? I guess you could argue that some people are so career-driven that their journalistic compulsions overcome their utmost terror. In The Taking of Deborah Logan, a documentary crew - Mia Medina (Michelle Ang), Gavin (Brett Gentile) and Luis (Jeremy DeCarlos) - are making a record of Deborah Logan's (Jill Larson) battle with Alzheimer’s. Deborah's daughter, Sarah (Anne Ramsay) guides them, and tries her best to look after her often confused, and irritable, mother. As the documentary progresses however, Deborah becomes more hostile, and more unpredictable - lashing out with self harm, attacking the film crew, and doing very strange things around the property - such as digging holes. As the attacks become more violent, paranormal activity also starts to occur, and it all points to a serial killer, Henri Desjardins (Kevin A. Campbell), who disappeared decades ago. A battle is about to erupt, involving snakes, a young cancer patient from the hospital Deborah is situated in, and holy hell.

At a certain stage I don't think those participating in this bedlam would still be holding their camera and making sure they got everything - especially considering their lives are at stake and they're participating in the action. But in any case, The Taking of Deborah Logan isn't a bad horror film. I thought I'd seen this before, but fortunately I had this confused with another, much inferior, movie. There are many and varied criticisms to aim at this one however. Jump scares are very frequent - so much so that at a certain stage they just become very annoying and ineffective. How many times can you slowly approach people facing away from you, inching closer until they suddenly turn around and scream at you with a demon face? Many times - according to this film. Also - if you're looking for a corpse, and you go into an attic, and find a large bundle that smells putrid and more rotten than you can stand...would you be shocked and surprised that it's a corpse? No, you'd be thinking "I guess we found our corpse". Plot holes and logic aside though, Jill Larson absolutely nails her part as the befuddled lady, desperately clinging to what little dignity she has, slowly descending into a demonic kind of awfulness, and exhibiting horrifying behaviour. We have her to thank for this movie being as watchable as it is.

This isn't the first film I've seen that uses possession as a kind of metaphorical comparison to dementia. As I noted when looking at 2020 film The Relic, it's a case of "that isn't grandma anymore" - because people suffering from Alzheimer’s change before your eyes, often suddenly. They become short-tempered and accusatory, overly emotional and unpredictable - as if they're being taken over by a malevolent force. The Taking of Deborah Logan jumps the shark a little in it's closing stages, but for the most part sticks to that metaphorical comparison, and it's often hard to tell where the dividing line is between Deborah's disease and her possession. There's something about Jill Larson's stare that sends shivers down my spine - and every time she looks at a character holding the camera, it's a case of "if looks could kill". I had an enjoyable enough time watching this, and it wasn't so dumb that I couldn't buy into everything, despite the above-mentioned problem with found footage believability, overuse of jump scares and some strange skips in logic. Not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but there is far, far worse out there.

Glad to catch this one - the film was nominated for various Fangoria Chainsaw awards, Fright Meter awards and iHorror awards, especially when it comes to the performances of Jill Larson and Anne Ramsay




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Taking of Deborah Logan.

Paul Schrader's directorial debut, Blue Collar, is pretty scathing about everything concerning being a manual laborer in 1970s America. The bosses push you hard, the unions are corrupt and don't help you, the tax man hounds you for exorbitant amounts of money you can't possibly pay and everything costs a small fortune considering what you get paid. In this film, three friends who word at a car manufacturing plant, Ezekiel "Zeke" Brown (Richard Pryor), Jerry Bartowski (Harvey Keitel) and Sam "Smokey" James (Yaphet Kotto) are all in a bind of some kind or another, with financial pressure bearing down on them. When they learn about a safe at the Auto Workers Union and details regarding how to get past security, they decide to go ahead and burglarize it. There, they might not find the riches they need, but instead come across information with which they can blackmail the head honchos - if they aren't murdered, threatened or otherwise dissuaded first. It's as filthy as getting down and dirty putting hunks of metal and steel together, and much more dangerous for these three characters, who are all very different from each other - by the film's conclusion they all end up having taken very different routes to where they finish their journeys.

I see those distributing the film at Universal leaned pretty heavily on the Richard Pryor angle to promote this film - for some reason this comedian was taken as a magical genie by the film industry in the 70s and 80s who used him in all manner of movies - comedy and non-comedy - to sell their product. This is probably the most serious role I've ever seen him in, and he blends in as well as he can in a three-man ensemble effort (but there are a few moments where his funnier side just can't help but break loose.) It's a bit of a distraction, but also a welcome one in a film as dour as this one can be - and it somehow all ends up working perfectly as the unusual ingredients gel together with a thrum of power and fury. Yaphet Kotto is on fire as the rough and ready street-smart Smokey, and at times threatens to dominate. Harvey Keitel holds his own as the family man who is losing track of his family, and finds himself unable to provide for his high school daughter. They're all angry - and have very good reason to be. Their wages aren't enough to sustain even a small family in the United States, and as such there's a sense that they've been lied to, and sold a turkey. In the meantime, debts of various kinds threaten to swamp them - until there's only crime to turn to.

Blue Collar manages to get a swipe at so much. Race profiling in the United States, recreational drug use and prostitution, the power of the unions, and the government agencies that yearn to bring them down...it's all a stench-filled, acrid and acidic mixture - you wonder why revolution isn't in the air. Look through history though, and it's been mankind's lot. There's always been a 1%, with the other 99% slaving away for their benefit. Often it's still just a matter of birth. Sure, you can educate yourself and rise up - but even that costs money, and also needs a child to have had a stable and lucky upbringing. The rage Smokey, Jerry and Zeke feel is well justified. But if you think their characters were angry, just read a bit about what went on during this film's shoot, which had Paul Schrader having a mental breakdown and deciding at times that moviemaking had been a mistake for him. (I think the angst on set actually made the movie better.) Seems that the improvisation studios loved Richard Pryor for made life hard for other actors, and the likes of Harvey Keitel reacted with violence. All of that doesn't matter today though, because in the end Blue Collar ended up being one of the best films ever made about labor exploitation, unions, capitalism and the gritty side of industry. It has a resonant ring with a flawless tone to it, and is one of the best films all three of it's main stars have been in.

Glad to catch this one - The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list, and Spike Lee included the film on his "Films All Aspiring Filmmakers Must See" list.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Blue Collar.

I’ve seen most of Schrader’s films, but this is one of the few I haven’t yet.
Pretty good director, but Mishima is his best that I’ve seen.

Marketa Lazarová wouldn't give itself up to me easily. The first night I tried to watch it, I was a little tired and distracted - and this is a film that requires investment, so I became hopelessly lost. Halfway through (which is still a good 80 minutes) I went to bed, and the next day I read up a bit on what I'd seen the night before, familiarized myself with the characters and situation, and sat down to watch it again from the start. Most other movies pale in comparison - this Czech film is a stunner, and almost Biblical in it's epic proportions despite mostly being about a simple squabble between tribes, nobles and a king's captain. Of course, Christianity plays a sizeable role as well, especially thematically - and in comparison with paganism. Visually, it's one of the most beautiful black and white films I've ever seen in my life - and the narrative rises to match that impactful impression. Despite the fact that we get some intertitles to guide our way, it's still not the easiest of films to follow until you really have your bearings. There are many hallucinatory moments, some of which are remembrances which only make sense once you've seen the whole film. I was overwhelmed by it, and whenever I compare it to any other film it's competitors don't match up. This is truly a masterpiece, and great work of art.

Warlord and clan leader Kozlík (Josef Kemr) - a scarred, intemperate man - has two sons, Mikoláš (František Velecký) and Adam-Jednoručka (Ivan Palúch), who kick the plot off by robbing a stagecoach, murdering most of it's passengers and taking the noble Kristián (Harry Studt) hostage in the hopes of scoring a ransom payment. Unfortunately, one of the travelling party has escaped - and while their backs are turned rival clan leader and neighbour Lazar (Michal Kožuch) is found picking over their bounty and stealing items. Lazar prays to God that Mikoláš won't kill him, and has a holy vision which convinces him to give his daughter Marketa (Magda Vášáryová) to God by sending her to a convent. Because of all this, there will be much rage and conflict shared between Kozlík's clan and Lazar, not to mention the king's captain Pivo (Zdeněk Kryzánek) when he hears of what Kozlík's sons have done to people of noble birth, and the fact that they have Kristián. Complicating matters further is the fact that Kozlík's daughter, Alexandra (Pavla Polášková), has fallen in love with Kristián and now bears his child. From the icy depths of winter to the muddy, sodden spring thaw, there will be much anguish, killing and sorrow before this epic tale comes to it's conclusion.

It's quite simple, but also complex in it's way. For example, just before a major attack by one force against another we segue to an hallucinatory dream, and when we return the battle is well over and the forces are long gone from the area leaving only a couple of characters behind. Everything we need to know was in the dream, and it's a fascinating way to move a story forward. During another part of the film we learn the shocking truth about an earlier dream-like sequence whose meaning we can only guess at when we first encounter it - although at the same time, it has a definite contextual meaning then also. As a whole though, once you comprehend it at it's most basic, Marketa Lazarová is stupendously beautiful and incredibly textured narrative-wise, with every element of filmmaking turned into a fine 14th Century world-building craft. Editing, costume design, sound, lighting - everything is finely tuned and turned out in epic style. There are pools of depth everywhere to swim in, and I'm counting it as one of the very best films I've watched this year. It might even possibly by number 1. I'm floored by it. Knocked off my feet. Incredible.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #661, and in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Also voted the all-time best Czech movie in a 1998 poll of Czech film critics and publicists..




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Marketa Lazarová.

I'll have to revisit that one. I felt I wasn't in the right mind set for it when I first watched it several years ago.

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