Change Your Image
mdkersey
Reviews
The Survivalist (2015)
Most Unrealistic Depiction of Survival and Most Boring Movie I've seen
This movie is rubbish. The depiction of "survival" is completely, absolutely, utterly unbelievable and unrealistic in every aspect. In an apocalyptic scenario where multiple raiders/killers have visited a remote farm cabin with malice aforethought, we are asked to believe that the following can occur:
Two women arrive, one young and one old. The older offers the younger in a trade: sex for food and shelter. The "farmer" accepts!
In one unduly long and awkward scene the protagonist holds a double-barreled shotgun with one hand within arm's length or against the body of the two adult women! At any time an infant could wrest the barrel away from him, much less two adult females. Then he invites them to live *inside* his cabin, where shovels, knives and tools of all sort line the walls, always within reach. Their intention is to kill him, but they never reach for a tool and instead waste their time trying to steal two shotgun shells he keeps in his top right pants pocket. Later we find out his shotgun is *unloaded*! Jeez, what jackass carries an unloaded shotgun for protection after the apocalypse? Apparently someone trained in politically-correct film-making.
The farmer is always shown building a fire or adding wood to his stove, but its green and lush outside, looks like summer, and there is neither ice nor snow! In a later scene, it's supposedly so cold the two women turn the entire cabin into a sweat lodge, splash their naked bodies with cold water and snuggle naked next to the wounded farmer's body to warm him up! This to cure the aftemath of a gunshot wound! What a pile of horse-puckey!
If this movie had been properly edited it would no longer exist, there being almost nothing of validity about the depiction of survival and nothing of human interest otherwise. Oh, the two single points of validity:
1. It is true that you can put fly larvae (maggots) into a wound and they will eat any dead flesh and do produce an antibiotic thereby cleansing the wound. But unlike in this movie, best to get your maggots from rotting vegetables rather than from a human grave, since there's still the possibility of catching some diseases. Or instead use honey.
2. Realizing that she is dying, one of the women gets into the fellow's cabin kit for a (filter) cigarette to smoke! This is the most realistic scene in the movie. Everyone know that, faced with the end of their life, any reasonable smoker would try to get a last cigarette in before crossing over. Once she lit up it was apparent to all present, both on-screen and in the audience, that the smoker was the only one whose nerves were calmed.
A movie so bad I may take up smoking!
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
Simply Wonderful!
The film weaves together two stories, one in modern China and one in Chinese antiquity. In each, two women raised together form strong friendships and pledge themselves to always support each other. As time passes these relationships are tested by tradition, marriage, love and loss.
In Chinese antiquity, some women ("laotang", or "secret sisters") would communicate by writing on the folds of fans in an obscure language, nu shu (literally, "woman's writing"). In "Snow Flower" most of their missives are poems, Listen for the poetry: you won't understand the language (almost no one, including native Chinese, can) but the rhyme, meter and sounds of the poetry enhance the narrative.
The older story also describes the binding of young girls' feet. This painful and crippling practice and other difficulties of life bind the women in these stories: mother to daughter, secret sister to secret sister, and friend to friend.
Excellent acting, beautiful music, architectural cinematography of the first order and a pace that allows you to catch the many fine details of these stories make this film an exquisite experience. I already want to watch it again.
Summer Love (2006)
Visually Stunning Movie a la' Cormac McCarthy, With Flaws
Many of the scenes in this movie are visually quite stunning and it is worth seeing simply for the scenes. It is as if the movie originated as a set of excellent still photographs that were allowed to slowly blossom to life. The camera work is of course excellent. I could see filling an art gallery with stills from this movie. I could see hanging stills from this movie in my home and enjoying them every day.
The accents were of little significance to me (I thought they were German). There were many immigrants of Germanic and Eastern European descent in America. It was more noticeable that _everyone_ except Kilmer seemed to be German.
This movie had one of the most explicit descriptions of sex that I've ever heard as the female bartender described to a potential lover how he would make love to her in exquisite detail. It was quite torrid!
It was as if I were watching a movie made by a cinematic Cormac McCarthy, akin to "Blood Meridian", but the images, although striking, were not quite the standard archetypes of Western literature and so it fell somewhat short.
I believe this director is one to watch in the future because he is very, very close to doing with cinema what McCarthy does with literature. And if he does that then it will be a tremendous breakthrough, because so far McCarthy's stuff hasn't quite translated fully to the screen (or perhaps the translator hasn't been found yet).
If I were Cormac McCarthy and I wanted a director and camera person to do "Blood Meridian" or others novels in film, I would want it done by the people who made this movie.
Mon oncle Antoine (1971)
Utter Waste Of Time
As my wife said, this film is "more boring than being stuck in traffic." There is no plot. The story drifts aimlessly. The characters are unremarkable.
What did I take away from the movie?
- That some Quebecois are as susceptible to alcohol as was the American Indian (despite the French having eons to develop wines and liquors and evolve kidneys to deal with both),
- that Quebecois have no concept of a work ethic (i.e., they're inherently lazy),
- that teenage boys are obsessed with tits and
- that life in a far-Northern asbestos mining town is sometimes harsh.
The first two are questionable at best and, as for the second two, well, blow me down! The film did make some attempt to show the division between those Quebecois of English extraction and those of French. But we initially had the audio set to English and entirely missed that undertone until one character explicitly stated (in English) that "I don't understand English." whereupon we reset the audio to French, the subtitles to English and (unfortunately believing that we were missing something) rewound to the start again. Another 10 minutes of my life that I will never recover.
Les enfants terribles (1950)
A Poor Movie Not Worth Watching
My wife joked: "It didn't cost much to make this movie: cheap furniture, an overturned car(an overturned _model_ of a car?), and a handful of not-very-pretty actors." And that's just the beginning of bad.
While viewing, we discussed several times whether it was worthwhile continuing to the end. My overall summary: "What the **** was _that_? We've wasted two hours!" The movie is too odd for most people to identify with. Cultural differences are not to blame: I've enjoyed every French movie I've seen except this one.
It's not worth discussing much more: other posts will tell you the plot. I have no idea why it has such a high rating on IMDb (7.4 at this time) - I would rate it negative if possible. Perhaps it's a piece of leftover intelligentsia flotsam/jetsam from the past.
Wish I had my two hours and wasted neurons back.
The Walker (2007)
What Lies Hidden Beneath The Superficial?
An elegant murder mystery that fulfills on multiple levels. Harrelson is simply outstanding.
Car, unlike his forebears and most who surround him, is an honorable man. He is also gay. The movie asks again and again: why does Car protect Lynn?
!!!Spoilers follow!!!
I propose an explanation beyond honor: unrequited love, pure and simple. Lynn is unable to accept Car's love.
In an early conversation Lynn reminisces how "a young Carter Page once attempted to ask me out." Car replies "the 70's were a confusing decade: a lot of things were blurred." To Lynn their relationship is a friendship, but Car loves Lynn in the full sense of the word.
Later in a scene in Car's car, he places his hand over Lynn's to comfort her, but her grief for Robbie interferes and she withdraws.
The final scene wherein Car returns the photo to Lynn and she asks "Why did you stand by me?" reveals how unaware or unaccepting Lynn is of Car's love. Car gives his own explanation and we could settle for that alone. But then the camera shifts to Car's perspective as Lynn gracefully, beautifully, and in slow motion, walks out of the room and out of Car's life.
Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (2003)
Beautiful thoughtful film
This is a beautiful film that captures the eye and mind. I wish only to add some possible additional interpretations of symbolism:
When the young man left he took the Buddha statue, a further illustration that his love/lust had awakened a desire to possess. The old monk is untroubled and continues his meditation as before in front of the "missing" Buddha, because he knows that the stone statue is not necessary for his prayers to be effective.
As the young man is taken away by the police the boat suddenly halts, bound to the temple by some mystical force. The old monk is surprised: it appears that his own attachment to the young man (or possibly vice-versa) is holding the boat back. In any case the monk must forcibly will the boat to go.
To some degree I view the monk's re-enactment of his pupil's "Shut" ritual as penance for developing a strong attachment to his pupil. (I do not fully understand the funeral ritual, but other explanations have been offered).
Supernova (2000)
Astonishingly innovative plot and opening for future films
One of my favorite sci-fi movies because of the scope of the author's vision. As the plot unfolds we begin to realize that there _is_ an alien civilization out there somewhere, but also that they may not want to be found, that they may be fearful or aggressive toward other civilizations, and that they are quite advanced, though we may, with time, grasp their technology.
X - Spoiler coming--Spoiler below----------- OTOH this spoiler may be necessary for some viewers to understand the movie.
There is no "alien" in the movie. Indeed, one of the movie's premises is that humankind has not yet encountered another intelligent species.
There is however a beautiful alien artifact that, for humans, has regenerative powers and (later surmised) tremendous power to destroy. The artifact also causes those who experience its regenerative powers to become addicted to it and to slowly grow mad (which, in the end, turns out to save mankind). These alien artifacts are apparently seeded throughout the universe by an advanced civilization so that members of other civilizations will find them and take them home, whereupon the alien device fulfills its second function as a civilization-destroying bomb.
So one possibility is that, to the movie's alien civilization, the alien artifact is like AMDRO and human civilization (and others) are like fire ants. Quite a different perspective from your everyday science fiction, and one with tremendous vision and bite. And IMO this fantastic idea could yield any number of follow-up movies.
X - End of Spoiler--Spoiler above-----------
Anyway, this film completely blew me away with the ideas presented. I hope someday a series of suitable sequels will follow.