Tomb Raider

~ Mark

Tomb Raider. So fun! I love how you see our characters growth – a bike race in familiar neighborhoods, a foot chase from some teenage thugs, waterboarding with a showerhead? We get lower stakes, and mistakes, but similar thrills. Even when the difficulty ratchets up, we see a cycle of vulnerability, fear, panic… and then determination. Our hero is not invincible, not inevitable. (Reminds me of Die Hard that way.) I like seeing the increasing influence of MMA in recent action films – more grappling, jujitsu, throws, locks, holds.

The Lodger

~ Mark

The-Lodger

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. Preeeetty good. Theater screening with live accompaniment. So much more beautiful to look at than I expected for something created 90+ years ago. Sometimes it’s hard not to laugh at old-timey-ness (in plot, acting style) of old movies (or books, for that matter), but if you can be present and give yourself over, you’ll see why they’ve stuck around. Filed under: Hitchcock.

Green Room

~ Mark

green-room

Green Room. Dark. Having a harder time with irredeemably bad villains (outside of your comics types). Never quite hangs together. Tensions not high enough, light moments fall just a little short.

Lean On Pete

~ Mark

lean-on-pete

Lean on Pete. Tempted to call it my favorite of the year. So many characters that seem to live on outside the frame, defying the template you might expect of them, in “this kind of movie”. I was all-in from the first few seconds.

The Descent

~ Mark

The-Descent

The Descent. Gets to the point! Set the scene, give me foreboding hints about who’s up to what, then creep me out. Very efficient opening. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more movies set in caves.

Arnold Schönberg: Playing Cards

~ Mark

Arnold Schönberg: Playing Cards. I love those designs.

This facsimile edition of playing cards painted by the composer Arnold Schönberg in c.1910 was published by Belmont Music Publishers in 1981 and produced by Ferd Piatnik (Vienna), with a preface by the composer’s daughter, Nuria Schoenberg-Nono. The original cards were made in watercolours and gouache on cardboard with gold and silver, size: 10.5 by 5.5 cm. No reverse has been found for the cards so a coloured pattern painted in one of his diaries was used.

Filed under: not just a composer.

Support the Girls

~ Mark

support-the-girls

Support the Girls. We need about 15 movies like this every year. Pretty great. Love the everydayness of the struggles, but still a huge and deserved catharsis. I’d like to see more movies about managers. Seems like a rich but neglected vein for material.

The Score

~ Mark

the-score

The Score. Decent cat-and-mousing. Shape-shifting characters seems like a whole thing back in the 90s/2000s. Fun to see actors that are just plain old now in their younger and more athletic days. I love when movies show all the gadgetry and tools that thieves put to use, borrowing from other realms to suit the need.

Kung Fu Killer

~ Mark

Kung-Fu-Killer

Kung Fu Killer. One of the small pleasures of international films is seeing the little differences in societal choices. For example, how the police uniforms and prisoner uniforms are different than what we see in the States. Nothing new here story-wise, but plenty of good fightin’, and the variety of weapons, styles, and freakish athleticism is always fun.