After Life - 2021 - UK

After Life - 2021 - 6/10

 
“Yesterday you passed away,  I am very sorry for your loss.”
New guests are given three days to select one memory from their life to carry forth into the unknown.
One or two arrivals are young, their pool of choices limited.
Others worry about what they left behind.  Their cat.  Who will find it?  Feed it?
This theatre adaptation lacks the humor of the original film, focusing on the “staff”, their dramas and conflicts.
Overall strong, although the squabbling seems forced and awkward.
For those self doubting their own worth, remember, “… no life is average.”

After Life - 1998 - Japan

After Life - 1998 - 7/10
AKA - Wandafuru Raifu  //  ワンダフルライフ

 
Welcome to the afterlife.  New arrivals are given one week.
They have one week – one week – to choose one memory to retain.
One memory from a lifetime, before they move on.  To where?  No one knows.
One moment, and all other memories are wiped clean.
As for the memory, the staff does their best to recreate that, and the recreation is what the deceased hold onto.
This has a documentary feel.  Arrivals deal with their new situation, a temporary one.
Worse, the decision is agonizing at times.
Thought provoking, forcing viewers to wonder what event they might select.

Always Be My Maybe - 2019 - USA

Always Be My Maybe - 2019 - 7/10

 
Despite sporadic lulls, this is a sharp RomCom, throwback to classic, pre-Hallmark romances.
Next door neighbors, childhood best friends, Marcus and Sasha seemed destined for … until they weren’t.
Sasha is a jet-setting restaurateur and chef, Marcus is a blue collar HVAC tech.
After a sixteen year absence, she returns to San Francisco and bumps into, who else?
Mind you, she instantly recognizes a setup, as does he, and neither want to be hurt again.
Not enough San Francisco scenery to boast about, but the film is funny!
Barbed dialogue, great one-liners, weird situations – all almost undercut by the skoffy patches.
Romantics will enjoy and sigh with this.  Cynics will note the money and social gap.

A Bloodthirsty Killer - 1965 - S Korea

A Bloodthirsty Killer - 1965 - 6/10
AKA - Salinma // 살인마

 
Ghost story jumps off the rails immediately, yet remains compelling viewing throughout.
Entering an empty art gallery, a man finds a painting of his ex-wife, ten years dead.
Only the painting melts in his hands, and then he is hijacked into the country.
Next comes another painting, an encounter with an apparition, murder.
This is fifteen minutes in.  Hold on, for the narrative now shifts into high gear!
Ghosts, revenge, adultery, furtive servants, disappearances.
A tremendous amount of plot in this Gothic Horror, including for you feline fanatics, lethal cats.

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase - 1975 - USA

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase - 1975 - 6/10

Candy busts outta prison long enough to rob a bank and help Pa save his foreclosed, broke down, tumbleweed overrun homestead.
She soon teams up with the daydreaming Ellie-Jo, and the pair commence to robbing more banks.

 
Rolling through west Texas (Alpine, Del Rio), they acquire better clothes, trade in their rickety Chevy 210 for a Rolls, latch onto the stud Slim (Johnny Crawford).
Fair amount of nudity, lots of explosions, some gunplay.  Template for beloved Andy and Drew Sidaris flicks.
Also – and I ain’t going out on no limb here – the inspiration for Thelma And Louise.
Excepting one was embraced by cinema connoisseurs, while Texas Dynamite Chase is straight up drive-in.

Black Sabbath: Master Of Reality Documentary - 2022 - USA

Black Sabbath: Master Of Reality Documentary - 2022 - 7/10

 
Absorbing end-to-end “fan” documentary on the making of “Master Of Reality”.
Background, historical timetables, comments by group members, the whole Satanic thing.
No lulls, rarely dull, excellent use of images (group, commercials, news footage, film clips),
Only quibble I had was the creator-writer-producer also does all the narrating.
Other  voices would vary the listening experience and, in my opinion, make this better.
Still, this labor of love production is absolutely first rate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6GTf6rOepQ

After the show -
My first Sabbath concert was when they were supporting the newly released “Master Of Reality”.
The next morning, I was chatting on campus with a female friend who had also attended.
“Did you notice the singer in the jumpsuit?”  she said.  “He had an erection the whole show!”
“Guys don’t really stare at another man’s crotch,”  I said.  “Why would you do that?”
“Because,” she shrugged.  Then she started staring down at my jeans.
After a minute, I started getting aroused.  “Hey, stop that!  I have to go to class.”
“That is how we do it,”  she smiled.  “And as for why … because – we – can.”
Thousands of female eyes gazing at Ozzy that show, resistance was futile.

Nothing To Hide - 2018 - France

Nothing To Hide - 2018 - 6/10
AKA - Le Jeu

 
Said it before, dinner parties – the worst.
On the night of a lunar eclipse, three couples and a spare meet up.
A comment about privacy, openness and secrets, leads to a game.
Everyone will leave their phones on the dinner table.
Any calls or texts will be answered, comments read out loud, pictures shown.
Oh yeah, these are middle-aged adults, not twenty year olds.
Who knew phones would be so busy?  Callers would post images, express demands.
Uncomfortable laughs mix with squalid exposures.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Arthurs Gesetz - 2018 - Germany

Arthurs Gesetz - 2018 - 6/10

 
Wife Martha convinces Arthur to endure a work accident.
“Think of all the insurance money we will collect!  Besides, you have another hand.”
Arthur is a fool.  Stupid, perhaps.  I mean, he didn’t notice the surveillance camera near the power saw?

 
Nevertheless, hope springs eternal!  Arthur falls in love with a singing prostitute.
I kinda lost track of the death count in this black comedy.
They are numerous and they are fairly inventive.
Short series is laugh out loud funny, yet extremely mean-spirited.
Caveat emptor.

Stuck Together - 2021 - France

Stuck Together - 2021 - 6/10
AKA - Huit Rue de l'Humanite

 
French comedy about apartment renters enduring early Covid restrictions.
Obsessive compulsive, cavalier, greedy opportunists, puppy love.
Add the smug landlord and a quack biologist, looking for a cure (and any stray pets).
Although characters are more caricatures, this is packed with funny situations and witty jousting.
Despite its fuzzy warm heart, there is an edge to this, an undercurrent of the days when Corona was out of control.

Life Is Beautiful - 2022 - S Korea

Life Is Beautiful - 2022 - 5/10
AKA - Insaeng-eun Areumdaweo  //  인생은 아름다워

 
You wouldn’t guess it, but Se Yeon has cancer.  A month, two months, tops.
She makes a checklist of things she wants to do before dying.
Her family, meanwhile, still treats her as a doormat.
The husband is a rude, insensitive boor, the children indifferent.  One wishes Mom were gone.
Years before, she made the wrong choice and lost her first love.  Her schoolgirl crush.
Is he still somewhere?  Could she find him?
While her family continues to treat her like dog scrapings, Se Yeon pushes optimistically ahead.
Comedy / musical (!) makes for an uncomfortable watch, in may ways, morbid.
Vintage K-pop songs + lavish dance numbers = sheer schmaltz.  The finale, tasteless.
Being kind, this got lost in translation … or is simply too Korean for me.

Muse - 2017 - Spain

Muse - 2017 - 6/10

 
The professor’s live-in girlfriend is tired of hiding their relationship.
Post-grad student Beatriz would stir comments, perhaps cost him tenure.
Before he can decide, however, Samuel gets entangled with the “Seven Ladies”.
The mystery of the muses, the ones who inspired and tormented artists over centuries.
Fairly unique storyline, although the bones is a classic quest.  Who?  Why?
Sensual and bloody throughout, dashing assumptions, as well.
Fine Gothic supernatural thriller.