Captive State. Rupert Wyatt. 2019. ⚁

[nine minutes pass]

This started off kinda fun, and then we got a five minute infodump while the credits were rolling, and… now I’m bored before the credits are done!? WHAT IS THIS MAGIC!

Oh, wow. This bombed hard at the box office.

[twenty minutes pass]

This is the kind of movie where people meet and say totally normal stuff like “hello, baby brother”, so that they’ll… er… know who they are in relation to each other.

I mean, to tell the viewer what’s going on.

Well, OK, that’s a massive improvement on the infodump in the start, but…

I’m so bored now that I’m just about ready to bail. The movie is kinda ugly, with boring cinematography and… well, everything is boring. As boring as it can be in a movie about an alien invasion, I guess.

[half an hour passes]

OK, it’s picked up a bit now. They’re cleverly using the “hey, if we film everything in the dark, we can save tons on the CGI!” to the max: Telling what’s going on whenever the spiky aliens are on the screen is pretty darn difficult.

[the end]

Well, I thought… I mean, it’s boring and stuff, and the “twist” (if you can call it that) at the end was what you expected… But it seemed to tease us with there being at least some sci-fi interest here. I thought there was gonna be something cool before the “twist”.

There wasn’t.

It’s as tedious at the start as it is at the end.

But it does make some interesting storytelling choices (it doesn’t focus on characterisation much, which is fun). But it’s just bad.

Blood Simple. Ethan Coen & Joel Coen. 1984. ⚅

[half an hour passes]

I’m watching this as part of my American Gothic re-watch. I watched all these 80s movies (on VHS) back then, and I was really into them as a teenager.

And… I’m still pretty into them! Near Dark was awesome, and this is really special, too. It’s either a really odd movie, or I’m reading it wrong.

Anyway, totes enjoying myself so far. It’s so… American.

[the end]

That’s even better than I thought it would be! It’s amazing that a movie that’s basically all morons and/or assholes can be this much fun. I guess the McDormand character the only one who’s not an asshole? And the bad guy is the only one who’s not a moron?

Anyway, it’s so … it’s so much fun. Sure, it’s got all these twists, but it’s all just unexpected structurally. I do think it starts a bit… not brilliant? But the last half is just whoa.

Ung flukt. Edith Carlmar. 1959. ⚄

Ironically, I had to get this Norwegian film from a bootlegger in the US. (It’s like a Norweeeegian fiiilm that you have to get from a Yoouuuuu-Essss booootlegger, as the song goes. Don’t you think?)

Here’s the bootlegger if you want to get a copy. It’s a nice DVD-R in a nicely designed cover:

[half an hour passes]

The Norwegian name means “Young Escape”, which is less of a… judgemental? name than the English one.

Carlmar directed a series of hugely (commercially) successful movies in the 50, and this was her last one. Most of the other ones were lighthearted comedies, some of which are still shown regularly on TV around Xmas time.

[the end]

That’s such… it’s such an original movie. I love Ullmann’s performance (and the others are pretty good, too — the standout is perhaps Rolf Søder as the… scoundrel?), and while the cinematography is uneven, there’s some really gorgeous shots here.

But it’s the plot that just makes you go wow, and the way they frame the Ullmann’s character’s … actions … in a non-judgemental way.

It’s a lovely, interesting movie. The scenes of a youthful getaway paradise… in the mountains… are just so much fun. The way the disturbing new character is introduced is brilliant. And I totally didn’t think they were going to stake the ending, but they did.

(Oh, and the 50s interiors: So much fun.)