Dead Ringers. David Cronenberg. 1988.

Oh, yeah, I was watching Cronenberg’s movies kinda chronologically, but then I went away on some holidays. We watched eXistenZ in a hotel somewhere, and I thought it was quite good. I mean, better than most Cronenberg movies, because I’ve been kinda disappointed with them in general.

But I vaguely remember this one as being quite spiffy, so let’s see.

Again, Cronenberg has cast somebody in the lead role that basically looks like Cronenberg himself. It’s like a mania with him.

I like this movie. It’s oddly structured: It starts off with a montage (kind of) and then we’re into the real plot of the movie while I thought we were still doing the montage. “Why is this bit with the actress going on so much longer than the other bits? Oh, has the movie started for real?” Like.

I didn’t remember much of the specifics, but the plot took me by surprise. I thought it was all body horror and fun, but it’s a very dramaish drama. Irons gets to do a lot of stuff, from jealous drug addict boyfriend to cold psycho (aided by playing two roles, of course).

According to imdb, it was a major flop. I guess audiences that expected another The Fly were disappointed.

I didn’t much like The Fly when rewatching it, but even I’m kinda disappointed. This movie does make a kind of emotional sense, but plot-wise it’s a bit of a mess. The “bad” brother seemingly just ignores the “good” brother falling apart. Which is just odd, because he’s their meal ticket, really.

But it’s a good movie. Could have been half an hour shorter.

Signs. M. Night Shyamalan. 2002.

I bought a three disc box set with Shyamalan movies. I pretty much knew what the first two were about (he can see dead people, he’s unbreakable); they’ve turned into cultural touch stones that everybody can reference without having watched them.

But I have no idea what this movie is about, which might be both positive and negative.

So I’m 15 minutes in now… and is the twist that Mel Gibson is an alien?

NO SPOILERS.

I’m an hour in now… is the twist going to be that he’s still unconscious after the accident that killed his wife?

NO SPOILERS!

I guess I’m saying that when watching an M. Night movie, I find myself less interested in what’s going on that what’s “really” going one.

This isn’t a good movie. Even if you believe that these people are hounded by aliens trying to break into their house, it could be a pretty scary scenario. But instead it’s tedious.

Florence Foster Jenkins. Stephen Frears. 2016.

Hm… why did I buy this, then? And on bluray no less. But just 2K.

Oh, right, it’s by Stephen Frears, and I remember him doing a good movie just like 30 years ago.

Oh, wow, I thought I was exaggerating, but I was understating it: I remember liking My Beautiful Laundrette in 1985, and then not liking Prick Up Your Ears in 1987, and since then I may not have seen any of his movies.

Weird but possibly true.

So now I’m curious: Is he any good at all?

I like Meryl Streep, but everybody does. Hugh Grant is likeable, of course, but not really like you know good.

I’m half an hour in, and it’s a somewhat odd movie. Of course, Florence Foster Jenkins is a figure of ridicule, and Streep sings wonderfully awful. But Frears has chosen to add a lot of pathos, making this veer between tragedy and comedy at the drop of the hat.

But it works. The funny bits are funny and the serious bits are touching. I’m dreading the inevitable third act when All The Drama has to happen, but I’m guessing it’s going to be enjoyable until then, and then the rest of the movie will be unbearable.

[time passes]

The structure of this movie is quite unusual, and there’s no third act per se. Instead it’s the second third that’s the boring bit, and then the last third is all the boring normal bits that were edited out of the first two parts.

Or did makemkv rip the bluray wrong? In any case, it’s kinda interesting, even if I don’t know whether it’s quite successful.

OH! IT WAS A MAKEMKV ERROR!

There’s two .mkv files here, and the second is longer and seems to be in a more… normal… order.

No now I don’t know how to rate this thing. The version I say, which was edited down by the makemkv program, to 1:30 was quite fun, but I saw most of it out of order, and missed half an hour?

Ripping errors should happen more often.