Rumination On Recent Random Viewings - Mobsters and Vampires and Zombies, Oh My!

File Under: Whatever you want
Author: Elliot


As of late I have been significantly delinquent in my film watching, as of late. But fear not, dear reader, I still have my usual pithy and self-important input for your insatiable needs. A few brief notes on movies, fairly recent, that have been taken in by yours truly.

Gomorra

I was jonesin' pretty bad to see Gomorra for quite some time. For some strange reason I was not turned off by the fact that Martin Scorsese brought this gem over stateside; I normally can't stand it when a famous American director produces a product from overseas to be screened in the USA, mostly because it seems like a passive form of narcissism in which said director simply wants to show off that they have good taste in obscure film (I'm looking at you, Quentin Tarantino). However, I can't imagine ever saying anything disparaging about this excellent film. It was incredible, actually, no heroes, all victims, cut and dry in that they shove the reality of what organized crime is in your face without any of the hubris of glamorizing it such as your typical mafioso films. Goodfellas, Casino, The Godfather Trilogy, none of them have anything on this film straight from the cold depths of Naples, Italy. The calm yet strikingly unstable relationship beheld by a fashion designer and his producer, the young grocery delivery boy and his aspirations for a criminal life that pervades his every surrounding, and the two teenagers with similar aspirations but far more brazen techniques with a predictably unfortunate fate all strike a chilling sense of verisimilitude in how this existence is genuinely led.

Grade: A-. Aside from sometimes butchered cinematography, this is what to watch.

Let The Right One In

I'll be honest, I didn't finish it. I plan on it, I'm simply not in the rush that I was after getting roughly an hour into it. Shot in a remarkably stoic fashion, this movie actually seems to bring a fortuitous sense of ennui to horrific violence. Pale as a mannequin Oskar is an outcast who's bullied at school, (I blame the awful hair) who is befriended by a seemingly new resident in his housing community named Eli. Turns out Eli's a vampire over the age of one hundred and is trapped (?) in the body of a twelve year old girl. Sounds like perfect jail-bait for a good ol' romcom but for the frigid feeling of the overall scheme. In one of Eli's debut scenes she's cowering under a bridge only to attract the attention of her next meal, an unfortunate soul walking home from a gathering at a local dive. Together, Oskar and Eli are to presumably come about the gruesome murders happening in their town (that guy is dope, I'll have to get back to you when I finish) and overcome his bullies. Oskar has an affinity for pantomiming his revenge on an inanimate tree outside of his house with a knife, curious if he'll end up doing something similar to his antagonists.

Grade (so far): C+. Let The Right One In just isn't the right one for me so far.

Editor's note: After having finished LTRON (word.) I did find several redemptive qualities (that I won't spoil here) after the very slow beginning and have decided to upgrade its status to a B.

Quarantine

Time for some fun. The handicam horror genre (if you can call it that) hasn't really evolved much since its origin The Blair Witch Project (if you can call that the origin), however it can still be entertaining as long as J.J. Abrams isn't at the helm. I believe that a significant reason that I was impressed with this film is that I went in expecting a very bad film, instead I got a reasonable excuse to waste some time. Full disclosure, I was particularly inebriated while viewing this one so that may have had an affect as well. A remarkably unbelievable television reporter is on assignment to cover a night shift with the local fire department. A seemingly innocuous call from a nearby apartment building sets the alarms off and they're on their way to save a kitten from a tree, and then that kitten eats them. Okay, not really, but there's a nasty and murderous beast in the building that they come to find out too late. The building is almost immediately sealed off by police outside, cell phones are blocked and they're left on their own. SPOILER: it doesn't have a happy ending for our unfortunate yet obnoxious protagonist, which actually made the movie for me. They didn't go the way of The Descent for American audiences and have her escape, the cover poster for the movie is actually the last scene, nuff said.

Grade: C+. Yes, I said I enjoyed it but I've never before felt physically ill from cinematography and the dialogue was atrocious, even for a film of this ilk.


Aub, I know you're busy with a silly thesis (BOREENG), but what have you gotten into recently?
-El