The Last Wave

Looks like I'm sticking with Australia for this movie that features a lawyer and Aborigines.

After some weird weather events, a group of four Aborigines seem to kill a fifth. A lawyer comes into the case, which is odd as he mainly deals with corporate tax, but something about this case draws him in. As do the beliefs of the Aborigines. Could the magic of the Aborigines be responsible? And what did the man do to earn death? Can the lawyer find out... should he?

I have no idea how this movie was received by Aborigines and I would like to know. ... They felt it was a good one it seems. Okay then. Certainly there are some fine performances on display here, and their beliefs aren't treated as rubbish, aside from a couple of cynical characters (mostly it is just treated as something that is there).

However, with Richard Chamberlain playing the lead role of the lawyer, there is a whiff of White Savior about him as he tries to get them off of a murder charge. And then towards the end, we get a bit of the White Colonist coming in and invading the local culture. A bit all over the place really, and then there is that last shot...

I hope there are lot of Aboriginal movies there, of which I have no clue.

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Relic

Right, I need a good horror movie, and this Australian movie is available.

The elderly grandmother disappears, so the mother and daughter turn up to find out what happens. She does turn up later, but is complaining of other people around and doesn't trust her descendants. And the house has mold... and then the grandmother has mold... and then the house has more house and they all get trapped and...

Now, I'm not one (DEMENTIA) for spotting themes and (DEMENTIA) motifs, but I suspect there might (DEMENTIA) have been something this movie (DEMENTIA) was trying to get across. Fortunately, we all know that media handles mental (DEMENTIA) issues properly and what happens to the grandmother is only a metaphor that isn't going to be (DEMENTIA) suffered by the others.

As such, while there were definite elements of creepiness creeping in, it didn't really feel like it was going anywhere because it was already there. Surprise! Something creepy happened! Which we all knew was going to happen! ... Creep!

Overall.. it's fine.

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Last and First Men

I recently worked through an anthology of time travel stories, so when this movie started with "we are the last men from billions of years from now", I was able to take that on board and work with it.

This is a missive from them into the past. We get some information about what life is like now, find out that it's not a utopia, it's just people being people (where people has changed, but still). But there is an unfortunate event that is gonna wipe everyone out. And so they speak out, to be heard, before they are gone.

...oh dear gods. Ever watch a movie and think "this was a waste of time and resources for everyone involved, including the audience"? This is Tilda Swinton narrating this almost essay (this was adapted from a book... should have stayed there). And under this is... completely irrelevant black and white imagery of mosaics from around the world. Actually, I don't know if they just found these things or made them, and they are nice as monuments in and of themselves, but have nothing to do with whatever point this movie is going for.

I admit I watch movies at quicker that 1x speed... never more so glad to be able to do so when dealing with a movie like this.

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La odisea de los giles

The New Zealand International Film Festival is coming, and it's online, so I'm probably gonna watch a lot of them. But I can see something of them before hand. Such as this one about the Argentinian Corralito.

A small group of townspeople decide to pool money on starting a communal effort, raise money and put it in the bank to be safe. Then a thing happens. They find out that one man swooped in and removed their money just before it, so he has a lot and they don't. And he happens to put a vault nearby that contains the money. And so the rest of the film is them trying to work out what to do about that and eventually hopefully get the money back for themselves.

Okay, I know nothing about the corralito, but having seen a few "economic events", I could guess the basics and the precise details don't really matter. What we have is a very rural take on the heist/revenge movie, that while being comedic is also about a father who loses his wife and doesn't want to put his son at any risk.

Decent movie, moves along well, and keeps the stakes personal. And doesn't exactly end up as you'd think.

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The Boookselllers

I went to the movies! (How dare I! Actually, it is fine for New Zealand, and indeed the Welling Film Society is back up and running. Although that is at the Embassy and this movie was at the Lighthouse Cuba, and I was a bit more worried about space, but I was able to get a good enough seat that was away from other people.)

Anyways, this movie is about, as it says on the tin, booksellers, in particular the booksellers around New York. We talk with various people who are booksellers, mainly of rarer items, about how they got into it and the issues they are now facing. Which is a few. Some see the internet as a good thing... many don't. A lot of them will be "aging" out soon and think the age of the bookseller is coming to an end, but there are some younger ones who are quite excited (and by younger, they look to be around my age). In all, they all have large collections crammed in small spaces and they basically view a book as an object and not something to actually sit down and read.

This is mainly talking heads about their lives. I would have liked to have seen some more about how they deal with books and such, but that wasn't this movie. Most of the heads are elderly, so you definitely get a large dose of their world view, especially with the more pessimistic edge of things coming to an end. (I can't say I've been buying tons of physical books myself.) While there are the younger ones, the film doesn't spend much time with them nor their ideas, beyond saying "hey, we're not out yet."

While being a bookseller has an interest for me (and my bookishness), ultimately I don't think that lifestyle is for me.

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The Grodge

I'm pretty clearly on the record for loving the Ju-on movies, so I was savouring watching the 2020 version. Okay, sure, small hitch with certain events closing down cinemas, but we live in a connected world so it wasn't that much a problem.

After having been to a certain house in Japan, Fiona Launders returns home, and a new cycle begins. Later there's a cop, and she investigates Fiona's house. And there are other people living there. And there is someone else in a car. And there's another detective, who is obsessed with what happened. And there are other people too.

What you might be able to tell is that there is a lot of people in this movie. What you might not be able to tell is there is not a lot of scares or deaths. By halfway through a normal Grudge movie, half the cast would have been killed in gruesome ways! In this, we're still introducing new people! (The movie jumps about in time.) This is sort of saving up the death scares for the end, but... what we actually get is a really boring movie with just a whole of people and not much happening. A Grudge movie shouldn't be boring, but this is!

There is the usual palaver of ghosts sort of being seen and random jump scares, but they aren't effective. Well, except one. Otherwise they are all telegraphed and you just wait for... there it is!

The director, Nicholas Pesce, has ideas for a sequel. And this was supposed to be a reboot, but he tied it in anyway. After this, then yes, let's reboot, but give it to someone else.

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Bludshut

This was one of the last movies in the before times, but I only got around to watching it now.

We have Vin's character... I don't recall his name, and frankly it's just Vin the whole time, so I'm not going to bother, we have Vin's character be a kick arse military guy, who's wife is killed, then him, then he comes back as a supersoldier and kills for revenge. Then we find out this was a fictional set up, and the bad guys are just created digitally. So far, this is what is in the trailer. And we take about half the movie to get this point which, again, everyone knows because of the trailer. Then Vin has to deal with the company that did this to him, and that is the rest of the movie.

When this movie was coming out, I grabbed the comics so I could get the story and see how well the movie did. What the movie does it just the first two (approximately) of the comics, although with more action/violence pumped in because this is an action movie. The rest of the comics deals with "what happens next". Which I guess this means this could be a whole series of movies? And the comics also crossed over with other comics, so this could spin out into its own Valient Comics universe... but I doubt they're going to go that far.

What we get in this movie is the basic set up of the character, and that's about it. Frankly, a lot more could be done with the character, but given the focus of this movie is "let us do action sequences with CGI bits", I don't get the feeling the producers actually cared beyond "action movie vehicle for Vin, check".

To be honest, the most interesting part of the movie was noting that one of the leads was Guy Pearce and this easily could have been his AIM character and this movie fitting in that quite easily.

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