Saturday my fiance and watched the entire Chernobyl HBO miniseries from last year in one sitting. I don't know what I expected but it was brutal from the start. It's been a decade since my Cold War history classes in college so I couldn't remember a lot of details, so even though I basically know how it resolved (Europe didn't enter nuclear winter) I was still on the edge of my seat so to say for a lot of the stuff between meltdown and finale. I liked that the actors used their regularly accents instead of fake Russian, Ukranian etc. the music was ace. Stellan Skarsgård was a damn pleasure, but so was everyone else. it was also very discomforting how the Russian administration dealt with Chernobyl in comparison to how the US administration is dealing with COVID-19. The State's truth is the only truth the people need right? Also a total accident we watched it into Sunday early morning, which is the anniversary of the meltdown.
Started working through the massive backlog of DVDs and Blurays I own but haven't watched. A lot of them are lousy looking cheap horror reissues I won in a raffle, so I don't even want to watch them. But I've also got Polanski's Repulsion, Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Lolita and a bunch of Criterion samurai films to watch. luxury problems. so the first two from the unwatched stacks were Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich (1940) and Keita Amemiya's Zeiram 2 (1994).
Night Train to Munich is weird one for two reasons. First, it's almost an alternate version of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, sharing the screen writers, Margaret Lockwood and a lot of plot points/aspects. But that actually works out okay. Second, it was written during the very beginning of WWII and filmed during the first year or so. There's repeated casual discussion of concentration camps in a way that makes them seem just fine, because in fact the writers didn't know the extent of what they were at this point. Combined with the "fun romp" tone of the movie it all seems callous or brash, but truly the people involved just didn't know how bad the whole thing was gonna get. So it's a weird vibe. But it's also funny as fuck as there's lots of poking fun at Nazis in a way that feels like a Mel Brooks movie. Rex Harrison is really great and I'll need to check him out in other stuff. So if you want a fun thriller/romp that deals with Nazis, trains and fast talking Brits during the War this is the one for you.
Zeiram 2 equally silly, but for very different reasons. I think the best way to describe Amemiya's films are tokusatsu with occasional hyper-violence. they're not typically gory but there's always seens of extreme bloodspray. it makes for some strange tonal inconsistencies. his ideas and designs are typically very very cool, but you feel like you're watching a kids show a lot of the time. but as a life-long weeb it's pretty easy to appreciate.
Unforgiven well this one ain't new to me but it was for my fiance. My favorite western, she though it was extremely predictable, with mediocre acting and writing. certainly an interesting perspective on a movie that's almost universally acclaimed for its meditation on violence, pathos and nuanced performances. but i'm just getting a little defensive since I absolutely love this movie.
