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davidbrake
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Shallow Grave (1994)
Not deep but a great, darkly comic thriller about three terrible people
Almost from the very beginning you know these three dislikeable characters are riding for a fall but this engrossing drama keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering just what is going to go wrong next and how. Only an intrusive and overly-dramatic soundtrack get in the way of this being an utterly wonderful work. Ewan McGregor in particular does an excellent job of playing a deliciously awful yet inescapably charismatic anti-hero.
Memento (2000)
A movie you have to watch twice
I saw it when it first came out and was on the edge of my seat for the whole film, all the while trying to unravel what had happened and what was to come (because the whole premise of the movie as you presumably know is that it runs backwards). 18 years later I finally got around to watching it again and it was just as entertaining knowing the ending as I watched, engrossed, to see how everything came to pass. Not just a film that rewards two watchings but one that demands them. A tour de force and for my money still Nolan's best work.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Worth it for BR fans - visually impressive but overlong & not entirely coherent
I thought it was visually impressive and thought provoking in parts (especially the relationship between replicant Joe and 'Joi' his holographic AI 'lover'). I did think it was over-long though and a little too addicted to its own spectacle. I found some of the violence excessive too - and my cinema turned up the soundtrack to ear-pummelling levels. I don't think the whole story makes sense even within the world's logic, though it makes a poetic kind of sense. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen if you are a fan of the original. I suspect non-fans might be a bit bemused...
Signs (2002)
Expected enjoyable messing with my head - got pseudo-mystical SF claptrap
Having mostly enjoyed earlier works by M. Night Shyamalan because of their surprise endings which put the whole work into a different perspective, I stuck with this right through to the end hoping that the increasingly ludicrous plot would turn out to be explained as some kind of hallucination or something. Imagine my disappointment when the incredibly stupid, unconvincing alien invasion turns out to be just what it seemed to be! Oh, and Mel Gibson's acting is wooden, and the faith vs reason 'subplot' underlying the film has about as deep as a shallow puddle. The film neither scared me nor made me think. I want 106 minutes of my life back.
La nuit de la vérité (2004)
A moving, self-consciously Shakespearian exploration of reconciliation after bloody sectarian warfare
Set in an un-named African country in the immediate aftermath of a lengthy, bloody civil war, this taut tale takes place on a 'day of reconciliation' where the president, the leader of the opposition and their spouses meet to celebrate the end of hostilities. But after atrocities on both sides and lingering ethnic tensions, can there really be peace? From the beginning the tension between members of the two sides is palpable and as the film continues, the atmosphere of menace grows as the leaders struggle to cement a lasting peace but old wounds remain fresh.
The director is the first female director of a feature film in sub-Saharan Africa, and is inspired in part by her own experiences. It can be a little too theatrical in parts, but if you take it as it is meant, as a moral fable rather than a docudrama, it is a striking and poignant work.