A few reviews

[Zaharoff]

Tracks - 2013 - 6/10




Based on the true story, and I gather this was more or less accurate as two of the original participants appear in the Bonus section, along with numerous photos.
27 year old female decides to hike 1600+ miles across the Australian outback to the Indian Ocean.
With her are four camels and her faithful black dog.
A photographer acquaintance helps her get National Geographic sponsorship, but Tracks is a lonely trip.
Existential, metaphysical journey, though difficult to tell if she actually “changes.”
We don’t really grasp Robyn’s before and after. The physical journey is the movie.
At the end, I was like, “Is that it?” “Why did she ..?’
Self discovery - perhaps best understood by oneself.

[Zaharoff]

Beyond The Black Rainbow - 2010 - 5/10




Futuristic tale of company that helps you create “a better you.”
Except experimentation now seems their locus.
Camera work reeks of student film class: slow dissolves, step printing, colorization.
Acting is ponderous and stilted to the nth degree.
The opening corporate mission statement indicates 1983 and the music remains 80s throughout.
Synthesizers and musique concrète.
A lot of visually impressive work undermined by exhausting, dreary, glacial pace.

[Zaharoff]

The Founder - 2016 - 7/10




Aging, over-the-hill salesman investigates one of his few “good” clients.
Pair of brothers doing gangbuster business with their hamburger stand.
Salesman offers to help them launch franchises and expand nationwide.
Against their instincts, the McDonald brothers agree.
Story of how Roy Kroc built an empire and took it away from the founders.

Mixed feelings watching this, much as I have mixed feelings about the McDonald’s chain.
Kroc is a predatory, unscrupulous wolf, but I think the brothers never could have rivaled his achievements.
Loved McDonald’s when they arrived in my town when I was 10. Outgrew them by 18, but still visit when options are limited. City to city, country to country, fare is predictable.

[Zaharoff]

Quiet Please: Murder - 1942 - 6/10




Brisk thriller / mystery, with the main characters very much the villains.
Smoothie George Sanders is a rare book thief.
After well-publicized thefts, he creates quality forgeries which he peddles to unscrupulous collectors.
They can’t well verify if the book is real, and if they find out, who can they complain to?
Great plan, eh?
Except one forgery is sold to a Nazi agent, buying for Hermann Goering.
During a blackout, Sanders and his duplicitous colleague (sensual Gail Patrick) find themselves trapped in a vast public library, along with a private investigator and those pesky Nazis, demanding a refund!
Fun little B-movie, very much of its time.

[Zaharoff]

Blood And Roses - 1960 - 7/10
AKA - Et Mourir de Plaisir




Beautiful retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” updating the setting to modern Italy.
Carmilla is despondent over the approaching nuptials of her cousin Leopold, whom she loves.
She is moody, fascinated with a more superstitious past.
After a fireworks show gone awry, Carmilla, drawn to the cemetery, encounters a supposedly long dead vampire, Millarca. Unsettling developments ensue.



Erotically charged film, sans nudity. Sets, costumes, and fall outdoors are all gorgeous, though the print I viewed seemed washed out. My copy was also dubbed English.
The final act is surreal and imaginative. One of Vadim’s best films.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Good to hear that. I've always wondered if I should pick that one up and never saw much favourable reviews of it.

[Zaharoff]

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

Good to hear that. I've always wondered if I should pick that one up and never saw much favourable reviews of it.

I'm surprised you have not viewed this, Robert. I suspect you have watched more films than I.
Blood And Roses had a 6.7 on IMDB, a decent score.
To be expected, the pace is slower than a modern vampire film.
Much of the plot moves by hints and misdirection
Mel Ferrer is alright as Leopold, after the first choice (Christoper Lee) had declined. I daresay Lee would have brought more sexual chemistry to the proceedings.
A Technicolor production, I would love to see a remaster.
Early Vadim, his mannerisms and excesses have not crept in yet, though the surreal finale is a precursor of things to come.

[Zaharoff]

Atami Police Investigators - 2010 - 6/10
AKA - Atami no Sôsakan // 熱 海 の 捜 査 官

A bus carrying four schoolgirls disappears into the fog along an empty stretch of road.
The vehicle is never found, police are stumped.




Three years later, one girl returns, soon the bus is found, events escalate.
Catalyst for events might be the arrival of two agents from the WAI.
J-drama similar to one of the X-Files shaggy dog episodes.
Twin Peaks fans will identify the assortment of local oddballs and bizarre settings.




Leads and false trails grow at a dizzying pace. The ceramics club fronts teen prostitutes. The giant fish. Why does one boy pose nude in the mostly girls school? What is in that static filled cassette? Where did the religious cult originate?
Musical score swings from choral arrangements to sleazy blues to elegant Satie.
Onion layer mystery, laced with very Japanese humor and irreverence.

[Zaharoff]

Best Offer - 2013 - 7/10




Intriguing arthouse mystery of greed, deception, obsession, fraud.
Accent on art house, as this takes place in the high end world of auctions and collectors.
Geoffrey Rush plays evaluator / owner of Sotheby’s type establishment.
He gets wind of an estate in a run down house.
Within are treasures.
A fabulously looking film that unfolds, quite literally, like a clockwork mechanism.
Russian doll story, as one level of the narrative is exposed, another is revealed.
Clues scattered in plain sight, snapping tight at the end.

[Zaharoff]

After.Life - 2009 - 6/10



Christina Ricci breaks up with her boyfriend (as he's trying to propose, no less!).
Storms off in the driving rain. The road is treacherous but the cellphone beckons.
Next sequence, she's on the slab arguing with Liam Neeson.
"I'm not dead. I can't be."
"That's what you all say."
Neeson is a mortician with a gift. He can communicate with the dead in the three day window as they transition from this world to the next.
Dour, unsettling film. Especially when you begin to wonder about that three day window.
Definitely not an action flick, and the characters are not always sympathetic.