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milkandpebbles
Reviews
Red Dawn (1984)
terrible but also great
Red Dawn is a huge piece of anti-Commie propaganda made out of cheddar. There's about 20 minutes of Cuban people talking in Spanish with no subtitles which i though was quite radical. Patrick Swayze is urgent, Charlie Sheen is nutty and looks good in a Russian hat. C Thomas Howell plays a white boy advisedly as he is white (this is before Soul Man). The boy who was Danny Glick in Salem's Lot plays a whining boy called Danny although this time he isn't a vampire. Ben Johnson makes badly written dialogue sound fine. Harley Christiensen was typecast AGAIN as 'man on pole'. Lois Kimbrell as Mrs Mason presented some soup with a subtle poignancy and it was good to see the Meisner brothers reunited as Russian Tanker 1 and 2. They say that Harry Dean Stanton hasn't been in a bad film and he's in it too so there you go. It's stupid and yet very enjoyable.
Super Smile (2008)
odd and eerie short
Effie Wu invites you into her apartment with a broad smile and unblinking eyes locked on yours the whole time as we are drawn in and lead around the different rooms. But there's something not right about the smile and the gaze though, something unsettling and eerie. Why is she not blinking, why do her eyes never stray from looking directly at us? You can read this great short film in different ways but for me it was creepy. I would put it in the horror genre even though all we see is a smiling, welcoming host inviting us into her home. A fascinating exercise in the subtleties of how we read faces, how small changes can seem unnatural in alarming ways, how a smile that's read as fake suggests that we are being tricked and the consequences for us could be dire.
10x10: The Secret Arthur's Story (1994)
great short documentary
Short documentary film about a man who has compulsive disorder. Arthur's condition means he has to repeat certain everyday acts over and over again until he feels comfortable to stop e.g. washing his hands, checking the door is locked. The film is beautifully shot and edited with great use of repeated images to visualise Arthur's condition. It's a documentary but very visually creative. The voice over is not an actor - it's the man whose story is being told. I think it's sensitively made. This was made for a British TV series called 10x 10 which was 10 short films, each ten minutes long. This one really stood out. It was highly praised at the Brief Encounters international short film festival in Bristol.
Crazy and Thief (2012)
a small world
A sweet little film in which director Cory McAbee's children Willa (6 y.o.) and Johnny (2 y.o) play Crazy and Thief, two parent-less kids who have an urban adventure following star symbols they see in adverts and signs and products that seem to correlate to a star map Willa has drawn. They meet a one eyed man in a park who is referred to as the Cyclops and another man who is the Giant. He isn't particularly tall, but that's the point, to little kids any adult can seem like a giant, and any small object or situation can hold great importance and significance. McAbee has cited early Sesame Street episodes as an influence and that's clear. The children aren't given knowing, smart Alec lines to read - they are just very natural, sometimes not even making sense. They are oddly independent, existing in their own imaginary world. it's a short, film without a strong plot or any high drama, but it reminded me of what it was like to be a kid.
The Orchard End Murder (1981)
lost gem
If you can track this down it's worth a watch. A young couple take a trip to the country for a cricket match he's playing in. She goes off exploring during the match and meets a peculiar character who invites her in for a cup of tea. Lesson learned - always be suspicious of a man who collects gnomes. It's quite well made. The acting is okay. Plenty of laughs - some intentional and some not - and the scene in which the murder victim is buried in a huge pile of rotting apples is really striking. There's another scene in which a body is discovered in a shallow grave with just the bum sticking out of the ground which is hilarious.