FOUR FILMS - THE ICEMAN, THE SEASONING HOUSE, AMONG FRIENDS, MAGIC MAGIC

THE ICEMAN

Entertaining crime fluff albeit sanitized as the real-life Iceman was not a family man but someone who abused his wife and kids.  Still, this is a fun crime film with plenty of psycho swagger and a good performance by Michael Shannon.

  

THE SEASONING HOUSE

Can a movie be too genteel and exploitative at the same time about a subject as horrific as Bosnia?  A mixed bag – thrilling in places but ultimately questionable in morality and at the same time also too afraid to delve deeper into its dark subject.

AMONG FRIENDS

This felt more like rough cut or student film than completed product.  The look is right, the plot starts off well but the end result is an incomplete 80 minutes that didn’t even bother with an explanation or an ending.  I’d like to see it redone because there is potential there. 

  

MAGIC MAGIC

Didn’t get this film at all.  Is it totally improvised?  Kept waiting for something to happen when it dd, it didn’t lead anywhere or make sense.  Michael Cera is extremely annoying but maybe that’s the point.

 

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FIVE FILMS - FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY, CONFESSIONS, GUT, THE COLONY, BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY

FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY is a total win.  Great looking monsters framed by a clever found footage premise – A Soviet propaganda film shot during World War II.  Frankenstein’s grandson and a plot that is good horror fun from beginning to end.

CONFESSIONS

Entertaining and creative Japanese revenge yarn that is also absurdly histrionic and convoluted.  The first twenty minutes or so which involve one character’s confession is great.  A well told story if a bit overdone.

 

GUT

What I liked – The banter between the main characters, the building tension which is constant. What I didn’t like – Low budget which hurts the story's flow, weak ending .  VIDEODROME influenced but needed tightening up.

THE COLONY

Mediocre dystopian sci fi horror partly redeemed by the overacting of Laurence Fishburne and Bill Paxton. Future Environmental causes slogan - Global cooling = cannibals.

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

A thin story camouflaged and padded out by a series of weird futuristic images and random nonsense.  Never horrifying only boring.  It seems like every member of the cast of this film is on tranquilizers not just the psychic girl heroine.