That’s a pretty good outcome for sitting down to watch Final Reckoning!
Deathcember (2019) is an inventive collection of Christmas-themed horror short films.
Be warned this is 2.5 hours long with 24 different short films. On the other hand, if you’re sitting around with a bunch of people, put this on and everyone will eventually glance up and see one that grabs them.
I’ve seen bits and pieces of all of them but haven’t seen straight through other than these and 1 and 2.
1 was still my favorite but the late 60s early 70s TV show will always remain my favorite. The plot of every episode was far more clever than anything I ever saw in the movies I’ve seen, though the plot in Part 2 was the closest to one of the TV shows aka an elaborate trick to get the desired outcome.
Remind me of your review
I loved your review of that. These movies are the ultimate leave your head at the door exercise. I agree with a lot of your review but still thought it wasn’t a waste of time specifically because of the two totally unbelievable set pieces that were exciting if not totally impossible. At about 30 minutes I almost needed to stop to take a nap I was so bored with all the exposition. Just a polar opposite of how Dead Reckoning started.
3rd Knives out sheesh. SO MUCH JESUS. Thanks Rian. Should have stayed away when I saw Glenn “Hillbilly Elegy” Close but oh well. Unrelated to the Jesus.
One of the other things that bugged me that I forgot about in Final Talkening was how ‘quickly’ Grace pulled the USB drive. There is no way that was done in .10 seconds.
On your phone, switch to stopwatch and see how fast you can double tap to stop it. My best was .08, and I have good reflexes like her character is supposed to have. I didn’t try to do a real count but I doubt she did it in under .20. To do this convincingly, she should have had her hand on it to pull it out to cut down on time. Complicating things is that she also had to cut a wire at the same time. To give an indication of how fast this is, in a movie like that it’s slightly less than 2.5 frames (2.4 to be exact).
Then again, she managed to steal a radio from one hip and a gun from another hip off two people at the same time showing she must have four hands.
Bugonia
This just dropped this morning on Peacock for those interested.
Loved the first 30 minutes and was hoping that this would be on par with certified 9/10 Yorgos bangers Poor Things and The Favourite. It couldn’t maintain that level throughout, but I was still intrigued. There was one absurd part during the climax. There is no way that the first sighting of a high profile kidnapping victim would go that casually.
As for the ending, I initially rolled my eyes at the actually an alien reveal, but I think the final shots of all the dead people was worth it.
I’ll give this a 7/10, but below the two other 7/10s I saw over Christmas. Still a fair amount I need to see (most notably all the international contenders), but as of right now, I’m okay if this does or does not get a BP nomination.
1 Like
Yeah, not far off from you on this. It’s very solid, but Yorgos is starting to feel a little repetitive for me. I come out a bit more negative than you overall on the ending even though I didn’t actively hate it.
1 Like
I had it closer to an 8 based solely on the powerhouse performances of the 3 leads
1 Like
@ctr123 Glad to see you took my rec and it landed for you. (Yes, I puzzled out who you were in my Letterboxd followers list.)
I did just finish another really good short one, though I’m less confident in recommending it to you because I have no idea where you are on William Powell: One Way Passage (1932). 67 minutes long.
It actually missed for me the first time around since I hadn’t really taken to Powell yet, but after seeing him in The Thin Man and Libeled Lady he became one of my favorite performers of this era. The rewatch stuck the landing and leveled the movie up for me quite a bit. His chemistry with Kay Francis in this movie is honestly as electric as his chemistry with Myrna Loy in those later movies.
Much more conditional rec since I just don’t have a great sense for whether this type of movie is your style or not. It does meet the length category though. If anything, I was left wishing it was a bit longer.
1 Like
Repetitive is an odd critique of him. His films have to be the most diverse of any living film maker?
unless you mean the oddity as a general vibe.
I don’t think he’s diversifying that much at all really. There’s a whole lot of The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Kinds of Kindness in Bugonia. I don’t feel like I’m getting a unique experience at this point when I go to most of his movies. I do think The Favourite operated in a somewhat different space and was his most mainstream-friendly stuff, but he obviously prefers to keep it weirder than that most of the time.
I really can’t see “most diverse of any living filmmaker.” I can respect that Yorgos has a distinct directorial voice, and he always does strong work, but I’ve just sort of tired of the Yorgos thing in ways that I don’t so much tire of a director like Michael Mann or Kelly Reichardt doing their specific thing movie after movie.
2 Likes
Fair but he has made historical costume dramas, big idea sci fi, small character dramas, steampunk neo Elizabethan fairytales and existential comedies. I think he qualifies as diverse.
I agree his vibe is somewhat consistent.
1 Like
Okay I need to see this!
Bugonia was the first movie of his I didn’t turn off within the first fifteen minutes. In fact I loved it and really want to see it a second time knowing what I now know.
2 Likes
You need to see the favourite for sure. It’s both awesome and far less odd than his other films.
2 Likes
Yeah, that’s easily the one I’d be most likely to recommend to someone who doesn’t dig his vibe.
2 Likes
By the way, I’m not totally sure 12 Angry Men is truly perfect even though it’s in my personal top 1% of all movies.
The main protagonist is a disingenuous “just asking questions” guy. Sure, he’s doing it as a noble force for good, but JAQing off isn’t magically acceptable just because of good intentions. And I can’t be convinced that he isn’t doing exactly that.
Back then no one knew what that was, though, so in that context it can remain perfect.