Category: Film Review

Out of Time (2021)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 32 m, rated 5.6 by 1,500 cinemtizens.

Genre: Sy Fy. 

DNA: Area 51.

Verdict: Paul was not alone.  [Either you get it or you don’t.]

Tagline: Cop and Aliens. 

Three body-hopping aliens are on a mission to confuse the viewer.  Pursed by a staunch agent from 1951 they collide in 2021 Los Angeles.  Agent teams up with Tiger, and off they go.

Yes, it is a mismatched buddy movie with a few bruises between them, too.  I liked the way Vernon came back into the story, and the final alien tot.  

It is well worn material, but played with conviction and unexpected twists and turns including jumping jacks with some clever asides.  Moreover, the acting all around was superb. It rewarded my patience with the mystifying opening.  

On the down side the direction was s-l-o-w, and some scenes were attenuated beyond their value. Get that editing done.  

Later I also watched a hour of Sender (2020), IMDb 1h and 50m, rated 3.9 by 97 cinematizens, which exhausted my comprehension and interest long before the hour was over. Though I had a perverse interest in watching one of the characters play Freeze.  I noticed several comments on IMDb and You Tube proclaiming Sender to be the best movie ever made, and thought….  You know what I thought, now don’t you.

The Aliens (2017)

IMDb meta-data is 1h and 45m, rated 6.5 by 93 cinematizens.

Genre: Drama.DNA: USA.

Verdict: A labour of one man’s love. 

Tagline: We are (not) alone.

Admission: I let it run with the sound so low I seldom heard it while I finished the weekend crossword puzzles.  My plan was to switch attention to the film if and when the aliens appeared.They did.

Back up. Dedicated UFOist waits in the south western desert every Tuesday afternoon and night for a return visit from the aliens who contacted his dad there forty years ago as he promised his terminally ill father he would do. He is well known to the Border Patrol officers who stop by for a drink of the cold water bottles he always has in good supply. Ditto the local sheriff who calls in once in a while to break the tedium’s of lonely patrols.He spends most of the rest of his time either sitting with his mute father in a hospice or at a pub drinking soda with two other equally inept UFOists.  No job seems to detain him. His ahead-flank-speed sister tries to set him up with women, but…the desert seems safer than a blind date.  Then one night as he keeps his lonely vigil he hears something, and…  Well, there are aliens but not the kind that causes A.I. to mark the film as science fiction, as has happened in some places it seems, judging by the comments on its IMDb page.  Ditto You Tube where I came across it. Thereafter it is a kind of love story with twists and turns that I shall not go into but it is a conflict between the humanitarian and the venal.  No doubt I missed many explanations in the suppressed dialogue, but in another way I did not miss them, since I have no doubt they were the usual clichés.  He finds out, slowly, very slowly, that he is not alone.

 ****

I kept watching it first to await the aliens and then when they appeared I continued to watch, so I guess I could say it is ‘watchable,’ but I would never let that neologism pass my lips.  The players absolutely reek of sincerity and I found that interesting given the veneer of so many actors whom you just know are holding up a mask.  Oh, I liked the way the ubiquitous water bottles pay off.  There are some repetitions that should have been cut to trim it to feature length of 90m.  But the one-man band could not do that. 

Existir (2021) To Exist

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1h and 22m, rated 5.0 by 152 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

DNA: Argentina.

Verdict: Less can be enough.

Tagline: Only the Shadow knows.  

Seven diverse individuals from around the world are gathered, abducted, and….   Meanwhile in Buenos Aires, She and He, after some preliminaries, started following clues that appear on her telephone screen to find Third who disappeared a couple of years ago, driving off in a huff after a spat, never to reappear.  Third’s friends assume he has moved to another city to leave his disappointments behind and they get on with their lives, though what they do off camera remains unknown.

The clues lead them, after the necessary tropes, to a field (yes, of course there is a crop circle within), guarded by a geriatric and a stereotyped general with a Mad Scientist in tow. 

All expense was spared, and we soon realise the other couple we see through the looking glass living a perfectly normal life are the writer and his supportive wife.  Get it?

Meanwhile, in the story the hacker keeps sending clues to Her phone, and He and She keep on keeping on.  

***

The writer meets the written as the written meets the writer. Saw another version of this trope in Gosti iz galaksije (1982) Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy from Croatia last year.  But none equals Agnes Varda’s Les Creatures (1966).

Something comes from nothing, contrary to Lear, in this low budget production, making it a part of the story. Nicely done. Compare with John Sayles and Jean-Pierre Melville for cinematic alchemy to conjure something out of the air.

Black Box (2012) Boíte Noire

IMDb meta-data is 2h and 9m, rated 7.2 by 17,000 cinematizens.  

Genre: Mystery.

DNA: Gallic.

Verdict: Unusual.

Tagline:  ‘Ear that?’

Another French movie, another ear, this time on an acoustic analyst who works on the flight recorders from plane crashes, of which there seem to be many to keep him busy.  This hero is a super nerd, yet even so he has an attractive wife who seems to love him.  Strange.  Nerd boy is so introverted he folds up, the more so and often because of his acutely sensitive hearing that makes a reception excruciating, but it means he can hear a change of pitch in background engine noise on a flight recorder.  

I wrote an undergraduate thesis on regulatory capture, and that is what we have here.  The regulator works closely with the regulated, so closely that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.  His wife works for a manufacturer of airliners, and she is personally dynamic and socially adept as well as technically competent, unlike Nerd King who sits all day in a dark room listening to engine noises, she wheels and deals.  

The technical aspects are in the forefront, so unlike Hollywood, and these hold interest but as the aged and redoubtable André Dussollier (first credit 1970, and latest 2024) says, ‘with those toys you can make a recording say anything you want,’ and that seems to be what happened in the main event.  In reality André would have been pushed into retirement years ago in any public service. 

Of course, there is a deep and dark conspiracy that does not involve Boeing, but one thinks of 737MAX nonetheless, to approve a plane before it is foolproof.  And a fool proves it.  

The forensic detail certainly held my interest, though it was hard to take seriously the mismatched couple. Even harder to take was the disappearance of the chief acoustic technician, played superbly by Olivier Rabourdin, in the middle of the investigation and no one seems to notice or care, for some time.  

Good to know that greed, corruption, and stupidity are not limited to the Anglo-Saxon world, but sad to know that screen writers can only grasp bad will, and nothing more complicated. 

P.S. there are scores of films that use that title.  

Viking  (2022)  

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 44m, rated 6.8 by 892 cinematizens.

Gerne: SciFi, dramedy

DNA: Quebecois 

Verdict:  Low key, very.

Tagline: He’s Elizabeth.  

The milquetoast junior high school gym teacher gets an early morning phone call telling him, he’s a match. His answers to a stream of questions match those given by someone else.  Off he goes. It is so secret he cannot tell his wife, but she stands by her man.  

I cannot say much more without spoiling the plot and in this case the plot is all.  Suffice it to say that it is an absolutely deadpan comedy as role and player blur and combine.  

It’s Mars as you have never seen it before!  

Wolf’s call (2019) Le chant du loup.

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1h and 55, rated 6.9 by 22,000 cinematizens.

Genre: Thriller, Scifi elements.

DNA; Gallic.

Verdict: Well done, but why?

Tagline: here, hear.

The SciFi premise is that in the near future France is a superpower, and in the great tradition of such powers its armed forces go around the world shooting people and places up.  Hey, that sounds like reality.  

The action takes place on a super duper submarine where Hero is the sound-man.  No he doesn’t hoik amps. He is an acoustic warfare officer who listens to the waters.  There is a lot of technique in this that I liked.  Hero is good at this but he overthinks things and tries too hard to prove himself to skeptics and makes a mistake. Or so it seems.  I also liked the way the filing system played into this mistake.  Then there is the onboard computer that doesn’t work, because we’re over budget for operations. 

Things get tense and it is submarine against submarine.  It’s all about the nuclear option.  

There is a love interest for Hero who appears and then disappears.  Most of the players are adequate, but none outstanding, though I admit I found it hard to take seriously the popinjay admiral. 

Despite the setting, this one did not convey the cramped and compromised nature of the sardine can.  

Oh, and it is spoken (not dubbed) in English on the SBS version, which is interrupted by inane commercials.  

Day of Wrath (1985) Den gneva

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1h and 24m, rated 6.1 by 445 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

DNA: USSR.

Verdict:  Lugubrious. 

Tagline:  [Ask the bear]

An American journalist finally gets permission to enter a restricted area in the Appalachian Mountains, but before he sets out he is abducted and….  [Who knows.]  But he has little memory of this excursion.  It might have been a dream. Off he goes to meet many hillbilly stereotypes, including an idiot savant of mathematics destined to be an actuary.

There is a reference to genetic manipulation of bears to increase intelligence and that may have something to do with the restrictions.  Yes, brown bears.  

***

The A.I. subtitles were nearly unintelligible but amusing. I never did figure out the plot. Nor did the poor quality of the video help. 

Some Soviet filmmakers masked criticism of their own society by setting stories elsewhere, especially in science fiction, and this might an example of that.  By the way, this also occurred in the States, the examples being the Twilight Zone or Star Trek on themes no commercial sponsor would otherwise accept. 

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) Dorosute no hate de bokura

IMDb meta-data is 1h and 10m, rated 7.3 by 8,900 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Time Travel (sorta).

DNA: Japan.

Verdict:  Fun while it lasts. 

Tagline:  What’s 2-minutes among friends?

The owner of a very small cafe is surprised, then stunned, when he turns on the computer screen to see a video message from himself! From the 2-minutes in the future! What to do?

Well, Present-He does what Future-He tells himself to do, and inevitably the secret gets out to his cronies who usually gather after-hours at the cafe.  Shenanigans ensue as they learn how to stretch that 2-minutes into ever more time. Ergo, it is not exactly time travel, because they are in the future and present at the same time. This duplication confuses both them and the viewer.   

The shenanigans includes intercepting a payoff to gangsters who come looking for the dosh.  All that excitement alerts the Time Police who also show up to put things right, but, well, by then things have gone pretty far…and some of the characters like it.

***

It zips along with high octane, leaving no time to question the origin of the first video and its follow-ups, which multiply from ever further in the future. Pedants need not apply.

Oh, and the reference to Droste cocoa powder governs proceedings. (Intriguing, no?)

There is lots of bumf in reviews about the technical aspects which left me cold, but the gist of it is that it was shot in a single take using  a cell phone camera.  

The End of the Lonely Island (2017) Gu day zhong joie

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 1m, rated 5.3 by 22 cinematizens.

Genre: SyFy.

DNA: People’s Republic of China.

Verdict: Huh?

Tagline: Windows 95 strikes again!

Chinese AI is the villain called TESS (aka Windows 95) which has unleashed a worldwide epidemic that kills all and for which there is no remedy. One response is to launch a deep space mission to find another planet to despoil and another is to wind back the clock somehow on the Lonely Island of the title where there is an abandoned research facility that might have a key, a cure, or an Act III.  Our heroine goes to the island while her beau rides the rockets. 

Now I may have muddled all that because I found it hard to follow, it being fast and cryptic, and short. 

The cinematography is superb, and likewise the acting.  I hardly recognised her from one emotional state to another.  The chap shows less in a stoic kind of way.  Plus I liked the street views of Shanghai. 

However, I never did figure out the plot, despite what seemed to be good subtitles by an AI program!  Sounds of irony off stage.  

The intel on IMDb says it is an independent production, a rarity from the PRC.  

Magare! Supûn (2009) Go Find a Psychic!

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 46m, rated 6.5 by 610 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

DNA: Japan.

Verdict: Amusing. 

Tagline: Yes, Virginia.

A television program concerns the paranormal…real or fake!  Each week someone claiming paranormal abilities is the guest who demonstrates that ability.  Bring on the spoons! Two regulars offer comments, the believer and the skeptic who always prevails.  

It sounds as loopy as some of the (un)reality television I have seen here (from the bicycle seat at the gym).

As much fun as it is for the audience to ridicule failed contestants, the ratings are falling and the director is desperate for a boost.  Ergo he decides they need to do better than those who volunteer for the show. No, they have to go find some paranormal talent. To that end he dispatches his feckless assistant to get some real abnormals, as he says.  

Where to start such a quest?  A trip to Wellington (NZ) Paranormal is too expensive so, she settles for reading the National Inquirer, News of the World, Sydney Telegraph, and other credulous tabloids with stories of two-headed cows, UFOs among the garden gnomes in the Imperial Gardens, psychic cooks, miracle cures for stupidity, and the like.   

From this research she identifies places where the ley lines must be crossed, and sets out on the train with her roll-abroad kit.  

Among the viewers of this terrible television program is a group of genuine but secret paranormals who meet every Monday at showtime in an otherwise closed cafe run by one of their number to watch the latest debunking.  Each is sworn to secrecy about their powers and each other. One has X-Ray vision. Another has telekinetic powers.  A third can read minds. A fourth, despite appearances, has super strength … There are six of them.  

Then by a mischance a seventh appears…and confusion follows, just as the television journalist stumbles into the cafe, exhausted and frustrated from her own recent encounters with individuals who claim such powers but don’t have them. She would be happy for a cup of tea and snack, and she is hard to resist, so the cafe owner obliges. 

While the paranormals try not reveal themselves to her for what they are, they would also like to — you know — get closer to her.  Hint, hint.  That is complicated by the seventh interloper. The original six are so used to concealing their true selves from other people, they just don’t know how to talk to anyone, let alone a good looking young woman with media connections.     

There follows a comedy of errors which is good humoured but stretched thin, and it has a denouement that was from a shelved Disney movie. Did I mention it was Christmas eve?