Last movie watched...

[pictsy]

I recently watched a couple more Nick Cage films that I hadn't seen before.

Next is a decent sci-fi action film about a man looking for love and getting caught up in explosive hijinks.  It was better than what I was expecting going in.  The CGI has aged poorly, just like the opening to the other film, Lord of War.  Bleak, but enjoyable.
Rather surprisingly, both films get a 0 on the Cage Scale of Cagery.  He completely reigns in his eccentricities for these two films.

[JohnW]

Haven't seen Lord of War since it was in the cinema. The things that stick in my memory are the opening sequence and the lack of costume changes throughout. Oh – and Jared Leto was in it. He was the only thing I really didn't like about the film.
And topically, the guy who inspired the story has just been released from US custody. (Not Jared Leto. As far as I know he's still doing hard time. I mean he must be, right? There is such a thing as justice, after all.)

[Jim_Campbell]

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)

Spoiler free review: it's great. I'm not entirely sure it needed to be 139 minutes — the first half hour is perhaps a little flabby but, once it hits its stride, it's terrific.

Like its predecessor, it's sharp, funny, and well-constructed. Also, I suspect the distinctly Musk-ish billionaire on whose private island the plot unfolds feels more relevant now than when the film was made.

If you liked the first one, you'll enjoy this. If you haven't seen the first one, it's on Prime (although not for free any more) so you should watch that, then this. There are no plot connections between the two, it's just that first one is also brilliant — well worth the £0.99 Amazon is charging to 'rent' it.

[Hawkmumbler]

WHITE NOISE on Netflix (well I watched it at the flix, not sure if its streaming yet...)

Really wasn't taken by this one, and needed a few days to sit on it. I appreciate some absurdist melodrama as much as the next guy but this all felt a bit po-faced and tiresome.
Apparently the novel it's based upon is some sort of best selling fan favourite, but I've zero point of reference on that front. The second act was probably the best, when it degenerated into Spielbergian infection flick hijinks but neither of the acts sandwiching this period did anything for me at all.

Shite Noise. Merry chrimbob fuckers.

[pictsy]

For a moment I thought you meant the 2005 film White Noise starring Michael Keaton.  I was slightly confused.  Given it was clearly not the 2019 documentary White Noise or the 2020 documentary White Noise and unlikely to be the 2004 drama starring Rahul Bose I narrowed it down the actual White Noise to the 2022 film White Noise starring Adam Driver.

Apparently White Noise is an obscenely popular title for short films as well.

[Hawkmumbler]

It is to movies what 'The S(h)ins of the Father' is to comic books.

[Marbles]

Saw 'The Quiet Girl' - fantastic film. Only realised afterwards it's based in a book called ''Foster' by Claire Keegan, who also wrote this years Booker shortlisted novel 'Small Things Like These', which was also superb.

[broodblik]

Watched Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery as well and I am in full agreement with Jim, well worth your time maybe a little bit taking its time in the beginning.

[Jim_Campbell]

If you haven't seen the first one, it's on Prime (although not for free any more) so you should watch that, then this. There are no plot connections between the two, it's just that first one is also brilliant — well worth the £0.99 Amazon is charging to 'rent' it.

I'm a fool — Knives Out is also on Netflix, so there's no need to pay for it.

[Hawkmumbler]

I wasn't massively impressed by the first Knives Out but I do respect it, and would be willing to give the second one a chance given its episodic nature apart from its predecessor.

[Richmond Clements]

I wasn't massively impressed by the first Knives Out but I do respect it, and would be willing to give the second one a chance given its episodic nature apart from its predecessor.

My new years resolution is to not be so tediously contrary.

[Hawkmumbler]

I....would have thought that was actually quite a positive statement but alright.

[Hawkmumbler]

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE

Something of a lesser Christmas tradition in Hawk Towers. Not in the disparaging sense that this magnificent, harrowing experience in cinematic trauma is anything as low as 'lesser'. No, I just sometimes don't get around to it, not every year at least.

So it was a considerable joy to see a live stream of the film by resident big wigs MUBI included an optional live Q&A with Takeshi Kitano, and what a delightful, belated Christmas gift that was. Maestro Kitano closing out the screening with a detailed recollection of how his fan club from his stand up comedy days attended the premier in Kyoto and walked out in horror at the atrocities his prison camp warden inflicted on Bowie. King shit, still the best festive movie.

[JohnW]

Now I'm going to have to watch this again.
I don't remember Takeshi committing any real atrocities. He struck me as just a lifer sergeant getting on with his job – which just happened to involve callous brutality.
What I do remember is [spoiler]his transformation from prison boss to prisoner. It's a wonderful piece of acting in that last scene. When he spoke Japanese he was in charge, but speaking imperfect English as he is at the end, all his human frailty is on show, and he's all the more likeable for it.[/spoiler]
Anyway, I'll have to watch it again just for him.

[Hawkmumbler]

Now I'm going to have to watch this again.
I don't remember Takeshi committing any real atrocities. He struck me as just a lifer sergeant getting on with his job – which just happened to involve callous brutality.
What I do remember is [spoiler]his transformation from prison boss to prisoner. It's a wonderful piece of acting in that last scene. When he spoke Japanese he was in charge, but speaking imperfect English as he is at the end, all his human frailty is on show, and he's all the more likeable for it.[/spoiler]
Anyway, I'll have to watch it again just for him.

In the context of the time it's important to consider Japan was riding a high of nationalist revisionism in the press and media during the early 80's, with a lot of studios out right refusing to produce works that painted the imperialist zeal of the nation during the battle of the Pacific as anything other than righteous, ethical and puritanical.
So Kitano transitioning, seemingly over night, from what most average Joe film goers would consider a wholesome and apolitical comic figure to a visceral and shameful prisoner of war camp warden would come as a shock to a new-wave of war crime denialists.
Hara, even if not actively partaking in the cruelty inflicted upon on Lawrence and Celiers, is directly complicit in it's enforcement and impotently ineffectual in its de-escalation. Kitanos character is brilliant, for as you point out, he represents the shame of a society turned tyrant by it's own collective insanity after centuries of eschewing individualist ideologies.
A brilliant, brilliant film. Especially 40 years on when we, as Brits, are now thoroughly entrenched in denialism over our own egomaniacal history.