What classics did you see last week ? (20 Oct- 26 Oct 2019)

Hi all,I hope everyone is having a good weekend,and before getting to the movies, I'll tell about a somewhat memorable few days. Last Saturday I got home late and grabbed a pack of nuts for a snack. Taking a bite,I heard a loud "crunch", spat it out and found over half a broken tooth! Being able to get a appointment on Monday, went the dentist, and got told that sadly only option was to take what remained of the tooth out. During the op, dentist said that when he has had to remove that tooth from others before,it's always had one root,but somehow mine had two (lucky me.) In the middle of the op,I felt something on my tongue, which turned out to be a filling the dentist had accidentally knocked out,que another injection to put a replacement in.

Whilst being completely out of as the nurse gave me advice (she could have been saying anything for how knocked out I was!) I noticed that my lips were covered in red, which in that weird moment reminded me of the most controversial film of 2019,which I finally saw on Friday.

"Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,Bird fly high by the light of the moon, Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman."



"You don't listen, do you? You just ask the same questions every week. "How's you job?" "Are you having any negative thoughts?" All I have are negative thoughts."-Arthur Fleck.

Being that this has over 6000 (!) IMDb reviews,I kept it as plot-free and to the point as possible.



Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral-The movie 10.

Going right back to the Punk spirit of his GG Allin documentary origins,co-writer/(with Scott Silver) director Todd Phillips & his regular cinematographer Lawrence Sher switch on Hildur Guðnadóttir's excellent grinding Industrial score, and dissect Fleck with a incredibly a raw atmosphere, opening Gotham to stunningly vast wide-angle shots taking in the mountains of trash and poverty-stricken crumbling buildings, which Fleck dies in,but Joker is born from. Whilst clearly inspired by 70's US cinema,Phillips wisely avoids making this a mere tribute, by stripping the film from every layer of gloss CBM have been painted with over the last few years, to instead cast light at grime-covered murky colours, spread in stylishly restrained short zoom-ins and tracking shots bringing the viewer up close to the short, sharp, shots of abrasive violence.

Igniting a revolution from Thomas Wayne calling people "Clowns", the screenplay by Phillips and Silver takes a grounded approach to the actions of Fleck, who becomes a symbol as Joker, after getting chewed and spat out by society. Book-ending the film with Fleck speaking to a counsellor, the writers draw a excellent character study laced with bitter dialogue, driving the film not with action scenes, but Fleck being grind down of his humanity until the chaos of Joker is all that remains. Joined by a great,on the edge Frances Conroy as his mum, a dreamy Zazie Beetz as neighbour Dumond, and a double bill of gruffness from Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne and Robert De Niro as Murray, Joaquin Phoenix gives a astonishing, expressive turn as the battered and beaten across every step of the downward spiral Joker.




My first GdT. Cronos (1993) 8

At the time becoming the most expensive Mexican film ever made after loans and bank debts were used to raise a extra half million which took the budget to $2 million, writer/ directing auteur Guillermo del Toro (GdT) & his regular cinematographer Guillermo Navarro display a remarkable focus under all that pressure, with a precession in establishing visual motifs which would be built upon across GdT's future works, turning the wheels on the Steampunk style inner workings of the 450-year-old mechanical, bug-shaped object, spinning to the glowing jars filled with monstrous contents being lined across the screen by GdT. Stating in the detailed commentary that only one take could be shot a good number of times due to the limited film stock left, GdT and Navarro thankfully don't leave out ingredients when brewing a Gothic Horror atmosphere, steaming up on Hammer Horror- inspired deep blue lines being cut across the screen consuming Gris into the darkness, which gets set alight by refined panning shots to spots of blood.

Writing the beginnings of the script in 1984 under the title "Vampire of the Grey Dawn", the screenplay by GdT impressively avoids the missteps stuck in long-term development projects often take, by keeping concentrated the relationship between Gris and Aurora, who jolts Gris by being able to see the human face behind the face of a monster (a recurring theme for GdT.) Injected by one of the legs on the device, GdT sinks the fangs of this modern vampire into addiction, as antique dealer Gris (played by a superb Federico Luppi, a future regular collaborator of GdT) loses all the warmth shared with his family, in exchange, for the addictive warmth of blood.




So you didn't feel the need to seek out The Dentist (1996) then?  



I gotta tell you I'm excited about Joker, not that I'll be rushing out to see it on the big screen, but I'll happily pre-order the Blu-ray as a blind purchase because it just seems like something I will love - and I have always rated Phoenix very highly so it's kind of a given. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we was to get "2" Joker performances to win an Oscar? 


Cronos - Only viewed it once back in 2011 and I was a little annoyed that some of the 90's pro critics had written about it as being a genius piece of work, so I'll admit that my expectation levels were most likely set too high.

He thinks it will help him live longer. 
 
Cronos is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro and stars Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook and Margarita Isabel. Music is by Javier Álvarez and cinematography by Guillermo Navarro. Plot finds Luppi as aged antique dealer Jesús Gris, who finds a weird scarab like mechanical device in the bottom of a statue now in his possession. It's an item of some importance, especially to a rich dying business man and his thug nephew. But once the scarab unfurls itself and becomes at one with Jesús, there's no going back, nothing will ever be the same again.



A unique debut feature from Mexican filmmaker del Toro that riffs on the Vampire formula whilst dabbling in grue and darkly comic values. While it's hardly the near masterpiece some 90s critics proclaimed it as, it's a hugely enjoyable film if taken as a pulpy fun horror picture. Toro plays on the fear of insects and the fear of death itself and then cloaks his film with Gothic mysticism - adding in some eye catching images as he goes about his business. The cast are fine, Luppi is supremely cool and unflustered, while Perlman does a good thug portrayal as "nose job in waiting" Angel. The sound department also come up trumps, while Navarro's photography lends an ethereal beauty to proceedings.



Good, solid and interesting in the main, with flashes of greatness dotted along the way. 7/10