Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

SIRAT (2025): Accompanied by his young son and companions he meets on the way, a father goes searching for his lost daughter, whom he believes is attending a mysterious rave in the remote desert of Morocco---but the road trip turns into a struggle to survive. Well-made, but strangely pointless. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Altered States (1980) - I'm on a ripping two movie, really good movie streak. I had seen this a number of years ago but, as usual, forgot most of it. I also remember seeing it as a kid, mainly the scene where he escapes from the tank thing. I live near Harvard, I should go see if they still have them there.

William Hurt is a scientist obsessed with our hidden ancient past that's in our DNA molecules or whatever. An, in retrospect, unlikely combination of weird drugs and an isolation tank (which is just being alone isn't it? ) are the only tools he has to try and access his inner primatational ape. Can he get anywhere with this or will he have to be happy just banging hot Harvard women and being a misunderstood genius stereotype? Director Ken Russell aims to makes sure that whatever happens, it will be psychedelicly insane at some point. He massively succeeds.

It's an interesting film to be made in 1980, as it contains the ancient DNA of the 60's with the hippy aspect, but is set amidst the rarefied, professional academic circles where probably a lot of hippies ended up? or something

In short, it's completely ridiculous and awesome. There's no zoo in Cambridge btw.

5/5

[Rev. Powell]

THE SECRET AGENT (2025): A man with a mysterious past hides out in Recife, Brazil in 1977, where he deals with corrupt cops and hitmen against the backdrop of Carnivale and a sensational news story about discovery of a human leg inside a beached shark. Don't let the title fool you into thinking this is a James Bond thing: it's a dramatic thriller about life during the Brazilian dictatorship that feels so authentic (right down to the uncertainty of the conclusion) and true to its period that you would be forgiven for assuming it was based on a true story. 4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

TRAIN DREAMS (2025): The life of a logger in the Pacific Northwest at the dawn of the 20th century is defined by tragedy. Beautifully shot, heavy-handed; it's interesting to observe the gradual social and technological changes over the decades. On Netflix if you're interested. 3/5.

[indianasmith]

BONE LAKE (2024) - I went in to this one half expecting a "college kids getting butchered by a slasher at some wilderness camp" film; instead, I was treated to a fun, creepy romp that was vaguely reminiscent of SPEAK NO EVIL.
A young couple, Diego and Sage, have rented a bed and breakfast for a romantic weekend, only to find that another couple Will and Cin arrive just an hour after them, having rented the same home for the same weekend.  Since the house is quite large, they decide to share. It's fun at first, then things slowly start to slide south . . .

Definitely a fun watch with some nice twists along the way!  4/5

[Rev. Powell]

2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA (2025): Documentary following a squad of embedded journalist/footsoldiers as they fight meter by meter to reclaim the village of Andriivka (outside of Bakhmut) during the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive. Not political, just young men dying, wondering whether there's any purpose to it all. 4/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Side Effects (2013) - The challenge is not to under sell or over sell here. It's a solid story and Jude Law holds it down as the main guy. At the same time, it's not amazing and there's not a ton going on visually. This is partially due to the small budget and also to the gimmicky decision by Steve Soderbergh to use an Iphone to film the whole thing. Should you see it? yes. On a Saturday night? no.

A shrink looking to make a few extra bucks to pay for his fancy pants NYC lifestyle agrees to prescribe Ablixa, a new SSRI, to patients. Well, one of them starts sleepwalking and, wouldn't you know it, stabs her husband to death in this state! Whoopsy. From there, it's a relatively cerebral mystery with some lack of attention to detail on the viewers part implied. (Channing Tatum,the husband, is a pretty big guy, just saying). Catherine Zeta Jones resembles Kathyrn, my sexy liberarian eque college girlfriend as a rival shrink.

It's on tubi probaby because it's not Gone Girl level as far as the plot and it's not campy or trashy enough for the Law and order SVU/ Lifetime sort of crowd. I love stuff like this though. story guy till the end

4.35 /5

[M.10rda]

JIM RIPPLE'S ROBOTS aka LOSS OF SENSATION (1935):
Letterboxd has this listed as "Loss of Feeling" but my print's subtitles translate it as I've titled it from the native Russian. I often expect 20th century Russian movies to be pure Communist propaganda, but sometimes they aren't and sometimes they're propaganda but in a really smart way, as is the case with this extremely prescient sci-fi film.

"Jim" (played by an actor with a strong Conrad Veidt quality) is a young engineering student in a country that looks like Soviet Russia and is socially structured like Soviet Russia but where everyone has a western/Anglo name like "Jim" and where corporate oligarchs still run the show, so I guess it's supposed to represent "the West". Jim is really concerned about all the labor strikes and decides that he's got the solution to all labor/management disputes - he'll just invent worker robots that will do all the hard work for the laborers, so they can relax all day. Surely that'll make the workers happy and the owners happy and everyone will live in peace... right?   

Yes, "Jim" is an idealist version of the utopian-minded AI promoters who keep pushing AI on consumers, while his industrial and military benefactors of course realize (as big-tech execs do today) that the inevitable supremacy of AI - err, robot workers means the complete obsolescence of human labor.    Nevertheless LOSS OF SENSATION proceeds for most of its running time as if the filmmakers are on the side of poor Pollyanna-brained Jim and want the viewers to be on his side, too. This is confusing and frustrating to watch... but it sets up an incredibly satisfying third act and finale, which is basically a dramatization of SkyNet's takeover of Earth, followed by a bunch of John Connors and flipped T-800s risin' up and fightin' back. Yes, in 1935!

Several reviewers on Letterboxd recommend just watching the last half hour. I say the whole movie works - and the ending works better following the first hour. The robots would look pretty good in a movie made in the 1950s and the themes resonate uhhh right now. 

4/5    Those Communists knew what was up.

[Rev. Powell]

COVER-UP (2025): Bio-documentary of investigative journalist Sy Hersh, who broke stories on the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib torture scandal, among others. Hersh understandably reveals little of his methods, making this a survey of American corruption from the 1960s to the present day. Makes you a little nostalgic for the days when the government tried a little harder to cover up its indiscretions and actually cared about public perception. 3.5/5.

RIFFTRAX: THE DARK POWER: Ancient Toltec demons preying on college kids in their 30s didn't count on having to deal with geriatric whip-specialist Lash Larue. A really bad slasher/monster movie, with unlikable characters and an action-free first half, made tolerable by the jokes. 3/5.

[indianasmith]

SUCKER PUNCH (2011) - One of my favorite films of all time, and it gets better with each successive viewing.
The closing monologue is just. . . perfect!