I watched a few Korean films last week:
- Lover (2005)
- Love Guide for Dumpees (2015)
- Thirst (2009)
All three were quite middling but enjoyable enough. Lover was a very strange film that starts off almost as a softcore porn film but tries to become a serious romance film towards its conclusion. I didn’t find that transition at all believable, but it does have one or two very realistic and relatable scenes focused on emotional unavailability and lack of commitment in relationships which made it worth watching. Love Guide For Dumpees was pretty stupid but it did make me laugh and the two leads had good chemistry so it was also worth the time investment. It also had some surprisingly complex and dark themes around depression and suicide which I did not expect at all. Thirst was a much more serious film from Park Chan-wook, arguably my favourite director, but I found it to be inconsistent and not up to his usual high standard. I think it could have worked well if he’d played into the religion angle more and made it an allegory about the Catholic Church (there is a lot of potential with the themes and visual symbolism), but he doesn’t take that idea far enough so it ends up being this sort of quirky vampire/romance/dark comedy thing which is interesting but fairly predictable and never really that entertaining.
Lots of spooky movies.
- The Ugly Stepsister (2025) (Den stygge stesøsteren): Like Wicked, but for Cinderella. Dark and unsettling. Recommended.
- Late Night with the Devil (2024): Do tapes from 70s show demons? Skip.
- Dracula (1931): Bela Lugosi. Eminently rewatchable. Highly recommended
- Dracula’s Daughter (1936): Rather good follow-up where she is sent to a psych because they think she’s crazy, not undead. Recommended.
- The Bat (1959): Not great, but good unscrupulous characters (Vincent Price etc.).
- Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) (Matka Joanna od Aniołów): Like The Devils, but not raunchy. Probably source the material. Highly recommended . ::: spoiler Minor ending spoiler
At one point in film, we hear that the abbey bell calls out to the lost, and in the final scene, we see them toll yet only hear a nun sobbing. chef’s kiss ::: - Cure (1997) (キュア): Like Pontypool, but no zombies. People are commit murders without knowing why. Cops investigate.
- The Hypnotic Eye (1960) - Skippable B-movie.
Not spooky:
- Ganja & Hess (1973): Vampire movie, but much more. There are several cuts, but this was the restored version the director, Bill Gunn, intended. It is atmospheric and relates to: heritage of American black culture from Africa compared to the modern heritage of the Church, predation, class issues, and so on.
- Chang’an (2023) (长安三万里): Animated. Like Pocahontas in that it is supposed to be historical, but for Chinese general Gao Shi at Chang’an, explaining his lifelong friendship with famous poet while the enemy closes in. A bit too long, but it would have felt longer if not so light.
- Papa’s Delicate Condition (1963): Skippable. Jackie Gleason buys a circus.
- Southside 1-1000 (1950): Narration of Feds versus counterfeiter. Noir.
- All Night Long (1962): Othello, but jazz. Bad pacing but sweet tunes. Bits have Dave Brubeck on piano, Charles Mingus on bass, and many others.
A House of Dynamite
In Roshoman style the movie gives you three different perspectives of the same 20 minutes and man is it intense. Katherine Bigalow is one of the best.
In the same vein I revisited and 80s movie that has the same theme:
By Dawn’s Early Light.
Stars James Earl Jones, Powers Booth, Jeffery DeMunn and other. It is about the US’s reaction to the start of a nuclear war.
DeMunn is probably known by most from his role in The Walking Dead.
I decided to rewatch another movie that he is in called,
Warning Sign.
It is zombie flick under the covers, but the set up is a manufactured virus turns the inhabitants of a military lab into psychopathic killers.
Other than DeMunn it stars Yapet Koto,Same Waterston and Kathleen Quinlinn.
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