Tag Archives: thriller

#375- The Ear

Quick recap: A Czechoslovakian couple finds their house bugged by the Communist party and they fear Ludvik, the husband, is about to be taken away.

No matter who is after you, there is ALWAYS time to pose

Fun (?)fact: You’d better believe this film was banned! 20 years actually, not seeing the light of day until 1989.

maybe it was censorship and maybe it was because the world wasn’t ready for newspaper hats

Thoughts and Observations: 

  • This movie was as if someone watched Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and said, ‘ This is fun, but what if we added Communists?’
  • But unlike that film, the couple in The Ear didn’t seem believable as a real couple and there were way too many mood swings to keep up with
  • On the other hand, their house really was bugged with listening devices which would add stress on any marriage
  • My favorite aspects of the film were the flashback scenes as Ludvik recalls every conversation he had, looking for clues that they are on to him. A simple question from a friend takes on an ominous tone and everyone seems in on the deception. But are they really?
  • Although listening devices were found, the end of the film has Ludvik being offered a promotion so I guess that’s a happy ending? It sure didn’t seem like it was.
  • And I still wonder if Ludvik was actually working against his party or if he was just really paranoid? He burned a lot of documents but he didn’t seem to know if they were incriminating.

Final review: 2/5. I liked the tension build up but there was so much talking and fighting that the action took a backseat and I became bored.

Up next:

Earth

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#357- Goldfinger

Quick recap:   Goldfinger! He’s the guy who loves that gold! Goldfinger! He makes James Bond wear a duck on his head! Goldfinger! There’s actually someone named Pussy Galore!  Goldfinger! Nothing makes sense!

Fun (?) fact: Sean Connery wore a toupee as James Bond since he started going bald at 21

Ewan McGregor and Sean Connery are the only men allowed to wear this.

My thoughts: This is only my second James Bond film, after watching Spectre in 2015 (I KNOW). Now I can compare that first experience to arguably the best of all Bond films, Goldfinger. 

The very first scene is of a duck floating in a bay and I thought a very nice calming moment before all the mayhem. But then Sean Connery as James Bond emerges from the water and it turns out to have been a disguise! What a twist and I’m only 3 minutes into the movie! Let me tell you, it was a rollercoaster from then until the closing credits. Everything was over the top ridiculous, but only in the best possible way. I’m not even going to pretend that the plot made sense to me but I don’t think it matters because we are all in it for Bond. The audience wants him to win even if we don’t quite understand the gravity of the threat. Goldfinger was such an interesting villain because he was so obvious about his love for gold but also he apparently went to great lengths to show off how dastardly he was. I absolutely loved the scene where he gets all the crime bosses from the major cities and shows off his master plan to rob Fort Knox. How much time do you think went into building that room and the very detailed model and then turning it into a gas chamber?? Say what you will, but Goldfinger really cares about those little touches. He’s like the Martha Stewart of villains.

I’ve never been one for hunky guys like Channing Tatum or various Hemsworths and I figured Sean Connery as Bond, James Bond would fall into that category as well. As a progressive woman it annoyed me that he wanted to make out with literally every woman but also, I totally would’ve made out with him on the spot. He’s one of those jerks that just has to smile and it’s all over. I can’t imagine anyone ever coming close to this level of hotness and I can say that as an expert now, having watched a total of two Bond films.

Final review: 5/5

Up next: La Dolce Vita

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#354- Peeping Tom

Quick recap: Can a creepy guy go creepier? Oh, yes he can. Very much so.

Fun (?) fact: Peeping Tom is considered one of the first slasher films. It was so edgy it apparently destroyed the career of its director, Michael Powell.

You really don’t see much slashing until the end of the movie

My thoughts: Although none of the scenes in Peeping Tom scared me, most of them weirded me out and the whole concept of a killer photographer is very unsettling. After finishing the movie, I found myself disappointed for once at the lack of gore. After thinking about it some, though, I really don’t think it would’ve changed the movie all that much. Based on the description of the corpses (terrified look on their faces and slashed to bits), I’m not sure any visual would’ve matched what I imagined.

Karlheinz Böhm as Mark the serial killer was the most perfect casting. He reminded me of the kind of person Thomas Harris might dream up, like the murderer in Red Dragon. I loved that he was both sympathetic and also just really freaking nuts. His hobby of watching and rewatching the final moments of his victims was disturbing but I was even more weirded out by his home movies. Talk about dysfunction, with Mark’s father basically grooming him to be the ‘peeping tom’ he later turned into. I was a little disappointed that the father was doing experiments on him as a scientist because it would’ve been all the more disturbing had there been no reason at all.

I think my favorite part of the film was watching Mark and Vivian’s relationship. I fully expected him to murder her when she first came over to bring him some cake. The entire time she was in his apartment I wanted to shout at her to get out of there but then he showed her his creepy movies and I loved the humanity from both of them. For Mark, you could see a direct line between his childhood trauma and current serial killer status and for Vivian, I absolutely loved that even though she was disturbed, it wasn’t out of fear of Mark. I didn’t like the ending when he couldn’t hold back any more and tried to kill her but after following him around for the entire film, it was completely in his character to do so.

Final review: 4/5

Up next: Horrorfest

 

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#352- The Hills Have Eyes

Quick recap: A loving family spends all of their time together hunting, cooking food, and cracking jokes. Their world is turned upside down when a family full of jerks breaks down in their territory. Can this close-knit group fight to save what is rightfully theirs?

I don’t think you can find a closer relationship than these two. Whatever they are.

Fun (?) fact: Yup. That was a real dead dog director Wes Craven used.

happier times

 

My thoughts: Welcome back to Horrorfest, a month long celebration of (usually not so) scary movies! This year I decided to kick off with a couple of classics. First up is The Hills Have Eyes, directed by horror legend Wes Craven. I reviewed Both Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street during previous Horrorfests and both movies were sufficiently scary for me. This one, however, was not.

I’ve never been big on gore but I hoped for at least a little inbred creepiness. There was a little of that as I wondered how all the clan was related but except for the necklace teeth and pelts everywhere, they weren’t all that terrifying. If anything, the patriarch of the stranded family scared me more than the murderous cannibals did. This guy was awful. He verbally abused his wife, made sure that every sentence had an expletive and carelessly handled firearms. I guess I was a little bummed out that the clan burned him alive but only because it made his wife and children sad.

Mostly, I was confused by the clan more than any other emotion. They are described as inbred, low intelligent beings yet they refer to each other using the names of the planets. And their speech is at times prehistoric and other times eloquent as they made puns and talked.  And yes, what they did was horrific BUT if they were so hungry as Ruby claimed than what better find than a fat, juicy, baby? I’m not saying I would ever eat babies but I can’t judge an inbred family who lives out in the desert, which is housed in a nuclear testing site. Sometimes you do what you have to do.

 

Final review: 1/5. Not scary and I don’t know where to draw the line between ‘cult classic’ and ‘b-movie’

Up next: more Horrorfest

 

 

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