We Live We Die We Live Again

Join me in raising a glass to Quibi, the seize with teeth-sized video service that everyone in the world knew would neglect except the leadership at Quibi. From launch to shut down in six months — that's truly remarkable.

Although information technology's funny to run across this idea blow up so robustly in the faces of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Million Whitman, information technology sucks for those lower on the ladder. They worked hard to produce shows they knew no one would watch, and at present they're out of their jobs. I'm sure there was good stuff on the service! But I was never, ever going to lookout man it.

In amend news, afterwards last week's pocket-size respite, our selections for this week go dorsum to the Blench Weblog themes you lot know and love/detest.

"The Wailing" (2016)

Prime Video, rated R, 156 minutes

Jun Kunimura in "The Wailing." Photo source: Prime Video.

At that place'due south a new dominion that I want to implement, and the rule is that every flick must contain dueling religious rituals set up to increasingly loud and frenetic music.

"The Wailing" taught me this. "The Wailing" too taught me — reminded me, to exist more than accurate — that South korea makes better horror films than anyone else. Those filmmakers understand the importance of feeling, of atmosphere, is much greater than that of spring scares.

Hither nosotros have Jong-Goo (Kwak Exercise-won), a detective who is not quite bumbling but certainly not elite at his job. He messes up sometimes, which isn't normally a huge deal in his minor village; nada much happens there. Until stuff starts happening there. Savage killings, a string of them, each by a different person. The perpetrators are connected by the roughshod rash they share, pus prominently presented. This rash/expletive remains, draining them of their mental capacities, until they somewhen die.

Signs brainstorm to point to a secretive Japanese man (Jun Kunimura) equally the one putting a curse on these people. Some even refer to him as a ghost, even though he'south visibly flesh and blood. There are stories of him eating the raw meet of a deer carcass on all fours deep in the woods, his eyes glowing red. When Jong-Goo has a dream that matches these stories, it'south enough to spring him into activity. He and his partner (Son Kang-gook) pay him a visit.

What they discover chills them, but information technology's non enough to make an arrest. And things go from bad to worse when Jong-Goo returns home to find his adolescent daughter (Kim Hwan-hee) starting to develop the murderous rash.

Kim Hwan-hee and Kwak Do-won in "The Wailing." Photograph source: Prime Video.

"The Wailing" is frightening in all the right ways. Director Na Hong-jin keeps the motion-picture show'due south mysteries locked abroad for much of the run time, keeping the audition guessing every bit to what's actually happening. The surface level story is dark, and the implied story might be fifty-fifty darker once y'all connect a few dots and recall about how these people are getting sick. But the moving picture won't do that for you; "The Wailing" is a complex story, and if you desire to solve it all, y'all might accept to scout it twice (at to the lowest degree). It touches on a lot of things, main among them what it means to believe in something. Is sight and touch on enough? Or can our optics and hands be deceived? How practice we always know who to trust?

It also tries to be a lot of horror genres at once. In that location are scenes that pay homage to possession films, zombie films, cult films and serial killer films. Somehow, it all works, maybe because the whole narrative is fractured from the outset. If a motion-picture show is consistently messy, it is really messy at all? Or is that part of the entreatment?

Complication aside, the film does come to a conclusive ending, and information technology'southward a knockout. Not one that volition make sleeping easy, mind you. I don't desire any complaints if this keeps you lot upwardly at dark. But it'south a great one nonetheless, paving a future for certain characters without needing a sequel to see their stories through. You already know what lies in await for them, for better or worse.

And again, before I move on: I really must insist that all movies feature dueling rituals. I cannot stress enough how compelling that scene is. Watch it and thank me later.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015)

Google Play, rated R, 121 minutes

Tom Hardy in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Ryan, why are you putting a straight-up activeness movie in Cringe Blog? Haven't you strayed from the theme enough this year? I hateful, last week's installment had two movies that barely qualified under whatsoever metric. Where's "The Haunting of Bly Estate?" Where's "Rebecca?" Where's the HORROR?!?

Expert questions, Ryan. First of all, shut up. Second of all, my weblog, my rules. Third of all, one of those might exist coming next week. Quaternary of all, "Mad Max: Fury Road" is the ultimate Halloween picture. Or information technology should be, anyway. Really, we should be talking about the phenomenon that is this movie every 24-hour interval for the rest of time. But allow'south focus on the Halloween of it all for at present. Is it set in the fall? Tough to tell when it's set in the apocalyptic Australian outback. A strike against it? Peradventure, simply listen to my other points first:

• Put all of the characters in this picture show, large and small roles alike, into a chapeau. Selection one. Smash, that's your Halloween costume. A great choice. You seriously cannot go wrong. Await at this guy. Look at this person. LOOK AT THE DOOF WARRIOR. There has never been a cooler minor character in whatsoever movie than the Doof Warrior, the leader of the War Boys' traveling boxing ring who signals his regular army's arrival past admittedly shredding on an electric guitar (that shoots flames) while strapped to bungee cords on a big-ass truck.
• Furiosa (Charlize Theron). That's it, that'southward the bullet point.
• The opening scene, where Max (Tom Hardy) tries to escape from the War Boys while being haunted past visions of his past failures, is incredibly scary, even more so considering manager George Miller, an bodily insane person, made the decision to speed upwards the footage to the point where the human eye tinjust barelyembrace what it is seeing. The event is an nigh 3D-like effect, or like you're at a haunted house with never-ending strobe lights. The first time I watched information technology, I wondered if my brain was breaking. At present I think it's vivid. There are other frightening things in this movie, such as the quick shot of the crow fishers in the swamp, just nix beats the opening scene.
• For someone who doesn't get that much to practise, Immortan Joe is an all-time great villain, mostly because his name is Immortan Joe and he looks like this. (Costumes!) Miller makes him terrifying through other people's reactions to him as much every bit his own actions. When he runs, he looks similar an adult version of a "Ability Rangers" villain and it rules.

Charlize Theron in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

• Furiosa!
• Information technology is genuinely incredible to me that no died while making this moving-picture show. The entire picture, more or less, is a massive car chase involving fire and large rigs and off-route cars and leaping motorcycles and many, many pole stunts. Tom Hardy spends 45 or so minutes literally strapped to the front of a automobile going 140 mph like the figurehead on the bow of a ship. If you accept a one-half hour, I highly recommend this behind-the-scenes look at the film and how it pulled off a lot of these stunts. It's worth it to hear how 18-carat the terror in Hardy'southward vocalization is when talking nearly it all.
• At one point, a graphic symbol says "Witness me, bloodbag," a seemingly incoherent trio of words to anyone who has not watched the film, merely in authenticity a powerful and emotional trio of words. That'due south what good movies exercise: create a world from scratch, teach yous it'southward rules and culture then brand you intendance well-nigh those things.
• A dude gets his confront ripped off, which is pretty ill.
• FURIOSA!!!!!!!
• "Fury Road" manages to simultaneously be a "women get revenge on their abusers and take control of their lives" movie and be a "dudes rock" moving picture, which is an unheard of feat. Information technology should accept won Best Picture show for that alone. (Thanks, "Spotlight," a movie only journalists recall exists now.)

I feel like I have fabricated my case for "Fury Road," the best activeness picture of at to the lowest degree the past twenty years if not longer. If, however, you even so have some complaints, please feel free to email them to [email protected].

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Source: https://www.yourobserver.com/article/cringe-blog-i-live-i-die-i-live-again

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