HOOP X, the 20th
Would be better archived under its American-release title, "It Happened at Nightmare Inn". C'mon doesn't that name make you more curious to see it?
The version I saw (that is most easily available to this day, and that U.S. audiences were privy to when it came out) is dubbed, and cheap-looking. Gets going fast when two ultra-religious middle-aged sisters running a bed-and-breakfast accidentally kill a tenant within the first minute while trying to kick her out…
Story Ingredients List: snake threat, racism
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch as man on bed, Dev Patel as narrator, Ben Kingsley as doctor.
Absent from the Cast This Time: Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend
Best Part About it: Dahl's skill for articulating a scene through properly rationed and finely chosen prose
2nd Best Part: the additional atmosphere Wes brings to it with the breakaway sets and lighting
Lesson: turn the other cheek when ungrateful people you try to help are inexcusably abusive.
Sub-Lesson:…
Pragmatic!
Is the best way to describe this scrappy, intense, black-comedy thriller from the rising master of scrappy, intense, black-comedy thrillers Jeremy Saulnier. Like his debut "Murder Party", this is a chamber piece, confining a young punk band to mostly one room of a neo-Nazi club they made the mistake of playing at, where they become sitting ducks after witnessing a murder. And close quarters suit Saulnier's modus operandi impeccably, as he once again tackles a succinct premise with an…
Oooh yeah! One of those movies that reignites my love for the medium, not that it was flagging or anything, but this actually thrilled me physically and as a (formerly) prospective writer myself. I never wanted to be avant garde or anything – my dream was to write and/or make smart but accessible entertainment like this (and preferably in genre territory), so to see it pulled off so expertly every now and then in movies like "10 Cloverfield Lane" feels…
