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Duchess – Neil Marshall (2024)

A revenge action film around a woman.

Scarlett is a good looking pick pocket who gets picked up by the diamond trader Robert. For a while all is well for the couple in love, but soon Robert’s subordinates try to take over the organisation and he gets killed in the process. Scarlett wants revenge.

A so we get one of those hip, English-style action films with grim humour, but this time with a sexy main character. There are hardly surprises in the story and the action is alright at best.

Not boring, but certainly no high-flyer.

Two Distant Strangers – Free & Roe (2020)

Carter wakes up in the bed of a girl he apparently picked up the night before. On leaving the apartment building, he gets picked up over a triviality, gets into a fight with the cop and dies on the spot. Immediately he wakes up again in the same bed.

The concept of reliving a day is not new in film. Just as in other films, Carter tries to evade his destiny by running, not leaving the door, taking other routes, talk to the cop in question, but every time he ends up dead. No matter what he does, the white cop intents to kill the black man. This is exactly the message of this short film (32 min) film, which ends with a long list of black people killed by white cops.

Notes From Dunblane: Lesson From A School Shooting – Kim Snyder (2018)

In 1996, the small Scottish village of Dunblane was struck by a school shooting. In 2012 a similar thing happened in Sandy Hook, USA. The Scottish priest wrote his American colleague. He recognised many things that were happening in the USA from his own experience. The two started writing, built a friendship and eventually, the 80+ year old Scot travelled to America for the first memorial of the shooting there.

Using original footage, but also deeply personal interviews with both priests, Snyder manages to give an idea of the impact such an event has on people. Not just direct family, but the community as a whole. Even when in Scotland very strict gun laws were implemented after the Dunblane shooting, nothing much happend in the USA, so the same thing happens there again and again.

Pan T. – Marcin Krzysztalowicz (2019)

“Pan T.” (‘Mr. T.’) is a very nice Polish film up on Netflix. In 1953 Warszawa (Warsaw), hence, in communist times, we follow a writer, highly regarded by his colleagues. He proves to live in some sort of writers-hotel. Everybody asks for his advice. Some address him as subversive.

The government has strict rules what can be said and written. On the other hand, it supports writers, journalists, etc. who play by their rules. Thus the trick is to write so that the officials approve, but that the readers can detect criticism to the system.

In this highly controlled environment things are hard for indepedent thinkers. Mr. T. is under observation and balances the thin line of keeping to his principles and trying to make a living.

In moody black and white, a bit of a noir type, slow movie with some odd humour, not too much of a story unfolds, but “Plan T.” makes an interesting watch.

Blackhat – Michael Mann (2015)

Both a Chinese and an American nuclear power plant are attacked by computer hackers. Americans and Chinese work together trying to catch the persons behind the hack and an imprisoned hacker (Chris Hemsworth) is taken aboard the team.

In a descent thriller, hackers are chasing hackers, but of course in the end it are not computer nerds who are after the entire scheme. There are some elements and explanations of which I cannot say if they are credible, but overall “Blackhat” seems like an alright computer thriller. Perhaps the IMdB rating (5.5) that the story and details are not, or no longer, credible.

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania – Peyton Reed (2023)

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In the first film the mother of the family was saved from the “quantum world”. This time the entire family finds itself there, allowing the creators to make a weird and (too) computerized strange world which is in some ways remarkably alike the normal world.

Of course the family Pym / Van Dyke encounters a foe, but also rebels who they will help in their cause and at the same time attempt to get back to their own dimension.

The Basement – Jeremy Lunt (2008)

An Amazon Prime short (28 minutes) which Amazon lists for 2017 and IMdB.com in 2008.

Two hotel employers explore the extensive basement of the hotel. There appears to be something down there.

Set as an interview looking back at past events, this poorly acted minimalist film aims at being more of a creepy horror than a gory one.

Have A Good Trip – Donick Car (2020)

A 1:25 hour documentary about famous people’s experiences with psychedelics. Interviews with Sting, Carrie Fisher, Ben Fisher and many more are accompanied by hippie-style psychedelic animations. Nick Offerman appears as some sort of host.

Even though there are many warnings about bad trips, tips on what not to do or how not to do things, overall the documentary mostly focuses on the good sides of the use of psychedelics. The interviewees give very personal peeks into their experiences.

Elektrika Diena – Vladimir Leschiov (2018)

I am not a big fan of animation, but this minimalist short (9 min) is quite amusing. It is a bit of an old silent film about an electrician trying to solve a power outage. Subtle humour including jokes that you can only make in an animation.

John Was Trying To Contact Aliens – Matthew Killip (2020)

A short (16 min) documentary about John Shepherd who from an early age was obsessed with the idea of contacting extraterrestrial life. He started to teach himself to build equipment and over the decades a small box became a room full of equipment and eventually even an extra building next to the house of his grandparents who rose him.

Shepherd continued his project for decades, living as a hermit in rural USA. Then he ran out of money and had to abandon his life’s work. This documentary looks back on his active years.