Old Boy Review

Click here to go my previous review of Once Upon a Time in America

FULL SPOILER ALERT

"Even though I am no better than a beast, don't I deserve a chance to live?"

Number 82 on top 1000 greatest films of all time is the mystery thriller neo-noir thriller Old Boy.

After seven American films, I have returned to the best of foreign-language cinema.  South Korea's contribution is the brilliant Old Boy.

One night without any explanation, Korean Businessman Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) is kidnapped and placed in a hotel room-cum-prison cell.  Here he is held for fifteen years with no explanation given to who his captor is or why he is being imprisoned.  He spends his time shadow-boxing, watching TV and attempting to tunnel his way out of his cell.  However, before he finishes his attempt he is abruptly released.  Upon being released, with the help of young sushi chef Mido (Kang Hye-jung,) Oh Dae-su vows to discover the identity of his captor and take his revenge.

Old Boy is not a film for the faint-hearted.  If you are squeamish or unable to follow such a densely plotted film, then I suggest you buckle up and give it your best shot.  Even if you can't follow the film's many twists and turns, then you can at least appreciate the film's cinematography.  I've read IMDB reviews praising the film's cinematography and I would say that this praise is well-deserved.  Stylistically this film is brilliant.  As one review reads "each shot is bursting with colour." There is an incredible amount of detail.  This ranges from the close-ups to the master shots.  In some form or another, each and every shot contained meaning.

Oh Dae-Su also narrates this film in the present tense giving the film a real energy.  It makes it that more intense.

When Oh Dae-Su is locked in the prison, he spends his time shadow-boxing.  When he is released he puts this taining to good use in some excellently choreographed fight scenes, such as the famous one-take corridor fight scene.  This was made only more epic by the music playing.

Overall the musical score is great.  In every scene, the music fits it perfectly.

The characters are densely layered and entirely three-dimensional.  From the beginning, it was obvious that he would be fulfilling the tragic hero archetype, with Oh Dae Su's fatal flaw being that he speaks too much.  The film opens with him being in a police station after being arrested for drunken and disorderly behaviour.  In the station, he gets himself into more trouble by refusing to keep his mouth shut.  His character is initially portrayed as pathetic and annoying, which is his transformation to a fearless killer by the film's conclusion is so great to watch.

Whilst the vast majority of reviews I read praised the film on its visuals, direction and performances, there were one or two more critical ones.  These reviews pointed out that the film is riddled with plot-holes, both big and small.  This is something I can respect, as I noticed a few of my own.  Firstly, Oh Dae-Su is able to attempt tunnelling out of prison, as once during dinner, he was given three metal chopsticks instead of two.  Why was he given the third chopstick? I can only assume his captors wanted to see Oh Dae-Su attempt to escape and failing.

Secondly, Oh Dae-Su has been locked in a prison for fifteen years with little exposure to sunlight and all of the benefits it brings.  How then is he able to successfully able to defend himself against multiple enemies in fight after fight? Not only does he fight them off, but he leaves them struggling to breathe on the floor.  This is despite how earlier on in the film, he collapses from vitamin A and E deficiencies.

Thirdly, I felt that the antagonist, Lee Woo-Jin (Yoo Ji-tae) was played by a far too young actor.  Woo-Jin was an old school colleague of Dae-Su's.  This would imply, of course, that the two went to school together.  However, their ages don't add up.  Dae-Su looks to be in his forties, whereas Woo-Jin still appears to be in his twenties.  This therefore makes Woo-Jin too young to be behind Dae-Su's imprison, as he would have still been a teenager when Dae-Su was kidnapped.  I think that the studio should have found an older actor to play Yoo-Jin.  This is no disrespect to Yoo Ji-Tae's brilliant performance, but I feel that this is too big of a plot-hole to ignore.

Another of the IMDB reviews criticised Old Boy for how it is so against its protagonist Dae-Su.  Whilst I argue that this is true, I feel that this is all part of the tragic hero archetype and the revenge narrative.

  SPOILER ALERT SPOILERS FROM HEREAFTER

Old Boy is a film about the futility of revenge.  Dae-Su wants revenge on Woo-Jin for kidnapping him.  Woo-Jin wants revenge on Dae-Su for how at school, he saw him commit incest with his sister and then began spreading rumours about it.  One of these rumours was that Woo-Jin got his sister pregnant.  It is never confirmed whether this is true or not, but the devastating implications of it leads to his sister killing herself.  Both men commit themselves to their vengeance.  Dae-Su enlists the help of Mido and his friend Joo-hwan (who pays the ultimate price for helping Dae-Su) to track down Woo-Jin.  However, Woo-Jin's revenge is far more sadistic and destructive.  At the same time as he kidnaps and imprisons Dae-Su, he also kidnaps Dae-Su's four year old daughter and, for fifteen years, raises her as if she were his own (another reason why the actor playing Woo-Jin should have been older.) After Dae-Su is released, using post-hypnotic suggestion, Woo-Jin manipulates Dae-Su and Mido into falling in love with each other and eventually having sex.  Woo-Jin the reveals to Dae-Su that Mido is actually his daughter and he has just committed incest.

So whilst the IMDB reviewer was right in saying that the film is not with its protagonist, I think this film showcases the danger of becoming overcome by a desire for vengeance.  Old Boy is very much a film where the bad guy wins.  We see the pathetic, but tragic image of Dae-Su being reduced to a grovelling mess begging Woo-Jin not to reveal the truth to Mido.  He kisses Woo-Jin's shoes, says that he will be his dog and goes so far to cut out his tongue to signify that he will never speak too much again.  See Dae-Su destruct in front of his eyes, Woo-Jin's quest for vengeance is fulfilled.  Having nothing else to live for, he kills himself, leaving Dae-Su to live his dishonour.  Dae-Su has become consumed by his quest for vengeance and it has cost him everything.

The final scene is the film's most powerful.  Dae-Su goes to a hypnotherapist who he hopes can make him forget what has happened.  Yet it is left ambiguous whether this actually works.  The final shots of the film see Dae-Su meeting Mido with her saying that she loves him.  The final shot is Dae-Su's tortured grin.

Old Boy is a deeply psychological film about one man who becomes consumed by his desire for revenge.  It is an absolute must-see and it is in my top five films that I have seen since I started this challenge.  I think it should be much higher than number 82.  It is certainly better than Citizen Kane or Witness for the Prosecution.  Old Boy is full of gorgeous proverbs, but I'll end this review on its most prevalent one:

"Laugh and the world laughs with you.  Weep and you weep alone."

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance review

 Number 618 on the top 1000 films of all time is the South Korean neo-noir, psychological thriller ' Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.'

Lee Geum-Ja (Lee Young-oe) has just been released from prison. Her crime? She was falsely convicted for the murder of a five -year-old schoolboy thirteen years earlier. She swears revenge on the real killer Baek Han-sung (Choi Min-Sik.)

Let's star off with the criticism, which I'm sad to say was Choi Min-Sik. He is one of Korea's most pre-eminent actors wowing audiences in Old Boy, but also terrifying them in I saw the Devil. In the latter, he paid a monstrous serial killer. Yet as murderer Mr Baek, he was disappointing. He lacked the same intensity as his other role roles. And he wasn't anymore threatening than a bank manager.

Lady Vengeance is the third installment of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy after Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and the aforementioned Old Boy. Old Boy still remains my favourite. Everything about it was perfect - confusing and complicated sure, but not as much as Lady Vengeance.

True everything does resolve and become clear, but it took a while to get there. There is a lot of set-up in the beginning as the film delves into Geum-Ja's fellow inmates, who in one way or another help her to track down Mr Baek. It was interesting to an extent. After a while, I was waiting for them to hurry up to the next plot point.

Despite the slow start, it all built toward a thrilling conclusion - perhaps the darkest of the Vengeance trilogy. *spoilers to follow.*

 Having tracked down Mr Baek and imprisoned him in an old school, Geumg-Ja discovers he has killed other children. She invites the victim's families to exact their own vengeance. Enter a 12 Angry Men-esque scene, where the families debate the morality behind the actions they're about to take. Here Park Chan-Wook rightly took his time to delve into the psychology underpinning such a morally-deprived act.

There exists two versions of the film. A standard version and one where the colour progressively fades into monochrome. Unknowingly, I had watched the latter. I thought this was a great device that really highlighted how in the pursuit of vengeance, we become black-in-white in our thinking. There is no longer space for nuance or doubt. Maybe some would argue this is on-the-nose storytelling, but I still enjoyed it.

And I did enjoy Lady Vengeance. A slow start, a great ending, but also a disappointing performance from Choi Min-Sik.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas review

 Number 474 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Holocaust film the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (TBITSP.)

Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is an eight-year old boy from WW2 Berlin. When his father, SS officer Ralf (David Thewlis) is promoted, the family move to Poland where their new home borders a concentration camp. The adventurous Bruno discovers the camp and befriends another eight-year-old boy Schmuel (Jack Sanlon,) with neither boy aware of their true predicament.

Would it be fair to character this film as the Holocaust equivalent of Braveheart? Entertaining? Yes. Tragic? Most definitely. Historically accurate? Not so much. But I don't think that really mattered. This film isn't about being historically accurate; it's about retelling the horrors of the Holocaust from the perspective of childhood and the innocence that entails.

Since starting this challenge, I've seen my fair share of holocaust/WW2 films and they've all broken my heart. TBITSP didn't quite reach those levels, but it was still very powerful. And that could be down to how it was underplayed. Whereas films like The Pianist portray the unflinching brutality of the Holocaust, TBITSP is far more subtle. If you're going to tackle an issue as big as the Holocaust, I am adamant that you have to go hard or go home - anything else would be an insult. However, the understated nature of TBITSP made it very upsetting.

We see everything through the eyes of Bruno - at only eight he is too young to fully understand the complexities of the Holocaust. Even when Ralf hires a tutor, Bruno questions all of the propaganda he is being taught. Bruno's parents are keen to hide the truth from him, which I did find puzzling. I'm no expert, but I thought that children of Nazis would be brainwashed by anti-semitic propaganda from as soon as they could walk, but I guess this does make Bruno all the more innocent. The scenes where he is conversing with Schmuel, with neither boy fully understanding their situation, are laden with a subtext, and a dramatic irony that are impossible to ignore. Bruno thinks the prisoners are wearing pyjamas and having fun in a holiday camp while Schmuel thinks he'll be going home soon.

The illusion shatters in the worst possible way when Bruno burrows into the camp to help Schmuel find his father. Here Bruno's ideas are turned on their head. He discovers that there is no cafe and the inmates don't spend their time playing football. The film hurtles toward a shocking and distressing conclusion as all of the prisoners, including Schmuel and Bruno, are taken to the showers. The boys hold hands as the lights go out. For a film that is so understated, they nailed the ending. Hearing the prisoners screaming in the black was so much more terrifying than seeing their mangle corpses.

Lastly, I have to praise Rupert Friend who played the villainous Lieutenant Kurt Kotler. He was terrific as the sociopathic, boot-licking subordinate of Ralf. One minute he is all cute with Bruno and getting cosy with Bruno's older sister, the next, Kurt is beating a house slave for knocking over a glass of wine. Poor Pavel.

Although TBITSP isn't particularly realistic, it more than makes up for it with its subtle nature and ominous dramatic irony.

The Boondock Saints review

 Number 397 on the top 1000 films of all time is the vigilante crime-drama 'The Boondock Saints.'

Connor (Sean Patrick Flannery) and Murphy McManus (Norman Reedus) are Irish twin brothers living in Boston. After a call from God, they become vigilantes determined to rid the city of its dark, sleazy underworld. They are later joined by their friend Rocco. Meanwhile, FBI agent Paul Smecker (Wilhelm Dafoe) is tasked with tracking them down.

I hated the 2006 film Running Scared, because it had the appearance of being written, shot and edited by a twelve-year-old boy. Whoever this twelve-year-old boy was, he was evidently warming up on the Boondock Saints.

The Boondock Saints  was released at an unfortunate time; the Columbine High School Massacre had only happened two weeks before. Due to its violent nature, the Boondock Saints was given an extremely limited release where critics absolutely crucified it. However, it also gained a cult following, hence its inclusion on this list.

I'm with the critics though. I thought the Boondock Saints was so over-the-top that it was just plain ridiculous. It was just scene after scene of over-exaggerated gun fights tied together by the flimsiest of narratives. Vigilante justice is a great idea to explore. If done right, it can be brilliant e.g Dexter Morgan or Batman. But there needs to be a good reason for why the vigilantes are doing what they're doing.

The twin brothers decide to become vigilantes because of ... reasons. No, sorry, it's because they had a call from God and they're good Catholic boys. That's it. Unlike Dexter or Bruce Wayne, they don't witness their parents being murdered in front of them as children. It didn't help that the dialogue was cheesiness personified down to the weird Catholic prayer the brother recited, before they killed their victims. 

Plus, the brothers are two rough-around-the edges rogues. Why then was there a scene of them speaking fluent Russian, French, Spanish and Italian and German? As Smecker states, they're two un-educated rogues working in a meat factory. I don't buy they would speak any other language than English and Gaelic.

I mentioned Dexter earlier. Sean Patrick Flannery went onto have a supporting role in that. Norman Reedus later starred in the Walking Dead. Both are good actors, but they were hampered with a lousy script. Plus, their Irish accents were incredibly inconsistent.

Wilhelm Dafoe was also very over-the-top as Paul Smecker. It was like he was given the brief of odd-ball, maverick detective and allowed to run away with it. From the finger guns to examining crime scenes while listening to Italian opera to the closeted homosexuality to the river-dancing and appearing in drag, it was way too much. Part of this was down to Dafoe and part of it was down to writer/director Troy Duffy.

We've come to the twelve-year-old boy in question. Troy Duffy was a complete novice to screen-writing and directing. He had previously worked as a night-club bouncer. The Boondock Saints was his first script. And you can see he was still wet behind the ears. From the cheesy script to the two-dimensional characters to the gratuitous violence to the weird dropping of the n-word, it was a poor directorial debut. Obviously, I wouldn't do any better, but Duffy still had a lot to learn.

He also employed this weird device of explaining something that happened and then showing it in a flashback. This was plain confusing. A linear, straightforward narrative would have been far more cohesive.

Finally, we've come to Billy Connolly who played Il Duce - a legendary hit man. Believing Rocco to be behind the murders, the Italian mob scheme to have Il Duce released from prison. He's the only one strong enough to beat Rocco...apparently.

Billy Connolly was very much playing against type - he was also delighted to do so. But as a comedian, I had trouble believing him as a badass, unstoppable hitman. His faux Hannibal Lecter introduction did nothing to help things either.

I did not enjoy the Boondock Saints. It was an excessively violent, over-the-top affair that had no business being on the top 1000 films of all time.

Ten films that should not be on the top 1000 films of all time

 Since 2015, I have been watching and reviewing the top 1000 films of all time. In these nine years, I have watched many films that did not deserve a place on that coveted list. These are just ten examples. And yes, I'm going to get some heat for this, but such is life. This list is in no particular order but chronologically.

Sabrina (1954)

This rom-com from the Golden Age of Hollywood is living proof of how badly the Hollywood machine can backfire.

On paper, the film should have worked. It's directed by Billy Wilder. It stars Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, but it was so dull and predictable. There was next to no dramatic tension. it didn't help that Bogart lacked any chemistry with Holden or Hepburn. That was due to how they didn't get on behind the scenes.

Either way this was not a good film at all.

Manhattan (1979)

I've watched a few Woody Allen films in my time, but Manhattan is my least favourite. For one, it was not funny at all. For two, Woody Allen plays the same character that he always does - a neurotic Jewish man going through a middle-aged crisis. For three, the characters spend most of the film name-dropping philosophers like they're wannabe intellectuals. Finally, the central love-story was deeply uncomfortable.

It followed Woody Allen - playing a forty-two year old man in a relationship with the seventeen-year-old Tracey (Muriel Hemingway.) She was only sixteen at the time of filming.

Field of Dreams (1989)

Build it and he will come. Who? An insomniac looking to watch a film so boring it will put you to sleep? You'll be in luck with 'Field of Dreams.'

This dull film was severely lacking in tension or anything that made it remotely interesting to watch. It was so lacking in conflict that I could summarise the plot in a simple sentence: a man going through a mid-life crisis builds a baseball ring to solve his daddy issues.

The Bourne Identity (2002)

This film kicked off a whole franchise. How is a mystery to me. And its successors aren't much better either.

It follows Jason Bourne (Matt Damon,) a man with amnesia trying to rediscover his identity. It's funny that the Bourne Identity struggled to find its identity too. Is it an action-thriller? Not with its clear lack of memorable villains. Is it a romance? Not if the tepid love story was anything to go by.

The Bourne Identity? More like the Bourne Identiless to me.

Crash (2004)

Crash won the Best Picture Oscar for 2005. I have no idea how. It should have been nowhere near the Best Picture Oscar category. And it definitely should not have won. That honour should have gone to Brokeback Mountain. I said what I said.

Paul Haggis' clumsy and direction resulted in a contrived film that drastically over-simplified the race debate in the US. Thandie Newton and Terrence Rhodes' great performances were not enough to solve this car-crash of a film.

Running Scared (2006)

I'm still confused as to who thought this was one of the best thousand films of all time. A twelve-year-old boy? As it seemed to be written, filmed and edited by a twelve-year-old boy. You had filters from a 2000's Youtube video, Vera Farmilgia reduced to a sex object and ridiculously gratuitious violence. Not even the charismatic Paul Walker could save this disastrous film.

Michael Clayton (2007)

Michael Clayton isn't a bad film, but it certainly wasn't worthy of a place on this list. It was an underwhelming, under-developed affair severely lacking in heart. No wonder it was number 977 on the top 1000 films of all time. 

Tilda Swinton won an Oscar while George Clooney was nominated for one. But Michael Clayton was not worthy of Oscars, let alone a place on this list.

Despicable Me (June 2010)

How on God's green Earth did this film star a whole franchise? It has Steve Carell who does drama and comedy. But there was nothing funny or dramatic about his performance here. It was just annoying. And Hollywood writers take note: fart jokes are only funny once or twice, not a thousand bloody times.

The Town (September 2010)

Don't forget that Ben Affleck has won Oscars for both directing and writing. But he certainly did not win them for this generic, forgettable heist film.

The Town was an overly-simple boring affair that was not helped by Affleck's wooden performance in his lead role. Jeremy Renner in a supporting role was the only redeeming aspect of this tedious affair.

The Hunger Games (2012)

I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but the Hunger Games made me so irrationally angry.

Firstly, the whole film is predicated on a gaping plot chasm, let alone hole. It makes no sense that Panem - a tyrannical government punishing their citizens for rebelling by forcibly entering twelve of their people into a fight to the death. But when Katniss Everdeen breaks the rules by volunteering as tribute, what do they do? They let her compete. She's broken the rules and they still let her compete.

That coupled with two-dimensional villains and underdeveloped side characters, who have meaningless death, make for an irritating film. Not even J-Law or Woody Harrelson were enough to save this damp squib.

Come at me in those comments. I don't care. These were over-rated films that are not some of the 1000 best films of all time. Did I miss any? Let me know.

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance review

 Number 549 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean neo-noir crime thriller 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance.'

Spoilers ahead

The deaf/mute Ryu (Shin Ho-Kyun) is a factory worker with a sister who desperately needs a kidney transplant. After he is fired from his job and is robbed by organ traffickers who run off with his kidney, he concocts a hair-brained scheme to kidnap the daughter of a rich man and hold her to ransom to pay for another kidney. But then things start to go wrong.

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is Park Chan-Wook's first film in his Vengeance trilogy, later followed by Old Boy and Lady Vengeance. While I would consider Old Boy one of the best films of all time ever made, I cannot speak so highly of Sympathy for Mr Vengeance.

This film was confused and unfocussed. It straddled multiple genres without ever really engaging in one. Although it is labelled as a neo-noir, crime-thriller, it strayed into black/gross-out comedy like when it showed the organ traffickers engaging in casual necrophilia. Yet this humour was so off-beat that it wasn't funny at all.

At other times it tried being a romance with Ryu and his girlfriend Yong-Mi Cha ( Bae Boona) plotting to kidnap the little girl - Yu-Sun, but for reasons I'll explain later, this didn't work either. The film also strayed into horror with its gratuitous use of gore, plus the ghostly apparition of Yu-Sun.

But Sympathy for Mr Vengeance also didn't have a central protagonist. You think it would be Ryu and to a lesser extent Yeong-Mi, but after Ryu's sister and Yu-sun die, Yeong-Mi is promptly forgotten about, as is her relationship with Ryu, and the film shifts focus to Yu-Sun's father Park Dong-Jin (Song Kang-ho.) He swears revenge on those who killed Yu-Sun, which sees the film remembering about Ryu and Yeong-Mi, but this shift in protagonist was confusing and disjointed.

Speaking of disjointed, the film was poorly edited. It had a bad habit of cross-cutting in an incohesive way - we crosscut from Ryu's sister's body being discovered to her having an autopsy. But also in key scenes, the camera cut away to a completely unrelated scene which left certain plot threads dangling. For example, Ryu and Yeong-Mi discuss kidnapping Yu-Sun one minute, the next she's in their flat not worse for wear.

In one scene, Dong is tied up to a lamp post, the next he's walking about without a scratch. Finally, when Ryu goes to take revenge on the three organ traffickers who stole his kidney, he kills tow of them, but then the third one comes at him with a knife. What happens next? I don't know, because the camera cuts away. Later on, we are told that he has killed her too and has eaten her kidney.

I get that the film was going for a whole "if you set off on a quest for vengeance you must first dig two graves," which is true," as mostly everybody ends up dead, but this was lost in disjointed storytelling and confusing editing.

12 Angry Men Review

12 Angry Men review

SO I’ve finished the list of films that I want to see and now I’m working through the 1000 greatest films as voted for by IMDB users: http://www.listchallenges.com/top-1000-greatest-movies-of-all-time-by-imdb.  I have 847 to go.

What’s it about: The narrative of this film is very simple.  Set during a heatwave in New York, 12 Angry Men is a courtroom drama where 12 jurors have to decide on whether an eighteen-year-old boy is guilty of killing his father or not. 

The good: Despite only having one major setting and for the most part, the same 12 characters, the film is very intense and never gets boring.  At the start, all 12 men are very calm, but get progressively wearier and angrier.  I was like this whilst watching the film, as I became more enthralled in all of the character’s arguments for whether the boy is guilty or not.  Another major strength of the film was how the 12 angry men weren’t named and were solely identified through their juror’s numbers, with very little other information of them given.  Whilst, I have criticised other films for doing this, I think it worked well here.  Through the omission of character names, all of the jurors were deindividualised into a faceless, nameless authority, which I felt accentuated how much a person’s fate can be taken out of their own hands.  Also, the deindividualisation wasn’t so extreme that I couldn’t distinguish the characters from one another.  Each character had their own distinctive quirk, which distinguished them from the next.  The acting was very strong too from juror 3’s and juror 8’s passionate pleas for and against the boy to juror 7’s indifference to juror 2’s transformation from a spineless toad whom nobody listens to, to a dominant individual whom everyone takes seriously.  I also really like how you don’t find out whether the boy was guilty or not.  This little ambiguity felt like an appropriate way to end the film.

The Bad: There were one or two times, where I did confuse the characters, but these were few and far between.

The Ugly: Considering I watched this during a heatwave, the character’s discomfort under the severe heat became ever more real for me.

Rating: Awesome

A wholly gripping and well-acted film.  Its simple narrative and strong characters contributed to its success too.  This is a Hollywood Classic that I would recommend to anyone.  I think this film is the epitome of not taking anything for face value or judging something based on superficial knowledge, after all, “stupid is as stupid does.”

The Sixth Sense review

 Number 190 on the top 1000 films of all time  is the psychological thriller 'The Sixth Sense.'

Dr Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a child psychologist whose latest patient is the nine-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joe Osment.) However, Cole is deeply troubled by his ability to see and speak with the dead.

This film kicked off M. Night Shyamalan's directing career and it's easy to understand why. He created a movie that uses atmosphere to scare its audiences. What Shymalan does so well is keeping the scares subtle and understated. There isn't any gratuitous gore or overused jumpscares, so when do we get scares, they're all the more effective. The film opens with one of Dr Crowe's patients shooting him in the stomach before blowing his brains out. yet the camera pans away and we only hear the gunshot. When Cole is around a classmate's house for a birthday party, he is scared of a particularly locked cupboard. We don't see what's inside it, but we hear a terrified voice screaming not to be put in the dark. Another of the ghosts that Cole sees has been shot in the head, but we don't see the violence itself; only the bloody wound in the back of his head. These allusions were far more powerful than seeing any outright violence.

Shymalan also brought a touch of tragedy to the horror. Cole's sixth sense leads to him being a social outcast while Dr Crowe has a difficult relationship with his wife. The two find a kindred spirit together. Willis and Osment were great opposite each other. In fact, Willis is so well-known for his action man roles, you would think he is little more than a big slab of meat. But this meat can act, and act well. Osment, at eleven-years-old, was equally good. No surprise that he was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Toni Collette who played his mother also deserves some praise. She plays a woman under the incredible stress of raising her son by herself. On top of this, he also has a sixth sense that drives a stake between her and Cole. This all culminates in a tearful climax. Collette was also worthy of the Best Supporting Actress nod.

And, although, I won't spoil it here, the ending twist has to be one of the best in movie history, perhaps only second to Old Boy.

Although Shymalan might never have been able to replicate his early success, the Sixth Sense proved that he is a brilliant director who can craft a simultaneously tragic, but scary film.

The Returned Episode 3 Morganne Review

SPOILER ALERT

Review of episode 1: L'enfant

Review of episode 2: Milan

This episode might have been valled Morganne, but he was more of a clue to Lucy's past more than anything. Just the same as last episode, Morganne opened with a flashback to 35 years ago. We saw Morganne sharing a bed with Lucy, showing that she is far older and more complicated than we first thought. Afterwards we see them running across the dam, just before it bursts and floods the town. Lucy and Morganne join Milan, Victor and Mrs Costa in watching the town flood. We know the town has flooded before, but it was something else to see it on screen. This episode hit the ground running.

Gwilym Mumford of the Guardian identified that in this episode, Milan continues to cause trouble which  I would agree with. He's shaping up to become the villain of the show.

Milan continues to bully his terrified son, Serge, but things become more complicated when Lena arrives at Serge's cabin out of the blue. Milan tells Serge to take her into the forest and kill her, as according to him, the reason that he and the others have returned is to help the living join their ranks. Serge stands up to his father by first lying to him and then shooting him, but not before Milan stabs Lena. Will Milan be back? I reckon so. As we've seen before, it's possible to return more than once. This is exactly what happened to Lucy who in a following flashback is shown to have been killed by Milan who was trying to cleanse her off her sins.

Religion is a big theme in the Returned. Adele is constantly confiding in her priest (but more on her later) and Pierre has seen the returned as a coming sign of the apocalypse. Yet I think Milan killing Lucy to cleanse her of her sins, very much sounds like him trying to justify his actions. He thinks he is, if you will, performing an act of God by killing Lucy. He is in full control of his actions, unlike Serge, whom I think has some type of mental health problem, thus causing his murderous tendencies. 

Milan offers one interpretation to why the Returned have returned. You've already seen my scepticism to his justifications, but what do you think? Did the dead return to kill the living? Give me your thoughts.

Whilst Milan is bad through and through, Serge does have glimmers of light. He takes the wounded Lena to Camille and Claire whose relationship is at breaking point. Claire is desperately still trying to protect Audrey and Esteban from the truth of their situation, but Camille impatiently tells Esteban that his parents committed suicide. Later Esteban sneaks out and the mysterious boy in the bomber jacket comes to Camille's house to lead her to Esteban. Claire tries to stop Camille from going, going so far as to slap her, but it doesn't help.

Camille and bomber-jacket boy find Esteban at his old house and bomber-jacket boy provides answers of sorts. He explains that the Horde, essentially the Returnees who aren't main characters and are lingering around in the town, are the dead who had nobody to return to. Nobody was looking for them. As I said last week, I think that's one reason some people are so scared of death. It's not the dying that's scary, but the possibility that nobody may mourn or miss you.

The bomber jacket boy is part of the second wave of Returnees who all seem to be congregating at Lucy and Simon's house. Morganne is also part of this new wave and soon goes back to Lucy's bed. It's interesting that these Returnees have all latched onto Simon and Lucy. Their house becomes a shelter for the Returned who have become refugees of sorts, looking for Lucy and Simon for leadership.

The image of the dead gathering together is paralleled nicely with the living, including Audrey's parents, collecting in Pierre's 'the Helping Hand' shelter. Meanwhile, Pierre has Toni hostage and is interrogating him to discover where the Returned are. With these two scenes, the board is starting to e be set with sides being chosen. Could all this be building to some confrontation between the living and the dead?

In the storyline most removed from the main action, we find that the murdered police officers were all shot dead, before being tied to the trees. However, one of the officers was missing. In Mumford's review he speculated that it was Julie's ex girlfriend Laure who was missing, but I think it could be the police captain-Thomas. Let me know who you think it is.

Meanwhile, the sinkhole, that was discovered last episode, was explored with the cameras picking up a creature in a shot straight out of a horror film. What is the creature? Another Returnee? A demon? A chupacabra? Who knows?

I was speaking about sides before and I think that Simon is struggling to stay neutral. He keeps going to see Chloe who is feeding him information about Adele's child, yet he always returns to Lucy. Although I wonder how Morganne's return will affect their relationship. Simon didn't look the happiest when he saw the two sharing a bed. But Chloe and Adele is what's tying Simon to the living world, and I wonder whether soon, he'll be forced to choose between siding with the living or the dead.

Mumford identified that this episode was all about characers rejecting one another. For example, Adele continued to reject her baby son, which Chloe calls Nathan, after Adele refuses to name him.

However, in my mind , the far more significant and hear-breaking rejections was Victor's rejection of Julie. Yes i know that Victor's real name is Louis, but I'm going to keep calling him Victor. Anyway, Victor finally seems to be accepting his mother and his newly returned brother Paul, so much so, that Julie begins feeling redundant. In a cruel and emotional scene, Victor tells Julie that although he no longer needs her, she still needs hm. Before him, she had nobody and she should leave now. Mrs Costa adds insult to injury telling Julie that she "doesn't belong here." Anyone else find it weird why Mrs Costa is living with Victor and co, and not with Lucy and the rest of the horde?

Anyway, the devastation is evident on Julie's face and all credit to the wonderful Celine Sallette for portraying this. The final gorgeous shot sees Julie walking to the flood to perhaps drown herself. I hope she doesn't die, but it would make sense. Without Victor, she had absolutely nothing in her life. Nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. Although, as we already know the dead don't stay dead long e.g Lucy and Simon.

This was a thought provoking episode that for once provided some answers of sorts. It was also heart-breaking, especially Victor's ice-cold rejection of Julie. But also the Horde having nobody to return to. In some ways this is even sadder. They're "living some type of "purgatory" or "hell," condemned to "Life" without their loved ones.

Some questions I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

1. Why do you think the dead have returned? Do you agree with Milan?
2. What does Pierre want with the Returned?
3. What was the creature in the sinkhole?
4. Who is the missing police officer?
5. What's going to happen to Julie?

Lion Review

A deviation from the top 1000 films of all time to review Lion, a film that I watched for my mum's birthday.

Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is a five year old boy from Ganesh Talai in the slums of India.  He spends his time with his older brother Guddu, including following him to work at night.  When Guddu discovers that Saroo has done this, he tells him to wait for him until he returns.  Saroo waits and falls asleep in a train-car, which takes him to Calcutta.  He is alone in this strange town, with nobody to help him, and to make matters worse, he only speaks Hindi, whereas everybody else speaks Bengali.  Eventually he is taken to an orphanage and from there, he is adopted by a Tasmanian couple John (David Wenham) and Sue (Nicole Kidman.) Twenty years later, an adult Saroo (Dev Patel) begins looking for a way to return home.

This is a poignant and heart-breaking film, and the fact that it is based on a true story, makes it that much more powerful.  The performances were strong, with Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman, both quite rightly, up for Oscars.  The first act of the film is set in Indi, spoken in Hindi and seen through the eyes of five year old Saroo.  It is obvious that he has come from an impoverished background, yet as he has come from an impoverished background, yet as he has never known any different, he doesn't complain about it.  Rather he is a jubilant child, which makes his character more nuanced and interested to watch.  He becomes more nuanced when his life changes in the few hours that it takes for the train to take him to Calcutta.

Lion ends with a line reading that 80,000 children a year go missing in India and to follow the journey of one of them was interesting to watch.  Even after Saroo arrives in Calcutta, he is determined to get home by following the train tracks, demonstrating his will for survival.

Another thing I liked was how subtle and understated the darker elements of the film were.  Lion is rated PG, which means for the most part it is family friendly, but there are many allusion to more sinister parts.  Saroo's orphanage is implied to be a dark place, where the children are locked up, yet the best example of my point is when Saroo also becomes the victim of a paedophile.  When Saroo is walking along the trainlines to get home, he is taken in by a supposedly friendly woman who is actually grooming him for a paedophile.  She bathes him and presents him to the paedophile who inspects him, whilst he is still dripping wet.  Very little is said or done to indicate this man's hidden agenda, but it is clear what he wants.  Later, Saroo sensing something is amiss, runs away.  The threat of this violence was far more chilling and effective than actually seeing it first-hand.  If we had seen it, it could have lost its effect altogether.


Although I especially liked the time and pacing spent on developing Saroo's character, I feel that other sections did not receive the same treatment.  The best example of this is Saroo's adopted brother Mantosh.  We first see Mantosh as a child, the same age as Saroo and it is clear that he is so mentally disturbed, that whenever he is scared or angry, he begins hitting himself.  This was particularly frightening to watch, considering his young age, but I don't feel like anything came from this subplot.  As an adult, Mantosh, is only in a handful of scenes and it is made clear that he is a disappointment compared to Saroo, and also a great drain on John and Sue.  I feel much could have been done to have developed this subplot.

The second subplot I had issues with was Saroo's relationship with his on/off girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara.) This criticism also ties into my last issue with the time jumps.  The first time-jump of twenty years is perfectly logical, as we don't need to see Saroo growing up, but then there are time jumps of two or three years, which are random and abrupt.  After the first time jump, we see Saroo begin his search for home, as well as his relationship with Lucy.  Then there's a time jump of two years, and we see Saroo is still searching for home.  What are we supposed to believe? That he has been searching for two years? Also at this point, his relationship with Lucy finishes, as his obsession with finding home consumes him.  Then there's another time jump of two years, and we see that Saroo and Lucy have rekindled their relationship.  Has nothing happened to them in these two years to change this outcome?

Secondly, and this is a massive nitpick, but I find it weird that we never saw the pair kiss.  We see them before and after sex, of course we don't see them having sex, nor do we need too, but it doesn't show them doing the one thing that would kick it all off, which I found peculiar.

Nevertheless, this was a tragic and uplifting film, especially at the end when Saroo returns home to find his mother and sister waiting for him.  Guddu was killed by a train on the night of Saroo's disappearance.  This uplift was only amplified by how the real-life documentary footage of the real-life Saroo reuniting with his mother is shown, but also by the final lines of the film, which explain that throughout his whole life, Saroo has been mispronouncing his name.  His name was Sheru, which means Lion.

This is England review

 Number 599 on the top 1000 films of all time is Shane Meadows' 2006 British drama 'This is England.'

Shaun (Thomas Thurgoose) is a troubled twelve-year-old boy whose father has recently been killed in the Falklands' War. Bullied at school, he is taken in by a gang of skinheads led by Woody (Joe Gilgun) and his girlfriend Lol (Vicky McClure.) However, everything changes when the gang's volatile and racist member Combo (Stephen Graham) returns from prison.

Directors like Shane Meadows always have difficult jobs when it comes to films like 'This is England.' They can't be seen either out-right condemning or approving of their content; they have to portray an objective reality allowing the viewer to make their own decisions. And that's where Meadows succeeded. Without ever becoming too preachy, he provides a fascinating snapshot into skinhead culture.

But he cannot take all the credit. Much of that should be bestowed on the brilliant Stephen Graham. Before he became a household name, he was playing characters who were espousing the same nationalistic, jingoism that was just as relevant now as it was back in the eighties. And he did it with such nuance. It would be all too easy to play the role as a romping - stomping, red-faced gammon shouting at the top of his lungs, but Graham was smarter than that. He brought many layers to Combo showing his vulnerability. While never condoning them, you understand his actions.

All this was seen through the perspective of twelve-year-old Shaun. This was a clever decision, as it was a stark warning of how easy somebody can be brainwashed by ideology. Thomas Thurgoose was very good in his debut role. While many of his co-stars like Joe Gilgun and Vicky McClure have gone onto bigger and better roles, I can't say the same for Thurgoose, but I'm sure his time will come soon.

Granted, you could argue that there isn't much in the way of plot, but I don't think it was necessary in a slice-of-life film like this. It was a simple snapshot of skinhead culture. And that's all it needed to be. Plus it had the brilliant Stephen Graham as the lead. What more do you want? Just be warned, this is England is way too depressing to watch more than once.

Notes on a Scandal review

 Number 842 on the top 1000 films of all time is the British psychological thriller 'Notes on a Scandal.'

Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) is an old, stern teacher who runs her classroom with an iron fist. But she is also unmarried, childless and deeply lonely. She then strikes up a friendship with her school's new art teacher Bathsheba 'Sheba' Hart (Cate Blanchett.) When Barbara discovers Sheba is having an affair with one of her pupils, she decides to use this to her own advantage. Bill Nighy co-stars as Sheba's husband - Richard.

In many ways, Notes on a Scandal reminded me of the the Talented Mr Ripley. Both of them are based on books. And both have similar themes of love, obsession and deceit, as well as homo-erotic undertones. They also feature stellar performances from their lead actors.

I thought Judi Dench was great as the formidable Barbara Covett. She also narrates the film with a world-worn cynicism that is all too relatable for many teachers. Her narration gave the film a brilliant immediacy and throttled the pace along. Despite her cynicism, she is still a sympathetic character. it is implied that she has remained unmarried due to some unrealised lesbianism. It is out of loneliness that she attaches herself to Sheba. It out of jealousy that she starts to act with malice and spite. Remove a "T" from her last name and you're left with "covet."

I was less convinced by Sheba's characterisation. Firstly, "Bathsheba" is a name that's incredibly on the nose. But I found the naivete frustrating. She saw herself as an unwilling victim who was seduced by a 15-year-old boy, and not as the aggressor. However, this would be common behaviour for people in denial of their crimes.

I also don't think Richard was well-characterised. One moment he's friendly towards Covett. The next, he is unduly horrible, the next he's her best mate again. it seems like his behaviour was dictated by whatever the plot needed it to be at that particular moment.

These criticisms are applied more to the writing rather than the acting. Blanchett and Nighy were very good. Although the characterisation was wonky, the plotting was good, as we see how a simple lie starts to unravel. And, all hell breaks loose, when the truth emerges.

Dench and Blanchett both receive Oscar nods for their work, so the acting was obviously great. Yes, the characterisations were off, but the writing was generally good. I just can't get over "Bathsheba" as a name. Why else would you name your character that if you didn't want them to be a married woman being lusted over by a younger man? Only leading to her cheating on her husband with this younger man. You might as well have just called her Jezebel.

The Returned Episode Four Virgil

Just like the last couple of episodes, Virgil opened on a flashback to 35 years ago where we found found out that bomber-jacket boy aka Virgil was a bit of a teenage misfit.  So much so that Milan decided that he should be killed to free him of his sins.  Along with Victor and Lucy, Milan is now responsible for the deaths of three important characters, so I don't know about you, but I definitely have Milan pegged as the villain of this season.

Also is anyone else wondering why all of the flashbacks are from 35 years ago?  These flashbacks are all from before the original flood too. Most of the first and second wave of returnees e.g Victor, Virgil and Morganne all died around the time of the dam bursting as well.  What is the connection between the returnees and the flooding of the original town? What's the significance of them all dying at similar times? Let me know your theories below.

In the present-day, Virgil continues to become closer with Camille.  He offers to take Claire and the recovering Lena back to where the living are but tells Camille that she can't go with them.  According to him, they have rejected her.  She only belongs with her own kind.  We find out that Virgil has the ability to sense people's secrets.  We already know that the dead have special powers, such as how Lucy can sense Milan's return.  Virgil and Camille kiss before Virgil leaves to wherever he keeps running off to.

Meanwhile, whilst Claire is searching nearby houses for medicine, she runs into this old man who, in the last episode saved her from the Horde.  However, he also seems quite threatening, not least because of the Returnees he has hidden away in his house.  At the moment, we don't know much or anything about him, but I'd be interested in any thoughts you guys have.

Last week, I said that sides are beginning to be chosen and Simon is struggling to stay neutral. In this episode, I think he has finally chosen to side with Adele and Chloe.  In Virgil, we initially see him choosing Lucy and the Horde by taking baby Nathan and giving them to a pair of Returnee parents-later revealed to be Simon's parents.  Lucy explains that Simon's parents think that baby Nathan is baby Simon.  As a brief aside, what's the deal with Lucy? We see that she's become the unofficial leader of the Horde, but we don't know why.  What hold does she have over them? She's definitely the one calling the shots though.  We also find out that Simon's parents committed suicide, as did Simon.  As Gwilym Mumford of the Guardian points out, Simon's backstory and particularly his death has never been something that's properly explored.

But what we do find out is that Simon's parents killed themselves as part of a suicide pact called the Circle.  He then takes Nathan (and a scared Audrey who wants to return to her parents) back to the alive side of town.  He takes Nathan to Adele and Chloe and tells them to leave town.  However, will they be able to leave town? Last season saw Laure, Julie and Victor, as well as Serge and Toni attempting to escape their town, which didn't end particularly well for either group.

Speaking of Julie, she didn't actually drown herself, as I initially thought, but instead swam back to the original town.  Having been rejected by Victor, she goes to his old house to find out more about him.  Instead, from a strange old woman, she learns all about Milan's backstory.  After the flood, he became a vigilante of sorts, taking the law very much into his own hands.  He ordered for Victor's death as he blamed him for the dam bursting.  He killed Lucy and Virgil to save them from their sins.  Although something's still bugging me about Victor's death.  If like I said, Milan ordered specifically for Victor's death, then why was it staged as a burglary? If we go back to Victor, we see that Victor's death was more of an after-thought, rather than anything pre-meditative.  He was killed so that he wouldn't say anything not as a punishment for making the dam burst.  Pierre tries to vouch for him before his partner impulsively shoots him.

Although Victor doesn't feature as heavily in this episode, his presence is still felt.  Berg and Jerome team up to explore Victor's old house, where they find a whole wall of his drawings behind a wardrobe.  As we've seen before, Victor's drawings have often acted like premonitions, and there were many of these types of drawings here.  There were references to Lucy's and Camille's death, as well as the dam bursting.  What's the significance of the drawings? Let me know what you think.

Another character who doesn't feature too heavily is Milan.  After Serge "killed" him last episode, he locks him up and then repeatedly kills him.  In one of the flashbacks, we find out that Serge is locking Milan up in the same place where he imprisoned Virgil.  Serge finds Virgil and frees him, before Milan tracks him down and kills him.  To punish Serge, Milan then shows him Virgil's dead body.  Anyone else thinking this is what partly contributed to his later murderous tendencies?

Anyway, whilst Serge is busy rescuing Toni from Pierre's dungeon in the Helping Hand, Lucy, who has sensed where Milan is being kept, takes him out to the middle of the lake and pushes him in tied to a heavy anchor.  It should also be noted that it's not Lucy who does this, but Morganne, who looks to be quickly replacing Simon as her right-hand man.  This was gratifying to watch considering Milan's brutality, but I certainly don't think this is the last we'll see of him.  I would also like to take a brief moment to commend the gorgeous lighting and cinematography of this sequence.

Lastly, the exploration of the sinkhole continues slowly and without much consequence.  The army deliberate over what the mysterious creature that they saw on the cameras was.  Whilst a team is exploring the sinkhole, they find skeletons of many animals.  I have to say that this isn't a storyline I'm liking as much, as it's straying a bit too close to supernatural or zombie horror.  What makes the Returned so refreshing is that it isn't your typical zombie or malevolent ghost/demon story.  The Returned are ordinary people who want nothing more than to return to their old lives.  The fact that this mysterious creature which is being treated with hostility and suspicion serves to undermine this.

Theory time:

1.  What's the significance of Victor's drawings?

2.  Why do most of the Returnees seem to be from the period of when the original dam burst?

3. What is that mysterious creature?

4. What is the Circle?