shining wizard

mostly a diary to keep track of the films i've seen.

[shiningwizard]

What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong Sang-soo, 2025)

Finally a movie that realises the beauty of the '96 Kia Pride. Finally a Hong Sang-soo movie that hilariously, cuttingly bares and examines the limits of pride. A project that has been going on since 1996. Thin veil of his own pride, again, but really all of us pathetic creatures. It would all work if it didn't have to impact and bounce back off others. Nature speaks fine projections, people speak rebuking, destabilising things. Out of focus clarity. One of my more favourite of his recent years' output but i might have just been in a better mood.

[shiningwizard]

One of Those Days Where Hemme Dies (Murat Fıratoğlu, 2024)

Sun-drying tomatoes, overheating motorcycles, boiling temper. Changing states over time. A guy everyone tells to sit in the shade has an urge. That urge is continually thwarted by the people, places and things in his life. A fine movie. The passcode to the guy sitting in seat D10’s phone is 555500.

[shiningwizard]

Metallimania (Marc Paschke, 1997)

It’s funny that not only three of the greatest music documentaries are about Metallica, but all of them involve the band after they were any good. Perfect update and expansion of Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Let stoked, irony-drenched, wired and/or racist metalheads speak and gold is struck. All I want to see and hear. The only downside is the interviewer’s just too much of a smart alecky dolt, who if he weren’t in control would find himself on the other side of his camera. Just desserts he has some unfortunate facial hair he has to live with

[shiningwizard]

The Big Dis (Gordon Eriksen & John O’Brien, 1989)

A horned up, by-the-numbers weekend pass comedy that could have been as bad and unappealing as Weekend Pass (1984) were it not for its low budget, immediate camera work, value in capturing accidents and an ambience of place and people, its giving the female characters upper edge and snap-back, and its great, oddly specific Greek chorus rap soundtrack.

[shiningwizard]

The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984)

More than any other sport, Baseball inspires the corniest myth-makers to make the corniest myths. Here’s a corny myth. Some exploration of good/bad, city/country, hussy/girl next door, money/for the love of the game equilibrium shot in a respectable Hollywood style. No surprises, just things that are nice to see. Nice to see Joe Don Baker (RIP). Nice to see that Robert Redford’s left handed. Nice to see the collection of odd faces they brought in for his teammates. Nice to see the source of a Simpson reference

[shiningwizard]

Big Trouble (John Cassavetes, 1986)

I don't know or want to know the history behind this so i'm inventing my own. Cassavetes in ailing health having his name brought on to a Double Indemnity remake as its own double indeminity scheme to top up the money he can leave to Gena and the kids after he's gone. Regardless, a fine, broad leading into nonsense caper comedy with actors who are fun to see.

[shiningwizard]

Candy Mountain (Robert Frank & Rudy Wurlitzer, 1987)

[shiningwizard]

Big Time (Chris Blum, 1988)

It's basically entirely just a mid shot of Tom Waits hunched perfervidly over his microphone singing songs i somehow all know despite never feeling i've heard his music. And those elements are enough, it works, because he's an incredible performer. All this mispent time spent watching crummy hardcore bands...

[shiningwizard]

Le Crime d'Amour (Guy Gilles, 1982)

Wishes of a murder (or wishes for the notoriety of being a murderer) flowing in and out of memories of a murder, but never fusing to a stable, real memory of the murder victim. Quite taken by this, above all expectation (set by French police movies of the 80s rather than anything else this director did and am clueless to). A foot in nouvelle roman, but to a more tender, sombre, affecting effect.

[shiningwizard]

The Big Pardon (Alexandre Arcady, 1982)

I’m not really one for long movies about crime families but subtracting even that, I don’t think this is that great. Interesting context of Jews and Arabs in France from Algeria continuing their little disagreement, but done in a bloated way, hitting the beats of low and high cinema by rote, uninspired (or directly inspired) means.

[shiningwizard]

Dreamscape (Joseph Ruben, 1984)

Made for children, methinks. Maybe accidentally. Everyone is in this

[shiningwizard]

The Big Easy (Jim McBride, 1986)

A very likeable cop corruption drama set in New Orleans, with the source of that likability split between the expressed, intentional qualities of it as a crime movie and the (also possibly intended) perverse and lacking elements. The put upon accents, the pastiche atmosphere and authenticity it tries to swell from a postcard imagining of this place, the times it barely rises above the feel of a regional police tv show (Miami Vice, Magnum PI, etc.). It’s a movie of everything serving to affect Ellen Barkin’s DA character, whether scandalising her with the levels of police underhandedness, grossing her out with bloody or charred corpses, or stirring her loins. And she’s great in it

[shiningwizard]

The Ghost Snatchers (Lam Na-Choi, 1986)

I’m sure if i were a higher up privy to the locked secrets and edicts of some Judeo-Christian religion it’d be the same, but on the ground, Chinese spirituality seems really complicated. Dumb, kinetic and quite fun. Exactly what i go to these movies for.

[shiningwizard]

The Big Heat (Johnnie To, 1988)

Hong Kong action, Roman concrete.

[shiningwizard]

Amagi Pass (Mimura Haruhiko, 1983)

[shiningwizard]

Big Joys, Small Sorrows (Kinoshita Keisuke, 1986)

A very pleasant time touring Japan's lighthouses as lighthouse keepers and their loved ones relocate from one scenic cliff edge to another. A remake of Kinoshita's earlier Times of Joy and Sorrow but, like the (translated) title indicates, the joy outweighs the sorrow here. There seems to be this view that this is due to a need, imposed or not, to show Japan in a prosperous and optimistic light, the war and post war an uncomfortable and distant memory in the near-burst bubble 80s. But to me it's more an old man viewing life, people, the environment and the passing of time with sentimental and hopeful eyes. The Grandpa character makes that plain. His quiet urgency and tearful eyes Kinoshita's own. And so it's extremely moving.

[shiningwizard]

Silverado (Lawrence Kasdan, 1985)

Young Hollywood nerds play the homage and regrouping game to Westerns. Caught squarely in an aims-to-be rather than is mode, but while rote, still lands at something decently entertaining. Kevin Costner endears more to me playing a goofball than any other role i’ve seen him in. Rosanna Arquette’s character just seems to exist for others to call her “pretty” and who am i to argue?