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Move Quest #64 Eternity and a day

Beautiful movie, but geez…the title is really descriptive of what this movie feels like when you watch it.

Tagged: Movie Quest, bruno ganz, isabelle renauld, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Despina Bebedelli, Achileas Skevis, Alexandra Ladikou, Helene Gerasimidou, Iris Chatziantoniou, Nikos Kouros, Theo Angelopoulos, foreign, foreign art house, greece, greek language, foreign dramas, foreign must-see, foreign languages, foreign regions, romantic, sentimental, mind-bending, cerebral, .

Movie Quest #43 High and Low

Known for his historical epics, director Akira Kurosawa was also a fan of American film noir and detective novels — which explains why he based High and Low (also known as Heaven and Hell) on an Ed McBain story. Toshirô Mifune plays a wealthy corporate boss who must choose between saving his company and paying the ransom for his chauffeur’s kidnapped child. Kurosawa uses his brilliant visual style to reinforce the film’s sociological themes. (netflix.com)

Pretty amazing mystery in a sort of neo-noir vein.

Tagged: movie quest, toshiro mifune, tatsuya nakadai, kyoko kagawa, tatsuya mihashi, kenjiro ishiyama, takeshi kato, takashi shimura, jun tazaki, nobuo nakamura, yunosuke ito, akira kurosawa, foreign, foreign classic dramas, japan, foreign classics, japanese language, foreign regions, foreign languages, japanese, suspenseful, dark, cerebral, .

Movie Quest #42 Vampyr

Director Carl Theodor Dreyer fuses fantasy and reality in this landmark tale, which ranks among cinema’s greatest horror movies. Holiday reveler Allan Gray (Julian West) takes a room in an eerie European village inn and is awakened when an elderly gent lets himself in, leaving a parcel inscribed, “To be opened in the event of my death.” Gray later witnesses the man’s murder, opens the package and realizes a supernatural killer is on the loose. (netflix.com)

Parts of this are genuinely pretty creepy, but it is very slowly paced.  There is no blood, no eroticism, no neck biting.  It seemed to be more of a ghost story than a vampire tale.  Also, really Criterion? With the horrible subtitles? You’ve done better, guys.

Tagged: movie quest, julian west, maurice schutz, rena mandel, sybille schmitz, jan hieronmiko, henriette gerard, albert bras, n. babanini, jane mora, carl theodor dreyer, foreign, foreign horror, scandinavia, foreign classics, foreign classic dramas, german language, foreign languages, foreign regions, german, suspenseful, .

Movie Quest #31 Audition

Director Takashi Miike fashions an explosive drama in Audition. Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) has lived as a widower for too long and decides it’s time to marry again. But how will he find a wife? When a friend suggests he hold a fake audition to pick the right woman, he takes him up on it — only to realize that his choice may be a better actress than he bargained for. (netflix.com)

This is obviously a strange movie, but even harder for me to describe whether or not I liked it.  I mean, I derived absolutely no pleasure or enjoyment from the entire last 30 minutes of the movie.  I enjoyed the storytelling up to that point, but the strange dream/drug-induced sequence was baffling and I had no idea what it was supposed to be.  Maybe that’s the point?  I’m pretty sure, no… mostly sure I didn’t like this.

Tagged: Eihi Shiina, foreign, movie quest, ryo ishibashi, takashi miike, tetsu sawaki, jun kunimura, miyuki matsuda, toshie negishi, ren osugi, foreign horror, asian horror, japan, japanese language, lionsgate home entertainment, foreign languages, foreign regions, suspenseful, violent, .