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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 35
Fritz Lang, so a masterpiece of sorts, silent with music and subtitles.
Prize for the best chain-smoking wheelchair villain ever, and his hair. The inspiration behind "James Bond" - the spy-vs-counterspies, and Doctor Strangelove definitely mined a lot of their inspiration from this. As did the John Wick universe - everyone in this film is a spy. Lots of cute symbols - the 24 hour clock on the Villains desk (statecraft never rests); I could go on, not everyone's cup of tea but it's available on YouTube free - and ad free. Good luck finding anything else on YouTube that's 2 1/2 minutes ad free, let alone 2 1/2 hours.
Watch online free (YouTube) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrV_oclAGes
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 63
Since I've read everything by Bruce Chatwin and greatly admire Werner Herzog this was a natural.
It didn't disappoint.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 101
This was one of those rare films I wished I'd seen on the Big Screen. Like an Imax.
Werner Herzog does a tour with Vulcanologists to some of the world's active volcanoes, spectacular footage of people looking into the abyss of fire, and in so doing ends up digging up 100, 000 year old Hominid remains in Ethiopia, to North Korea, where the people believe their race was born from Paektu Mountain near China (and a long digression into the cultural heritage), then returns to Vanuatu where the people worship their volcano as a portal to John Frum - the Melanesian Cargo cult that is trying to bring back the American troops and their cheap chewing gum and trinkets...
Like most of Herzog's work it digresses beautifully, and while it would claim to be an investigation into the volcanoes it's also so much more...
Five Stars.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 101
And this, another old one by Werner Herzog, again filmed in the Amazon basin, this time the story revolving around a would-be rubber Baron hauling his ship up the Amazon and over a mountain...
Starring Klaus Kinski, notoriously difficult to work with "favourite" of Werner Herzog, who had attempted to exclude him from this, only his first and second choices fell out. And so they end up together again, but for more on their relationship watch Herzog's "My Best Fiend"...
Anyways, I gave the briefest description of the plot, of course there is more; Herzog's far too brilliant to keep it simple. Very worthwhile.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 98
An Iranian film about a man who inadvertently comes across his torturer from when he was held as a political prisoner. Rounding up his fellow prison-mates they find themselves at a loss as to how to proceed...
Interesting, the consequences of trauma and war; and a reckoning that soon will be happening here...
But not particularly enjoyable, merely a different lens on a different culture and history.