While I didn’t manage to accomplish anything outrageous this past weekend, I did watch my usual standard amount. I’m anticipating a busy last two weekends of the month with virtual Sundance approaching!
No Other Choice – Finally, after three months, this Park Chan-wook materspiece is available in the US, so you know I went to see it again. However, in honor of seeing it in a little indie theater in Seoul, I also went to my local indie theater to see it again. 10/10 the best way to see this film. After the Golden Globes, I’m a little less confident in its chances of winning anything at the Oscars, which is a crime given how good it is, but I guess that’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. After Mansoo loses his management job at the paper company he spent 25 years of his life at, he’s desparate to get back seeminngly more so than to help his family remain comfortable in their lives. As each stage of his plan progresses, it gets equally more ridiculous, but also a little more brutual in its execution. The cast here is perfection. I absolutely loved this film the first time I saw it, and I loved it just as much the second.
Dead Man’s Wire – I felt like this new Gus Van Sant film flew largely under the radar despite it’s two stars. Which is a crime! Not like the one portrayed in this film, but still. I think what was the most crazy to me about this film was the fact that it was based on real events that took place it the late 70s. In order to add a little bit more authenticity to what played out on screen, the film’s writer actually met up with the historical consultants who helped make a documentary on the same event. Both the documentary and the film focus on Tony Kiritsis, who after feeling like he was taken advantage of, both finanically and mentally, takes the son of his mortgage broker hostage with a dead man’s wire, tied between the two men and Kiritsis’ shotgun. The events that play out are wild, and while I’m sure a lot of what happened in the apartment might have been dramatized for the film, it was still quite an interesting watch. Al Pacino, for his limited time on screen, had our audience flabbergasted Tony’s actual broker.
Urchin – I’d been meaning to watch Harris Dickinson’s directorial debut since I heard about its premiere at Cannes, but it never got a wide theatrical release. At least not around me. In this film, which Dickinson also wrote and co-starred in, we focus on Mike, a homeless man in London who is struggling with addiction and poverty. One day he attacks a man who had offered to buy him some food in order to steal and pawn his watch. He’s caught and sentanced to prision. After eight months he’s released and given temporary housing. He manages to secure a job in a hotel kitchen, as well as staying sober since his incarceration. Mike is really doing everything in his power to turn his life around, but he’s shaken when he finally meets up with the man he attacked. It’s almost as if Mike’s demons will never let him be. It’s easy to assume that he will continue the same patterns for the rest of his life, but you’ve got to hand it to him for trying.