Fury Road I Live I Die I Live Again

Join me in raising a drinking glass to Quibi, the bite-sized video service that anybody in the world knew would fail except the leadership at Quibi. From launch to shut down in half dozen months — that'southward truly remarkable.

Although it'due south funny to see this idea accident upwardly so robustly in the faces of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, it sucks for those lower on the ladder. They worked difficult to produce shows they knew no one would watch, and now they're out of their jobs. I'thou certain there was good stuff on the service! Only I was never, ever going to watch it.

In ameliorate news, later on final week'south modest respite, our selections for this week go back to the Cringe Blog themes you know and love/detest.

"The Wailing" (2016)

Prime Video, rated R, 156 minutes

Jun Kunimura in "The Wailing." Photo source: Prime Video.

In that location'south a new dominion that I want to implement, and the rule is that every picture show must contain dueling religious rituals set to increasingly loud and frenetic music.

"The Wailing" taught me this. "The Wailing" also taught me — reminded me, to be more than accurate — that South Korea makes ameliorate horror films than anyone else. Those filmmakers understand the importance of feeling, of atmosphere, is much greater than that of leap scares.

Here nosotros accept Jong-Goo (Kwak Do-won), a detective who is not quite bumbling just certainly non aristocracy at his chore. He messes up sometimes, which isn't ordinarily a huge deal in his small hamlet; nil much happens there. Until stuff starts happening there. Barbarous killings, a string of them, each by a dissimilar person. The perpetrators are connected past the fell rash they share, pus prominently presented. This rash/curse remains, draining them of their mental capacities, until they eventually die.

Signs begin to point to a secretive Japanese man (Jun Kunimura) equally the one putting a curse on these people. Some even refer to him as a ghost, even though he's visibly flesh and blood. There are stories of him eating the raw meet of a deer carcass on all fours deep in the woods, his eyes glowing ruby. When Jong-Goo has a dream that matches these stories, it's enough to jump him into action. He and his partner (Son Kang-gook) pay him a visit.

What they observe chills them, simply information technology'due south non enough to brand an abort. And things get from bad to worse when Jong-Goo returns home to find his adolescent girl (Kim Hwan-hee) starting to develop the murderous rash.

Kim Hwan-hee and Kwak Do-won in "The Wailing." Photo source: Prime Video.

"The Wailing" is frightening in all the correct ways. Director Na Hong-jin keeps the picture show's mysteries locked away for much of the run time, keeping the audience guessing as to what's actually happening. The surface level story is dark, and the unsaid story might be even darker one time you connect a few dots and think nigh how these people are getting sick. But the movie won't practise that for y'all; "The Wailing" is a circuitous story, and if you lot want to solve it all, you might have to sentry information technology twice (at least). Information technology touches on a lot of things, chief among them what it means to believe in something. Is sight and affect plenty? Or can our eyes and hands exist deceived? How do we ever know who to trust?

It also tries to be a lot of horror genres at once. There are scenes that pay homage to possession films, zombie films, cult films and series killer films. Somehow, it all works, mayhap considering the whole narrative is fractured from the start. If a film is consistently messy, information technology is really messy at all? Or is that office of the appeal?

Complication aside, the film does come to a conclusive ending, and it'south a knockout. Not ane that will make sleeping easy, mind you. I don't want any complaints if this keeps you up at dark. But it's a great one nevertheless, paving a future for sure characters without needing a sequel to encounter their stories through. You already know what lies in wait for them, for better or worse.

And again, before I move on: I actually must insist that all movies feature dueling rituals. I cannot stress enough how compelling that scene is. Spotter information technology and thank me later on.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015)

Google Play, rated R, 121 minutes

Tom Hardy in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Ryan, why are y'all putting a straight-up action movie in Cringe Blog? Oasis't you strayed from the theme plenty this year? I hateful, last week's installment had 2 movies that barely qualified under any metric. Where'southward "The Haunting of Bly Manor?" Where'due south "Rebecca?" Where's the HORROR?!?

Good questions, Ryan. Commencement of all, shut up. Second of all, my blog, my rules. 3rd of all, one of those might be coming next calendar week. Quaternary of all, "Mad Max: Fury Route" is the ultimate Halloween pic. Or information technology should be, anyway. Really, we should be talking about the phenomenon that is this movie every twenty-four hours for the rest of fourth dimension. But let's focus on the Halloween of it all for now. Is it prepare in the fall? Tough to tell when information technology's set in the apocalyptic Australian outback. A strike against it? Perhaps, but listen to my other points beginning:

• Put all of the characters in this film, large and small-scale roles akin, into a hat. Choice ane. Boom, that's your Halloween costume. A great choice. You lot seriously cannot get wrong. Look at this guy. Wait at this person. LOOK AT THE DOOF WARRIOR. There has never been a libation small-scale character in any picture than the Doof Warrior, the leader of the War Boys' traveling battle band who signals his ground forces'south arrival by absolutely shredding on an electric guitar (that shoots flames) while strapped to bungee cords on a big-ass truck.
• Furiosa (Charlize Theron). That'southward it, that'southward the bullet bespeak.
• The opening scene, where Max (Tom Hardy) tries to escape from the War Boys while being haunted past visions of his past failures, is incredibly scary, even more than so because director George Miller, an actual insane person, made the decision to speed up the footage to the betoken where the human eye tinjust barelycomprehend what it is seeing. The result is an almost 3D-similar effect, or like you're at a haunted firm with never-ending strobe lights. The first fourth dimension I watched it, I wondered if my brain was breaking. At present I call back it's brilliant. There are other frightening things in this movie, such every bit the quick shot of the crow fishers in the swamp, but nothing beats the opening scene.
• For someone who doesn't get that much to practice, Immortan Joe is an all-time cracking villain, mostly because his name is Immortan Joe and he looks like this. (Costumes!) Miller makes him terrifying through other people's reactions to him as much equally his own actions. When he runs, he looks like an adult version of a "Ability Rangers" villain and it rules.

Charlize Theron in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

• Furiosa!
• It is genuinely incredible to me that no died while making this motion picture. The unabridged movie, more or less, is a massive car hunt involving fire and big rigs and off-route cars and leaping motorcycles and many, many pole stunts. Tom Hardy spends 45 or so minutes literally strapped to the front of a car going 140 mph like the figurehead on the bow of a transport. If you have a half hour, I highly recommend this backside-the-scenes wait at the film and how it pulled off a lot of these stunts. It's worth it to hear how genuine the terror in Hardy'south phonation is when talking about it all.
• At one indicate, a character says "Witness me, bloodbag," a seemingly breathless trio of words to anyone who has not watched the motion picture, but in actuality a powerful and emotional trio of words. That's what good movies do: create a world from scratch, teach you information technology'southward rules and culture and so brand you care about those things.
• A dude gets his face ripped off, which is pretty sick.
• FURIOSA!!!!!!!
• "Fury Route" manages to simultaneously be a "women go revenge on their abusers and take control of their lives" pic and be a "dudes rock" film, which is an unheard of feat. It should have won Best Moving picture for that lone. (Thanks, "Spotlight," a movie only journalists think exists at present.)

I experience like I have fabricated my case for "Fury Road," the best action movie of at least the past 20 years if not longer. If, however, you still take some complaints, please experience free to email them to [email protected].

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Source: https://www.yourobserver.com/article/cringe-blog-i-live-i-die-i-live-again

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