#florian henckel von donnersmarck

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[gritocontido]

[supercalifragipopculturevomit]

Tagged by @hiddenxplaces-blog (cheers)

Top new watches of January 2025!

Most of the films I saw in January were good but not great. The sort that isn't exactly a 3.5 on the Letterboxd scale but also not a 4. Not a waste of time but nothing I would go out of my way to recommend either. These were the ones that got me the most engaged but I also enjoyed the cinematography of Queer and Nosferatu. It was also fascinating to see a very young Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures and a very gray Oscar Isaac in The Card Counter.

Also worth mentioning that I rewatched Anora — this time, in the big screen. I don't mind going to the movies alone, but for this screening, I was alone in the ENTIRE cinema. It was like getting a private lap dance??

[food-in-movies]

Werk ohne Autor (2018)

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Tourist (2010)

With names like Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, you’d expect a steamy romantic thriller from The Tourist. Unfortunately for anyone who gets suckered by the trailer, this is anything but. The stars are like two cold, dead fishes in a plastic bag hanging off the back of a garbage truck. They might be rubbing up real close but it’s not because they’re attracted to each other.

While under police surveillance, Elise Clifton-Ward (Angeine Jolie) is given instructions by her lover, Alexander Pearce. “Find a man about my height and build on the train to Venice, Italy. Convince them it’s me.” Pearce is wanted by Scotland Yard’s Inspector John Archeson (Paul Bettany) and the mobster he stole $2.3 billion from, Reginal Shaw (Steven Berkoff). Alexander's recently had cosmetic surgery so no one knows exactly what he looks and Elise goes along with his plan. On the train, Elise selects Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp). He’s smitten by the beautiful woman, unaware of what kind of adventure he’s about to embark upon.

You can see what the film wants to do. Elise is stringing along this man, this “regular guy” (we’ll get to that in a bit), keeping him out of harm’s way only so those in pursuit can become convinced that he’s Alexander Pearce. In the process, they fall in love. In theory, it would be romantic, exciting, and dangerous.

The first problem comes from the stars. Whenever Jolie and Depp kiss, you swear they’re about to wretch. They have no chemistry, whatsoever. It makes her sudden infatuation with him completely unbelievable. The casting's the problem. Depp has been named World’s Sexiest Man TWICE. It doesn’t matter how much he tries to bumble his way around stray bullets and cartoonish Russian mobsters, he’s unfit to play an everyman.

To compensate for the lack of sparks, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck makes the villains into cartoon supervillains. The idea is you'll hate them so much your brain will latch onto the “good guys” and cheer for them to succeed. It’s done with all of the subtlety of a grenade stuffed in your mouth. After Shaw finishes strangling one of his own minions for failing his mission, we’re told how he tracked down all the men who slept with his wife before they met, killed them, then killed his wife. Why stop there, movie? Have him kill their mothers and family doctors too! Oh, he says that he did? My mistake. The police are just as bad, with Inspector Archeson taking his obsession with Pearce to an inhuman extreme while the rest of the police fumble and stumble around this operation so poorly it’s a wonder they can manage to get their shirts buttoned all the way up.

Advertised as a travel romance (you bet it is, there are so many lavish shots of Venice here it’s like the city sponsored the movie) with thriller elements, what this is actually is a whole lotta nothing. Venice must the worst city to set an action movie. All of the boat chase scenes are slow, unengaging, and agonizingly long. The movie’s so dull you’ll be begging for it to end but it takes forever to get to its twisty conclusion: a surprise reveal so obvious its predictability is only surpassed by its convolutedness. So much of this film makes no sense or would’ve fallen apart completely if the characters hadn’t behaved in a very precise but illogical manner. You might think the movie is good but just kind of boring up until that moment. After the shocking conclusion, it’s pretty obvious this is little more than a vanity project gone way, way wrong. Can you believe this cinematic soporific cost $100 million dollars to shoot?

The funniest thing about The Tourist is that it was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards. Only the beautiful imagery throughout and the beautiful performers manage to elevate this picture above a 0-star rating. It’s that dull and fails that spectacularly. (May 15, 2021)

[borderedpip]

The Lives of Others (2006) 'Das Leben der Anderen'

Germany/France

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Starring: Ulrich Muhe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck

In 1983 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.

[positivexpectedvalue]

The Lives of Others (2006)

Dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

[thelatelatelatelatedoublefeature]

[hayaomiyazaki]

as i mentioned last week, i have refreshed about 300gb of content on my public googledrive 😙

an overview of most of what i added...

features

Olivia (1951) dir. Jacqueline Audry 🇫🇷🏳️‍🌈

A Child Is Waiting (1963) dir. John Cassavetes 🇺🇸

Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) dir. George Roy Hill 🇺🇸

Personal Best (1982) dir. Robert Towne 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈

Threads (1984) dir. Mick Jackson 🇬🇧

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989) dir. Bruce Robinson 🇬🇧

Salaam Bombay! (1988) dir. Mira Nair 🇮🇳

Romuald et Juliette (1989) dir. Coline Serreau 🇫🇷

And Life Goes On… /ㅤزندگی و دیگر هیچㅤ(1992) dir. Abbas Kiarostami 🇮🇷

Clean, Shaven (1993) dir. Lodge Kerrigan 🇺🇸

Wittgenstein (1993) dir. Derek Jarman 🇬🇧🏳️‍🌈

Butterfly Kiss (1995) dir. Michael Winterbottom 🇬🇧🏳️‍🌈

The Portrait of a Lady (1996) dir. Jane Campion 🇺🇸🇬🇧

Still Life / 三峡好人 (2006) dir. Jia Zhangke 🇨🇳

The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen (2006) dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 🇩🇪

Syndromes and a Century / แสงศตวรรษ (2006) dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul 🇹🇭

Lust, Caution / 色, 戒 (2007) dir. Ang Lee 🇺🇸🇨🇳🇹🇼

Liverpool (2008) dir. Lisandro Alonso 🇦🇷

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (2010) dir. James Kent 🇬🇧🏳️‍🌈

Tabu (2012) dir. Miguel Gomes 🇵🇹

No (2012) dir. Pablo Larraín 🇨🇱

The Blue Room / La Chambre bleue (2014) dir. Mathieu Amalric 🇫🇷

P'tit Quinquin (2014) dir. Bruno Dumont 🇫🇷

Still the Water / 2つ目の窓 (2014) dir. Naomi Kawase 🇯🇵

Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (2016) dir. Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau 🇫🇷🏳️‍🌈

The Breaking Ice / 燃冬 (2023) dir. Anthony Chen 🇨🇳🇸🇬

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World / Nu aștepta prea mult de la sfârșitul lumii (2023) dir. Radu Jude 🇷🇴

Scrapper (2023) dir. Charlotte Regan 🇬🇧

Kneecap (2024) dir. Rich Peppiatt 🇮🇪

documentaries

Night and Fog / Nuit et brouillard (1956) dir. Alain Resnais 🇫🇷

Chronicle of a Summer / Chronique d'un été (1961) dir. Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin 🇫🇷

In the Rearview / Skąd dokąd / Звідки куди (2023) dir. Maciek Hamela 🇵🇱🇺🇦

Christopher Eccleston Remembers… Jude (BBC, 2024)

Mick Jackson Remembers… Threads (BBC, 2024)

Joan Bakewell Remembers… Bette Davis at the NFT (BBC, 2024)

television

Love in the Big City / 대도시의 사랑법 (2024) 🇰🇷🏳️‍🌈

Wolf Hall (2024) 🇬🇧

books

William S. Burroughs – Queer (1985) 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈

Claire Keegan – Small Things Like These (2021) 🇮🇪

[guiltyasdave]

FAVORITE FIRST WATCHES OF NOVEMBER

Past Lives (2023) dir. Celine Song

Blue My Mind (2017) dir. Lisa Brühlmann

The Lives of Others (2006) dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) dir. Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton

The Substance (2024) dir. Coralie Fargeat

I, Tonya (2017) dir. Craig Gillespie

The Holdovers (2023) dir. Alexander Payne

Zodiac (2007) dir. David Fincher

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) dir. Justine Triet

npt for a few letterboxd friends: @always-andromeda @userparamore @pedropeach @agentmarcuspike @javier-pena @whocaresstillthelouvre @perotovar @ayo-edebiri @sceletaflores @joelsdagger @hellishjoel @moonlitbirdie @arcanefox207 @tonysopranosrobe and everyone else who wants to share! <3

[snowbairdd]

Angelina Jolie as Elise Clifton-Ward in THE TOURIST (2010) dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

[filministic]

Werk ohne Autor (2018) dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

[byneddiedingo]

Gene Hackman in The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Michael Higgins, Elizabeth MacRae, Teri Garr, Harrison Ford. Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola. Cinematography: Bill Butler. Production design: Dean Tavoularis. Film editing: Richard Chew. Music: David Shire.

The technology used in it may have dated, but The Conversation seems more relevant than ever. When it was made, the film was very much of the moment: the Watergate moment, which was long before email and cell phones. Julian Assange was only 3 years old. What has kept Coppola's film alive is that he had the good sense to make it a thriller about the consequences of knowledge. The real victim of Harry Caul's snooping is Harry Caul himself, the professional whose delight in what he can do with his microphones and tape recorders begins to fade when he realizes that technology is not an end in itself. It is one of the great Gene Hackman performances from a career crowded with great and varied performances. Ironically, the film that The Conversation most reminds me of today is The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's 2006 film about eavesdropping by the Stasi in East Germany, which was praised by conservatives like John Podhoretz and William F. Buckley and called one of "the best conservative movies of the last 25 years" by the National Review for its account of surveillance by a communist regime. But Harry Caul is a devout Roman Catholic and an entrepreneur, making his living with the same technology and the same techniques as the Stasi spy of Donnersmarck's film -- capitalism alive and well. The film is something of a technological marvel itself: The great sound designer and editor Walter Murch was responsible for completing it after Coppola was called away to work on The Godfather, Part II, and the texture of the film depends heavily on the way Murch was able to manipulate the complexities of sound that form the key scenes, especially the opening sequence in which Caul is conducting his surveillance of a couple in San Francisco's crowded and busy Union Square. It's true that Murch cheats a little at the ending, when the line, "He'd kill us if he got the chance," is repeated. Caul had extracted it from a distorted recording, and took it to mean that the couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) were in danger from the man who commissioned the surveillance. But at the end, the line is heard again as "He'd kill us if he got the chance," an emphasis that reveals to Caul, too late, that they are the killers, not the victims. It's unfortunate that so much depends on the discrepancy between the way we originally hear the line and the later delivery of it. Still, I don't think it's a fatal flaw in a vital and gripping movie.

[o-druida-ebrio]

"A Vida dos Outros", (2006)

Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK # 215:

2 OSCAR-NOMINATED GERMAN DRAMAS:

🍿 NEVER LOOK AWAY (2018) is an epic (3+hrs) drama diving into German history and art history, my second by "Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck". (He was born 20 years to the day after me - and his first Very Important Work was 'The life of others').

The first act is oppressive and intellectually-dense, as it tells of a beautiful young woman in the Third Reich who's lucky enough to hand Hitler a bouquet of flowers when his motorcade passes through Dresden, but who's later diagnosed as schizophrenic, so she gets sterilized and mercy-killed by the Nazis. It's dark and tragic, and hard to take.

But then the film shifts gears into a biopic of her little nephew who grows up to be a painter, loosely-based on the real and famous artist Gerhard Richter (still alive today at 93). Through 20 or 30 years of inner turmoils he finds his artistic truth, by harking back to his early memories of the aunt. This is the weaker part of the story. The movie was the only second German movie that was nominated for two Oscars, but in spite of its vast ambitions, felt too uneven.

With the magnetic Paula Beer as his muse. 7/10.

🍿 EVERYTHING WILL BE OK (2015) is about an 8-yo girl whose divorced father picks from her estranged mom, for his bimonthly visits. Things seem normal at first - but they aren't. Desperation & heartbreak - I know them so well! 8/10.

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KUROSAWA + SHAKESPEARE X 2:

🍿 First watch: The first of Kurosawa's three Shakespeare adaptations, THRONE OF BLOOD takes Macbeth and transports it into feudal Japan. It's the gold standard of five-star entertainment. Toshiro Mifune in top form, the delusional husband of a manipulative Lady Macbeth in Noh white-face. Murderous ambition brings tragic consequences. Filmed on Mt. Fuji in the fog, and (in the final scene) shot with real arrows. (Photo Above).

🍿 RAN, his re-imagining of 'King Lear', a magnificent epic with breathtaking cinematography, made when he was 75. What if Shakespeare was transported to 1985 and was present at a large screen performance of it, with English translation. I wonder how he would react. My majestic viewing of the week.

I've already seen his Hamlet adaptation, 'The Bad Sleep Well', a few years ago. (With the wedding scene that inspired the one at the beginning of 'The Godfather').

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"...Life can be bright in America / If you can fight in America / Life is all right in America / If you're a white in America..."

WEST SIDE STORY (1961), another unorthodox, iconic Shakespeare interpretation, a musical adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet'. It played out in the Upper West side of Manhattan, between a gang of young Polish delinquents and a gang of (brown-face) Puerto Ricans. The five classic numbers ('Maria', 'America', 'Tonight', 'I feel pretty' and 'Somewhere') were the highlights of the plot. A dazzling love story between a boy and a girl, written by four gay men (Robbins, Bernstein, Sondheim and Laurents) in the ultra-conservative mid-50's, it unapologetically included "Anybodys", an early non-binary trans character.

The Spielberg 2021 version was even brighter.

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I heard good things about the 1996 LAST MAN STANDING, in that it is a remake of Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo'. But then I heard wrong, because Walter Hill is no Kurosawa, Bruce Willis is definitely no Toshiro Mifune, and this sad, cliche-ridden story had nothing in it that merited a watch. Even the Ry Cooder score, and the scar-faced Christopher Walken couldn't save it from itself. 2/10 is too generous.

Next: Welles 'Chimes at Midnight'.

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"On the rung of employment, it's beneath taxidermy, it's beneath bellhop... Bellhops get uniforms..."

THE PARKING LOT MOVIE (2010) is a terrific, joyful documentary about a group of "insanely over-educated people working at a service sector job", i.e. students and graduates from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, many from the departments of Anthropology or Philosophy. Most are eccentric slacker-intellectuals and they put in their time at this small, independent corner parking lot as attendants / ticket-takers. One of the guys [I didn't realize it - but they were all guys!] ended up playing the bass for 'Yo La Tengo'. An oddball, entertaining and feel-good gem. This was the only movie directed by this Meghan Eckman. I wonder what other quirky wonders could she make, if this movie had became well-known. Highly recommended - 8/10. [*Female Director*] I discovered it via Kevin Kelly's Livestream.

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3 DANISH THRILLERS:

🍿 KING'S GAME (2004) a Danish political thriller and my 3rd by Nikolaj Arcel. It's a traditional plot, seen many times before in various forms, about a new parliamentary journalist who cares too much about the truth for his own sake, and who discovers a conspiracy perpetuated by a politician at the Danish 'Folketing' who's about to become the next Prime Minister. Power struggles and the corruption of ideals but with a Scandinavian bent. With two smaller roles by my favorite Danish actors Nicolas Bro, as a background 'stringer' and Lars Brygmann as a helpless, depressed husband. 4/10.

🍿 THE ELEVATOR (2021), a 4 minute horror-thriller about a young man who is stuck in an elevator. 8/10.

More from the Danish-Bulgarian Toni Genov, 2088, a very low-budget "Computer-screen" thriller, [Like 'Searching' and 'Missing'] with two physicists in the year 2088 discussing the sudden disappearance of a college.

🍿

When I saw Bertrand Tavernier's dark 'Coup de Torchon' last week, I wasn't aware that it wasn't his first existential period drama with Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert. THE JUDGE AND THE ASSASSIN (1976) also starred the mesmerizing Noiret as a complicated authority figure and Huppert as his 23-yo, mistreated mistress. This is a beautiful, strange and multi-layered story which was based on a real-life serial killer from the end of the 19th century. He was an insane vagabond who cruelly raped and murdered dozens of teenagers, as he was drifting around the countryside. Noiret however is an ambitious and duplicitous judge, and the plot drifts in and out from their cat-and-mouse pursuit into one describing a larger society in flux, a system of corrupt justice that is far from just, and morals that are complex, unclear and though-provoking.

(I also started watching his tremendous last work, 'My Journey through French Cinema', but at nearly 4 hours long, I'm still in the middle of, so I'll log it next week.)

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TWILIGHTS (1994) are the surrealistic adventures of a young Japanese boy, maybe a ghost, who died at 3 o'clock of the 3rd of the month, but refuses to accept his own death, so he keeps running away from it. It's a 33-minute silent movie slapstick comedy, with endless modern cinematic tricks.

The final, extended 4-minute long shot (starting at 25:45) is alone worth the price of admission.

🍿

"David Lynch's Office Space..."

I'm waiting for the end of Season 2 of SEVERANCE, so that I can binge-watch it all in one gulp, as Dog intended. I have a general fond recollection of the first season, while not remembering any of the details from it, and so I re-watched the pilot, GOOD NEWS ABOUT HELL. ♻️.

I'm surprised that I only gave it a mediocre review in 2022: Apple’s new, much-lauded and compelling series, a speculative sci-fi mystery box, where weird conspiracies stay purposefully unexplained. Dystopian exploration of office life with sinister sense of Scientology-related cultist oppression (added no doubt by the Tom Cruise-lookalike main actor). With John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette, and a terrific final episode. It was very bingeable, but I doubt I’ll join them for the second season next year. (The Opening Credits Were Good). 5/10.

I think I may appreciate the new Season more.

🍿

The upcoming biopic 'Mr. Burton' (about Richard) doesn't look like it's gonna be any good, but I thought I'll try Welsh director Marc Evans' highest-rated previous film, SNOW CAKE from 2006. However, this TV-drama type romance was mediocre and predictable. Depressed Alan Rickman gives a lift to an eccentric youngster who dies when a truck crushes into them. He visits her mother Sigourney Weaver to apologize, and discovers that she's a high-functioning autistic woman living alone in a small town in snowy Ontario, Canada. Not knowing much about ASD, it felt like a stretch, not representing the impairment with any accuracy. 3/10.

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LOST KUBRICK: THE UNFINISHED FILMS OF STANLEY KUBRICK (2007), a trifle documentary that focused mostly on his Napoleon and Holocaust projects. Malcolm McDowell narrated.

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THE INDUSTRIAL-MILITARY COMPLEX / INTERNATIONAL ARM TRADE X 2:

🍿 THE INEXTINGUISHABLE FIRE (1969), my first by German Harun Farocki, an experimental anti-establishment documentarian and Brechtian theorist. This is an essay that examines the process of scientific R&D at a Dow Chemical factory, as they research and manufacture Napalm, to be used in Vietnam.

"First you’ll close your eyes to the images, then to the memory, then to the facts, then to the whole story...”

🍿 "War is a racket. It always has been."

The documentary SHADOW WORLD should have been catnip for people like me. It investigates the immense, secret profits of the international arm trade, the massive corruption and collusion between politics and industry, the need for a state of Permanent War to sustain a trillion dollar pipeline of death and destruction, and how fake are the public perception of 'security' and 'democracy'.

But with so much footage to support it, the movie just pulls random clips from all over the place, all covered by ominous soundtrack, and jumps from one phrase to another, from one postulate to another without any rhyme or reason. Also, even though it came out in 2016, it mostly re-litigates the war crimes perpetuated before and after 9/11. So it brings together Prince Bandar, the Iran-Contra scandal, Jeremy Scahill, Cheney's Halliburton, Obama Nobel Peach speech, Bush Jr. shoe thrower, Lawrence Wilkerson's Mea Culpa, The despicable Margaret Thatcher Tony Blair and other anti-heroes of the roaring 80's and 90's. It was just terrible. 1/10.

It was my first by Belgian documentarian Johan Grimonprez. I still want to find his FOUR CHAMBERS TO THE HEART (about Renaissance master-painter Sofonisba Anguissola!) - but I will probably skip now his Oscar-nominated 'Soundtrack to a Coup d’État'!

🍿

THE DRIVER'S SEAT (1974) was an off-beat Italian turkey, starring Elizabeth Taylor as a high-strung, insane spinster, looking for someone in Rome who will murder her. I learnt about it on an intriguing r/truefilm thread, but it was too demented for me. ⬇️Could Not Finish⬇️

🍿

2 BY DUTCH ANIMATOR NINA GANTZ:

🍿 Her latest, 'Wander to Wonder', is nominated for this year's Oscars. Her ZALIGER (2010) is a perfect B&W linocut-style short about a widower who still thinks about his wife.

🍿 EDMOND (2015) is a weird portrait of an awkward, suicidal man, possibly with cannibalistic tendencies dealing with his social anxiety.[*Female Director*]

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2 SPANISH SHORTS BY ALBERT PINTÓ:

🍿 NOTHING CO. (2014) is a brilliant black comedy: After 3 years of unemployment, a very short desperate man gets a job offer where he must sit alone in a chair and do nothing. "Do as you're told and collect a paycheck."

🍿 THERE'S STILL TIME (2014) is a young person fantasy about a guy who was dumped by his girlfriend, and is now stuck in a time loop. Every time he comes back, he's multiplying. 2/10.

🍿

7+1 EARLY SHORTS OF GREAT DIRECTORS:

🍿 THE BANK NOTE (1907), my first by French Louis Feuillade, who was discovered by my crush Alice Guy-Blaché, and who went on to direct 800 (!) silent films, including the series of Fantômas and Les Vampires. This is a terrific story about a tramp who saves a robbery victim and receives as a reward a large note, which he can't redeem. Told perfectly in visuals - no need for any verbal explanation. 9/10.

🍿 THE BRIDGE (1929), the first silent film by Charles Vidor, (who went on to make 'Gilda'.) It's the first adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" about a man about to be hanged during the Civil war, who sees his whole life flashing before him. I already seen the 1961 Oscar-winning French version. 8/10.

🍿 PEOPLE OF THE POE VALLEY (1947), Michelangelo Antonioni's very first documentary about the poor peasants and fisherman who live along the river. Neo-realism 1.0.

🍿 IT'S NOT JUST YOU, MURRAY (1964) was actually Martin Scorsese's second film [His first, 'What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?' was way too puerile]. It's a solid Film School crime-comedy, with many of his later obsessions already pronounced. First time he used his mom Catherine, the Felliniesque mobster world view, the joy of abundance. 6/10. [I still haven't seen 'Boxcar Bertha'.]

🍿 Because I'm a completist, I watched Alexander Payne's very first film school short, CARMEN (1985), the only one of his I haven't seen before. It's an offensive, silent slapstick experiment about a drooling imbecile who works at a gas station in the desert. NO! 1/10.

🍿 The omnibus INCOHERENCE (1994) was Bong Yoon Ho's first production after film school. The unrelated episodes tells of 3 respected members of society, a teacher who reads 'Penthouse', a jogger who steals milk from doorsteps, and a drunk expert who has to take a shit in the street late at night. In the epilogue they all appear on a TV talk show, and seem as normal as everybody else would.

🍿 FORCED HILARITY (2001) on the other hand was a much better Edgar Wright short with thought balloons, an early Nick Frost appearance and one dramatic plot twist.

🍿 (Not exactly the first or great, but) CAKE (2017) with Maxine Peake. 2 well dressed women at a barren end-of-the-line road don't want to wait for Godot, so they discuss the best way to die. Artsy.

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THROW-BACK TO THE ADORA ART PROJECT:  

Adora with Akira Kurosawa.

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(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).