Part of The LibraryLad Challenge 2024
42/52
No. 11: Recent releases
Watch as our thin veneer of civilisation and self-restraint dissolves and the horror of the id is unleashed. Is this what we all are, just below the surface? A writhing mass of meat and bones and lust and fear and violence and screaming? Remind me never to take LSD.
The choreography of this thing is unbelievable. First, the dance sequences, hypnotic and captivating and so, so skillful; a taste…
Part of The LibraryLad Challenge 2024
41/52
No. 3: Oscar Winners
I must admit I didn’t get this movie at all. It’s kind of ugly and perplexing. Dream sequences and flashbacks are intriguing and disconcerting but the main storyline goes nowhere.
The internet tells me it’s a gay love story but Dustin Hoffman is playing a cartoon rat in human form, with Jon Voight as an empty-headed doofus and, as far as I can tell, they liked each other only slightly more than I did (which is not at all).
Part of The LibraryLad Challenge 2024
37/52
No. 9: Oscar winners
The very definition of “they don’t make them like they used to”. Nothing about this film should work: a wordy and cerebral exploration of the case of Sir Thomas More, the loyal and pious 16th Century courtier, who refused to swear that Henry VIII was head of the church in England. Consisting mostly of men in rooms arguing over semantics, it should be dry as dust and yet it…
Part of The LibraryLad Challenge 2024
25/52
No. 4: Oscar Winners
Makes a convincing case that the American dream is getting punched in the face a hundred times by Carl Weathers.
1970s America continues to look like a war-torn country, and this is a surprisingly heartfelt story of poverty and determination, even if the climactic boxing match is the most boring bit.