00 Week: The fear of Voodoo and the supernatural, still deeply, primevally ingrained

LIVE AND LET DIE

1973

Directed by Guy Hamilton

Written by Tom Mankiewicz (based on the novel by Ian Fleming)

Spoilers: severe

Cardboard Science: But the film is a saddening bore

THE ANGRY RED PLANET

1959

Directed by Ib Melchior

Written by Sid Pink and Ib Melchior

Spoilers: moderate

Reviews from gulag: Get behind me 2025 (part 1?)

More capsule or at least capsulish reviews as we finally finish cleaning up the movies of the previous year, three months and change into the new one.  Herein we discuss Resurrection, House of Dynamite, Black Bag, and The Running Man.

RESURRECTION

Can you guess the theme of these five graybles?  I didn't, despite it being exactly as childishly simple as The Senses, which I choose to hold against the movie rather than myself because it did "taste" twice; or at least it obscured "touch"—the segment with vampires is the one that does "touch"—though since that one is also the long take with the stabilized camera, maybe that was intended to expand our consciousness and include "the vestibular."

Resurrection is legitimately less than the sum of its parts, as sometimes happens with anthologies, and I'm not even altogether sold on most of the parts, though the opening is pretty nifty and seems like it ought to be in possession of a more interesting movie following on from it, not so much because of its framing narrative (that framing narrative—"IN A WORLD WHERE DREAMS ARE AGAINST THE LAW, ONE MAN IS A CINEPHILE"—is, I'm sorry, as off-puttingly wanky as it gets), but because it's a fascinating pastiche of silent cinema and early silent cinema at that, remarkably opting not to surrender color nor even allowing itself to be restrained by the primitive limitations of early color processes (though handschiegl and general-issue tinting are, nevertheless, 100% evoked), but still very much managing to remind you of early Technicolor despite blatantly surpassing its capabilities, and bridging the rest of the gap with aspect ratio, shot selection, what amounts to basically non-editing, set design, obviously that framerate, and some good old Meliesisms.  Very cool, and I was a bit stoked to see how the advent of sound was treated as we follow Jackson Yee, playing a dreamer in various guises in various dreams, is explicitly sent on a death odyssey through history, generally, and the history of film, specifically, an art form well known for its engagement of all of the five senses.

You might not have heard of it, it's pretty obscure

THE HIDDEN

1987

Directed by Jack Sholder

Written by Jim Kouf and Jack Sholder

Spoilers: moderate