AIFF 2024 - Film #4
Jia Zhangke Ranked
The best film of the year and I cannot recommend it to a single human being...because unless you've seen Jia Zhangke's filmography, it is completely incomprehensible.
Caught By The Tides is...an experimental stream of consciousness tone poem that charts Zhangke's career and the tumultuous evolution of China over the past 20 years. Mostly comprised of repurposed footage from his older films (deleted scenes), as well as home video footage and newly filmed…
Sir Anthony Hopkins talking about Marvel:
“Sit on the throne, shout a bit. If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s pointless acting it.”
Sir Anthony Hopkins talking about Michael Bay:
“I thought, this guy’s a genius, he really is, he’s the same ilk as Oliver Stone and Spielberg and Scorsese. Brilliance. Savants, really, they are. He’s a savant. The movies are terrific. They’re created by a genius.”
I rest my case.
The set up runs about 20 minutes too long in the first half, weighing down what is otherwise a great 00s slasher film stuffed to the brim with creative kills and INSANE production design. In a gimmick that's so stupid it's brilliant, it's a genuine wonder it took the third House of Wax movie to follow through on the title and give us a literal House of Wax.
Sidenote: Why does the villain look like Glenn Danzig?
"Our entire life is a punishment."
And so was watching this movie...
Man, WHAT happened here? A sloppy, stilted and awkward mess of a film that feels like the direct result of a significantly longer edit cut down big time. So many ideas, topics, themes, characters and subplots that dissappear for long chunks of time or never pay off. A compelling premise so thinly explored with so little to say despite spouting out so much.
And worst of all? It's…
