Friday Night Flicks

Let the Right One In (2008, Sweden) tells  the story of  Oskar and Eli. Two school age children who fall in love for the first time.  Oskar is a skinny blond weakling who is constantly picked on by schoolyard bullies. Eli is a dark haired gypsy looking girl who happens to be a vampire.

The story begins with Oskar practicing with a knife against an imaginary enemy. It’s at this time we meet Eli who moves into Oskar’s apartment building with her grandfather. It has all the appearances of love at first sight.

As the story progresses we learn more of Oskar and Eli’s relationship.  Conversations are had, candy shared and affections grow. During this time we also learn more of Eli’s condition. Her thirst for blood, her aversion to sunlight and her natural vampiric abilities,  tendencies and weaknesses.   The filmmakers did a great job of unveiling Eli’s conditions slowly throughout the movie. Things you expect to happen don’t, at least on the schedule you might have in your movie going mind.

Along with a wonderful story the visuals of this movie are well shot.This beauty of this film is its capture of the essence of a long cold Stockholm winter: People sip schnapps in local pubs, students practice swimming in huge indoor aquatic centers and frozen rivers dot the landscape accompanied by huge snow drifts.

The strong point of this movie is the believable relationship between Eli and Oskar. I found myself wanting the relationship to flourish while also finding myself concerned that the relationship couldn’t possibly last.

This flick should be put right on top of your Friday Night Flick queue.

The pitch for Repo! The Genetic Opera had to be strange. “The future is bleak; the world’s population suffers from organ failure and in steps GeneCo with its proven organ transplant technology. Consumers now have the power to purchase their own organ transplants. These organ transplants are expensive but once again GeneCo provides a convenient solution:  payment plans. These payment plans come with a catch: if you don’t pay we send the Repo Man.  Oh wait one more thing:  this movie is going to be an opera set to heavy metal music!”

Last night I had the privilege of witnessing a rock opera that had elements of some of my favorite films. The external world look combined elements of   City of Lost Children, Blade Runner , Brazil and Stardust . The stage opera world reminded me a lot of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime .     And the characters and actions of Repo reminded me a lot of   Hostel .

The acting in the movie was fairly comic bookish. Paul Sorvino does a fair job as Rotti Largo (founder and owner of GeneCo). I don’t think this role was a real stretch for him but I was impressed that he sang his own operatics. The person I thought was cast the best was Paris Hilton in the Role of Amber Sweet. Amber sweet is Largo’s self obsessed daughter who is fixed on with her own organ transplants. She did a good job in this role.

This is a picture worth seeing if you are into genre films.  Don’t go in expecting to see Academy Award presentations but just to have a good 2 hour self indulgent experience.

Today’s movie fare was Danish movie Just Another Love Story . This movie is a warped/twisted (and much better) version of the movie  While You Were Sleeping.

The movie starts with three love story vignettes. The first: a man laying on the concrete describing how the police will soon arrive to chalk his body, the second: a couple making love and finally:  a man wincing at the .357 Magnum being pointed at his head by a lovely young lady.

At the conclusion of “love” stories we begin our movie. The story starts with our protagonist Jonas. Jonas is a forensic photographer leading a rather unremarkable life with a wife, two children and a broken ass piece of shit car.

On the way to drop the kids off at school. Jonas’ car breaks down causing a crash which drastically injures our 2^nd protagonist Julia. Feeling guilty Jonas goes to visit Julia in the hospital taking the role of Julia’s abusive boyfriend Sebastian.  Jonas becomes infatuated with Julia, Julia’s family becomes infat stuated with “Sebastian”, Jonas’ police buddies give him crap for the situation he is in. All the while we gain a better understanding of obsession, abuse, stagnate marriage and the reach for something supposidly better.

Brilliant performances and a well composed noir script make this a film worth watching.