I watched the 'Melchior the Apothecary' trilogy over three nights. I was surprised at how great the sets, costumes and sound design were. It seems like they shot these films within a relatively short period and on a reasonably low budget, but I thought they looked and sounded great and that helped connect me to the world and the characters which, again somewhat surprisingly, really paid off in the final film. All three are around the 90 minute mark, but don't feel rushed (although I think they all could have benefitted from a slight extension to the runtime). The mysteries are passable but nothing special - actually I'd say they're probably one of the weaker aspects of the films. However, if you enjoy historical dramas or medieval settings then I think you'd really enjoy these three films like I did. I'd like to read the novels they are based on, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like many have been translated from the original Estonian to English.
Ilandar
And I’d call it creepy rather than scary.
I found the first portion of the film set in Transylvania very scary. Honestly I think it peaked around then and the rest of the film, although still good, never got close to reaching those heights.
I don't tolerate it at all, to be honest. I think it's a complete joke how acceptable blatant phone addiction has become in society; a third of my sessions at the cinema have people using phones during the film now. There is no such thing as "watching in the background" - you're either watching it or you're not watching it. You can put a film on in the background but don't tell me you watched it, because you didn't. It's such a widespread problem now that there has even been debate about whether some modern writers are instructed to dumb down their dialogue so that people who refuse to look up from their dopanime injector can follow the basic plot.
if you watch it, don’t doomscroll at the same time.
It's sad that you actually felt the need to tell people this in a movies community. What a time we live in.
I guess I will need to rewatch 2049 again (I've only seen it once, in the cinema at release). I've watched the original quite a few times since though and I'm increasingly of the opinion that it's quite overrated and gets heavily carried by the visuals and the soundtrack, so I could see a case being made for the sequel being better.
I made it a bit further but also gave up. I guess I wasn't particularly interested in a Nolan biographical feature to begin with (I feel he is better suited to fiction), but it definitely felt like one of his most self-fellating efforts yet. Sort of just confrationally different for the sake of being different. I bet his fanboys ate it up, though.
I've watched Simon Roper's YouTube channel for many years, so the idea of cinema in a language I don't fully understand isn't as intimidating to me as maybe it is to others. It's an interesting challenge that I'd definitely be up for, as I have an underlying interest in linguistics and old languages. The great thing about working in the horror genre is that you generally don't need to rely on a scipt to tell your audience. It's a genre that relies heavily on visual storytelling.
western people with vague ties
???????????
Besides a few people that lived most of their lives in the Middle East, not China, there are no witnesses or ‘victims’.
Families in Uyghur communities around the world have referenced the camps with regards to their missing friends and relatives. Here are some from my city. It's intellectually dishonest to suggest there are no witnesses or evidence.
What did you think of it? I've been planning to watch it for ages based purely on the hype, but it's not the type of genre I'd usually go for so I'm not sure whether I'll enjoy it.
How did you feel about the opening 45 minutes or whatever it was? The constant time skips, loud music in every scene, etc?
Here's a non-AI generated version of this story back from 2010 when it was actually news.