Unknown (2011) (solid Liam Neeson movie)

Is anybody else here a fan of this movie? I am one. It's not UNBELIEVABLY original... if you try to imagine a combination of the old Harrison Ford movie Frantic (1988) and The Bourne Identity (2002), you can imagine the general idea. There might be some elements of other Jason Bourne movies, and maybe even a little Trading Places (1982), in a totally non-comedy sort of way... and, there is, arguably, a little Resident Evil (2002) in there, too. OK, sorry, this is probably just a confusing way of describing it. As I said, it's not super super super original, but it's gripping, interesting, has some good twists and good performances, and just generally does not feel like a waste of time.

Anyway, yeah, if you are a Liam Neeson fan, you shouldn't miss this one. Without giving too much away: his character and January Jones' character, a married couple, fly into a Berlin airport at the beginning of the movie. They are on their way to some sort of big biotechnology conference... it sounds vaguely impressive and globally elite, but we don't get a super-clear sense of what it's all about, at first.

They take a taxi to their hotel. Liam Neeson is outside the hotel getting their bags out of the taxi, as his wife goes in, to the concierge desk area, to check in. Suddenly Liam N realizes that they accidentally left one of their suitcases at the airport, and he heads back to the airport, without really explaining what's going on to his wife. You can tell he's going to let her know what's happening by phone, but he just has to really hurry back to the airport if he wants to have a prayer of getting their suitcase before some lowlife nabs it. On his way back, his taxi gets in an accident and is thrown into a river (probably the Spree river, I think... is that a famous thing in Berlin?!?!? I had to google it). Liam N is knocked unconscious during the accident, and ends up in a coma. He is in a coma for several days, and when he wakes up in a local hospital he is very disoriented and confused, with some memory loss.

After he wakes up, he goes to see his wife. But... she doesn't recognize him. She has no idea who he is, and is absolutely cold (albeit polite) to him, although they seemed to be very much in love in the earlier scenes. Also, there is another man claiming to be who he thinks he is, and this guy has plenty of ID to prove it, unlike Liam N.

Liam N doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to get into too much trouble with the hotel security guys, and this whole thing is all complicated for him because he doesn't really speak German. Also, it is very cold out, (they say it's four below zero... that's probably in Celsius, but the 20s are still pretty cold if you're afraid you'll have to sleep on a park bench). ALSO, this is all happening on the American Thanksgiving, so the American embassy or consulate services staff are all taking the day off, and are not available to him.

Also, by the way... someone is trying to kill him.

He has no idea what the hell is going on. He still has very limited, unclear memories of who he is. A nurse from the hospital writes down the address of a friend of hers who she says might be able to help him, but she can't communicate much more because her English is not so great, and also because the killer guy kills her, so that affects her ability to communicate.

He ends up connecting with his former taxi driver (Diane Kruger!). They try to figure out what to do, as they are pursued by the killer(s). They go to see the dead nurse's friend, an ex-Stasi secret police operative guy, played by Bruno Ganz. I liked his scenes a lot, you can really see the wheels turning in his mind as he tries to understand what the situation is. He has some interesting interactions with a Frank Langella character who shows up soon. Those might be my favorite scenes in the whole movie, actually, although seeing Liam N in action is also always great of course, and getting to look at January Jones and Diane Kruger for long periods of time doesn't suck either.

So... I shouldn't say much more, but there are great car chases, excellent mayhem in general, and some cool looks at the underclass of refugees from various places in the world, trying to survive in Berlin.

Soooooooo yeah. Check it out!

FUCK AMBER HEARD!!!

Okay... so just another reminder! Amber Heard Sucks, and Johnny Depp deserves better. I think he handled stepping down from his role very respectfully, but if he has to step down due to his controversy, shouldn't Amber Heard have to step down from her role in aqua man sequels? Personally I think this is all BS!

Deepwater Horizon movie

I am watching it on FX right now. Jesus. I keep thinking, people should use clips from this movie, from just before the explosion, to connote extreme pressure. Like, you know... pressure not to fail, pressure to do the right thing, to say the right thing, whatever... just any kind of psychological pressure that people feel. I guess I mean they should do it in comedy movies, but Deepwater Horizon is not funny at all. Whew.

Oh dear... a new Dark Shadows?

https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3582757/classic-tv-series-dark-shadows-making-return-cw-dark-shadows-reincarnation/

This will be the third time they've tried to revive it, and the second time that the CW will try their hand at it. The CW though? Really? The guy doing it claims to want to make it a "sequel" series as similar to the original as possible, but you know that wont happen. They're going to fudge it up for sure, but I'll still keep my eyes on this one, just out of sheer curiosity.

Music/songs that touch you?

Well I believe it was Snowy who made a topic not so long ago asking which movies brought tears to your eyes. I bet there must be music that make you feel likewise or just touched. Name some songs, music, artists or just even the voices.

I for example dream away by beautiful voices (mostly female). My examples:

Dolores O' Riordan (RIP) from the Cranberries. Even though Zombie and Salvation are the most known , John Lennon died is another powerful one. However Though I think Ode to my Family is one of the most beautiful:



It's funny but I never really liked the Neverending Story. However the theme song from Limahl is so catchy and nicely sung:




Donna Lewis, another one with a real warm voice. You surely must have heard about I love you always forever':



Cyndi Lauper, another special voice tone that touches. Girls wanna have fun, Time after Time and True Colours are classics. But I always had a soft spot for 'That's what I think':



Whigfield, usually singing upbeat songs like 'Sexy Eyes' but was also capable of bringing sadder songs like 'Ain't it blue' really love the accompanying music too:




Rammstein oh yes this German band is definitely loved by music fans who like it it a bit louder, heavier. But they really made some strong emotional ones like Mutter (Mother):



Louise Tucker, schooled as an opera singer, tried her luck at pop songs early 1980s with songs like Midnight Blue but I absolutely adore her version of the Elisabethan Serenade titled 'Only for you', oh and those 80s sounds:





Belinda Carlisle, I know it's a cliché song but hey I love it, 'Heaven is a place on earth':



Roxette was a Swedish duo (RIP Marie Fredriksson) bringing pop rock music with hits such as 'The Look' and 'Dressed for Success'. There is lots of softer stuff from them and i's hard to make a choice but I'll go for 'Listen to Your heart':



'Abide with me' is said to be the song being played when the Titanic was slowly meeting its end. My favorite version is this one sung by Hayley Westenra:



Even though this one is clearly created in the memory of the American Civil War, I think it's also still applicable to so many other countries where different regions have their conflicts and wars. 'The Grey and the Blue'





Last but not least, the Eurovision Song contest winner in 1964, Gigliola Cinquetti from Italy with Non Ho l'Eta (I am too young), an angelic voice:




Well I feel obliged to add a singer from my own country. Even though she wasn't a favorite of mine in the past, recently I have gotten really into her songs. Petra started her musical career at 17 singing in her mother tongue, late eighties when Flemmish pop music really started to boom. Her first songs were more focused on instrumental new wave music with (the New Beat a predecessor of techno from the 90s actually originates from Belgium). Even though the dept of a song can catch me sometimes I just love this more instrumentally focused stuff. One of her first was Jij daar (Hey you).





Even though Petra was known for extravagant haircuts, clothing and lvvid dance moves she truly had a wonderful voice too IMO, like in this one 'Ik hou van jou' (I love you) and 'Als ik droom' (When I am dreaming)






One of her inspirations was Ann Christy, another Flemmish singer dying at 38, who is considered as one of the best singer from my country. One of her most famous ones was 'De Roos' (The Rose) based on the song from Bette Middler:

Happy Halloween 2020

As far as this year goes, my day has been pretty good. Halloween falls on a Saturday night, so I don't have to work tomorrow. I can sit back, get drunk and high, and watch horror flicks all night, and fall back an hour early tomorrow morning. I have pizza, I'm ready for trick-or-treaters, and I hope I don't exhaust myself too early, because this is Halloween NIGHT.

This month's challenge turned out alright. It's always good to see old faces making a triumphant return, though I'll always miss a few people. I haven't watched too many new gems, but I can walk away from this challenge with at least one movie that I really enjoyed: "Ice Cream Man" with Clint Howard. The Werewolf 1956 had decent vibes too, but I was too high to pay full attention. Since my FTV endeavor was pretty shitty, I hope I can make that up for next month with some really shitty movies. Turkeys are the bee's knees.


As a side announcement, I am still working on new TE projects. My main endeavor is focusing on non-html and full on applications. Organizing the structure of this mess eats a lot of my time, but it's a work in progress, and you'll see some of it eventually. It'll be the next evolutionary step in TE's life cycle.



So how's everyone's Halloween? Is it as shitty as the year, or is there a light at the end of the tunnel? SPEAK, damn you!

Jeanne Tripplehorn, as Rhonda Shear

This is pretty wild. She wasn't literally playing Rhonda Shear from USA Up All Night here, but... just sort of a similar character. It must have been really hard for her to play such an airhead, she always comes across as so intelligent. Her Wikipedia article said she was on a local show in Tulsa called Creature Feature, back in the early 80s when she was in her late teens, and maybe when she was 20. I was looking for that, but seeing her on this show from her Tulsa days, Night Shift, is pretty fun to see. She is on in the beginning, until about 1:07, and then again at the end, from about 5:11 until the end.

Old School Halloween Songs

The Blob (1958) theme song is pretty funny:



And we can't forget Spider Baby (1968):



Other great throwback tunes are the F13-3 theme, Monster Mash (that whole fucking album is great!), and most importantly... The Silver Shamrock jingle. I forgot to annoy people with that gag this year. I'm ashamed of myself.

City of the Living Dead - What a Mess

Since I have no imagination of my own anymore, I let Amazon Prime recommend everything. I first saw this piece of shit in my early horror endeavors when it was shown in about 10 parts on youtube. Even then, this movie didn't impress me. However, I've grown to accept Fulci's shitty standards as a goldmine of stupid Italian subtleties. I get a good laugh out of them, and this movie gave me a few laughs.

It has something the do with spiritual revenge of old forces manifesting in zombie-esque figures that present some means of killing people in a grapic and prolonged ways that are too weird to be artsy, but this thing caught on somehow. This movie has a lot of bullshit.

Italian hero Giovanni Lombardo Radice plays some guy who eventually gets caught up by his forbidden girlfriend's father, who brutally murders him as he pleads for a chance to explain. Prolonged and graphic. A superfluous kill in an otherwise loosely constructed motif of characters in barely related horror scenarios. Only a weird Italian son of a bitch could have written something like this, let alone shot it. If anyone knows anything about Fulci, chime in. I fear that he may not be as interesting as I want him to be.

But in the end, a bunch of stuff happens. I recall a wacky scene for the premature burial, the power drill bit, the dastardly brain squeezes, gut-spewing, and some very Zombi 2 brand music.

But in the end end, the kid runs to them and they are relieved. They are not relieved. They are worried. Why are they worried? WHY?!

Bland Ambition: The History Of Eating Raoul



What happens when those who just want to be left alone to live their lives finally reach their breaking point? What happens when the meek simply has too much going on that they finally lose all patience for people's bullshit? Right, probably not a hell of a lot. That's what makes them meek. Then there's this married couple who lives out in Hollywood, which is just no place for such mild-mannered people to be happy, and it seems as though they are starting to realize it. Maybe they've lived there too long. Maybe they've been married too long. Point is, these are not happy people with their lives as is. This right here is the type you need to watch out for once they've "had it up to here". This is the story of a massacre that nobody talks about. A massacre that may or may not have been deserved, depending on who you ask. This is the story of Eating Raoul.

Paul and Mary Bland are about as conservative and straight-laced as a married couple gets, at least in this neck of the woods. Paul and Mary have big plans to get away from Hollywood as soon as they can save up enough money to start their own Restaurant out in the country. "Paul And Mary's Country Kitchen", they'll call it. However, saving up for this business is easier said than done with such outrageous bills and Mary's low-paying nurse job. And Paul recently getting canned doesn't help. The normal pressures of life is one thing, but these two have just about reached the end of their rope with the local swingers always hanging around their apartment building. A bunch of degenerate perverts with no respect for anyone's personal space, whose mere presence often freaks out the Blands. Perhaps they misunderstand these types a bit, but as we all know, people tend to fear what they don't understand. And one thing the Blands don't understand is people who like to fuck.

One night, right before an important dinner guest arrives, an unusually pushy swinger from a near by party barges in the Bland's home, looking to more or less rape Mary. Long story short, this cock sure swinger gets a frying pan to the skull, killing him instantly. Paul didn't mean to kill the drunk idiot, but there he is. A corpse is now laying in the middle of the Bland's kitchen and their guest now knocks at the door. Strangely, Paul and Mary aren't exactly traumatized by what just happened. They're way too worried about what the hell their next move is going to be because it needs to happen now. Whatever that is, they'll be doing a little better financially, as Paul just found hundreds of dollars in the corpses wallet. So, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The Blands actually had a shockingly easy time solving this problem with the corpse. After a few more run-ins with some swingers, including another self-defense/murder/payoff, this otherwise passive couple start thinking. Since these apparent sub-human's lives absolutely do not matter at all, why not find a way to kill them regularly? I mean, since they seem to be loaded and all. Charge them out the ass and then take whatever else they have after they're dead. So, Paul and Mary put an ad in the paper, offering role playing services to swingers, or basically anyone who wants to get it on, I guess. There is, of course, no intent of things getting too out of hand, but with Mary getting them all hard and distracted, Paul could easily slip in and bash their skulls in with the frying pan. It's not like it's real murder either because fuck them. And hey! Mo Money!

And without a second thought or one bit of self-awareness, the Blands totally do this. Making a killing off the blood of the not-so innocent. Things go smoothly enough until the Blands get mixed-up with a guy named Raoul who worms his way into their little operation. At first, Raoul makes things more professional and profitable, but soon sets his sights on Mary, whose legs are easier to pry open than one would think. Mary isn't particularly fond of Raoul, but has no problem smoking up his pot. Raoul soon falls for Mary and quickly decides Paul must go, as he is the only thing standing in Raoul's way of not only the woman he loves, but much more money. Paul catches on to this, and has a few tricks up his sleeve, as he tries everything from tricking Raoul into thinking he's going to get deported to drugging him impotent. It was a nice arrangement while it lasted, but it soon becomes apparent that someone isn't going to make it out of this alive.

I'm pretty sure this is what they call a dark comedy. Not the darkest of the dark, but in my book, one of the best of its kind. The darkness is subtle and the story just a little detached from reality in sort of a John Waters kind of way. Directed by and starring Private Parts director, Paul Bartel, along with Mary Woronov of Silent Night Bloody Night fame. These two, as awkward of a married couple as they made, were really great together in this. Paul was a little more convincing as the "stuffy, buttoned-down type", but that's not a knock on Mary's acting ability by any means. Paul Bartel just looks like a big, gawky fuck who would faint at the sight of a wet cooter. I'm sure he knew this because why else would he cast himself in a role such as this? Mary Woronov, on the other hand. This was definitely a unique role for her, as some of the others I've seen her in we're quite different (see Sugar Cookies). Robert Beltran plays the slippery and greedy Raoul, who certainly pulls his weight as well.

Most everyone else in this movie is borderline goofy because, for a dark comedy, things never seem all that far-off from slapstick. I, personally, would have toned that aspect down a bit had this been my movie, but it's not so bad. With several comically dark turns taken in this story, a little silliness isn't hard to overlook. What is also not hard to overlook is cold-blooded murder by the two sheltered main characters, who are only slightly phased by the thought of getting caught. Paul and Mary Bland aren't fucking around anymore. They're getting that Restaurant if they have to murder every disease-ridden swinger in Hollywood. In their minds, this is all justified simply because they are super annoyed with these people. Well, that and money that they somehow believe they are owed. This is mainly the story of two intolerant hypocrites. However, this is also the story of two people who will let nothing and nobody get in the way of their dreams. 5/10



#Review