City of the Crow
Issue #3
🎬 Welcome to This Week's Picks
We’re back, FilmRunners! The new year and 2025 are right around the corner, so let’s celebrate with two films that have nothing to do with any of that! I’ve added “Where to Watch” buttons that redirect to www.justwatch.com, thanks to a suggestion from a friend. Thanks, Suhaim!
The Crow (1994)
Synopsis
The night before his wedding, musician Eric Draven and his fiancée are brutally murdered by members of a violent gang. On the anniversary of their death, Eric rises from the grave and assumes the mantle of the Crow, a supernatural avenger. IMDB
Director
Runtime
1 hour and 42 minutes.
Trailer
Why
I don’t really have an interesting reason other than when the trailers for the remake were coming out this year, I simply found out the original exists and added it to my watch list. I thought about looking up some stuff about the film, but I really just want to go into this blind.
City Of God (2002)
Synopsis
In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin. IMDB
Director
Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund
Runtime
2 hours and 10 minutes.
Trailer
Why
This movie is something of a white whale for me. When I first started dating my partner, I thought she really enjoyed movies. I wanted give her a gift that encouraged us to have more date-nights and got her a movie poster with 100 must see movies that you could scratch off as you watched them. We made through over half of it, but whenever this one came up to watch, we would always pick something else.
I really enjoy going into movies knowing as little as possible about them. It’s not uncommon for Brian to suggest something to watch and I do not know anything so much as the genre—The Substance was one of those, though I suspected it was body horror. So, like The Crow above, I’m going into this knowing the only the synopsis as provided by IMDB.
🎥 Reviews of Last Week's Picks (Caution, there may be spoilers)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Review
⭐⭐⭐✨ (three and a half stars)
I’m actually surprised by how little I remembered of this movie. I barely recognized any of it at all. The story centres around Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) wrestling with being washed-up while mourning the death of his best friend, Esteban. Zissou is quickly established as a narcissistic prick. The moral takeaway is "never meet your heroes," as illustrated by longtime fans Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) and Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett). Ned believes Zissou is his father, and Jane is chronicling the voyage as a reporter—both wrestle with who Zissou is as a person. During this, Zissou reconciles with his feelings of being washed-up as he works through the stages of grief over the loss of his best friend.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. It had all the hallmarks of Anderson, juxtaposing deadpan comedy with whimsy and absurdism. I loved the use of stop animation in it. Willem Dafoe was hilarious, delivering some of my favourite lines in the movie.
Pearl (2022)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (five stars)
First, I want to say—what range by Matthew Sunderland. It’s not easy to play such a dialogue-heavy character. Jokes aside, this was awesome. I went in thinking that MaXXXine was still going to be my favourite of the trilogy, but this edged ahead slightly. Overall, I felt the tone, writing, and characters were slightly more coherent than in MaXXXine. I loved the use of lighting, colour, and staging in the film to contrast against Pearl’s psychotic personality. It reminded me of either an early Disney movie or the opening scene from The Sound of Music (that might have to be a future pick to watch to see if I can catch any more similarities between the films).
Mia Goth was brilliant and terrifying. She’s a true scream queen. At this point, regardless of the genre, if Goth is starring in it, I’ll probably show up to watch it.
The last thing I want to touch on is, again like Goodfellas, how powerful the opening scene is. Everything that I described above applies in particular to the opening five minutes. It creates a palpable tension for the rest of the movie because you know how it’s going to end—you just don’t know when shit is going to start hitting the fan. This was pure cinema.
🖋 Closing Note
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