DJs Movie Reviews – Dots from home.

So we’re supposed to be collecting dots from home. I mean that’s reasonable right, no museums, no events, no galleries. Does Reddit count as a dot? What about Netflix? 

In my desperate search for inspiration from home, I’ve put away quite a few bags of popped corn I must say. Enough to make my urine smell like the Ritzy. 

If that doesn’t qualify as getting out of the house, I don’t know what is. 

The first movie I’d like to talk about is Léon: The Professional following an orphaned girl who sticks to an assassin in hopes of revenge. Man, I loved this, it felt so 80s/90s. It was wonderful. Bad guys were BAD, machine guns fired from the hip and the hero looked like a mess, brilliant. 

The relationship with age this movie had was weird though. Leon and Mathilda have a relationship that can be wholly inappropriate and frankly uncomfortable to watch at times. 

I did, however, love that this silly unrealistic action flick was disturbing me on a guttural level. 

The world has its dark spots and in my opinion, one of the roles of art is to be a reflection of reality.  

Next up, Parasite. It was simply amazing, I honestly thought I knew what was going to happen after the half-hour mark. And while it went in the general direction I thought, I didn’t see a single twist or turn coming right to the end. I just love movies that can do that too me. To keep me on edge, wondering.

Then Knives Out a murder mystery. 

Of all the movies I’ve watched this past week or two, this was the weak link for me. Watching Daniel Craig do a southern American accent took A LOT of conscious buy-in. I had to literally convince myself that ‘it’s just a movie, go with it’ for the first 15 minutes. 

Other than that the movie was pretty straightforward for me. Interestingly the plot had twists and turns but it never felt as unexpected as Parasite. I always felt like I was safely and firmly within the mystery genre. 

In summary: Knives Out is like a plain chicken breast with salt and pepper, that shit needs some spice. 

The Act Of Killing is incredible. It’s a bit long at 3 hours, but it’s just an absorbing doc drawing you into the life of Indonesian gangster Anwar (or free man as they call themselves). The doc follows him as he creates a film about how heroic he was killing thousands during the mass execution of 1 million citizens in the 60s. 

There are moments that are as surreal as Tiger King. But unlike Tiger King, there is much more time and space around these moments to feel the impact of events on the people.

It was amazing to look into the gangsters’ eyes while they filmed recreations of the violence they committed and hear them convince themselves they were right. 

Strong viewing overall. If you have any recommendations, please send them my way: 

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Email: djaysca@gmail.com