Weekly Cinemeh

Welcome back to weekly cinemeh. This week our theme was mystery movies, and we had some good ones. While I tend not to care about spoilers if a movie is ten or more years old, I will still try to leave them out of this post because it really fucking sucks with the viewing of mysteries in particular.

1: The Thin Man
Released in 1934, The Thin Man is a movie starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora, a retired detective and his well to do wife who are forced into a murder case and need to solve it. The movie is very well acted, hilarious, and features one of the healthiest couples on screen at the time (and some would argue today). I am a fan of movies from this era mostly because they didn't have to rely on fancy gimmicks to tell a story. The movie's mystery is good, and you can see how it influenced movies after it, though I am sure this wasn't the first mystery that used the gather all the suspects together and solve the mystery (Poirot did it all the time). It's sense of humor and the personalities of Nick and Nora are additions that make this a fresh movie (despite its age), and well worth the watch. Also there is like 4 sequels, most of which are also good.

Eshi: This movie was delightful. The mystery is relatively transparent but the characters are well played and very enjoyable and the heroic amount of alcohol involved endeared me to them. Seriously, the words "functional alcoholic" don't even begin to describe Nick and Nora. Their mastery of the boozey arts makes the alcoholism we encounter later in the week all the more painful. If you like mystery movies and want to see what a loving, healthy relationship ought to look like this is a great place to start. 

2: Rainbow Eyes
A Korean movie that was the oddest movie we saw all week. It kept both of us guessing for a decent amount of the plot (OK, for most of it >_>), and had some frenetic scenes in which, in a single shot, the camera follows the flow of information in a police station during a murder investigation. Its a movie about a killer that is murdering people who used to be in the military, and the cops who must discover who they are. Its got some tense moments and some kind of fucked up scenes centered around why the murders happened. It was well acted and the twists come at you from places where you don't expect. Its a good movie.

Eshi: My opinion of this movie changed ever half hour, I really like that. I have strange feelings about Korean cinema as a whole. On the one hand, every Korean movie I've seen has been fucking awesome, on the other hand every single fucking one of them makes me hate humanity as a whole just a little more. Considering my standard opinion of the Human race normally, this is both impressive and depressing. Watch this one all the way through, no matter how it feels.

3: Dial M For Murder
Alfred Hitchcock is a genius and this movie, while not his best in my opinion, is one of the better movies I have seen. Its a mystery about a murder, like all the others on this list, but more from the perspective of the murderer, trying to figure out how they screwed up, if they screwed up. It shows the complexity of committing murder, as well as the old adage "The best laid schemes of mice and men, (often go awry)". The movie was based on a play by Frederick Knott, who also did the screenplay for the film. Its claustrophobic because of this, as most of the movie takes place in a single room, which adds to the tension of the film. It is a great movie, with good acting and a great story.

Eshi: The complete failure of these posh English people to drink alcohol like a civilized fucking person bugged me to kind of a telling degree. Other than the insistence on drinking whiskey like fucking philistines the characters are all pretty compelling, if not at all sympathetic. The payoff in this film is very enjoyable and I recommend it highly.