DERSU UZALA (1975)

Akira Kurosawa's first film after his failed suicide attempt tells the story of a small party of Russian soldiers who are out on a peaceful exploration mission in a remote area of Siberia when they meet Dersu Uzala, a gentle mountain man who instantly takes a liking to the Captain and agrees to become their guide. At first, the men find Dersu to be an quirky, superstitious old goat and laugh at him, but soon they start to admire him.  Especially after he saves the Captain's life from certain death in a blizzard. The mission ends and they part ways, but a few years later the Captain, while out with another map-making party runs into Dersu again. This time they become inseparable and the new group of soldiers quickly take a liking to him also. They have many adventures, but all things cannot be perfect forever...

This is a slower Kurosawa film, so if you're looking for the action of his more popular samurai films then you're going to be disappointed. That said it is still an entertaining and beautifully shot film. As always, Kurosawa knows exactly where to place the camera. The only problem I had and maybe it's just a personal one is I didn't really feel anything for either of the lead characters. They both felt distant and even after 141 minutes I still felt nothing for either one.

A good film, but not in my Top 10 Favorite Kurosawa Films.  If you're a fan of Kurosawa then of course you need to watch it, but others will probably just find it slow. It really depends on how much you enjoy foreign cinema.

LAID TO REST (2009)

The picture on the DVD looked good and there was a couple of hot chicks...other than that I cannot think of one thing about this movie that didn't suck. I've been in car wrecks that were more fun than watching this disaster. The complete lack of story didn't bother me, what really pissed me off is that every single person in this movie was a goddamn idiot. It's pretty common for one or two victims in a slasher movie to do stupid shit, but here, that's all they do. Twice, fucking twice the victims escapes in a car only to stop for no reason other than to let the killer catch up with them. And then, in probably the one of the most ignorant things I've ever seen, the killer has a girl cornered with a knife to her throat when he runs out of videotape (yea, he films the kills), so he sends the girl he's about to murder into a store to buy him another tape! What the fuck?

If SAW had a severely mentally disabled brother that ate out of the kittie litter box, it would be LAID TO REST. Very little gore, horribly shot tits and wall-to-wall stupidity. Never watch this movie. If you ever feel the desire to watch it, just jump spine first onto a fire hydrant. It would hurt less.

Part 2 - Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2 (2011)

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)

[Update 03/07/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Swedish art house meets the vampire genre with good results. That is, if you don't mind the slow pacing.  If you're expecting something like THE LOST BOYS, but with snow and subtitles then you're not even going to make it through the first 30 minutes. But if you do stick around then you're in for a treat.

Oskar (or as I like to call him "the Swedish version of Danny from THE SHINING") is a twelve year boy old with some problems: he lives alone with his mother in some depressing-looking apartments, it's always snowing, he has no friends and the local school bullies are constantly kicking his ass. Then a vampire trapped in a 12-year-old's body moves in next door and they become friends.  Aww.  Oh yeah, there's also a serial killer living next door.

Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (who also wrote the screenplay), director Tomas Alfredson does a very good job of capturing the helplessness and torment Oskar is going through and his subsequent attraction to the vampire, Eli. Recommended for fans of arthouse horror.

Ramke - Let Me In (2010)