{"id":15058,"date":"2026-10-18T12:25:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T16:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=15058"},"modified":"2026-10-18T12:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T16:26:23","slug":"weekly-movie-roundup-185","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=15058","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched another 6 movies last week:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15284556\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Marama\" width=\"1728\" height=\"2560\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15056\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-scaled.jpg 1728w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1-2-1382x2048.jpg 1382w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1728px) 100vw, 1728px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075809\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"The Car\" width=\"1677\" height=\"2560\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15057\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-scaled.jpg 1677w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-671x1024.jpg 671w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-768x1173.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-1006x1536.jpg 1006w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2-2-1341x2048.jpg 1341w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1677px) 100vw, 1677px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0058390\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"The Naked Kiss\" width=\"1728\" height=\"2560\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15059\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-scaled.jpg 1728w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3-2-1382x2048.jpg 1382w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1728px) 100vw, 1728px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15284556\/\">M?rama<\/a> is intense, at times very dreamlike, a beautifully shot debut from writer\/director Taratoa Stappard and a fierce performance by Ari?na Osborne.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>At the time, the <em>New York Times<\/em> wrote that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075809\/\">The Car<\/a> &#8220;has all the ingredients of a parody, although someone has made the mistake of doing it straight.&#8221; It&#8217;s so very bad\u2014not because the premise is inherently ridiculous, but because it tackles that premise in the least interesting ways possible. The effects are bad, the acting is worse, and the story hews so closely to the <em>Jaws<\/em> formula without coming close to understanding why <em>Jaws<\/em> worked.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0058390\/\">The Naked Kiss<\/a> is incredibly frank about some very difficult subjects for a movie made in 1964. But at the same time, <em>because<\/em> it was made in 1964, it doesn&#8217;t always tackle those subjects in convincing ways and strays much further into melodrama.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0084654\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4-2.jpg\" alt=\"Veronika Voss\" width=\"1728\" height=\"2560\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15060\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0037034\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5-2.jpg\" alt=\"Mademoiselle Fifi\" width=\"1728\" height=\"2560\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15061\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0081203\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6-2.jpg\" alt=\"Murder by Phone\" width=\"1728\" height=\"2560\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15062\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0084654\/\">Veronika Voss<\/a> is a fascinating movie for anyone who thinks <em>Sunset Boulevard<\/em> is too much of an upper.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0037034\/\">Mademoiselle Fifi<\/a> is a simple tale of resistance with a strong performance by Simone Simon.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>I hated <em>The Car<\/em> so much that I of course decided to watch another movie by the same screenwriters made just five years later. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0081203\/\">Murder by Phone<\/a> is marginally better\u2014if only because the effects, while ridiculously bad, are at least not cheap, and because the acting, while trapped in poorly formed characters and a confused and  nonsensical plot, is at least mostly consistent. But it&#8217;s still a very lousy movie.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also rewatched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0111161\/\">The Shawshank Redemption<\/a>, which I&#8217;ve seen a bunch of times, but not start to finish recently; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0082495\/\">Halloween II<\/a>, which benefits by probably being the least bad of the bad <em>Halloween<\/em> movies, but which is still very bad; and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0048424\/\">The Night of the Hunter<\/a>, which is just a really fantastic, sometimes almost surreal and dreamlike, thriller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched another 6 movies last week: M?rama is intense, at times very dreamlike, a beautifully shot debut from writer\/director Taratoa Stappard and a fierce performance by Ari?na Osborne. At the time, the New York Times wrote that The Car &#8220;has all the ingredients of a parody, although someone has made the mistake of doing &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=15058\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15064,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15058\/revisions\/15064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}