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The Living Wake (2007)
Please watch this movie! An unseen gem!
I'm so glad I was obsessed with Jesse Eisenberg back in 2010, or else I may never have discovered this little gem of a film. It's been a while since I watched this, at least six years, and the last twenty minutes or so still make me veer wildly from crying to laughing and back again. Mostly crying, though. I love the weird little world that this movie exists in, and I didn't want to leave. I love the random musical numbers, and all the oddball characters. K. Roth Binew is such a obnoxious, rude, strange character, but at his core he's a just a man dealing with abandonment issues from an absentee father, family that doesn't understand or even like him, and the fear of dying unfulfilled. In that way he's such a relatable and sympathetic character, and I find myself so unexpectedly fond of him each time I watch this. The Living Wake is an absurd movie, yet weirdly touching. It's one of my all time favorites, and I wish more people knew about it.
Lake Mungo (2008)
An underrated gem, please don't miss this.
I'm a huge horror fan. The first horror movie I saw was A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was thirteen years old, and since then, I was hooked. It's probably my favorite movie genre, and one of my favorite genres in all forms of entertainment. I feel like I've "seen it all", so to speak, in all the various sub-genres of horror. Mainstream, indie, sci-fi, psychological, monster, black and white classics, found footage, etc. But I've never seen anything quite like Lake Mungo.
It's not really the style of the movie, per se, that was so different, because I've seen faux documentary style horror movies before. But the things that happen in this one...it's been a long time since a horror film made me feel this way.
When I sat down to watch it, all I knew was the basic plot. A teenage girl drowns, and afterwards her family starts experiencing some strange events. I thought it was going to be your typical haunted house ghost story, but it was so much more than that. The movie sets up this fascinating mystery, with multiple twists and reveals, and it keeps you guessing the entire time. Eventually though, it all leads up to one scene in particular. Basically, the entire movie builds up to this moment, and what happens is so unexpected and horrifying, I couldn't believe it. There were no cheap jump scares here. No "aha! gotcha!" moments. The scene earned every second of the fear it made me feel. I had to force myself not to cover my eyes.
This is one of the most tense, uneasy atmospheres I've experienced while watching any movie, not just horror. One of the best slows burns, with a great payoff. I was thinking about this for days after I watched it. Absolutely unforgettable.
The Iron Giant (1999)
One of the best animated movies of all time, period.
The first time I saw this, I was only six years old, but I remember it so vividly.
It was one of the earliest movies I saw in a theater. We came in a few minutes late, during the diner scene when Hogarth is trying to convince his mom to let him keep a pet squirrel. I remember Mansley getting his face squished in the door was one of the funniest things ever. I remember memorizing the scene of him pestering Hogarth with constant questions, after he rents the empty room in his house. The exchange of Mansley asking "Where ya going, champ, chief, slugger? Where ya going? Where ya going?" and Hogarth screeching back, "I'm going out!!!!" is something my siblings and I still quote to this day. But mainly I remember being absolutely flabbergasted when the Giant sacrifices himself to save Hogarth and the town.
Growing up in a a Christian household, going to church twice a week, a story that ended with someone giving up their life for everyone else, was, well...biblical. I remember sitting in the theater and having the thought, "He gave up his life so all those people could live", running through my brain over and over. I couldn't comprehend it. I was too shocked to cry. Watching it for the first time as an adult? I sobbed. The tears started when the Giant realizes he can fly, and Hogarth gleefully tells him, "Try holding out your arms in front of you, like Superman!" and they didn't stop because I knew what was coming.
When I was a six year old child I was too young to understand the themes of xenophobia, patriotism, choosing a different path than the one given to you, etc. All I knew was that the Iron Giant "gave up this life so those people could live." Superman, indeed.
The Fourth Kind (2009)
Surprisingly creepy
I watched this three or four years ago and it TERRIFIED me. I was never scared of owls or aliens until watching this movie, but I had trouble sleeping after this. I'm embarrassed to admit that it completely fooled me and I thought the audio recordings and video reenacted in the movie were real. Of course, I felt stupid and kind of disappointed when I found out that they were fake, but after re-watching this today... I actually still enjoyed it. It's definitely got a legitimately creepy vibe to it, whether you believe it's real or not. And Milla Jovovich's performance was pretty darn good.