Shameless Self Expression

The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand from the point of view of a vacationing British family headed by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor.   Gruelling, extremely effective 2012 rendering of the real-life 2004 Boxing Day tsunami from director Juan Antonio Bayona ( “The Orphanage” , “A Monster Calls” ) and writer Sergio G. Sanchez ( “The Orphanage” ). It’s sometimes uncomfortable, unpleasant, and overall frighteningly convincing. This may not be a cinematic journey some of you wish to take, and I appreciate that. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse the film of exploiting or wallowing in real-life misery. With one minor annoyance aside (I’ll get to that later), I found this film a compelling experience and very well-made. Bayona sets a scene of eerie, ominous, yet beautiful calm before the tsunami hits and the scenery just gets obliterated. You’ll be treated to some of the most harrowingly convincing disaster scenes in cinematic history. The only moment in the entire film where I

  Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams play Lars and Sigrit, Icelandic wannabe musicians whose dream is to represent Iceland at the Eurovision Song Contest and win. Well, it’s Lars’ dream. Sigrit humours him because she’s always been in love with the oblivious dope who is uber-focussed on the music. Although the people in charge of choosing the Icelandic entry find Lars and Sigrit’s act ‘Fire Saga’ an embarrassment, a bizarre calamity results in them having no choice but to send them to the big contest held in Scotland. Will Lars’ dream of Eurovision glory come to fruition? Scheming Russian entrant Dan Stevens certainly hopes not, as he tries to drive a wedge between Lars and Sigrit. Pierce Brosnan plays Lars’ macho father who is embarrassed by his son’s musical pursuit.   By attempting to give some love to Eurovision fans whilst also playing to the standard Will Ferrell audience, this overlong, hit-and-miss 2020 comedy-drama probably won’t satisfy either camp (no pun intended) fully.

Brilliant surgeon and avid Poe fan Bela Lugosi has an infatuation with one of his patients (Irene Ware), despite her having a fiancé and a disapproving father (Samuel S. Hinds playing the latter). Meanwhile, a wanted murderer (Boris Karloff) arrives at Lugosi’s home asking the famed surgeon to alter his face so he can escape his misdeeds. Lugosi agrees, but disfigures Karloff’s face and forces him into killing for him before he’ll correct the deformity.   Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff team up for another barely connected Edgar Allen Poe adaptation, and this 1935 film from director Louis Friedlander/Lew Landers ( “I Was a Prisoner on Devil’s Island” , “Return of the Vampire” ), and screenwriter David Boehm (the semi-classic weepie “A Guy Named Joe” ) is another winner. In fact, the only flaws here are the fact that the script is practically devoid of any connection to Poe (if anything there’s more “Pit and the Pendulum” than “The Raven” ), and it’s a bit slight in length. Otherwise