Category Archives: Could Be Hard To Watch

2011, Could Be Hard To Watch, Dark, Disturbing Image, Grim, Horror, Mental Illness, Occasional gore, Sex Scenes, Violent

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

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From NetFlix:

Eva’s relationship with her son, Kevin, has been difficult from the beginning. When the 15-year-old boy’s cruel streak erupts into violence, Eva wonders how much blame she deserves for his actions.

If your child delights in killing small animals and blinding his sister in one eye, you might think of taking drastic measures. Why these two parental idiots did not report their budding psychopath to the proper authorities is beyond me. In fact, I don’t know what they could have done. Can you say to some helpful member of law enforcement “Our son is a dangerous sociopath, could you suggest something ?”

Tilda Swinton stretches believability. She suffers almost in silence the outrageous behavior of her son Crazy Kevin for all of his 16 years. John C. Reilly plays a doting father who somehow never sees the psychosis in darling Kevin. Get real!

Motivation for this film was probably the fact that there are indeed disturbed (am I being too harsh ?) teenagers that enjoy shooting as many of their classmates as they can manage in one exhilarating afternoon. What in fact was going on in those families ?

Hats off to Ezra Miller who plays the monster as a teenager. It doesn’t get any creepier.

But then, don’t you have something better to do with your time?

2011, Based on true facts, Could Be Hard To Watch, Disturbing Image, Explicit sex, Grim, Love Story, Military, Not Feel Good, Nudity, Rape, Revenge, Sadism, Torture, Violent, War, Wonderful acting

In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)

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From NetFlix:

Danijel, a Bosnian Serb soldier serving under his father’s command, reunites with Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim woman he was involved with before the war, when she is captured by his camp and forced to work as a sex slave.

Most wars are not one-sided. Of course, there are exceptions: the Nazi Holocaust was one-sided. Behind the Serbian slaughter of the Bosnians are many years of conflicts and offenses on both sides. History is not the point here, but rather the review of a film.

Angelina Jolie has done a marvelous job creating an engrossing view of the war as seen from the side of the Serb killers while maintaining a clever ambivalence in the experience of Danijel. Danijel’s relation with his fanatic warrior father and Ajla, his Muslim lover, make for a difficult contrast. He is so torn between both loyalties that he finds himself trapped in personal conflict.

You are hereby warned that this is, to say the least, a difficult film to watch. If you are the slightest bit squeamish, DO NOT SEE THIS FILM! You will encounter nudity, many rapes (one of the principle Serbian weapons), and Serbian sadism.

For this film to have a satisfying end would be impossible.

2011, Complicated, Computer geeks, Could Be Hard To Watch, Detective, Explicit sex, Nudity, Occasional gore, Rape, Religious Theme, Sadism, Serial Killer, Suspense, Torture, Violent

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

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From NetFlix:

When a young computer hacker is tasked with investigating a prying journalist, their separate missions become entangled amid a decades-old conspiracy. David Fincher directs this English adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel.

By now you have probably read Stieg Larsson’s book (or maybe the entire Millenium trilogy). Because I have done so, I was a little disappointed in some few plot changes. But for the most part the film follows the book.

All the characters are well chosen. Daniel Craig correctly plays an understated Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist was equally a calm and quiet character in the Swedish film version. For my tastes Christopher Plummer looked too healthy as Henrik Vanger at the start of the film. But after his heart attack he looked like a tired, sick old man. Yorick van Wageningen is a wonderfully sleazy lawyer who rapes Lisbeth and gets paid back in spades. Stellan Skarsgård is excellently creepy as Martin Vanger.

But in the end the film captures the book well. Enjoy!

2000, British Mystery Series, Could Be Hard To Watch, Detective, Disturbing Image, DO NOT MISS, Drama, Grim, Gritty, Occasional gore, Police Story, Serial Killer, Suspense, TV Series, Violent, Wonderful acting

Without Motive (2000)

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From NetFlix:

Jack Mowbray is a dedicated police officer and a devoted family man. When a vicious serial killer terrorizes Bristol, England, Jack’s obsessive attitude toward the case may nab the culprit while also tearing apart his personal life.

This British TV series comes in 4 discs. Each disc contains 2 episodes. Discs 1 and 2 are one complete story. Discs 3 and 4 are another complete story.

Watching the first story is a bit harrowing. But in fact my experience in general is that British mystery, or suspense, or MI-5 adventures are all tough to watch. Characters get killed. Marriages run into difficulties because of the obsessive attention to crime solving by one of the marriage partners. Some scenes are especially gory. Some characters are really nasty.

Acting in general is almost always professional and wonderful, so much so that British TV of this nature often makes its American counterparts seem weak and tepid.

One example of cringe-worthy acting in story one is the scene in which a Welsh police official is “retired”. You see a tired, stressed, overweight, but not very capable man who has made a muddle of things and mislead the investigation. When he is in an office with two of his superiors and his boss tells him he is off the force, the stream of self-excusing babble that comes out of the poor man’s mouth would embarrass anyone.

Officers come off as crude bullies. In contrast Jack Mowbray is a decent fellow obsessed with finding the serial killer who has moved his killing operations to the very area where Jack lives. Jack’s wife is terrified. Jack’s stressed-out behavior is ugly to watch.

First rate watching if you can stand the tension.

1982, Could Be Hard To Watch, Disturbing Image, Horror, Occasional gore, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Violent

The Thing (1982)

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From NetFlix:

Scientists working in Antarctica are forced to abandon their research after a helicopter crashes near their camp, bringing a lone dog into their midst. But the plot thickens when the otherworldly canine changes form in the middle of the night. As it turns out, the dog is a shape-shifting alien that can attack animals — and unsuspecting humans. Kurt Russell stars in this creepy John Carpenter-directed remake of the 1950s classic.

Who knew they had such special (digital ?) effects way back in 1982! After watching the 2011 version of “The Thing”, several of you urged me to see this 1982 version. In fact you had to explain to me why the 2011 version was a prequel to the 1982 version. Answer: the 2011 version gives the origin of the dog that starts the 1982 version.

If I had to prefer one version over the other, I would have to say that 1982 was the better version: the acting was better, the testing for alien versus human was better, the sense of “no way out” was better, and I thought the role of the single female in the 2011 version was a bit weak. We just did not need the professional status competition between the woman and man scientists.

At any rate, the appearance of the Thing in all its gory glory was duplicated in the later version in order to maintain consistency. Lots of juicy gore in both versions might make for a great date movie. Again not for the squeamish.

2011, Could Be Hard To Watch, DO NOT MISS, Mental Illness, Psychological Drama, Unusual, Wonderful acting

Take Shelter (2011)

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From NetFlix:

Michael Shannon stars in this thriller as a small-town family man who, determined to protect his wife and deaf daughter from impending disaster, builds an impenetrable storm shelter in the safety of his own backyard.

Because the film is so true to life in the U.S., I found watching this film a very wrenching experience. What you experience is a devoted family man’s gradual descent into the clutches of paranoid schizophrenia. Perhaps I should not have told you this but soon enough you would guess the truth. This film is not science fiction nor a horror film. But in fact it is a horror film in the sense that you sit there powerless to prevent this good, well-meaning man from following the dictates of a mental illness even while he knows he has the disease (his mother developed the same illness when she was 30 and abandoned the family in a journey to the streets). In fact this is the first time I have seen portrayed the difficulty of realizing that a mental illness is directing your life and figuring out how to fight back (with the help of a professional over probably what will be a long period of time).

Three aspects of Americana that makes this film so hard to watch are things like: the difficulty in getting and affording a competent psychiatrist, the perilous way in which so many middle-class American families live just on the edge of bankruptcy and the damage that losing a job and its health benefits does to a family.

Only toward the end of the film do his wife and associates begin to understand that he has a mental illness. Meanwhile his actions cause all kinds of trouble for himself, his wife, his company, and his friends. Watching a climactic breakdown at a supper for parents of deaf children (his daughter is deaf and needs a cochlear implant) is a horror show in itself.

Michael Shannon is agent Nelson Van Alden in the TV series “Boardwalk Empire”. His acting here is phenomenal: understated, sadly driven, and possibly violent.

Be prepared for a tough but worthwhile trip.

2011, Could Be Hard To Watch, Disturbing Image, Horror, Mayhem, Occasional gore, Sci-Fi, Suspense

The Thing (2011)

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From NetFlix:

This terrifying prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic of the same name tells the story of a team of Norwegian scientists who find an alien ship frozen in Antarctica. When the organism inside awakens, blood flows across the frozen landscape. Leading the group is pilot Carter (Joel Edgerton), who allies with paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in a desperate attempt to rally the paranoid workers to combat the deadly threat.

When I was a mere lad of 12 (in 1951) I went with friends into downtown Baltimore to see
the first edition of “The Thing”. You never saw the alien throughout the film until the very last scene in which they burned it up leaving something resembling a baked potato. During that scene I hid under my coat so that in fact I never saw “The Thing” in all its glory.

In 1982 there was another version which I never saw.

Finally welcome to 2011. With digital enhancement there is no end of the gore you can create. In the last part of this version you get to see two mangled human bodies that have been transformed into a creature that crawls like a spider with tentacles. This is just a warning in case you are a bit squeamish. Don’t you wonder who lies awake at night just dreaming up these visual horrors?

All the cast are male with the exception of one young female scientist who dares to make a counter suggestion to the learned and arrogant lead scientist. Guess what happens!

Not for children and probably not for adults of a certain ripe old age.

Why is this called a prequel ?

2010, Arabic, Complicated, Could Be Hard To Watch, French, Grim, Plot Twist, Prison, Rape, Redemption, Slow, Violent, War

Incendies (2010)

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From NetFlix:

When their mother’s will implores them to deliver letters to the father they thought was dead and a brother they never knew about, twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) journey to the Middle East and attempt to reconstruct their family’s hidden history. Adapted from a Wajdi Mouawad play, director Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated drama flashes back to intense scenes set during the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s.

Yet another film that is hard to watch, “Incendies” dramatically is better than The Whistleblower (2010). Just be aware that the pace of the film is very slow.

In a certain sense the film involves solving a mystery in which two twins after the death of their mother are asked in her will to find their father and a brother that they had never heard of up to the mother’s death.

Languages are French and Arabic with (subtitles) because the action takes place during the incredibly confusing 1970 Lebanon civil war. If you are confused by the end of the film, try reading the Wikipedia summary which for me explained things I had missed (especially towards the end of the film). You may be surprised by the final piece in the puzzle.

Although this is a brutal film, it is not as explicit as The Whistleblower (2010).

For me watching this film was well worth the patience required.

2010, Based on true facts, Could Be Hard To Watch, Cynical, Disturbing Image, Grim, Nudity, Police Story, Rape, Suspense, Violent

The Whistleblower (2010)

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From NetFlix:

Sent to Bosnia to train cops in the aftermath of that country’s brutal civil war, American policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) uncovers evidence that U.N. peacekeepers are complicit in a flourishing sex-trafficking trade. But when she brings her allegations to light, she discovers that her foes are more powerful than the law. Based on a true story, this thriller from director Larysa Kondracki co-stars Monica Bellucci and David Strathairn.

Probably one of the harshest films I have watched recently, I was tempted to stop watching several times. But the cynical engagement in sex trafficking sponsored by UN peace keepers was so unnerving that I had to see some resolution at least in the case of Kathryn Bolkovac. Although Bolkovac got some satisfaction for her heroic efforts, no one would ever hire her again and the practice of sex trafficking still flourishes (and probably always will).

Be prepared for some brutal treatment by the peacekeepers of these women (rape, murder, etc).

As an artistic endeavor the film is so-so. But the events are riveting.

2006, Could Be Hard To Watch, Dark, Disturbing Image, Explicit sex, German, Grim, Love Story, Mostly About Sex, Nudity, Psychological Drama, Rape, Unusual, Violent

The Free Will (2006)

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From NetFlix:

When a convicted rapist (Jürgen Vogel) takes a job at a German print shop, he befriends the owner’s daughter (Sabine Timoteo), a young woman who’s been sexually abused by her father, and an intense but complicated bond forms between them. Matthias Glasner directs this Tribeca Film Festival selection that explores the boundaries of an unconventional romance between a former victimizer and one who’s been victimized.

At 2 hours and 44 minutes, this German film with optional English subtitles is a tough watch about which I shall now try to warn you. In what follows “he” is the rapist and “she” is the woman victimized by her father. You might NOT want to see this film because:

  • At the beginning you see an ugly rape scene. You can easily skip over this part and begin with his being released from prison.
  • Unfortunately he later relapses and there occurs a rape scene that is nowhere near as bad as that first scene but still ugly.
  • The film is very slow moving.
  • Fortunately we only get a hint of the father’s abuse. In fact we never really know if his abuse was sexual. At the very least he made his daughter a substitute in some ways for his deceased wife and prevented the daughter from being independent.
  • Intense loneliness is a constant presence.
  • Sadly the story does not end well.

So why on earth did I stick with this film? First of all I like independent films and this film has just that flavor. Also the film takes its time with the two characters. You can feel the sad conflicts with with they struggle, especially the self-hating rapist. Throughout the film, alas, I was rooting for them as a couple. Recidivism is all too real and there is nothing idealistic in filming the struggles of each of the characters.

Hopefully I have discouraged you from watching an unusual film which for me was fascinating.