Pulse (2001)

  Okay, so when I added this movie, I was expecting ghost horror not existential horror.  Which is on me.  It's always better not to bias yourself going in with too many expectations.  And this turned into kind of the perfect quarantine movie.

A handful of teenagers become convinced that the recent spate of suicides among their peers is caused by a mysterious website.  Then doors sealed with red tape start appearing as the angry spirits are pushed out into our world.  Michi (Kumiko Aso) and Kawashima (Haruhiko Kato) try to survive as their city and then the world is affected by this phenomenon.

Oh, 2001.  Remember when we thought the Internet was going to kill us?  Like I said, this isn't really about the ghosts.  It's about the isolation people feared the Internet and then social media was going to exacerbate until everyone was stuck inside staring at screens, unable to form human attachments.  Research has tended to show that social media and too much screen time is especially detrimental to young children, but this movie plays it as hysteria, responsible for all the ills of the world.  The scenes of the two main characters navigating the empty streets of Tokyo, one of the busiest cities in the world, is astonishingly prescient, however.  It's currently streaming on Tubi.

Content Warning:  multiple suicides by various methods.

The Pawnbroker (1964)

  I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.  Quarantine is no place for heavy Holocaust-survivor drama.  And yet, here I am.

Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) is a survivor only in name.  He sleepwalks through his life, filled with bitterness and guilt for living when so many others had died in unimaginable conditions.  Still, his business does well in 1960s Harlem, well enough that he can afford an assistant, the ebullient ambitious Jesus Ortiz (Jaime Sanchez).  Ortiz is trying to climb his way out of poverty but Nazerman's relentless misery wears at him.  Nazerman's destructive spiral increases as more and more of his trauma comes to the surface, leading to a terrible showdown.

I remember adding this to my queue because it features the first appearance of one Morgan Freeman as an unnamed bystander and I wanted to point out what a baby he was.  Readers, I will confess, I fully forgot to be looking for him while I was watching this and totally missed it.  And I'm not watching it again.  It is fully traumatizing.

Content Warning:  concentration camps, the Holocaust, the emotional toll of human misery

The lone silver lining is that this is a rare example of a mainstream film by a prominent director to feature a predominantly POC cast.  In particular, Thelma Oliver (now Krishna Kaur Khalsa) was a breathtaking actress who deserved better than being credited as "Jesus's Girl".  In a just world, she would have been an A-lister, but she's apparently gone on to be a very well-respected yoga instructor so that's good.  Also, Brock Peters doesn't get enough mention as an incredible actor.

Force Majeure (2014)

  You've probably heard of this movie if you followed any of the Oscar/critical recommendations of the last few years.  It was so successful it even got an American remake as Downhill, starring Will Farrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  So if you saw that movie, you basically saw this one.  I assume.

Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and their two children are on holiday at a fancy French ski resort.  The resort uses controlled blasts to keep snow from building up to deadly avalanches.  One occurs very close to where our vacationing family is eating lunch.  As everyone panics, Ebba grabs the kids.  Tomas...grabs his phone.  Shaken by the encounter, Ebba desperately wants to make sense of how she's feeling, only for Tomas to deny the entire affair.  What follows are two hours of excruciatingly awkward public discussions as Ebba ropes everyone they know into weighing in on the conflict for the next three days of their vacation.

They called this a dark comedy and hoo boy.  It is a lot.  If you think toxic masculinity and gaslighting are funny, this'll be a riot.  If you think being forced to listen to a couple fighting is hilarious, you will love this, you ghoul.  It's currently streaming on Hulu.

For Sama (2019)

  Another day, another depressing ass documentary about Syria.  Jesus Christ.

Waad al-Kataeb is a journalist who documented the siege of Aleppo from inside.  Her husband, Hamza, is one of the last dozen doctors remaining in the city, and she chronicles the struggles of life every day under the constant bombardment by Russian jets on behalf of the Syrian dictatorship.  Hundreds of wounded are brought to the makeshift hospital every day, the hospital itself is bombed, and through it all, Waad and Hamza try to make things safe for their infant daughter, Sama.

Content Warning:  dead children, dead bodies, blood, war trauma

This documentary takes pains to show the cost of war in terms of human lives, especially children.  It's a hard watch.  I don't even like children but holy shit.  The majority of filming takes place in 2016 with flashbacks to the beginning of the revolution.  At this point, you could absolutely watch the entire civil war in film, between this, The White Helmets, The Cave, and Last Men in Aleppo.  I'm not saying you should, mind you, just that you can.

It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)

  It's Wednesday, I know.  Whatever.  Days aren't real.

Fiona (Jeri Courtney) is sent to live with her grandparents on the coast of Ireland after her widowed father takes to the drink.  There she learns that they used to live on an island called Roan Inish, famed for legends of selkies, seals that shed their skin and become beautiful women.  Fiona becomes convinced that the seals that still live there have been raising her baby brother, Jamie (Cillian Byrne), who was lost at sea when they moved from the island.

Most of this movie is just people telling folk stories and it's still fucking magical because of their accents.  Honestly, this is like aural Xanax.  Just fucking soothing on the ears.  And it's a kids movie, so you can throw it on and just kind of sit back.

I've had this on my TBW list for something like eight years because it's so hard to find and then Amazon dropped it on Prime this month.  Who the hell knows how long it's going to be there, so I'd watch it soon-ish if you've got a mind to.

W.E. (2011)

  I hate character dramas.  I hate romantic dramas even more.  There was nothing I liked about this story.  I have never given a shit about Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII and I was never the waiting-for-Prince-Charming kind of girl.

Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) pines away in the 1998 Sotheby's exhibit of paraphernalia relating to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as an escape from her unhappy marriage.  She imagines what life was like for Wallis (Andrea Riseborough) and David (James D'Arcy) in their courtship, scandal, and exile following the latter's abdication.

I thought this was just going to be a biopic and I wasn't prepared for the framing narrative.  '98 seems like such an oddly specific year.  I can only assume that's when the actual auction was?  If there was such a thing.  I don't feel like looking it up.

This was directed by Madonna (yes, actually Madonna) and that's fine.  It's competent without being show-offy, which is more than I can say for Guy Ritchie.  The costumes and cinematography are top-notch.  I just found the entire thing baffling and monumentally depressing.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.

Content Warning:  domestic violence, miscarriage

The Adventures of Milo and Otis (1986)

The world kind of sucks right now.  Everyone is stuck at home, idiots are threatening the lives of the vulnerable in the name of getting a haircut, my grandma died, and everything is just exhausting all of the time.  So why not watch a movie about a kitten and a puppy who are best friends and go on adventures?  I've only ever seen the English version, not the original Japanese, so I might be missing out but I think this is a damn near perfect comfort movie.  Dudley Moore absolutely nails the narration.  If you need to turn your brain off for a little while because it keeps trying to kill you, this is a great way to get some peace.  Originally posted 25 Nov 2012.    I used to watch this movie all the time when I was a kid.  I finally got rid of the VHS tape it was on and upgraded to a DVD last year I think.  I've been waiting until I got back to the A's to watch it.  Part of me wondered if I had grown too cynical to enjoy the adventures of an orange tabby kitten and his pug friend, as narrated by Dudley Moore.  I worried that the weight of my adult life had finally quashed my ability to feel that sense of wonder and OMG LOOK AT THE SNUGGLEBUNNIES!!!!! 

SQUEEEE!!!!  THEY'RE SO CUTE AND FLUFFY!!!!!

And that was pretty much the end of that.