愛的循環(huán)

戰(zhàn)國奇譚妖刀傳劇場版

蛛網男孩

　　八歲的彼得（伍迪·諾曼 Woody Norman 飾）經常受到來自臥室墻壁內的神秘的、持續(xù)的敲墻聲的困擾——他的父母堅持認為這種敲擊聲只是他的想象。隨著彼得的恐懼加劇，他相信他的父母可能隱藏著一個可怕、危險的秘密，并逐漸喪失對他們的信任。對于一個孩子來說，還有什么比這更可怕的呢？

等待方舟

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

杯酒人生

　　邁爾斯（保羅?吉亞瑪提 Paul Giamatti 飾）和杰克（托馬斯?哈登?丘奇 Thomas Haden Church 飾）是老朋友了，看著杰克即將踏入婚姻殿堂，邁爾斯更加感嘆起自己失敗的生活：婚姻失敗、作家夢遙不可及、干著無聊枯燥的職業(yè)、不再年輕的歲數。邁爾斯對葡萄酒的研究頗為深厚，于是兩個人決定前往加州的葡萄酒生產基地狂歡一次，如果遇上一夜情當然是最好不過了。　　果然二人在酒香濃郁的加州遇上了女招待和她的亞裔朋友，邁爾斯和杰克的艷遇讓兩人都興奮不已。然而接下來的事情卻大掃興致。他們的狂歡計劃充滿了障礙。