beingjohn.0
Image Courtesy of The Ringers
During Week One we visited movies about whether “Man Deserved His Comeuppance.” Week Two we looked over “The Good Guys Always Win in the End.” Week Three we took a look at smart and inspiring leadership. Week Four…No Seriously, let’s go back a little bit and talk Dystopia.
This week?
Can’t you just recommend some interesting movies I’ve never heard of?
If you’d like to simply see something you might never have tried before, here’s a few that may have never crossed paths with you.
The Host – from the Director of “Parasite” this Korean creature feature surprises and delights. A bizarre version of Godzilla, you have to see it to appreciate it. There is gratuitous gore and violence, but the off-kilter humanity and humor of the central characters elevates this schlocky foreign monster film.
Ringu (Japanese version of the Ring) – if no one prepares you, it’s the most terrifying horror movie that has ever been filmed. Now that you’ve been prepared, perhaps you’ll have fewer nightmares than I did.
Brazil – Another Terry Gilliam film, one that my sister is still angry at me for recommending to her. Very strange, emotionally distant in many ways, but with a wonderful British sense of weirdness and themes of the little guy fighting against bureaucracy. If you’ve ever read and enjoyed Harlan Ellison’s “Repent Harlequin, said the Tik Tok Man,” you might enjoy this strange little gem.
Young Ones – You would never watch this movie if I hadn’t recommended it to you, and I would not have watched it if it had not been recommended to me in the writer’s room by interesting people. Featuring the phenomenal acting skills of Michael Shannon (also in Shape of Water), this film led me further down the Michael Shannon rabbit hole. If you are a cinephile, it’s fun to use this one as a leaping off point for the interesting career and films Shannon has chosen. Set in a world where water is almost non-existent, a loving father ekes out a life using his robot dog on a farm, but jealousies abound. A harsh, low-budget, dystopian sci-fi film.
Being John Malkovich – A quirky cult-classic, and the type of story where you have to wonder how in the world someone even came up with it in the first place, the movie centers on a puppeteer with emotional problems who discovers a portal that leads into the mind of John Malkovich. Very well shot, well acted, and completely bizarre, if you want a weird mind trip, keep following this director into other trippy classics.
ABOUT JULIA FAIR. Julia moved to Bainbridge Island three years ago with her husband and two children, and has found her work home at IslandWood. An original native of Mississippi, Julia started her career working on the successful independent film, The Blair Witch Project. Her first produced feature length scripts, Believers and Alien Raiders, were released on DVD by Warner Brothers home video, and she strongly encourages you to rent them as she does still receive residuals on them. Quentin Tarantino counts Alien Raiders as one of his personal favorites, just saying. Outside of writing, Julia has been heavily involved in research as well as viral marketing for a variety of science fiction and paranormal movies and shows, such as In Search Of and Hellboy. Her experience as an intensive and detailed researcher, as well as a horror and fantasy/sci-fi maven led her to be tapped by Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios where she worked behind the scenes in the Brain Trust for both Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and Michael Bay’s Transformers. She recently spoke at the Library of Congress, discussing the making of modern myths and how Blair Witch, like War of the Worlds, reveals the way humans can seek out and even forcefully choose to believe misinformation. She enjoys long walks, nature, white papers from the National Institute of Health, the companionship of good friends, and dystopian sci-fi.