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seventeen things tagged “suspense

Shadow of a Doubt

Towards the middle of this movie, I imagined Hitchcock building one of those 1/120 scale models of railroad towns1 most meticulously, and then taking sheer fiendish delight in terrorizing it with a toy Godzilla or a sandbucket avalanche. Wasn’t too far off (surprisingly). It was his favorite movie…

Rating: A
Solace

Solace

(2015)

Decent background-watch. Whoever did the ‘visions’ knocked it out of the park. A waste of Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell, who play clairvoyants whose powers wax and wane in service of the utterly predictable plot. Like Next1 but slightly better. Which is a fantastic fucking movie if you love Mr…

Rating: C-
The Salesman

Saw with LD. This was our first Asghar Farhadi movie and it won’t be our last. Everything was magnificent: story, acting, screenplay, all of it. I remarked to LD that he managed to punch us in at least ten emotional centers in our hearts. So masterfully paced we didn’t feel two hours flow by. Here…

Rating: A+
Aranyak

Aranyak

(2021–)

Watched with LD. Decent attempt at Desi Noir in picturesque Himachal Pradesh1. Raveena Tandon is intense, vulnerable, and puts in good work as Kasturi Dogra. Great stuff by Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Zakir Hussain, and Meghna Malik. If Jeff Goldblum had a younger brother from an Indian mother, he wo…

Rating: B
The Wailing

Saw with LD. Long, slow, visceral, beautiful, gory. Kept me guessing. Excellent stuff. There’s a pervasive hush and sense of stillness that lingers over the region of Gokseong, and scenes of brazen, crazed madness are often preceded by shots of tranquil mountain vistas whose lush, thickly forest…

Rating: A
Predestination

Based on “–All You Zombies–” by Robert A. Heinlein. Sarah Snook is phenomenal. But “John Doe” is an extended, uncredited cameo by Leonardo Di Caprio and I won’t be convinced otherwise.…

Rating: A-
Hereditary

Deeply upsetting. One of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker on what gives it its potency Should you want to measure the psychological disturbance at work here, try comparing “Hereditary” with “A Quiet Place.” That recent hit, for all its masterly shocks, is at b…

Rating: A