A Real Pain (2024)
8/10
Clearly owes a debt to
Old Joy (2006), another film about two men reconnecting during a journey.
Old Joy is subtler and more meditative. Here it's two actors playing to type. Very good, but a couple of notches below the masterpiece Peter Bradshaw claims it to be.
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The actor is half-Japanese and was educated at Winchester College. I think the accent is deliberately parochial for light relief. Classism for laughs is still perfectly acceptable, it seems.
Anatahan (1953)
8/10
An oddity: Josef von Sternberg's last film, made in Japan with an all-Japanese cast. Tells the true story of Japanese sailors stranded on a remote Pacific island, where they hold out for six years after the end of WWII. The lone woman on the island becomes the focal point of intrigue and violence. Gorgeously shot in a studio. Von Sternberg's narration is the only jarring note.
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The Social Network (2010)
8/10
The story of the founding of Facebook. In this context, Zuckerberg's recent morph into right-wing enabler isn't surprising at all. Tech bro culture is going to end the world, but at least they'll have a good time doing it.
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