Edgar Wright recommended Le samouraï (1967) in Movies (curated)
David McK (3786 KP) rated Foxtrot Hotel (Harriet Walsh #4) in Books
May 23, 2021
Unlike the previous entry in the series - Sierra Bravo - (which is pretty much a siege story), this is back to being more of a whodunnit, with Harriett and the Peace Force (what there is of them ... ) investigating when a dead body turns up at her favourite beauty spot, which just so happens to be about to face an important governmental vote on whether it can have an apartment complex built on it ...
Competent? Yes.
Enjoyable enough? Yes.
A few unforeseen twists and turns? Hmmm ... that depends upon how familiar with the genre you are!
Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family
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On Friday, 17th November 1972, a shocking crime rocked London. Wealthy American socialite Barbara...
My Little Loves (Mes petites amoureuses) (1974)
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A study of minor events in the adolescence of a boy growing up in small towns. Daniel lives with his...
A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return
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When Zeina was born, the civil war in Lebanon had been going on for six years, so it's just a normal...
New Kid
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Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel...
Underwater
10.0
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Morgan didn’t mean to do anything wrong that day. Actually, she meant to do something right. But...
mental health romance realistic fiction
The Fog Ladies
3.0
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Young, overworked, overtired, overstressed medical intern Sarah James has no time for sleuthing. Her...
JT (287 KP) rated Sleep Tight (2011) in Movies
Mar 10, 2020
In Sleep Tight Balagueró again goes back inside an apartment block, this time the zombies are replaced by normal residents and a concierge with a sinister secret. César (Luis Tosar) is unhappy, and has been pretty much all his life, from the opening shot we see him standing on a ledge high above the streets preparing himself to drop to the concrete below.
He goes about his daily business with meticulous routine greeting the residents with a wry smile and engaging them in conversation day to day, but deep down he loathes it.It seems that his quest is to make others just as unhappy as he is, with main target being the gorgeous Clara (Marta Etura). Initially César seems pleasant enough, he’s polite and courteous and is always making himself available to those who need his help, whether it’s from feeding dogs to fumigating apartments.
It’s when we finally see him under Clara’s bed lying in wait that you realize that Balagueró is about to deliver us a 21st century boogieman. The lengths that César will go to to put Clara in harm’s way will leave you with your jaw open. The idea being that he wants to break her, “we’ll wipe that smile off her face,” he tells his bed ridden mother in hospital.
This almost nods right away to a Hitchcockian feel to the film, think of César as the Spanish version of Norman Bates without the dress, although at one point he does toy with the idea of using a large kitchen knife. During his torment of poor Clara he infests her house with bugs, injects things into her moisturizing products and even goes so far as to sleep in the same bed, with a little help from chloroform.
It would be unfair to explain anything more as it would give too much of the story away, and when Clara’s boyfriend Marcos arrives on the scene things only get worse. During the film you almost feel sorry for César and you’d be guilty for feeling anything but admiration towards him, at his dedication the very least.
It’s a voyeuristic nightmare, more so for the audience as Clara doesn’t really have much of a clue what is going on. Even when César is caught in the apartment during one of the films more gripping scenes he has an embarrassed excuse.
Balagueró proves to critics that he can capture as much tension and suspense through conventional cameras as opposed to the point of view of a hand held camcorder, which he used so effectively throughout [Rec] and its sequel.
Sleep Tight is an edgy slow burning thriller, a different take on the horror genre that will leave you gasping after the final act.