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Awix (3310 KP) rated Viy (Spirit of Evil) (1967) in Movies

Sep 21, 2021  
Viy (Spirit of Evil) (1967)
Viy (Spirit of Evil) (1967)
1967 | Horror
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Soviet horror movie from the 1960s rather unexpectedly turns out to be a close spiritual cousin of the kind of films that Hammer et al were making in the west at the same time. A trainee priest finds himself compelled to spend three nights reading prayers over the body of (supposedly) a wealthy landowner's daughter - but the corpse bears a striking resemblance to that of a witch he earlier killed...

Not the longest of films, which is just as well as the pacing may require patience on the part of the viewer; after a very eerie sequence early on, there's a long wait until the stuff with the protagonist's vigil in the second half. Nevertheless, it's worth it, mainly because the special effects are remarkably good, well up to the standard of equivalent western films of the same period (and probably better). Not particularly scary or graphic by modern standards, but the climax has a creepy sort of power to it and the overall impression is of a classy and well-made film; if there's a political subtext to it, it's very well-hidden.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Deluge (1933) in Movies

Apr 23, 2019 (Updated Apr 23, 2019)  
Deluge (1933)
Deluge (1933)
1933 | Drama, Sci-Fi
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Pre-Code apocalyptic disaster movie boldly goes where Roland Emmerich would follow several times; also manages to be almost definitively non-compliant with the Bechdel test. A series of unexplained disasters including floods and earthquakes destroy civilisation; in the aftermath resourceful lawyer Martin hooks up with plucky society girl Claire, little realising his wife and children survived the catastrophe. Then fate brings them all back together...

The destruction of New York is the most celebrated sequence in the movie, and it stands up relatively well as an example of practical effects in action, but it happens in the first quarter of the movie. Most of the rest of it is concerned with surprisingly familiar post-apocalyptic themes - people come together and struggle to rebuild, raiders prey on settlements, people question familiar moral standards, and so on. The film's gender politics are startling, to say the least: women appear to have no rights and are basically property (and then civilisation crumbles, ha ha). It is interesting and indicative that the film ends with the affirmation of the traditional moral order. Not exactly subtle or nuanced, and the acting is fairly robotic, but it's pacy and the story is an engaging one. An interesting movie that suggests things haven't changed as much as we sometimes think.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Wicker Man (1973) in Movies

Feb 18, 2018 (Updated Feb 18, 2018)  
The Wicker Man (1973)
The Wicker Man (1973)
1973 | Horror, Mystery
10
7.5 (29 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
British folk-horror film is part of the mini-boom in 'British civil servant travels by seaplane to sun-obsessed Christopher Lee's remote island in search of missing girl, discovers Britt Ekland waiting for him' movies that happened in 1973-4. Devout Christian copper (Woodward) visits Summerisle (off the Scottish coast) after receiving a tip-off about a vanishing schoolgirl, is appalled by what he sees as the immorality of the islanders. The lord of the place (Lee) assures him that there's nothing to be worried about, they just have different ethical standards (they're all Pagans), but Woodward is not convinced. Is something nasty lined up for May Day?

Books have been written about the tortuous distribution endured by The Wicker Man and its producers; rumours persist that the original much longer version is buried under a motorway somewhere in England. But all the available cuts are excellent, if not superb: the film is not particularly scary per se, more a queasy examination of how society, morality and religion intersect with one another; manages to make moral relativism seem more disturbing than devil-worship, somehow. Has one of the greatest non-endings in cinema history. Great performances, banging tunes, thoughtful and playful script; a film for all seasons, but goes especially well with a barbecue.
  
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Andy K (10821 KP) Feb 18, 2018

Love this one!
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Saskia (283 KP) rated Slack in Apps

Aug 30, 2018  
Slack
Slack
Business, Productivity
7
8.6 (7 Ratings)
App Rating
Fairly simple to use (2 more)
Free to download
Good communication app for businesses
Poor security (2 more)
You can't have group conversations
Can be awkward to follow threads
Just good
So I work for a rather large logisitics company and we used slack as a way of each department staying connected. We stopped using it after about 6 months because the company found that security was poor and not to the standards to what our company wanted it to be. I liked using the app because it meant I could ask for advice and speak to colleagues from all over the country but sometimes it was difficult to follow the conversation topic because other people would be having another conversation in between. It was simple to use as in setting up and 1 on 1 conversations but I never found out how to do a small group chat and also how to reply to one comment even though someone mastered that straight away. So in short some things were a lot easier than other things. All in all I think it's a good app but should be aimed at maybe school/college/uni groups not company's that may share sensitive or important information.