Tag: French film

Monday Morning Movie Review: Bloody Oranges (2021)

The Portly Politico7 Comments

I’m not typically one for “trigger warnings,” but this week’s film is hard to watch.  I’ve seen some pretty foul stuff in all the crappy B-grade horror flicks I consume, and I have, perhaps sadly, become immune to most shocking material.  Just writing that sentence made me feel convicted… dang.

But my crushing Pentecostal guilt can wait until after this film review.  This flick, the 2021 French black comedy Bloody Oranges (or Oranges sanguines in French) possesses some truly difficult scenes to endure.  I found myself watching through my fingers at a couple of points in the film.

It’s an incredible movie, a movie I will heavily discourage most readers from watching.  My parents, my aunts, Audre—don’t watch it.  Read some reviews if your curiosity is piqued, but don’t watch it.  Ponty, you could probably handle it, even though I know how much you hate the frogs.

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: Calvaire (2004)

The Portly Politico2 Comments

When I was young I thought that life was so wonderful that foreign films were snooty, arthouse affairs, the kinds of flicks pretentious people only pretended to like in order to look sophisticated.  That’s probably true of some foreign films (and most modern art in general), but I’ve found that the opposite is frequently the case.  Some of the best movies I’ve watched lately were foreign films.

Koreans and Spaniards (of various derivations) make some of the best films.  Much to my surprise and delight, the French make some excellent films, too.

To be clear, some of the crappier stuff I’ve seen have been pretentious French flicks.  My beloved Shudder has a whole collection of French films that are, let’s say, experimental garbage.

But the frogs do get some things right now and then.  One of those is 2004’s Calvaire (alternatively Calvary or The Ordeal).

Read More »