Screenshots of the Recently Viewed

I’m back from my trip to Vegas, but I’m still a bit out of it, so here are a few screenshots and quick comments from recently viewed movies. I’ll leave the titles off if you want to guess, though this isn’t really a screenshot game like I’ve done in the past. The answers are below the fold in the extended entry…

Screenshot 1:

Smoking Cigars

Screenshot 2:

Drowned

Screenshot 3:

This guy looks an awful lot like Spike from Cowboy Bebop, does he not?

Again, answers and quick comments in the extended entry…


Here are the answers:

  • Screenshot 1: Election – An interesting Triad ganster flick from one of my favorite Hong Kong direcors, Johnny To. It’s not really an action film, instead relying on plot and characterization. It works pretty well. There is a sequel to this movie which is also quite good. ***
  • Screenshot 2: Les Diaboliques – Brilliant French thriller that calls to mind the films of Alfred Hitchcock (the director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, was a contemporary and rival to Hitchcock). There is an American remake of this film, but it is awful, see the original instead. ****
  • Screenshot 3: The Animatrix – From the segment titled “A Detective Story” comes this character who bears a striking resemblance to Spike from Cowboy Bebop (with shorter hair). Of course, this makes sense, as the segment in question was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the writer/director of Cowboy Bebop. I got similar vibes for a couple of other segments in this series of shorts, most notably with the segment titled “Matriculated,” which was directed by Peter Chung, creator of the Aeon Flux cartoons. As a whole, I don’t think this is great, but certainly worth a watch, and about half of the segments are very well done. **1/2