The Vanishing, and other movies I won't rewatch

[NotHardUp1]

Sometimes a tale is too well-told.

I stumbled across The Vanishing tonight and watched it. This is the one from 2018, not to be confused with two earlier flicks with the same title, but from a different novel.

The Vanishing (2018 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Vanishing (2018) ⭐ 5.9 | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

1h 47m | R

www.imdb.com

The earlier movies (after I read up on them) are also desperately sad thrillers, but after reading their synopses, I don't want to see them. Too dark.

The Vanishing (1988) ⭐ 7.7 | Mystery, Thriller

1h 47m | Not Rated

www.imdb.com

The Vanishing (1993) ⭐ 6.3 | Drama, Horror, Mystery

1h 49m | R

www.imdb.com

The new one, based on a novel named Keepers, is a fictionalized account of the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from their post at Brennan in 1900, wihtout a trace. The investigation concluded that they had most likely been doing some duty on the coast and had been swept away by a rogue wave.

What caused the disappearance of the Flannan Isle lighthouse keepers?

Were the lighthouse keepers on Flannan Island swept away? Or did something darker take place that night?

www.rmg.co.uk

But, the fiction account is of gold, murder, mayhem, madness, and morality. Other than poor audio and mumbling, the acting is impressive and Gerard Butler is a surprising tour de force.

I'm not averse to sad stories, nor violent ones, but sometimes, the telling of a tale is too dark. I pick myself up, consider the strings that the director pulled, but never want to revisit the pathos of some tales. Sophie's Choice was one such tale. I got it. What actually happened in the Holocaust was much worse, but the tale they told was still effective, so mission accomplished. I think watching the depressing ones repeatedly would depress me, and I don't watch movies to make sure I don't enjoy life too much.

What about you? Are there movies you liked, or at least appreciated, but won't rewatch?

 

[NotHardUp1]

As a side note, why does JUB convert some posted material to German stuff. In the link I posted to the 2018 IMDB above, it changed the title from The Vanishing to Keepers. Keepers was the title of the novel, and perhaps the movie was released in different markets with a different title, but the page shown me on IMDB made no referent in its title to Keepers.

Is this a setting in the JUB software, or some setting in my IMDB that shows me one thing, but JUB another? Any programming whiz out there know? I ask because I've seen other German language when I post some other things in the past.

 

[Essex Boy]

The Flannan Lighthouse mystery is also the basis of a "chamber" opera by Peter Maxwell Davies. This is one of his best stage works, in my opinion.

 

[Peloso]

Oh I love the dark stuff. I saw the original "The Vanishing" many years ago but it didn't impress me. I found it too lukewarm. Maybe the American version is better, but that's rarely the case.

I will never sit through "The Lighthouse" again. Well made, with beautiful black and white photography, but so grimy and unpleasant I felt I needed a shower after it was over.

"Once Upon A Time in Hollywood". Tarantino's only gangster-less feature was just a bunch of tepid self-aggrandizing set pieces strung together by a lackluster plot that runs out of steam by the time the stupid ending rolls around. Huge disappointment.

"Speak No Evil". Yes, I like the disturbing stuff but this was a bit too much. Ninety minutes of severe discomfort followed by a denouement so ruthlessly cruel I couldn't believe it. That said, it belongs in my collection, but by the time I gathered the courage to order a copy it had gone out of print, and the remaining available copies are currently too expensive. It's being remad , but by another director, so unlike Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" (equally as disturbing but somehow more palatable) the new American version is likely to be toned down considerably.

What concerns me more are the films I desperately want to see again (and own) but can't, #1 being 1969's "Last Summer", a wholly believable tome on teenage sexual desire and cruelty starring Barbara Hershey and Richard Thomas. It was released on VHS, but that's pointless now. There are a lot of people clamoring for it on the movie forums, so perhaps it will pop up on a boutique label sometime soon.

"Dancer in the Dark". His Holiness Lars von Trier's story of a woman with a degenerative eye disease desperately trying to save her young son from the same fate is the saddest movie I've ever seen, and it's a musical. My DVD won't play anymore, but now that Lars has parkinsons and is probably not going to make any more films, perhaps he will get to work on getting his library mastered on blu ray for American audiences.

"The Search for One-Eye Jimmy" not really worthy of this list since it just appeared on Tubi, a shit ad supported platform pissed out by Amazon, but I don't consider a movie to exist if it isn't in physical form and this one has been long out of print. It's either worthless or brilliant, depending on who you ask. Micro budget, with a lot of jokes that simply don't work, it's overlong with long stretches of pointless dialogue but I love this movie and think it's much funnier than it probably is. The appeal is the cast: a who's who of now well-regarded actors when they were still nobodies, including but not limited to: Steve Buscemi, Nicholas Turturro, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Sirico, Michael Baddalucho, John Turturro, Jennifer Beals, and Sam Rockwell in one of the funniest cameos I have ever seen.