Around The World In 8mm

The question is not where, but when? Imagine a mind map, the kind you see detectives make on a board when they're solving a crime. Dark is like entering that mind map. You don't know where it begins or ends but you're sure having fun.

EP 20 - Dark
Title: Secrets

Year: 2017

Director: Baran bo Odar

Writer/Screenplay: Jantje Friese

Cast:  Louis Hofmann, Julika Jenkins, Andreas Pietschmann, Maja Schöne, Lisa Vicari, and others.

Genre: Sci-fi, mystery

Everyone has suddenly vanished and the ever-bustling Tokyo is a ghost town. Alice in Borderland is all about lasers and deserted towns. You play or you die.
Title: Episode 1
Year: 2020
Director: Shinsuke Sato
Adapted from: Alice in Borderland by Haro Aso
Producer: Akira Morii
Writer/Screenplay: Sato, Yoshiki Watabe, and Yasuko Kuramitsu
Cast: Kento Yamazaki, Tao Tsuchiya, Yūki Morinaga, Keita Machida, Ayame Misaki, Nijirō Murakami
Cinematography: Taro Kawazu
Editors: Tsuyoshi Imai, Shoukichi Kaneda
Genre: Sci-fi thriller
Watched by: 18 million accounts

In a pilot if nothing, an interesting character will make you stay. That’s what happens with the Schitt's Creek pilot.

Title: Episode 1: Our Coup Runneth Over

Year: 2015

Director: (Ep 1) Jerry Ciccoritti

Created by: Dan Levy, Eugene Levy

Producer: Colin Brunton, Kosta Orfanidis

Cast: Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dan Levy, Annie Murphy

Genre: Sitcom

We follow the story of Alex, a young mother fleeing her own home with her daughter Maddy, in the quiet of the night. There is no time to settle in, even though she isn’t doing anything wrong it seems like Alex is on the run. Why this pilot works so well is it takes us into Alex’s mind, it shows her what she is going through and it all seems so tough that your heart is always in your mouth.

Title: Episode 1 - "Dollar Store"

Year: 2021

Director: (Ep 1) John Wells

Created by: Molly Smith Metzler
Adapted from: Stephanie Land's memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

Producer: Colin McKenna, Terri Murphy, Bonnie R. Benwick

Writer/Screenplay: Molly Smith Metzler (Ep 1)
Cast:  Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson, Anika Noni Rose, Tracy Vilar, Billy Burke, Andie MacDowel

Genre: Drama

Hours watched: 469.1 million

The professor, who is the mastermind behind this heist brings together a team of 8 people, people with very little to lose…the first hook to get the viewer interested - a lot must have happened with a person who is left with very little to lose and we want to know these stories. We are introduced to these characters - there’s a calm father - hothead son duo, the likable geek, the serious leader, the quirky wild girl, two men whose answer to everything is force. The professor sets two rules for them -no personal relationships and no bloodshed - they foreshadow exactly what’s going to happen.

Title: Episode 1 -Efectuar lo acordado

Year: 2017

Director:  Jesús Colmenar(Ep 1)

Created by: Álex Pina

Cinematographer: Migue Amoedo

Producer: Álex Pina, Sonia Martínez
Writer/Screenplay: Álex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato (Ep 1)
Cast:  Úrsula Corberó, Álvaro Morte, Itziar Ituño, Pedro Alonso, Paco Tous, Alba Flores, Miguel Herrán, Jaime Lorente and others

Genre: Crime drama

Watched by  - 65 Million+ accounts

The conman of the pages leaps to the screen and we get Assane Diop following the footsteps of Arsene Lupin.
Disclaimer: I call both of them Lupin, distinguished by a poorly attempted French accent when speaking of the one from the book and the normal Indian English accent when speaking of the series character.
The Netflix series Lupin isn’t a direct adaptation of the book but heavily inspired by it, it’s kind of meta, the series inspired by Arsene Lupin has a protagonist heavily inspired by Arsene Lupin…so the plot and the protagonist's actions take inspiration form the legendary character.

Title: Chapter 1 - Le Collier de la reine

Year: 2021

Director: Louis Leterrier (Ep 1)

Created by: George Kay and François Uzan

Cinematographer: Homayun Payvar

Producer: Film Monster by JTBC Studios; Kim Jong-hak Production
Adpted from:  Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc
Writer/Screenplay: George Kay (Ep 1)
Cast:  Omar Sy, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme, Vincent Londez, Soufiane Guerrab, Shirine Boutella

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Hours watched - 316.8 million+

I watched something that is our childhood fantasies brewed out of boredom in geography class.

Remember in the last episode I said this one onward we are going on a new trip: it is called around the world in 8mm - popular destination edition, I know that’s an unnecessarily long name but the original name of the podcast isn’t the haiku of names either.

Title: All of Us Are Dead

Year: 2022

Director: Lee Jae-kyoo; Kim Nam-su
Cinematographer: Homayun Payvar

Producer: Film Monster by JTBC Studios; Kim Jong-hak Production
Adapted from: Our School by Joo Dong-geun
Screenplay/Writer: Chun Sung-il

Cast:  Park Ji-hu, Yoon Chan-young, Cho Yi-hyun, Lomon, Yoo In-soo, Lee Yoo-mi, Kim Byung-chul, Lee Kyu-hyung, and Jeon Bae-soo

Genre: Coming-of-age; Horror; Zombie apocalypse

Hours watched - 316 million+

Sometimes, unfortunately, and unfairly, life becomes too much for some people, and Abbas Kiarostami's 1997 Palm O'Dea winning film makes you wonder can something as simple as wanting to taste the cherries again keep one going?

Title: Taste of Cherry

Year: 1997

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Cinematographer: Homayun Payvar

Producer: Abbas Kiarostami Screenplay/Writer: Abbas Kiarostami

Cast: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri., Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari, Safar Ali Moradi Genre: Minimalist cinema Rating: IMDB-7.7 Rotten Tomatoes - 82%

Awards/Accolades: Palme d'Or [Cannes, 1997]

Year: 2014

Director: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement

Cinematographer: D. J. Stipsen, Richard Bluck

Producer: Taika Waititi, Chelsea Winstanley, Emanuel Michael

Screenplay/Writer: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement

Music: Plan 9

Cast:  Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stu Rutherford

Runtime: 1hr15min

Genre: Mocumentary, horror-comedy

Rating: IMDB 7.7, Rotten Tomatoes 96%

Why are these films special? Not only did they pioneer a particular style of filmmaking, german expressionism which Furness describes as a style of art that focuses more on vital emotions, dynamic powers of the description...a creation from within, an intense subjectivity which had no reluctance in destroying the conventional picture of reality in order that the expression is more powerful. This week we look into german expressionism. 

Title: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Year: 1920

Director: Robert Wiene

Cinematographer: Willy Hameister
Producer: Erich Pommer and Rudolf Meinert

Screenplay/Writer: Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer

Music: Giuseppe Becce

Cast:  Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Fehér, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinz v. Twardowski, Rudolf Lettinger

Runtime: 1hr 14m

Genre: Silent horror

Rating: IMDB 8.1, Rotten Tomatoes 99%

Awards/Accolades: First great work or German expressionism, first true horror film

Title: Nosferatu

Year: 1922

Director: F. W. Murnau

Cinematographer: Fritz Arno Wagner; Günther Krampf (uncredited)

Producer: Enrico Dieckmann, Albin Grau, Prana Film

Screenplay: Henrik Galeen

Music:  Hans Erdmann

Cast:  Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Alexander Granach, Ruth Landshoff, Wolfgang Heinz

Runtime: 1hr 20m

Genre: Silent horror

Rating: IMDB 7.9, Rotten Tomatoes 97%

Zyagenstev's Leviathan is a tragedy that befalls a commoner as he clashes face to face with the high and mighty of the town. This is not an unheard story but that's exactly what makes for compelling it's a story that could have been set in India or Ghana or Canada or any country as easily as it's set in Russia because all countries and all societies rely on institutions such as the state religion, family so on for relatively less chaotic functioning and everywhere imperfect institutions and the flaws in human characters join hands to makes things complicated

If you enjoy the so beautiful to look at that it becomes even more tragic kind of films, the cinematography blends in well with its writing making it a worthy watch.

Title: Leviathan

Year: 2014

Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev

Cinematographer: Mikhail Krichman

Producer:  Alexander Rodnyansky

Screenplay: Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin

Music: Andrey Dergachev, Philip Glass

Cast:  Aleksei Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, and Vladimir Vdovichenkov

Runtime: 1hr 56m

Genre: Crime-drama

Rating: IMDB 7.6, Rotten Tomatoes 97%

Awards: Best Screenplay [Cannes, 2014], Best Foreign Film [Golden Globes, 2014], Best Feature Film [Asia Pacific Screen Award, 2014], and more.

In the film, we follow two people stuck in unhappy marriages so it's pretty clear that something will happen between them. This is not a spoiler that much the poster and the title itself give away. What leads to it, what is it that happens, and what happens after it is what the film is about. You might think that the setup is fairly predictable but don’t be too sure even with this predictable set up the film manages to surprise you more than once. Title: In The Mood For Love Year: 2000 Director: Wong Kar-wai Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle, Mark Lee Ping Bin Producer: Wong Kar-wai Screenplay:  Wong Kar-wai Cast: Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Score: Michael Galasso Editing: William Chang Runtime: 1hr 38m Genre: Romance Rating: IMDB 8.1, Rotten Tomatoes 91% Awards: Best Actor/Technical Grand Prize [2000, Cannes], Best Actor/Actress/Editing/Makeup and Costume/Art Direction [2000, Hong Kong Film Awards]