Vick’s Picks: Movies you may have missed but really should see

With our busy lives being what they are, it is easier than ever to go right by some productions when they are first released. Fortunately, our tech allows us to retrieve them later easily. Here is a couple I initially skimmed over but should not have.

Wild Tales: The Black Mirror short story collections center around how tech now and in the future affects our lives. However, this Argentine collection of short stories centers on how stresses and the darker states of mind caused by real or imaginary injustices, revenge, jealousy and even the accumulation of little annoyances, may lead to volcanic responses in some personalities.

To live in a “civilized society” there are lines drawn that we agree not to step over. In these takes when we do take those steps, there is madness waiting for us. There might also be unexpected pleasure, or, conversely, death.

These six tales will have you trying to figure out which is your favorite because you will love them all. The lead tale sets the tone of what is to follow within the rest of the stories, but I would never want to be the spoiler about what the passengers aboard a jetliner all discover they have in common.

The most twisted tale concerns an all too believable scenario of how deranged road rage can escalate rapidly and stupidly with ironic consequences. Escalation can take many forms, and these tales swerve into lanes of dark comedy with such smoothness alternating with jolts.

You’ll be laughing and at the same time feel your rising anxiety about violence seeming so cathartic. This satirical anthology is worth the time it takes to read the subtitles.

Upstream Color: When it comes to experimental sci-fi films, I think Shane Carruth has to figure in. He can take a low budget and prove that with an abstract narrative he can create an absorbingly different film.

Carruth can also be enigmatic in his acting. His directing carries his mysterious qualities right into this role as the male part of a couple seeking some answers to what has happened to them both in a clouded past.

He teams up with actress Amy Seimetz years after they both are subjects of a baffling experiment involving an unexplained plant(?) powder carrying hypnotic properties. Or does it?

Seimetz later finds creatures crawling under her skin. What about the farmer man with all the pigs who removes the skin creatures? What about Carruth’s conversion from successful financier to wanderer?  

If it seems I have a lot of strange questions about what goes into this film, I do. In fact, hours could be spent discussing this with friends, and you still would not agree with each other about what is happening.

The falling forward style of editing mixed with beautiful images and lush sound all combine to make a masterful and defiant question mark.

It’s better with dream logic applied.

Copyright The Gayly – August 20, 2018 @ 12:25 p.m. CDT.