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Autopsy aka Macchie Solari (1975) A pathologist (Mimsy Farmer) has visions of dead bodies in the morgue getting up and coming after her. She and a racecar driving priest determine that a recent rash of suicides in Rome are actually murders. Some ultra violence in this one, including a gunshot victim who’s eyeball is popped out. Another interesting scene takes place in a true crime museum, with load of unpleasant photos. Some of the humorous dialog includes Mimsy’s boyfriend telling her “You can’t blame a guy for trying” after she fends off a violent rape attempt. In fact, from start to finish she’s just about the most disrespected doctor I’ve ever seen in a movie! Also a lot of nudity in this enjoyable giallo, including from the lead actress.

Screamers aka Island of Fishmen (1979) One of the best giallo directors, Sergio Martino, brings us this tale of a shipwreck of a prison ship on a mysterious Island, inhabited by a rich guy and his servants, and Barbara (Mrs Ringo Starr) Bach. Oh, and a bunch of fish-face creature from the black lagoons! And an old Joseph Cotton, who had made the transition from Hollywood A-List to Italian exploitation by this time in his career. Not bad at all, and pretty violent, though no nudity from Mrs. Ringo. The US version (Screamers) has an extra 12 minute intro (w/ Cameron Mitchell) that didn’t help the story much, but was obviously there to spruce up the gore content. This was like Doctor Butcher MD meets Humanoids from the Deep with Island of Dr. Moreau and a sprinkle of Son of Kong! Though not as good as those, but still good.

Beyond the Door (1974) Italian combo rip-off of both The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. A demon possesses the body of a pregnant mother of two and she have has crazy sex dreams and swears and spits up pea soup during her waking hours. Her younger son ate Campbell’s Peas Soup all the time, and they even had a Warhol homage on the wall! It drags at nearly 2 hours, but the end was OK. The same year she was wearing green teeth in Italy for this one, lead actress Juliet Mills was winning an Emmy for an American mini-series. Originally called Who Are You in Italian, and sometimes known as The Devil Within Her in the States.

Shock (1977) Mario Bava’s last film, Lamberto Bava got assistant director and screenwriting credit. Daria Nicoledi moves back into her former house with her new husband and her 10 year old boy. She’s a former junkie who apparently drove her late husband to suicide. Some force in the house controls the kid to cause his mom to suffer a few minor household accidents, and she is having crazy violent/erotic dreams. Slow paced at first, but the last 20 minutes were quite exciting. Originally released in the US as Beyond the Door 2, even though the films are unrelated.

All the Colors of Giallo (2019) Pretty OK documentary with lots of clips and interviews, featuring mostly the films of Diario Argento, Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzzi, and a few one-offs. They left out a few that I thought were important. Things I learned though a recorded interview with Fulci was that he and Dario didn’t like eachother.

Deathsport (1978) Post-apocalyptic borefest from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures has David Carradine and Claudia Jennings captured by Richard Lynch to participate in government sanctioned death games with motorcycle gladiators. Also with lots of disintegration lasers and mutants. Sounds great, yeah, but it wasn’t. If not for a good amount of nudity, most of it from Claudia, who was 1970’s Playmate of the Year, I’m not sure I would have made it. Director Alan Arkush’s next movie would be the much more fun Rock n Roll High School.

The Beach House (2019) A college couple and a middle-aged couple share a beach house, and after 50 minutes of incredibly dull character development, a fog rolls in and some body-horror stuff starts to happen. I know a lot of people like the “slow burn” these days but it took me right out of the game, by the time anything happened I already didn’t care anymore. Might have worked better as a part of an anthology.
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Re: movies

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We're hate-watching The Rise of Skywalker right now. I went in hoping to like it more than in the theatre (where I was, at best, bored), but we're both getting snarky. It's just a really clumsy narrative.

edit: Hard to believe, but I truly think this was the worst of the trilogy finales. Yes, worse than Revenge of the Sith. This was just fucking stupid and poorly told from start to finish. The Boss says we have to watch Solo now to get a positive Star Wars cleanser.
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The Crimes of the Black Cat aka Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk (1972) A blind piano player’s lover is killed at her modeling agency, and cops are one step behind as the murders pile up. One interesting character was a former circus performer/junkie who owned a pet shop, and the black cat in the title. Not the most exciting giallo, but there was good amount of nudity, and one particular straight razor killing that was outstanding.

Murder Rock (1984) I stayed away from this Lucio Fulci title for years because I thought it was a musical, but take away the extended choreographed synth-pop dance sequences, and it’s a pretty decent late-era giallo. Pretty dance academy students are being murdered and the older sister of a victim and a gross cop who talked with food in his mouth for the entire movie are looking for clues. Unlike your average Fulci flick, the violence wasn’t all that graphic; the killer’s preferred method of killing is a hatpin through the heart via the rib cage. The silver lining is that method requires bare breasts from the victims.

Naked…You Die aka The Young, the Evil and the Savage (1968) A college for girls becomes the site of murders and disappearances, while one student sneaks out to see her boyfriend during the lockdown. Fun characters and some comedy keep it light. Michael Renne (The Day the Earth Stood Still) is a detective. The murders aren’t graphic and we get get about as close to nudity as we can without any, but it’s entertaining enough and even though I saw the twist coming, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. This early era giallo came from a Mario Bava script but ended up getting made by Antonio Margheriti.

A Quiet Place to Kill aka Paranoia (1970) Down on her luck, Helen is invited to the mansion of her ex-husband’s new, rich wife, who tries to scheme her in to murdering him for profit. These plans never go off as expected, and a lot of twist and turns to follow in this stylish, fun thriller form Umberto Lenzi. It doesn’t follow the traditional giallo “whodunit” plot, and it would be the third team up between Lenzi and former Hollywood star Carroll Baker, who found she could return to top billing if she took her clothes off in Italy. And she did. I liked it a lot.

The Carpenter (1988) Just released from a mental institution, Mrs Jarrett and her cheating husband move into a new house, with a construction crew working on it all day long. At night, only she can see and hear the southern gentleman (Wings Hauser) who gets the carpentry done when everyone else is gone. He’s the ghost of the former home owner, and good thing he’s there to murder the would be rapists and burglars who break in to the house almost every night. Cheap FX, no nudity, awful movie. I can’t believe I survived the runtime.

Lake of Death (2019) I saw an ad for this Norwegian Shudder original that said it was Evil Dead meets the lake-blob segment of Creepshow2. Whoever wrote that might have never seen those movies because other than a cabin with a cellar on a lake setting there was nothing in common whatsoever. A young woman and her friends stay at a cabin where her twin brother died one year ago, and a bit of weirdness occurs, and finally a bit of action near the end, and even though the ending was not bad, it was too little too late.

Metamorphosis aka Byeonshin (2019) A priest who lost a young woman’s life during an exorcism has a chance for redemption when his brother’s family falls under attack from the same demon. I don't want to give it away, but the demon had a neat little trick to put the whole family in peril, rather than just one member. South Korean with subtitles. I thought it was very good.

Into the Dark: The Current Occupant (2020) A man awakens in a mental institution and after some experimental testing, he begins to remember that he might be the current President of the United States, and victim of conspiracy. I didn’t really like it, but at least it wasn’t daft, like many of the recent Into the Dark entries.
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Re: movies

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Just watched Host, on shudder, which is a haunted zoom meeting movie basically. At just under an hour I thought it was pretty good. Really taps into the moment, and the scares are quite well done. It uses the tech conceit pretty well.
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Re: movies

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tepista wrote:
17 Jul 2020, 10:13am
The Beach House (2019) A college couple and a middle-aged couple share a beach house, and after 50 minutes of incredibly dull character development, a fog rolls in and some body-horror stuff starts to happen. I know a lot of people like the “slow burn” these days but it took me right out of the game, by the time anything happened I already didn’t care anymore. Might have worked better as a part of an anthology.
Just watched this one too. I liked it more than you did, altho I like the slow burns more. Nice mix of 50s sci-fi horror with some lovecraftian cosmic horror elements and kinda trippy, which I dug. I think the problem with the character development first part is just that it didn't really have any bearing on how the horror unfolded once things got going more. The whole point of those slow burn builds is to have some narrative payoff later, but dunno if it really happened here.
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Re: movies

Post by tepista »

Flex wrote:
05 Aug 2020, 12:09am
tepista wrote:
17 Jul 2020, 10:13am
The Beach House (2019) A college couple and a middle-aged couple share a beach house, and after 50 minutes of incredibly dull character development, a fog rolls in and some body-horror stuff starts to happen. I know a lot of people like the “slow burn” these days but it took me right out of the game, by the time anything happened I already didn’t care anymore. Might have worked better as a part of an anthology.
Just watched this one too. I liked it more than you did, altho I like the slow burns more. Nice mix of 50s sci-fi horror with some lovecraftian cosmic horror elements and kinda trippy, which I dug. I think the problem with the character development first part is just that it didn't really have any bearing on how the horror unfolded once things got going more. The whole point of those slow burn builds is to have some narrative payoff later, but dunno if it really happened here.
I wish it was 56 minutes, like Host was, I'll write that up in a couple days.

Shudder's the best, do you have any interest in watching the Joe Bob hosted features?
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Impetigore (2019) A young woman has reason to believe she inherited a large house in a small village, but when she and a friend go there to gather information, she finds she may be a link to a 20 year curse that plagues the village and that her life is in immediate danger. Pretty good Indonesian horror with a solid back story and even some surprise nudity. From the director of Satan’s Slaves (which I haven’t seen but now I will).

The Girl Who Knew Too Much aka Evil Eye (1963) An American tourist in Rome gets a bump on the head and dizzily witnesses a stabbing that produces no body when she comes to. Odd thing is there was an identical murder to the one she described in the same spot 10 years prior. An avid mystery reader, she enlists the help of a handsome young doctor (John Saxon) to look for clues. This black & white comedic thriller from Mario Bava is arguably the first giallo, but he would add color and a much heavier tone the following year with Blood & Black Lace, which would basically set the template for the genre.

The Dark Mirror (1946) "Twins! One who loves... and one who loves to kill!” is the tagline. Olivia de Havilland plays twins who don't get arrested for murder because one had an alibi and they wouldn’t admit which one. So they didn't get arrested even though one was clearly seen. They spend the rest of the movie volunteering to over-analyze Rorschach splotches for a psych experiment. Cornball and predictable, hard to believe this came immediately after director Robert Siodmak’s The Killers and The Spiral Staircase, two solid noirs.

Death Laid an Egg (1968) Gina Lollobrigida plays the wife of a chicken farm millionaire who wants to destroy him because he pays too much attention to their young house guest (the stunning Ewa Aulin). Then there’s a side plot about genetically altered boneless, headless chickens. All in all there were too many eggs and not enough death in this weird giallo with a sreetchingly annoying score.

Rewind This! (2013) Documentary about the rise and fall of the VHS cassette tape craze, featuring fanatic collectors, still-standing stores (albeit in 2013), industry people, filmmakers/celebs (Frank Henenlotter, Elvira, etc) and loaded with obscure clips of anything from odd workout videos to TV ads for a new VCR. They do lean heavy on the horror side, and throw a little porn in there for good measure. Like most docs, it started to feel pretty long by the end, but most of it was fun, informative, and nostalgic.

Host (2020) The first COVID movie? Or if you can call it a movie, it’s 56 minutes long. A group of British birds hold a séance over a Zoom meeting during lockdown and let loose a sprit that causes havoc. Easy to watch, pretty good for what it is. I thought the Unfriended movies were OK, this was obviously similar.

The Demoniacs (1974) Two survivors of a shipwreck are raped and left for dead by four ruthless pirates. They are found by the inhabitants of a strange castle and given the power to exact revenge. Not my favorite Jean Rollin flick but as usual there was some great nudity, especially from the girl-pirate, French actress Joelle Coeur, who isn’t in a lot of movies, but is in another Rollin flick, a comedy called Schoolgirl Hitch-Hikers. I guess that’s next on the list!

Urban Legend: Final Cut (2000) Film students make a horror movie about urban legends when crew members start to get knocked off by a mysterious attacker. Loretta Devine reprises her role as the security guard, everyone else is new, including Eva Mendez and Anthony Anderson. Not awful, but not particularly good either.

Eye in the Labyrinth (1972) A woman in Milan goes searching for her missing boyfriend, and finds herself the guest of a villa with a group of people who say they’ve never seen before, but she soon finds out that each had a reason to murder him. Houseguest Sybil Danning and lead Rosemary Dexter provide the nudity in this OK giallo. I doubt I’d watch it twice.
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Re: movies

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This probably doesn't count as a real movie, but I've been watching a lot of documentaries about the rise of Hitler and that whole shit show. I've always wanted to understand what could drive a person(s) to do what he/they did. I wanted to understand the psychology of it. Most of the docs were pretty tame, not showing too much of the brutality. And then I watched one about the Einsatzgruppen (nazi death squads) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/

Holy shit. I'm done. I won't watch another. The footage, and there was a lot of it, was brutal. I felt this one had a strange bias to it (not sure I understand what that is, but it felt...off) and I actually got angry because one of the witnesses interviewed was laughing about it. Anyway, I hope there is a hell and all these fuckers burn in it.

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Re: movies

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Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 9:10am
This probably doesn't count as a real movie, but I've been watching a lot of documentaries about the rise of Hitler and that whole shit show. I've always wanted to understand what could drive a person(s) to do what he/they did. I wanted to understand the psychology of it. Most of the docs were pretty tame, not showing too much of the brutality. And then I watched one about the Einsatzgruppen (nazi death squads) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/

Holy shit. I'm done. I won't watch another. The footage, and there was a lot of it, was brutal. I felt this one had a strange bias to it (not sure I understand what that is, but it felt...off) and I actually got angry because one of the witnesses interviewed was laughing about it. Anyway, I hope there is a hell and all these fuckers burn in it.
Highly recommend Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, about members of a police battalion engaged in mass executions, asking your question: how does an average person come to participate in something utterly insane.
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Re: movies

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 10:41am
Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 9:10am
This probably doesn't count as a real movie, but I've been watching a lot of documentaries about the rise of Hitler and that whole shit show. I've always wanted to understand what could drive a person(s) to do what he/they did. I wanted to understand the psychology of it. Most of the docs were pretty tame, not showing too much of the brutality. And then I watched one about the Einsatzgruppen (nazi death squads) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/

Holy shit. I'm done. I won't watch another. The footage, and there was a lot of it, was brutal. I felt this one had a strange bias to it (not sure I understand what that is, but it felt...off) and I actually got angry because one of the witnesses interviewed was laughing about it. Anyway, I hope there is a hell and all these fuckers burn in it.
Highly recommend Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, about members of a police battalion engaged in mass executions, asking your question: how does an average person come to participate in something utterly insane.
I'll search for it.

One thing this one mentioned was that a lot of the men were drunk af during the executions, maybe self-medicating, I don't know. Some had breakdowns and shit. But to answer that question, sort of, one of the historians implied that they were brainwashed. I'm not so sure. These guys were either borderline sociopaths to begin with or that was some damn strong brainwashing. Hate is a great motivator, I guess.

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Re: movies

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Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 11:06am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 10:41am
Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 9:10am
This probably doesn't count as a real movie, but I've been watching a lot of documentaries about the rise of Hitler and that whole shit show. I've always wanted to understand what could drive a person(s) to do what he/they did. I wanted to understand the psychology of it. Most of the docs were pretty tame, not showing too much of the brutality. And then I watched one about the Einsatzgruppen (nazi death squads) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/

Holy shit. I'm done. I won't watch another. The footage, and there was a lot of it, was brutal. I felt this one had a strange bias to it (not sure I understand what that is, but it felt...off) and I actually got angry because one of the witnesses interviewed was laughing about it. Anyway, I hope there is a hell and all these fuckers burn in it.
Highly recommend Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, about members of a police battalion engaged in mass executions, asking your question: how does an average person come to participate in something utterly insane.
I'll search for it.

One thing this one mentioned was that a lot of the men were drunk af during the executions, maybe self-medicating, I don't know. Some had breakdowns and shit. But to answer that question, sort of, one of the historians implied that they were brainwashed. I'm not so sure. These guys were either borderline sociopaths to begin with or that was some damn strong brainwashing. Hate is a great motivator, I guess.
Yeah there are the true sociopaths and those who hate. But when you actually pull a trigger on someone or do whatever means of execution where you see the results its a whole other ballgame so I could see where someone thinks they are up for the task but you pull out your pistol and shoot someone in the head and you see the results you might find it hard to live with yourself. I think the options become walk away and hope you can somehow live with yourself or you just go in deeper .

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Re: movies

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Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 11:06am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 10:41am
Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 9:10am
This probably doesn't count as a real movie, but I've been watching a lot of documentaries about the rise of Hitler and that whole shit show. I've always wanted to understand what could drive a person(s) to do what he/they did. I wanted to understand the psychology of it. Most of the docs were pretty tame, not showing too much of the brutality. And then I watched one about the Einsatzgruppen (nazi death squads) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/

Holy shit. I'm done. I won't watch another. The footage, and there was a lot of it, was brutal. I felt this one had a strange bias to it (not sure I understand what that is, but it felt...off) and I actually got angry because one of the witnesses interviewed was laughing about it. Anyway, I hope there is a hell and all these fuckers burn in it.
Highly recommend Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, about members of a police battalion engaged in mass executions, asking your question: how does an average person come to participate in something utterly insane.
I'll search for it.

One thing this one mentioned was that a lot of the men were drunk af during the executions, maybe self-medicating, I don't know. Some had breakdowns and shit. But to answer that question, sort of, one of the historians implied that they were brainwashed. I'm not so sure. These guys were either borderline sociopaths to begin with or that was some damn strong brainwashing. Hate is a great motivator, I guess.
Peer pressure is a helluva thing. The men in Browning's study weren't Nazis, just regular conscripts, and each time they were given the option of not participating. But deference to authority and not wanting to let others down or take up the slack of a horrible job led regular guys to participate in mass murder. That's what makes it so terrifying. It's more understandable if these guys were bloodthirsty, but many of them were traumatized by what they were doing but felt obliged to continue.
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Re: movies

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 12:22pm
Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 11:06am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 10:41am
Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 9:10am
This probably doesn't count as a real movie, but I've been watching a lot of documentaries about the rise of Hitler and that whole shit show. I've always wanted to understand what could drive a person(s) to do what he/they did. I wanted to understand the psychology of it. Most of the docs were pretty tame, not showing too much of the brutality. And then I watched one about the Einsatzgruppen (nazi death squads) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6953928/

Holy shit. I'm done. I won't watch another. The footage, and there was a lot of it, was brutal. I felt this one had a strange bias to it (not sure I understand what that is, but it felt...off) and I actually got angry because one of the witnesses interviewed was laughing about it. Anyway, I hope there is a hell and all these fuckers burn in it.
Highly recommend Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, about members of a police battalion engaged in mass executions, asking your question: how does an average person come to participate in something utterly insane.
I'll search for it.

One thing this one mentioned was that a lot of the men were drunk af during the executions, maybe self-medicating, I don't know. Some had breakdowns and shit. But to answer that question, sort of, one of the historians implied that they were brainwashed. I'm not so sure. These guys were either borderline sociopaths to begin with or that was some damn strong brainwashing. Hate is a great motivator, I guess.
Peer pressure is a helluva thing. The men in Browning's study weren't Nazis, just regular conscripts, and each time they were given the option of not participating. But deference to authority and not wanting to let others down or take up the slack of a horrible job led regular guys to participate in mass murder. That's what makes it so terrifying. It's more understandable if these guys were bloodthirsty, but many of them were traumatized by what they were doing but felt obliged to continue.
Makes one wonder how weak humans really are that we'd rather please our peers than risk ridicule by doing the right thing. I know that's a simplistic view to a complex situation but fuck them. I have no sympathy.

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Re: movies

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Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 12:34pm
Makes one wonder how weak humans really are that we'd rather please our peers than risk ridicule by doing the right thing. I know that's a simplistic view to a complex situation but fuck them. I have no sympathy.
That's basically the mid-century argument about totalitarianism put forward by liberal scholars. Modern life offers a lot of freedom and responsibility for governing yourself, but some people can't hack it, so they follow the crowd of similar scared and weak people and end up in totalitarian movements led by tough guy leaders who promise they have all the answers. There's a garin of truth in there, but it's a bit too neat and abstract and self-congratulatory.

I've never actually seen the movie, The Nasty Girl, but it's based on a West German young woman who researched what her town did during the war, and discovered active participation in the Holocaust. And when she wrote about it, exposing what older people chose not to talk about, she and her family were verbally and physically targeted. Very much an example of Faulkner's wise observation that the past isn't dead, it's not even past.
Last edited by Dr. Medulla on 14 Aug 2020, 1:43pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: movies

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 12:48pm
Mimi wrote:
14 Aug 2020, 12:34pm
Makes one wonder how weak humans really are that we'd rather please our peers than risk ridicule by doing the right thing. I know that's a simplistic view to a complex situation but fuck them. I have no sympathy.
That's basically the mid-century argument about totalitarianism put forward by liberal scholars. Modern life offers a lot of freedom and responsibility for governing yourself, but some people can't hack it, so they follow the crowd of similar scared and weak people and end up in totalitarian movements led by tough guy leaders who promise they have all the answers. There's a garin of truth in there, but it's a bit too neat and abstract and self-congratulatory.

I've never actually seen the movie, The Nasty Girl[/], but it's based on a West German young woman who researched what her town did during the war, and discovered active participation in the Holocaust. And when she wrote about it, exposing what older people chose not to talk about, she and her family were verbally and physically targeted. Very much an example of Faulkner's wise observation that the past isn't dead, it's not even past.


Sounds familiar.

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