IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Hextube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Friday Movie Night, first up is Death by Hanging (1968), a satirical Japanese crime procedural about the Japanese state deciding what to do after a murderer survives a hanging. The cops and politicians show themselves to be, by turns, incompetent, naive, out-of-touch, sadistic, insensitive, and fascistic as they try to make sense of the failed execution and debate whether they should just kill the condemned anyway. This is arguably the magnum opus of director Nagisa Oshima, who is otherwise best-known for the erotic drama In the Realm of the Senses (1970), which we have not watched. This is considered one of the best Japanese films of the 1960s.

After that is 20th Century Women (2016), a dramedy about a single mom (Annette Bening) in the 1970s who recruits two other women (Elle Fanning and Greta Gerwig) to help raise her distant teenage son, under the logic that they can connect o him better than she can. Drama and comedy and heartwarming character bonds follow. Director is Mike Mills, whose dude-and-kid bonding film C’mon C’mon (2021). which we previously watched, and this sounds like it’s in the same vein. Excellent reviews for this one, so let’s give it a whirl.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Hextube, right here:

https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Death by Hanging: https://letterboxd.com/film/death-by-hanging/
• 20th Century Women: https://letterboxd.com/film/20th-century-women/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Death by Hanging: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/81810
• 20th Century Women: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/14392

CWs for Death by Hanging:

• Hanging.
• Discussion of sexual assault. The condemned man is hanged for murder and r*pe, so the topic comes up numerous times. The act is not depicted, but some characters do also mime out the act to establish the facts of the case.
• Domestic violence.
• Child abuse.
• Alcohol abuse.
• Someone is physically restrained.
• Someone struggles to breathe.
• Unconsciousness.
• Unstable reality.
• Broken fourth wall.
• N-word.
• Hate speech against Koreans.
• Objectification of female characters.
• Nudity.
• Sad ending.

CWs for 20th Century Women:

• Drug use.
• Drug addiction.
• Deaths of animals.
• Animal corpse.
• Someone struggles to breathe.
• Death of parent.
• Spitting.
• Hospital scene.
• Cancer.
• Flashing lights.
• Miscarriage.
• Homophobic slurs.
• Nudity.
• Sex.
• Nuclear explosion.

Links to movies:

• Death by Hanging: https://tankie.tube/w/4PvWREdHiAvjQFFmNtWhLy
• 20th Century Women: https://tankie.tube/w/s8H5fZ5Ei64AYUfdaYq5Xb