Tag Archives: Barry Pepper

Monumental, Timely Destiny “The Painted Bird” Trailer

The Painted Bird

Based on the acclaimed Jerzy Kosiński novel, The Painted Bird is a fastidious 35mm black and white summoning of wild, primitive Eastern Europe at the bloody close of World War II.
The film follows the boy’s journey, entrusted by his persecuted parents to an elderly foster mother. The older woman soon dies, and the boy is on his own, wandering through the countryside, from village to village, farmhouse to farmhouse. As he struggles for survival, he suffers through extraordinary brutality meted out by the ignorant, superstitious peasants. He witnesses the terrifying violence of the efficient, ruthless soldiers, both Russian and German.

In a defining scene, one of the peasants shows him the flight of a captive bird, whom the man has painted and then released back into its flock. Immediately, the bird gets attached and ripped apart because it is different from its fellows. That lesson reinforces all he already knows and will soon know better: the difference is fatal.

But there are rare moments of compassion: a German soldier spares him, a priest intervenes on his behalf, and finally, he becomes the protégé of a Russian sniper, who is kind to the child, but ruthless with the enemy. And there are signs of love. He is seduced by an older girl, finally rediscovering the comfort of intimacy, only to realize that he has been used. When he is miraculously reunited with his weakened father at the end of the war, the boy is cold and impenetrable, hardened by his ordeal. Yet we can still glimpse something of the old, sensitive boy behind the eyes of the new. Perhaps there is hope.

The cast includes Petr Kotlár, Udo Kier, Lech Dyblik, Jitka Čvančarová, Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands, Aleksey Kravchenko, and Barry Pepper.

“Crawl” Poster, Clips and Trailer

Directed by Alexandre Aja, Crawl is more than about a massive hurricane hitting a Florida hometown. Haley, played by Kaya Scodelario, ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father, played by Barry Pepper. Crawl is an intense horror thriller.

She finds him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home. The two become trapped by swiftly encroaching floodwaters. Their time to escape runs out, and the strengthening storm with rising water levels is not what is threatening their survival. Haley and her father must contend with a humongous and vicious alligator.

Scodelario is best known for the Maze Runner franchise, and Pepper starred in two of the Maze Runner movies: The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure.

Aja is best known for his horror movie The Hills Have Eyes. He worked alongside producers Craig Flores, who produced 300, and Sam Raimi, who made Don’t Breathe and Evil Dead and directed some of the earlier Spider-man movies.

The following two clips show how intensely they play the scenes out, with the gators jumping out from nowhere and attacking the humans. The second clip had me jumping out of my skin.

Kaya Scodelario, as Haley, is trying to reach a rescue team.
The situation does not look good for this guy.