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Reviews
Conclave (2024)
It's not the twist at the conclusion.
Disclaimer - I am Catholic and yes as many say and note, the finish is a genuine 24 karat surprise but I'm not revealing anything here but there are many stories to be told in the story that remain locked up in the labyrinth of the Vatican. About 80 of them. Fiennes and Tucchi of course are masters at the top of their game and it shows. The thrills and games keep coming. The production gorgeous. Latin alive in a conversation? OMG! My point is though that there are ~ 80 cardinals from everywhere on our planet, only a handful are the focus and the others are shall I say, a matter of background. I would have enjoyed some varied sideline conversations. The nuns/sisters of course are one and I happily accept that. But goodness, this calls for ordering the book.
The Apprentice (2024)
What reality is it where we are sorry for a Roy Cohn?
A palace of vapidity overwhelms the story; but not the film. Director Ali Abbasi crafts Gabriel Sherman's writing into THE period (1970s-80s) documentary drama perfectly. The problem is the reality of a Donald Trump's metamorphosis from a feckless rich real estate strongman's son into an ignited dumpster fire with no boundaries or self awareness and how his thoughtlessness virtually transforms Cohn into a sympathetic soul, such as it is. Sebastian Stan is Cohn and towards the end of his life as the story concludes has been exhausted. Trump has drained the juice out of him and he is a husk of the brutal ruthless attorney who tells Trump that if he wants his mentoring he (Trump) must work for HIM. That works as long as Trump needs him. It's fascinating to see Trump's vacuum parasitic feasting on Cohn's style and soul-sucking "growth" as it fills his own astounding emptiness. It is weird. The film takes us through the real estate campaigns up to Trump Tower days and the Atlantic City casino era, his arms-length relationship with Ivana Trump but with Cohn fading from masterly go-to player in New York's bare-knuckle politics to a carcass. Trump has drained the blood from the man and forges on thoughtlessly but wiser?
The Old Oak (2023)
A layered story that touches all the bases
Set in a post-industrial depressed village rife with embedded hurts/wounds from the community's decline, it's a story that syncs with hearts anywhere. Old bonds are fractured, even violently, and the hopelessness is palpable. Marriages, careers, and families are struggling to adapt. A wild card piles into the mix from a war far away when refugees arrive and gas is thrown onto the fire. Paradoxically, not only are resentments and jingoism stirred up but also nascent love and generosity. Therein is the uplifting center of the film. Beautifully produced and fantastically performed. On a side note, my partner speaks Arabic and affirmed the Syrian dialect heard-while ruefully unsatisfied with the backstory around the crushing geopolitics and war in Syria.
Chlopi (2023)
It's not what it seems.
My take is not yet another "tale of young woman breaking bonds and social..." thing. The "young woman" narrative is a red herring, in my opinion. It misses the point. Every charactet in this amazing feat of acting, art, and production is us. We are all "peasants", more or less. That reflects the soul of the early 20th century book by Raymont. From the snarling biddies, to the destructive frustrated son of the rich landowner, to Jagna, all are laboring under the peasant burden of delusion and superstition. Some do so nobly, others make their mission that of violently curating and exorcising a scapegoat.
Napoleon (2023)
One word: Art
I saw Napoleon this evening. It's long and perhaps would have born some compression without cutting the legs off the story.
That notwithstanding, the art, soundtrack, colors and textures are only matched in my opinion by Goya in Bordeaux with it's immersive sensuality.
Pheonix pulls it off with antsy and hysterical at appropriate times, if they were indeed appropriate at all in terms of history.
Authentic artifacts, materials and cultural patterns combine with massive battle scenes to animate what? Any of period canvases and scenes of charging calvary and lines of infantry firing en mass amid smoke and slaughter.
No lipstick on a pig, Scott's extreme direction digs deep into a France of blood and lust and dirt and the ambitious soul of one monstrous man.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Gets a six for my reactions to some hackneyed (Octoberish) stuff
The Red Octoberish submarine scene was predictable. And horses? In the desert with high-tech gear? C'mon, it should have been ATVs. But I guess the film needed traction in the "Arab" meme.
The "device" gadget that's key to saving humanity (once again) is boring and course it's a tried-and-true analog object. T
Then the required crazy car-chase through Rome? With stairs and tiny old streets.
I actually exited before the finish - I mean, we know how this will end, right?
The film loses its way hopscotching all over and never locking in a time frame. The only constant of course is the immortal T Cruise. Kudos to production and Cruise for going film and theatrical opening. Hopefully part II will close the gaps.
BlackBerry (2023)
Cruel, real, funny, and poignant.
I add a disclaimer here: I worked in Silicon Valley for over thirty years building and designing designing stuff from Fibre Optics, to Atari stuff, and aerospace prototypes, and molds and fixtures for the lightning-fast evolution of pushing out the latest products before the next guy did. Also am a Canadian so the touches on Canadian culture are right on, even word pronunciation here and there LOL.
Jim Baiselle (played by Glen Hamilton) nails it. I met many just like him, all ruthlessly leveraging the focused genius of technicians for market appeal and to nail down investors.
My wife, not usually interested by nuts and bolts (and solder suckers) of tech but knows tactical office politics very well, was laughing. I never had blackberry but have had a few with buttons. And of course now iPhones are our devices of choice. But although the Blackberry is gone, the film is important and is a masterpiece of depiction of the spawning beds of mobile phone culture as we know it now. I think too it bears thinking about as the rush for the next best thing-AI-bursts upon us.
Triangle of Sadness (2022)
Where The Crawdads Sing could have been this great.
Never has so much talent spewed so much...stuff. Get ready to be as appalled by the über-upper class for their catastrophic human failings and obliviousness as by an Escher-like catastrophe's devolvement of the elite.
Does Woody Harrelson actually float through life like this? Hilariously untroubled by the coming storm - until it utterly erases him. Seriously, the cast of dozens is cut and copped to the essential survivors who step up to launch a new round. Less amusing than the first one. Ringing in from every scene, listen to hear subtle and some Onion-like truths that will punch through the flying crystal and raw octopus.
The Ghost Writer (2010)
I can watch this over and again. Creepy, über sexy, and very likely
Setting up the scene, an isolated boldly architectural fortress of solitude within steps of a cold and lonely sea, takes a few minutes. From there we segue into a 2011 Christie whodunnit on acid. McGregor is all of us - thirsty for the big score, not naive enough to be completely oblivious as to what's going on, but plowing on. Polanski keeps the outlook dark and drizzly and prickly. The ensemble makes the film. Tight, flawless.
Cherif (2013)
Humour, humanity, interesting skullduggery
Cherif has heart, the series that is. Unlike 99.99% of crime/cop dramas it's uplifting. Yes there is crime. Murders, scandals, corruption, etc. But the subplots among the characters realky sets Cherif apart.
Bombshell (2019)
Maybe it's just me?
From a DC perspective, partner active in DOS, you might think we'd be inured to paternalistic infotainment industry fails. Wrong. Incredible performances with enough nuance artfully/artistically sprinkled in to skirt slander but to inform us the morass is the tip of the iceberg. This is The Insider on steroids and is so well done it raises the bar for in-your-face exposés by an order of magnitude. The film's pure courage is inspiring and enthralling. Oscars please.
Bombshell (2019)
Maybe it's just me?
From a DC perspective, partner active in DOS, you might think we'd be inured to paternalistic infotainment industry fails. Wrong. Incredible performances with enough nuance artfully/artistically sprinkled in to skirt slander but to inform us the morass is the tip of the iceberg. This is The Insider on steroids and is so well done it raises the bar for in-your-face exposés by an order of magnitude. The film's pure courage is inspiring and enthralling. Oscars please.
It Must Be Heaven (2019)
A royal buffet
Imagine. Dali, Goya, Magritte mix together well for swirls of irony, humor, grimness. Add the otherworldliness of The Matrix, the schizophrenic gaze of Gene Wilder. Out of Palestine comes this magic mirror, crafted with seamless skill. Let it bother you.
Nicolas Le Floch (2008)
Streaming on MHZ and SO worth it
Richly staged and authentic down to local pissoirs on Paris street corners in bewigged and corseted salons. With nascent scientific forensic crime investigators, sword battles, and quirky courtiers. Enjoy.
The Seagull (2018)
Not about a bird. Much.
SPOILER: The Seagull. Heart wrenching, hilarious, appalling, and the only one who gets out alive is the seagull, shot early on. So much ambition, so little success. From the estate staff, cooks, & caretaker to renowned stage and literary stars, breathtaking in life's limitations.
Im Schatten der Netzwelt (2018)
Extremely. On. Point. Screened in DC days aferry Zuckerberg I'm Congress.
A bald, revealing dive into the belly of the beast - Manilla, where ill-trained and more, dirt-level-paid sub-contract toilers attempt to curate 25,000 wildly sourced and morally divergent posts/images a day for a pittance. The implications for what passes for fact and news on the major social network platforms, and for the demographics that access this information, and often do not access more credible and valid sources, is enormous. Disturbing images are shown, You need to see this hard-hitting, shocking, film. It rates an 11. Disclaimer:after using Facebook from 2008, I happened to have closed my account weeks before. Karma.
The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code (2014)
The roots of legal and moral justification - all flow from religion, and still do
I just saw this film in DC September 21—the eve of Pope's Francis' Tour de USA and canonization of Junipero Serra, maestro of the golden age of Indian destruction in California. Not that it necessarily will, in itself, by sharing deep research into the obscure(d) roots of Canadian and US Indian law as a tool for ethnic cleansing and subjugation based on core religious hubris, change anything; but as another tool for analysis and critique, hits deeper than the more common discourse. These include usual discussions and case law involving treaties, land claims, current gaming issues, etc. Being native myself, with the first American Indian saint entombed in my village church, the one where many family members were christened, baptized, married, and eulogized since the last 15th century, contradictions arise as the Pope arrives, seemingly turning a deaf ear to these issues amid soaring popularity for statements on environmentalism, economic inequality, and the social contract. But in deeper issues, the film makes perfectly clear the Holly See's tin ears are still oddly, blind. Russ, Kahnawake Mohawk
Good information here to embed and work from.
The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2013)
almost forgotten mystery filled out
I rather enjoy delving into the lesser known narratives of history. The film is a tour de force in historical research of an obscure, albeit real mystery that was a sensational item at one time (1930s.) European settlers filter onto a very remote island with different agendas, from idealistic to craven, apparently. Built from painfully researched documents and even film, and with interviews from a very special group of humans - those who have lived or were born on the Galapagos Islands, a sketchy legend comes to life into a fascinating narrative of society gone wrong. Ultimately a dark tale of the inability of humanity to go beyond a violent nature (as one aged interviewee says "it's in our genes and there is no escape") even when a few very small parties restart from scratch, isolated from virtually every other human presence on the planet, and clash.
Chasing Mavericks (2012)
Hey, it's a movie but it manages to artfully capture the Pleasure Point Surf Ghetto culture and is a moving film
I have surfed Santa Cruz since the late 60's and the film captures it all, within the story's limits. It's not a total surf odyssey so you'll be disappointed if you'd rather just watch wave after wave or palm trees on an isolated island somewhere. It's instead a very warm human story and the surfing is the framework that carries it, and it does so artfully and with authentic style. My son (visiting us in DC from Santa Cruz) wasn't interested in seeing it–buzz among his set was that it was "emotional, and mushy. Well it is but it's a great film that gets your heart going.
The meme of the Pleasure Point Surf Ghetto community was so real–been there, done that. The Hook and Pleasure and Three Mile are like home and well filmed. Never even thought about surfing Maverick's but the demands and fear going out along that part of the coast with one or two buddies when there's a huge swell are really well done here.
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
deeper than mud (handicapped and handicappeder)
Take my quadriplegic friend to a film of his choice 1ce a month or so. He chose this. I am fairly deaf so missed a lot of the dialog at first. Mainly visuals. Pardon me but I immediately globalized the delta scene. Nigeria? Bangladesh? Indonesia? Surinam? everywhere tribes of people form and gather and live on the utter fringes of the petroleum planet - using scraps and refuse for homes and tools. I disassociated this from any regular old Delta/Cajun style film. I suppose most think of Hurricane Katrina - I think climate change, population dislocation, catastrophic sea level rise, class warfare. Another film comes to mind - Water World and then crossed with Mad Max.