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Lykke-Per (2018)
The Inevitability of Character
There is more than one reason to see this capturing drama. I would however top the list of virtues praising a story and script that very convincingly shows how people's character drives success or failure sometimes in an inevitable way. One can not just overcome the weaving of childhoods upbringing especially the one uprooted by strong and authoritative parenthood. It doesn't matter the chances and great opportunities one gets if inside you there is an oxidative soul. This entertaining film is a hard look at the inheritance of family values and micro culture. A mind is also the family character within. In this movie there is also a marvelous love story that yearns to uplift and become long breathed and at the end of the movie there is a very contrasting light and dark eclipse of conclusive moments. There are so many emotions packed in its 2 hours. So much to learn about our human psychology.
The Revenant (2015)
Breathtaking view to the past
I loved this movie. It has it all. Great story, great acting, great directing and production. This trip to the past is also telling. It delivers an original view on the messy clash for land and goods that ensued in North America pinpointing the way natives fought and defended their own against inhumane and violent takeovers. It is also a very picturesque tour of snowy landscapes. One can almost feel the cold surrounding many of its breathtaking moments. This is a movie to see more than once. It is definitely a demonstration of how a director pushes the casted actors to their best deliveries. Di Caprio is absolutely outstanding, and that says a lot about an actor who has proven his talent in many works. Hardy and Gleeson are not far behind. I would give Alejandro Iñárritu and his team the top credits for writing and creating a telling and very original story. The execution is impeccable. One can only imagine the detailed craftsmanship surrounding every creative role by the films crew. Bravo.
The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes (2022)
The Truth Revealed
Unless you popped some sleeping pills together with your soda and popcorn, you just can miss recreating whatever happened in the last sad days of a girl rescued from foster homes and liked by all the wrong men, except one.
The research and investigative work is outstanding. The editing, one of the most successful roles in the production.
The leads given by the recordings and the incisive work of the protagonist are pure gold. The recreations even fun and quite a work of art onto themselves.
You just have to connect the dots and voila! The ugly truth comes up as a tangled mess of putrid rivalries. Marylin never stood a chance. She went all in and got devoured by the world she lived in.
The Favourite (2018)
Acting Gem Inside
This movie is certainly worth anyones time although a bleep in the acting keeps popping up annoyingly.
Olivia Coleman is perfection. Rachel Weisz is outstanding. The plot is very entertaining. It's only too bad Emma Stone keeps showing up as "self" in the movie.
I love Emma Stone in interviews, she is, oh, so much fun. But she's also the kind of actor/actress I keep seeing over and above a film character unless it's the movie La la Land, and she mostly seems to play herself . (And get a popularity Oscar for it.)
10/10 Don't Miss
9/10 Outstanding
8/10 Watch
5/10 I wish to protest
Get to it!
Anatomie d'une chute (2023)
I Can Fix this!
Let me Fix this Disappointment:
You would think that a Palme d'Or from Cannes would at least get you critique juices going. Some deep reflection on the art, a fight against something with weight. A piece of substantial time even if you found it personally unlikable. But it is actually a flop of an awarded script that throws 5 minutes of good punches to then flake and wand the rest of the very long trip to the ending. It becomes almost parodical with a weak prosecutorial character, a boy genius, blind, but not much, a little detective of sorts wrapped in pushover charisma.
The trial is skewed and messily written enough to be disengaging and sometimes outright unbelievable. The bottom point of it all being the moment the well acted wonder kid remembers a perfect dialog that seeks to unearth a truth to surprise and upends the power and process of a rarified body of law. The key to save mother from a murder accusation.
As for the rest of the tale, one begs to finally uncover the truth, as the story becomes long and the arguments im the tale become weak and unconvincing, sometimes even absurd and forced into our ears and eyes.
Who were the Cannes Judges for the year? What kind of forgetful movies did this one upend?
But, good news! I can fix it right here from all its nonsensical drama and absurdity. Its boredom. The forced mystery between two apparently logical outcomes. There is a fix, from all the very mediocre absurdities of the plot. And here it goes:
From a dinner scene, close to the end of the movie. Cut to:
We see Sandra again waving goodbye to her frustrated interviewer. We are back at the beginning of the story. We see Sandra walk into a hall and with forceful steps into her chamber. She grabs a laptop and sits on the bed. Finds her earplugs. Puts them on. She's raving mad.
She gets up, now she pulls the earplugs off decidedly and walks out the door and back into the hall and up the stairs that lead into the attic inundated in the loud music of an upset Samuel. Halfway up, she repents. As she heads back down the stairs, the camera continues up to meet her husband. Samuel is there holding onto the wooden ceiling reflective and depressed. He hits a wooden beam; he lets go, he walks to the window. He looks out and stares downward, something catches his attention, maybe the snow, maybe the pull of gravity. A fall to fix it all. He moves away to open the window. He wonders. He repents and closes. He opens the window again.
We see him from his back leaning over the open window. Leaning maybe too much. Then the camera from the front of the house. He seems to be struggling to hold on. It's as if he wants to let go but in a cowardly way. Then a slow close up, to his struggling face to his arm to his hand trying to... reach a bird whose legs have gotten trapped inside a wooden crack on the wall under the window. He is holding his big body with his left arm. With the right he tries to free the bird. He almost slips. He doesn't.
Then he saves the bird. It flies. As a smile on his face is brought on by his own act of successful kindness, his hand slips again and Samuel falls with all the wait of one frustrating life. He hits his head and then flies off to land in a mantle of deep snow.
There he lays alone in his departure. His last act. No witness or audience. The bird, probably a mile away from the Samaritans save.
Cut to:
Sandra comes in, tucks her boy to bed, lays down. Then comes the dog, and a hug.
Fade out.
(Now we understand why no argument of suicide, or murder by way of the informal court, or the almost magical powers of the kid, were an answer to Samuel's passing away. How nothing in between the lines of suicide or murder were making any sense according to the movies own script.)
5/10 I wish to protest.
White Noise (2022)
Master Class
This movie is a master class in mostly any direction you find yourself wandering through the credits. I would unshyly call it one of the greatest American Movies of the last decades. Witty, smart, with a script to envy, it is also an ensemble made in heaven. Fun, fun, fun. The Director´s continued crisscrossing dialogs between family members is a marvel. Gerwig's persona, a magnetic force. The execution is impeccable. The supermarket sequences are too funny. The ending closes on a very high note with its artistry and entertainment. But this comedy is also somewhat romantic, and philosophical. Death is light but also very serious. The 70-80s context recreation is achieved with such design and artistry. The sarcasm and parodical, do not overtake a story full of loving and camaraderie. Also, I have never/ will never see such a sexy shuffle of book pages again. And Don Cheadle! Don Cheadle's acting and lines are comedy and satire at its best. He sets the tone and amplitude right from the start. Adam Driver's acting is probably one of the best in his career. A middle aged bellied man so likeable and real. His "death" monologue a triumph for a wonderful career. The scene where he is retrieving a plush bunny after falling from a backpack should have been enough for more than a few awards from the circuit. The adapted script is smart and some monologues are deliciously eloquent. I have only praises for this movie. Clap, clap, clap. I will watch this one for years and I will play those Cheadle-Driver dialogs forever. 10/10 Don't miss. (9/10, Great Movie! 8/10, Do watch, 5/10 I wish to protest. )