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Reviews
Daaaaaalí ! (2023)
Unique and clever
French, unique and clever movie.
Excellent acting performances across, much in thanks to careful directing.
The movie requires no pre-knowledge about Dali. If you've seen at least one painting, you'll notice the paintings don't seem to fall far from the artist.
Cleverly designed plot, many unexpected and witty twists - a biopic where boring chronologic is replaced by humour. The portrayal of Dali is very enjoyable, every pronounciation seems a carefully thought out way to showcase his excentric (to quote Dali) particuliarities and in some sense also decay towards the latter stages of life.
A very good film, seen at the Göteborg film festival.
Seaspiracy (2021)
Strong message, ridiculous storyline
Starting with the good, the documentary outlines a fistful of astonishing statistics relating to (un)sustainable fishing. Its main case is we are so occupied talking about reducing plastics to save the oceans that we don't see the real threat, which is over fishing. Although it is a quite bumpy ride, the director takes that point home.
When it comes to the ride itself, the title and also the narrative of the film is aspiring to present a great cover up, overarching conspiracy, benefiting from pointing the finger at plastics so that other dark practices may continue to go uncovered. This attempt is greatly failed.
It seems the obvious reasons to most of the quite stupid questions the narrating director asks himself is "capitalism". If he wanted to portray what effect capitalism has to over fishing he shouldn't i) film random people selling legal shark shoup in back streets of Chinese towns ii) call random restaurants and ask why they are destroying the planet iii) interview organisations with the obvious reason to make them look surprised and thus supporting director's case that they are all in on this.
"WHAT WAS GOING ON?! WHY DIDN'T THESE PEOPLE WANT TO TALK TO ME?"
MSC not guaranteeing 100% that every single ship in the world doesn't by accident catch a single dolphin isn't proof of a great conspiracy.
It's really a petty, because with some cutting and a little bit of change in narrative you could make all the points the director wants to make, but without the viewer every 5-10 minutes having to ask themselves "well what does this have to do with anything".
Although 4/10, still worth watching.
The Contender (2000)
best manuscript ever
The manuscript in The Contender is by far the best I've ever seen. The only time I have ever been psychologically seduced equal to this film is when I saw the Kill Bill movies. This is by far the best political drama I ever saw and although with a few easy solutions to the main conflict, it will remain so for a long time I expect. The acting, performed by two of my personal favorites Jeff Bridges (Simpatico, another film I can recommend although not near The Contender in quality) and Gary Oldman (played fantastic in Green Mile; "Percy Wetmore do a dance, listen to him squishing in his pants"). Joan Allen is a very convincing and genuine politician with the moral values that a film needs in my opinion. The theme is somewhat alike to that in Commander In Chief, which I was sorry to hear was canceled, and the music composed as fit to the mood. The ending is, by law, as patriotic as any other political film that has been produced i the USA and as self-congratulating as only an American director can be, but other than that I can say that you are clearly missing out if you have not seen this film. If you're interested in politics, you have to see this!