Saturday, January 16, 2021
The Key to Reserva (2007)
Finding an unfinished script written by Alfred Hitchcock himself, Martin
Scorsese attempts to recreate it himself as Hitchcock would have.
Interesting finger exercise in Hitchockian film-making, well-made with panache and irony; still, it's just an over-produced commercial.
Seberg (2019)
In the late 1960s, Hoover's FBI targeted Jean Seberg because of her political
and romantic involvement with civil rights activist Hakim Jamal.
Despite excellent production with good period detail and a noteworthy performance by Kristen Stewart, this film falls short of presenting a cohesive psychological portrait of Jean Seberg.
Friday, January 15, 2021
Thursday, January 14, 2021
First Lines: Margaret Atwood - MaddAddam
As the story begins, Snowman is living in a tree by the seashore.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
During the Vietnam War a captain is sent on a dangerous mission
into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up
as a god among a local tribe.
I remember: Due to the advance hype for 'Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam' movie the film did not fully live up to the expectations, but did provide unforgettable scenes and an feverish atmosphere of war madness.
I remember: Due to the advance hype for 'Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam' movie the film did not fully live up to the expectations, but did provide unforgettable scenes and an feverish atmosphere of war madness.
On
rewatching: Over the decades this movie has grown on me, although I
still see it as a somewhat messy masterpiece; and: the French plantation
scene in the final cut version is superfluous containing unnecessary
pretensions.
Halliwell**: "Pretentious war movie, made even more hollow-sounding by
the incomprehensible performance of Brando as the mad martinet. Some
vivid scenes along the way, and some interesting parallels with Conrad's
Heart of Darkness, but these hardly atone for the director's
delusion that prodigal expenditure of time and money will result in
great art. (The movie took so long to complete it was dubbed Apocalypse Later.)"
Maltin***1/2: "...a mesmerizing odyssey of turbulent, often surreal encounters. Unfortunately, film's conclusion - when he does find Brando - is cerebral and murky. Still, a great movie experience most of the way, with staggering, Oscar-winning photography by Vittorio Storaro."
Maltin***1/2: "...a mesmerizing odyssey of turbulent, often surreal encounters. Unfortunately, film's conclusion - when he does find Brando - is cerebral and murky. Still, a great movie experience most of the way, with staggering, Oscar-winning photography by Vittorio Storaro."
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Smooth Talk (1985)
A free-spirited 15-year-old girl flirts with a dangerous stranger in the
Northern California suburbs and must prepare herself for the
frightening and traumatic consequences.
Laura
Dern is extraordinary in this realistic, dark adaptation of a Joyce
Carol Oates' story; the final sequence is particularly intense and
harrowing.
Halliwell (no star): "Unattractive scenario about thoroughly dislikeable people."
Maltin**1/2: "Disarmingly realistic...Williams...all but deadens rest of the film. Worth seeing if only for Dern's fine performance. Impressive feature debut for documentary director Chopra..."
Maltin**1/2: "Disarmingly realistic...Williams...all but deadens rest of the film. Worth seeing if only for Dern's fine performance. Impressive feature debut for documentary director Chopra..."
Gemini Man (2019)
An over-the-hill hitman faces off against a younger clone of himself.
Run-of-the-mill star vehicle with lots of well-made action sequences, but hardly any depth to the plot, which is quite astonishing for its director.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Le mystère Henri Pick (2019)
An editor discovers a novel that she considers to be a masterpiece, in a
library whose particularity is to collect the manuscripts refused by
the publishers. The text is signed Henri Pick, a Breton pizza maker who
died two years earlier.
Lightweight, mildly amusing satire on the French literary world intrigues with a mystery, but its revelation is a bit of a letdown.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Sunday, January 10, 2021
First Lines: Mick Herron - Dead Lions
Now that the roadworks have finally gone, Aldersgate Street, in the London borough of Finsbury, is calmer; nowhere you'd choose to have a picnic, but no longer the vehicle-related crime scene it once resembled.
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