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Reviews
Paris, je t'aime (2006)
Geographically erratic, politically correct and overall charming
A nice selection of made and to be made directors explores Paris and its peculiarities. Although they have some adventurous editing between places that would require speedy Gonzalez velocity to be actual, they do recognise the moods and feels specific to each area they explore.
However, they sadly ignored the not so.glitzy areas of intramuros Paris, and even some impertinence does not prevent the film to be mostly.an ancestor of the "Emily in Paris" TV show. Paris is neither Maurice Chevalier nor.forbidden territories, it remains a complex mosaic from which the not so wealthy are progressively banned.
From a purely cinematic angle, the greats remain the greats, Coen brothers, Cuaron,
and a few newcomers make it worthwhile to follow their future films, Chadha. Schmidt, et autres.
Some fail by overtly being militant like Gus Van Sandt, or caricatural like C. Doyle, or over-treated like Chomet.
What a pity they didn't choose 20 directors, 20 arrondissements rather the an ad for the city. You choose, a lie for the city or a true image of the city.
The Six-Sided Triangle (1963)
exercices de style movie version
Take a trope, play with it according to the usage of international cinema models, laugh, act great, and there you have it.
This is not a perfect offering but it does make fun of the sixties, or older, period cinema and its obsessions.
The three actors, recurring sketch to sketch, are perfect in their portraying of the periods acting.
A flick for cinephiles maybe, but six shorts making fun of what we consider classics nevertheless.
My take is De Mille, De Sica, Godard, Reed, Bergman and.. mizoguchi? My favourites are the french take, and the italian one, they do add burlesque to a cinema caricature. But I have to acknowledge the swedish one to be the most perfectly spotted.
If you love cinema, go check it, if you don't, well you have so many bad movies available.
Paul T. Goldman (2023)
2/3rds off the mark
At one point the main protagonist says "i wrote it with a two hours movie in mind, but it needs to be a series"
Too bad, it would have been a great two hour mini series worth a 6 or 7 star rating.
This is both a sad and ironic tale of a man whose real life hurt turns him into a raging mythomane.
The work by the producers/director is great as it leads us neatly from accepting this man as unbelievably wronged, taking a courageous even if conceited stand, to realising that he has invented / made himself believe most of what he told us.
Therefore it is also an intelligent warning about how we're at risk of being manipulated by any true crimes program, the producers of which would not be as honest.
But god it's awfully too long to get from point A to Z.
The Watcher (2022)
Each episode is less good than the previous one
...and the series ends in utter disappointment. It starts as a 10, ends as a 1, therefore the 5 stars.
It is a pity that such strong talents have been gathered to deliver a very unsatisfying result. A "based on a true story" label is not a reason for a sloppy ending.
The series starts as a good thriller should. One is hooked by the premise and a sense of lurking menace, this "normal" family thrown among a cast of weird characters, and the invisible stalker making their life miserable, carries the eerie through the first 3 episodes. Then each episode appears to be drawn with side stories and empty scenes in order to match the seven episodes format.
The end offers zero conclusion, and the last episode could as well have been scrapped as it is completely empty. And one ends up pretty frustrated to have spent seven hours to reach a nowhere destination.
Bou ying (2011)
not your usual HK fare
it took me a while to get into this movie. truth is when you start an HK thriller, you'd rather put on your ear plugs to deafen a bit the multiple gun shots and car brakes screeches that you expect to be delivered. So when i stumbled into this slow paced, straight storytelling, drama, i was a little taken aback at first, but this movie grows on you. The acting is perfect, from seasoned players like Anthony wong, who perfectly manages to balance the unpleasantness and helplessness of his character to Richie Ren, new to me, who offers a great variation on the laid back stone faced efficient gunman HK style. Bred in johnnie To stables, the director knows that tension is built before and not during action scenes and uses this to create pitch after pitch of tension without letting the viewer feel let down when the said action is minimal. All in all a worthy addition to your HK library.
7 días en La Habana (2011)
OK there are better movies
but in the "night on earth" earth meets "buena vista social club", it still holds its own. So why the bad critics and why see it still? Bad critics: guess what! you bring seven directors together, some well known even if only in their country, some with a lesser reputation, and they deliver uneven results! What???? Yes del toro or cantet get away with more formal takes on life in habana, but they have a lightness of tone which carry the story through. But all in all these snapshots won't bring anything new to anyone having spent a longer than tourist week package in havana, they will bring amused recollections to those who did enjoy the package, and will show the potential explorers why it's worth going there. And for those who don't care about tourism, well it has the nice feel of those sixties and seventies sketches and shorts genre movies i personally so enjoyed.
Kriegerin (2011)
Impressive and necessary
There are movies worth seeing and movies which need to be seen. This is both. It's a brilliant piece of acting by the whole cast, with a stellar performance from Alina levshin, and an understated but efficient directing from David Wnendt. But it is also a frighteningly cold and accurate view of neo nazism. The routine violence and hate carried by these young individuals echoes of all the fanaticism that surrounds us today. It is a very disturbing depiction of how society is step by step going to waste, turning back to tribal models.
Despite the fact that the movie gets watched without any slowing down or loss of interest, even if it can make one feel a little voyeuristic at times, this is no easy viewing, don't expect to come out of the theater with anything resembling a smile on your face. But at lest you'll be sure to have food for thought and both a new director/writer and actress whose careers you'll want to keep following.