Reviews

I had to re-watch the series "Seinfeld" several times to realize that the weakest actor and the one lacking humor and spontaneity, sarcasm and attractiveness was the one who gave the series its name. You actually realize that the weakest parts of the episodes were the comedian's stand-ups at the beginning and end of the opening episodes that disappeared along the way precisely because they were so flat and lacked the oomph that such performances require. Larry David's brilliant touch was also felt (fortunately) in the series. The series went up in history thanks to Kramer, Elaine, George Costanza (and many others with episodic but brilliant appearances) and only lastly Jerry Seinfeld. Here we see its true value. A mediocre comedian, a weak actor. And that's not because of the extreme left or the "boom" of the PC, but because that's its true value. It had a huge chance to capture the moment of the series in the 90s, a happy juncture (the apparition of cable TV and the sit-com fad). The movie is deplorable, hard to watch, boring, and I made a huge effort to watch it to the end precisely because the very controversial interview of Jerry Seinfeld had appeared some time before. Well, with all the generosity I'm capable of (the sparkles of some of the actors) I can't give it more than a four.

Honestly, I didn't think a movie could be made with Tom Ripley as a character of such quality. It's still hard for me to say what I liked best about this series. The picture?! Perfect (maybe a little too much old Italian architecture leading up to the documentary). Atmosphere? An infinity of grays always keep our attention so that we don't forget that we are witnessing a neo-noir that would make even Hitchcock envious. The acting of the actors and especially Scott (who thus becomes a serious contender for an Emmy Award)?! Dakota Fanning is gorgeous and in Maurizio Lombardi (Commissioner Ravini) you discover the prototype of the Italian from the 60s. But also the careful construction of each episode so that you hardly give up not watching them all binge.

An extremely pleasant surprise was John Malkovitch's cameo in the penultimate episode, which unequivocally refers to Liliana Cavani's superb "Ripley's Game" (an unfairly underrated film!) and which somewhat anticipates Tom Ripley's future conversion into a drug dealer art of course without leaving for a moment his "basic job", that of a criminal. I've enjoyed few series as much as this one!

If Jenna Coleman plays anything else, her partner (husband in the movie) is a disaster. Honestly, I've rarely seen an actor act so badly. Unfortunately, the competition between pay-to-view companies has the effect of decreasing the quality of the cinematographic act. If normally the competition should lead to the opposite effect! It's not necessary. Miniseries peppered with often absurd scenarios (as in Wilderness) put viewers in a position to accept a lower and lower level of consumer film we will probably end up reaching for Artificial Intelligence which may be the solution I prefer to see a good movie once every few months (or, come on, at least passable) than to get bogged down with productions like this. With a great effort I give it a 3 for the landscapes.

There are so many goofs in this movie that you'd have to watch it frame by frame to list them all. But perhaps most glaring (it's amazing that a mind as meticulous with detail as Hitchcock's could make such glaring mistakes!) is that practically throughout the film its protagonists, played by James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter, even more ridiculously, Detective Doyle himself is permanently exposed to everyone around, including the alleged murderer in full light from inside! No discretion, the other neighbours coud peep as well what are they doing. On the other side, the same thing happens, you could say that only exhibitionists who also have a passion for voyeurism live in that neighborhood. James Stewart has a terrible voice and his accent (despite being born in Pennsylvania) is so weird that it often makes you laugh. Yes, I know he suffered from a stutter but the way he pronounces it doesn't show it at all. Both his and Grace Kelly's performance leaves a lot to be desired. So much falsity but also dialogues that fit like a nut in the wall with the subject of the film, rarely have I seen all accumulated in a Hitchcock film. On IMDb, I notice that the film is rated 8.5, but what amazes me are the 100% from Metascore. Serious men, just because it's a Hitchcock creation played by two Hollywood rising stars I don't think it can compel you to be so uncritical?! In fact, there are no perfect directors. And no actors. Psycho received "only" 97% from Metascore!!! Whoaaat? At least Psycho is a benchmark in the panoply of horror films, and Rear Window is a thin joke in comparison! Let me graciously give it a six, just because I don't want to ruin the average.

A package of exceptional actors in a series based on a real case. But by far Éanna Hardwicke as the evil Ben Field does an absolutely fantastic role. I have rarely found a character that provokes such revulsion and revolt as this one. And that's because the actor managed to get 100% into the role. I read about the character Ben Field on the internet. He meets all the patterns of a serial killer and very likely if he had not been caught in time, he would have continued his adventure. Sociopathic, narcissistic, highly intelligent, Machiavellian, that's the salt and pepper of these four really incredibly well done episodes. It's rare for me to binge watch a series without a break, it was so addictive! Just wow!

They are two films that are unbearable to see for me. One is "The Incident" by Larry Peerce, and this one. I saw the incident at the cinema. It was the only film where the people in the cinema hall cheered with relief. Compliance, however, is absolutely horrifying. I started watching it a few times but stopped every time Sandra started her first conversation with the fake detective. Because even though I didn't read any details or spoilers, I suspected what was coming. There is very little to tell about the film. It is a film that I would not have wanted to see (although I am not a sensitive person) but to which I give a 10 for several reasons. First of all, because I experienced it as if it were real. Because in this movie I met the most despicable and perverted character of all the more than 1600 movies I watched. Pat Healy is massive in the negative role which he plays perfectly. So is Dreama Walker as the naïve girl, but by far the character played by Ann Dowd is relentless. It generates so much riot that you're tempted to scream at yourself or smash the TV screen. I have seen Craig Zobel's other movies and this is by far his best movie. In "Mare of Easttown" the icing on the cake is Kate Winslet. I'm very curious what Craig Zobel will come up with next.

It really could have been a very good movie. With an original idea, with actors very suitable for their roles even if they are not very well known. Unfortunately, the directors of the film overbid and led the film to some experimental areas that, in my opinion, had no point. And so the action (and the idea) of the film were original enough. So that from a certain moment the film creates false tracks, even paradoxical in some places, unnatural syncopes that seem to intentionally want to confuse the viewer. Inevitably you end up having deja-vus of Tarantino, or even John Waters. Nevertheless, the film remains interesting to watch, alert even if in some places hermetic. Get an honest 7.

The beginning of the film is masterful. Sure, it's typical Fellini, but he metaphorically encompasses the entire philosophy of the film. The dissonant way in which a star is carried hanging over people's eyes like some kind of miracle gift. I don't know if the director intentionally chose Anita Ekberg as the hot bombshell. It is certain that for the first time (I think) we have scandal journalism as the main theme in a film (not by chance the term appeared in Italy). The entire film revolves around a buxom, blonde-haired, narcissistic, somewhat poor-minded package with a raspy voice trying to somehow overcome her poor diva status. The meeting between two narcissists can never end well. What is certain is that Fellini emphasizes in thick strokes what we should all know. The desperate struggle for success often slips into ridicule, never into love.

Rohmer remains in every film extremely honest. Both with us and with his characters. Rohmer doesn't judge, even if he proposes moral stories from the start, but lets us look in the mirror. His characters are exactly what we are. Of course, the central themes in almost all his films are friendship (Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle) but especially sexuality, eroticism, love. And here, we have no negative or positive characters. All the characters, whether female or male, are hesitant (Blanche), inconstant (Lea), confused and bewildered (Fabien) or downright complex (completing the complex with superior arrogance) like Alexandre.

Rohmer always becomes uncomfortable because without being violent (on the contrary) he confronts us with paradoxical situations that even we don't know how we could handle if we were in their shoes. And even if Boyfriends and Girlfriends doesn't rise to the level of subtlety as A Night at Maud's or The Collector they remain in the same often sarcastic but gentle, wry but friendly tone where the dramas are small (even theatrical). It's fascinating the constancy with which Rohmer gives the actors (but especially the actresses) in the cinematic performance that declamatory role as if reciting from their own diary, the almost ridiculous intonation with which they make off-color statements trying to sound profound, the discrepancy between their own dreams and their own (in)actions, the laughable decisions that bring them to the brink of catastrophe.

However, the catastrophe never happens. The somewhat immoral, mundane solutions never let the characters break away from reality. Rohmer forces them to come back down to earth and us to accept that life is exactly like in his films and not the other way around.

A very underrated film and I've never understood why the stupidly low rating given. Sure, it's an atypical thriller that starts, continues and ends dramatically. We have no heroes and no positive characters (unless Tom Ripley's gesture of helping to kill some gangsters could be considered somewhat positive just to help the family of a character at the end of his life). We have it all in the film.

The gorgeous setting of the Emo Villa created by renowned architect Andrea Palladio, the great landscapes of the Veneto and Enio Morricone's Il Registrazione theme song. John Malkovich masterfully plays a strange, cynical but extremely complex character. A cold-blooded killer, but at the same time capable of great generosity. An obviously highly educated and cultured guy who knows how to strangle and shoot people as if they were drinking espresso. Interesting financial history of this film directed by the great Liliana Cavani and completed thanks to the not insignificant financial contribution of John Malkovich.

The idea of the film is not bad at all. It contains enough carefully dosed mystery, as Antonioni likes it, but unfortunately, the performances of the actors leave something to be desired. Tomas Milian is passable, although it's hard to get the American out of him, but Daniela Silverio rarely rises above mediocrity. Extremely fake, far too theatrical, everything from the erotic scenes to the banal ones. Fortunately, the character she plays disappears in the middle of the film, but the appearance of Christine Boisson does not improve things much. Does she get behind the embarrassing roles in "Emanuelle" or is that all there is? None of the mentioned actors had a very notable career, and I really don't understand why Antonioni agreed to sacrifice a promising script for the performance of mediocre actors!

Rome is gorgeous, Niccolo's apartment is absolutely gorgeous, and the fog scene is very well handled, becoming almost surreal and reminiscent of Antonioni from the "Adventure" period. However, the film, which I have re-watched several times, continues to please me because it maintains a very pleasant mystery and tension.

Albert Serra always returns to the same themes, but in "Història de la meva mort" (Story of My Death) he forces the famous Casanova (whose "Story of my life" he paraphrases suggestively enough in the title of the film) to die. And not to die anyway but in a tragic way, decrepit and with some form of senile dementia. Always munching on fruit (pomegranates and grapes which are said to be aphrodisiacs) he bitterly meditates on his own past but in a somewhat self-deprecating way, confronting the famous Dracula on his domain in Translivania. Sex and Death could have been called but much happier the title found by Serra. Among the many films about the life of Casanova, this seems to me the most profound, meditative and honest, the actor Vicenç Altaió performing exceptionally in a difficult role. Everything is new in this movie. The demystification of two characters that are part of world culture (more legendary), Casanova and Dracula, their "humanization" reducing them to sometimes caricature dimensions (Casanova's grotesque laugh in the most intimate moments or the unconvincingly satisfied howl of Dracula). It is also the film where Serra's alter-ego, Pompeu (Lluís Serrat), speaks the most, coming somewhat out of the position of "Witness", although his involvement is superficial enough to keep him in a mysterious area. He is a character with a tragic ending who ends up being eaten by wolves. There are a few scenes that "break" the monotony of Serra's films (broken glass during copulation is a bad sign in popular mythology) or the sacrifice of a bull by the small local community. Here Serra practices the night shooting that he will perfect in "Liberté", but the atmosphere is always as if from another world. Serra continues to amaze with his avant-garde, bizarre, unique cinematography.

All of Serra's films feature an actor in various roles that seems to form an extremely bizarre thread between his films. Lluís Serrat. From "Liberte" I went back in time to observe it better and now, "Pacifiction" confirms my own thesis. Lluís Serrat is the "Witness". He is the silent observer sent by Serra in each film as his own alter ego. The "witness" just needs to find out in order to be able to continue the thread of Serra's cinematic bizarreness. He speaks little to nothing but always looks around, often tilting his head as if he has an obstacle in front of his eyes, or maybe because he wants to see the same moment from another angle. Lluís Serrat is in himself a likeable, even bucolic apparition of an annoying neutrality. He doesn't seem to change anything, he doesn't get involved in anything and when he should (like in Pacifiction) he falls asleep near the car driver. Like almost all of Serra's films, Pacifiction takes its time. The narrative is (only apparently) monotonous, with long moments of silence (as in Liberte). And if Liberte was set in a night setting, in a tangled forest, in Pacifiction Serra proposes a completely different setting, an exuberant one (Tahiti) meant to mislead. The theme of the film is colonialism brought up at one point by the main character played excellently by Benoît Magimel. Again shocking (in a positive way) is Serra's ability to use non-actors (or quasi-unknown actors?) such as the transvestite Shannah. What I love about Serra is how he consistently refuses to force any kind of fracture in the flow of the action. It seems that from the first frame he leaves the filming studios and only calls Lluís Serrat on the phone from time to time to ask him how things are going. And if he is silent, then it means that everything is ok. Excellent film, 9.

Buñuel's genius is beyond doubt. Access to his films was quite difficult due to censorship in my country. I read about him in the specialist reviews, extremely vaguely anyway (although the critics admitted that Buñuel is a genius) but nevertheless his films were completely banned. However, being a "niche" director, even the traffic with VHS tapes did not make him more accessible to us. So I discovered it late enough to be innocent. Because only the innocent are able not to be seduced by the tricks of illusionists. "That Obscure Object of Desire" was one of his first films that I watched on a rented DVD. Buñuel's trick was so perfect that although throughout the film I felt that "something" was wrong, that Buñuel was somehow playing with my own perception, I did not realize that the role of Conchita Pérez was played by two actresses physically different enough for this difference to be noticeable! So I was left after the movie with a major suspension point! The film was brilliant, and its genius consisted precisely in the fact that, seduced by the unfolding of an extremely well-disguised scenario, we were practically witnessing the unfolding of an action in two parallel universes and illusory enough to put under the sign of doubt the veracity of the stories told by Mathieu Faber (Fernando Ray). Fernando Rey is in my opinion the complete opposite of the male seducer. That is precisely why I think Luis Buñuel insists on using him in such contradictory roles ("Viridiana" or "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"). Of course, after re-watching this masterpiece I realized that I was sufficiently seduced by the film's narrative not to repeat the willful confusion induced by Buñuel to keep all the suspense of the film in an extremely unclear area despite appearances. The film is absolutely perfect in terms of narration, scenography, cinematography and acting.

A film without tension that always seems to be improvising something. Jack Nicholson's performance is not at all exciting and Maria Schneider seems to be learning her role. Very fake, drained of any acting energy very likely after the trauma of "Last Tango in Paris". With the exception of "Blow-up", Antonioni's English-language films are semi-failures (as in this case) or downright weak, such as Zabriskie Point. At least the main roles in Zabriskie Point are played by two amateur actors. I made a serious effort to watch it to the end, there are some pluses worth noting but not enough. I didn't understand why Antonioni ventured into this attempted thriller (especially since it came after an extraordinary Blow-up). Jack Nicholoson doesn't seem at all at ease either in this stuffy film that doesn't offer much satisfaction to the viewer. Especially to an Antonioni fan.

I have watched and read a lot about brainwashing, depersonalization and mind manipulation. Procedures used much more often than we would think. The mass media can use something similar, social media, politicians, churches and all areas where people's minds need to be controlled and manipulated. But it is by far the best documentary ever made on the subject. Larry's obsession with recording audio-video was absolutely fatal. But for us, the testimonies are often difficult to look at and absolutely devastating. A classic case that shows once again that reality often beats the movie, three episodes about a psychopathic monster. Any fictional film made after this case could not surpass this stunning documentary in value.

A film that, even if from an artistic point of view, does not shine, remains a "documentary" film in which we can admire the gorgeous Helen Mirren without waxing. Sometimes it's a pleasure to go back to the movies of those times where naturalness still overflows, when cosmetic surgery, botox, hyaluronic acid or silicones didn't even exist in theory. Helen Mirren is seen to have felt very comfortable because she is a declared fan of "naturism". But I never understood James Mason's roles as an irresistible man either here or in Lolita. He always has something fake in him, he tries to outbid somehow, to compensate. All in all it's an enjoyable film, not quite a comedy but extremely brave for that time.

OMG what a huge disappointment!! How the he11 do you start season three with an episode that doesn't tell anyone anything about the past?! If the first two series were the best revival in the long and tortuous Star Wars series, now, after a break long enough to adapt the script as a kind of "regeneration", we are offered a terrible improvisation! The pursuit of profit at all costs makes a mockery of one of the most important sci-fi themes of our generation. Is that enough to have dried up the imagination of the people at Disney?! If it's dried out, start something new and don't prolong and reheat a soup that's already getting embarrassingly bland!

I had a few attempts to watch the movie to the end depending on my personal mood. None matched. Considering the cast of actors, the film should boom. Is not. It seems to start promisingly but it quickly becomes a kind of long soup where the author, the director, the screenwriter tries to invent and reinvent situations. And it feels like they're struggling to do this to keep the film afloat. I see some here very pleasantly impressed. It's very ok, maybe they managed to discover the unseen side of this cinematic semi-failure. The bad part is that when you're dealing with a bad movie, you quickly give up on watching it. Here you put your hope in the performance of the actors (good and very good) but overshadowed by a boring script. 6/10.

I have rarely seen such a bad movie. All the actors play execrably, they seem picked off the street and inserted directly into the filming. The theme of the film is already so well-worn that you need serious arguments (exceptional scenography, good actors, professional editing, high-end PC rendering) to stick with it. I forced myself to watch the movie to the end despite the bad references but it was impossible for me to get past the halfway point!

Every time I watch a Sci-fi I wonder how it is possible to venture into the embarrassing when so many others have already done it before?! Who do you want to convince when today we already have so many landmarks that you can hardly fool movie lovers anymore?!

I also saw the first episodes and with regret I have to stop the ecstasy of the others who don't give the series a 9 or 10. First of all, Diego Luna's acting performance leaves a lot to be desired. I don't know how the character will evolve throughout the series, but from what I've seen so far, it didn't convince me at all. Stellan Skarsgard's voice is absolutely awful and the action is often unhinged and punctuated with very forced paradoxical events. The film is well made except for the childish (both literally and figuratively) warlike actions on the planet Kenari which are clearly inspired by W. Golding's "Lord of the Flies". Again the same names and completely forced character names that are supposed to sound exotic but are often ridiculous. For all his effort, Andor falls short of The Mandalorian. Kindly a 7 with the hope that the series will recover along the way.

I really believe that Jordan Peele wanted to make a good movie. And it came out through some parts. But the film remains inconsistent precisely because that's what happens when you want to cover several genres at once but also come up with a completely original story. Today it is already very difficult, especially when you target the genre Sci-fi and horror at the same time. The actors are very good (not great!) and do their job. The problem comes when the viewer stumbles into too much illogical, sloppy stuff. So Sci-fi is no longer Sci-fi but a poor apparition that resembles a UFO, and horror also fails because the "creature" is an apparition that suffers from indigestion and does not dare to look its prey in the eye. Weak, especially when you saw "Get out" not long ago.

In 1961 the idea of generating images on a computer did not even exist. Today, we have extremely well rated movies that were appreciably computer generated. Newer artificial intelligence can generate absolutely anything you want, including the strange atmosphere of dreams.

Here we have from end to end a thread that we do not know if it is happening in reality, if it was real. The film is a dream-poem about the inability of two beings, a woman and a man, to share their love in reality. So, without taking any risk, they share their dreams about themselves. Their dilemmas are ours too because we will never know if what we watched ever had anything to do with reality. The narrator in the background seems very sure. But the further you go in the movie you start to be less and less sure that what you are watching still belongs to someone in particular or is just a gorgeous proposition to deceive the desire.