ildimo-35223 Reviews

Mystic River (2003)

Perfect Eastwood dialectics

[9/10 · 1 February 2018]

The incredible potency of Eastwood's visual metaphysics (see how the camera so often in his work hovers from above like some perverted God's eyeview that watches but never interferes) meets the substantial (both existential and political) crosscutting (the aesthetic breakthrough of this entry of his) of children/adults perpetually engulfed in their sins. The nightmarish web is further complexed by the no less than four females of the story (and the ghosts of two more, adding to an amazing number of characters for a 138-minute film), building a challenging case of a feminist, anti-feminist and tragedy-like reading of the impossibly dense text. Eastwood dialectics at their most complete - even though perfection is a breath away due to the mechanics of a couple of male performances.

Good Time (2017)

A very good "city film"

[6/10 · 11 January 2018]

Expressionistic, at times hallucinatory account of a long night's journey into the life of a Scorsesean character (debt paid in full in the end credits) in search of the tiniest break in his life's labour lost. Strong lead by a commanding Patterson, direction suspiciously superior than the script served and, alas, a great soundtrack to underline a film about total contemporary urban dissonance and chaos. A very good "city film", too.

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017)

Provocative study on the identity of the (not only comedic) artist.

[8/10 · 11 January 2018]

Perhaps to some won't be as profound as it appears (and wants, I guess) to be but, still, this is an ingenius, stimulating and in a sense desperate portrtait of (not so young anymore) artist, lost and, perhaps again, found amidst impossible to us mortals situations of identity lost, disintegrated and then somehow miraculously found and reinvented again. Next to Peter Sellers and Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey is the most representative "comedy man edition"; lightning fast in his adoption of another man's character, depressed enough to do it as if his life depended on it (so similar to Sellers this one), otherworldly improvisational and terribly heartbreaking at the same time. If you count yourself among his biggest fans, that is.

The Shape of Water (2017)

Del Toro's beautiful, solitary path perfected.

[7/10 · 9 January 2018]

Lovingly informed throughout by the '30s, the '50s, cinema (and '50s cinema), J.P. Jeunet, Cocteau and Spielberg, "The Shape of Water" is an out of the ordinary (but not altogether exceptional) tale of romance and poetic love, told (in the best places, whispered) in the manner of the uninhibited poetic fantasy of bygone eras Del Toro seems to incurably cling to. I love him for that.

The Disaster Artist (2017)

One from the artist's heart.

[6/10 · 8 January 2018]

Obviously a deeply personal film, Franco's latest (before the tide of four films almost ready for this year), is one from the heart, not so much for cinema itself as for the pathos that drives some people to create cinema. Even if you don't get the real "Room" allusions, even if this poor man's (a bit moody) Cassavetes is not your cup of tea (let alone if you haven't seen your "Ed Wood" several times over), "The Disaster Artist" almost perfectly captivates the moment when a work of "art" is revered for the polar opposite reasons it was made while at the same time exposing its auteur's heartbreaking need for recognition and addressing the perennial idea that art, like truth, is in the eyes of the beholder. Not a small feat.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

Sticks and stones (and BiCB99) will break your bones

[1/10 · 29 December 2017]

Most rarely zero rating I appoint, simply because bad films are avoided or turned off half hour in. So I got to give it to Zahler, he fooled me perfectly into believing this a pulp angst film. It ain't.

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

A rare Spielberg melancholia.

[10/10 · 27 December 2017]

A rare example of an attempted Spielberg melancholia and it is the most delicate, the most elegant one. Imbued in the spirit of the typical spielbergian disintegration of the family, this one drives on with exquisite taste and grande finesse to a condition (again typical in the director) of familial reinstatement, only this time of a completely different, disillusioned type. A great, unexpected Christmas film, too.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Masterwork

[10/10 · 13 December 2017]

Less a horror film than a morality fable (you can choose evil but then you cannot choose good again), this entry of Stevenson's story is sublime. Supremely endowed by Mamoulian's directorial prowess and effective proclivity to innovation, the film towers above its own dated restrictions freeing itself to an aesthetic highland where even pose and verbose dialogue cannot hinder its virtues.

March is neurotically fierce as Jekyll and grotesquely fearsome as the Neanderthalian Hyde, Hopkins does her usual superlative work and, above all, Mamoulian brings it home thundering his well-honed, yet experimental, mastery (pov narration, split screen imagery, pioneering use of sound, camera movement, editing pace, visual effects, you name it..). A master('s)work.

Crime of Passion (1956)

Proto feminist marriage thriller

[7/10 · 13 December 2017]

Expertly paced proto feminist indictment of the '50s US suburbia, directed boldly and efficiently by Gerd Oswald - an "outsider" of the Hollywood system. Stanwyck is in her usual neurotic best as the trapped, sexually frustrated wife, while Hayden and Burr turn in solid supporting performances. Interestingly, no child ever appears in the film, a rather curious fact for a film criticising the american dream of the era, enigmatically leaning the story towards an adult critique of the sexual predicament of the couple as the primary social unit.

On the Beach (1959)

Solid post-apocalyptic old school drama

[7/10 · 13 December 2017]

Still this one remains perhaps the most effective "end of the world as we know it" american films, cool-headed in frozen cold war times, with an unusually light touch by the Oliver Stone (but a tad more significant in my books) of those days. Not in the least pedantic, never dull (though a bit stretching at 134 minutes), at times almost elegiac and decidedly pessimistic, Kramer's On the Beach boasts a typically strong cast, crowned by a fantastic playing off each other of Peck and Gardner, with the latter being nothing sort of magnificent in her vulnerable first hour in the film. Premiered, among others, in Moscow 58 years ago this month. Peck, a life long supporter of nuclear disarmament, attended.

Mother! (2017)

Aronofski's return to form - and gutsy filmmaking

[8/10 · 13 December 2017]

The way I see it a hard film to love yet one I cannot but deeply appreciate for the powers that drive its making. If one is to digest this utterly pretentious and yet magnificently bold and audacious picture (btw it is men who have created the most audacious and bold feminist statements on film AND the most unrelenting critiques to patriarchy), one has to explore its dream/nightmare quality, its tonally masterful strokes of comedy and, alas, the unabashedly heartfelt, self (male/artist)-incriminating, insightful study of the (in-love) female psyche.

The outcome is a perfectly controlled throughout, biblically hysteric and cautiously framed chaos, that inevitably bashes out the borders of what a filmmaker is "allowed" to show. Still, in all its unhinged havoc, deep down one feels this is what Hollywood must do in order to meet some groundbreaking demand.

Sayonara (1957)

The mediocre Japanese-American exotica of 1957

[3/10 · 13 December 2017]

Splendid production value and acute liberalism cannot save this dramatically impossible film, one in a series of Hollywood expeditions to oriental exotica in the '50s. (The other major one in the same year is about some bridge over troubled Japanese water and is incomparable in any sense - though as Oscars have it they were both contenders for Best Picture that year). Brando is great as usual in his own muted way, though peculiarly limp in order to depict his literally last minute transformation, making this one of his less attractive performances. Red Buttons, James Garner are solid (sort of) newcomers, Montalban is unrecognisable and almost steals it, while Miyoshi Umeki earned an Oscar, one of the four Logan's film ultimately gathered.

Heat (1995)

22 years on undisputed perfection

[10/10 · 13 December 2017]

In the light of the 22 years past and gone after it, "Heat" looks prophetic even in its take on the fall of machismo as a decadent, female-less world option, one in which men can only dream of being accompanied but actually end up holding each other's lifeless hands.

Still, after all is said and done, Mann's work, steeped in its steel blues, and dimmed blurred lights of some deep background (as if Gatsby's green light refers once more to men beating on "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"), remains the finest, saddest urban rhapsody of people irretrievably lost on what they 're after.

It (I) (2017)

'80s aesthetics bullseye

[6/10 · 13 December 2017]

Even further than just being an '80s revival product - you know that thing that started out as nostalgia (Super 8, Expendables) and is now a full blown mania (Guardians of the Galaxy, Stranger Things, etc.) that rules box-office and, on occasion, pop music - "It" is the correct one. It has the structure, the aesthetics, the "each face corresponding to its mirror image from the era" (there is a homework for you truthful ones!), the meta-jokes ("It's bullshit, it's a Gazebo!"). It is it.

Watching it one gets a good idea of why King is the pop culture royalty he is -he digs into the collective fears of the western id AND the American superego locating the source of trauma - here racial tensions, disintegrated family, bullying and incest take the cake.

Muschietti is in complete control of his means, anything more tempered would miss the point of it going full retro, I can't see how the 40-ish generation (who liked it back then) won't be charmed by it.

Hell, enjoy it while it lasts. Directors/screenwriters/designers and DPs who grew up in the '80s are now having their field day feeling kids again, recreating the seeming simplicity of it all. I suppose this all '80s thing won't make it for more than 5-6 years from now.

The Nile Hilton Incident (2017)

Solid good crime thriller set in the days prior to the recent Egyptian revolution.

[6/10 · 13 December 2017]

"Chinatown" it isn't, though hardly a film can be blamed for not getting close to the archetype, still this is the fountain it draws from. There is a sense of impending doom to it, an urgent cry for some kind political change; unfortunately though, it somehow lacks in editing sharpness while, more importantly, suffering from some kind of belief that the Egyptian revolution would make things better. Yet, I must admit, that its historical naivete is overthrown by its imprinted fatalism and the humanity in Fares presence.