dierregi Reviews

Frantz (2016)

Morally ambiguous

[4/10 · 22 May 2024]

In 1919, French veteran Adrien (Pierre Niney) travels to Germany to visit the family of Frantz, his alleged German friend who died in WW, which could make the audience think that Adrien is suffering from survivor's guilt. According to Adrien, he and Frantz met in Paris, where Frantz used to travel often and where they spent lots of time together.

Anna, Frantz's sensitive fiancee, lives with Frantz's parents, and at first, she's happy about Adrien telling them stories of life in Paris. Frantz's parents after a short resistance find solace in knowing that Frantz was happy in Paris.

However, the townsfolk are not happy about a Frenchman staying in town and about Anna showing sympathy to him.

Halfway through, the plot turns into the "washing of one's conscience by ruining other people's lives", otherwise known as "telling the truth when nobody asked for it", as in a confession appreciated only by the person dumping unpleasant truths to some third party who could have stayed blissfully ignorant.

This ruined my appreciation of the film, but I didn't like it much anyway, first because of the random switching of the photography from gorgeous black and white to color for NO reason whatsoever (whatever explanation they give, doesn't make any sense) and then because I just saw Pierre Niney for the first time as an actor in the awful "Fiasco" and I couldn't get rid of his image as the inane wimp of the series. It doesn't help that in this movie he sports a moustache that makes him look like one of the Marx brothers. Word of praise to Paule Berr playing Anna, she's good, like the actors playing Frantz's parents.

My Son, the Hero (1962)

Epic

[7/10 · 22 May 2024]

A perfect example of entertainment without a hint of pretentiousness (so lacking these days). The plot is about evil king Cadmo and his scheming second wife Ermione who create havoc in their kingdom and even keep Cadmo's daughter Antiope imprisoned because a prophecy said that Cadmo would die once Antiope falls in love. The scene is thus set for Antiope to fall in love with nonetheless than a platinum blonde (!?!) Titan, Krios, who is charged by his father Jupiter to get rid of Cadmo.

Even if the Titans are in the movie, don't expect any reliable narration of Greek mythology: Sisyphus, Prometheus, one Gorgon and even Polyphemus appear randomly in carefully chosen settings (actually, mostly in dark caves...) while Krios tries to get rid of Cadmo with the help of some sidekicks. One wonders why Jupiter didn't just strike down Cadmo himself, with one of his lighting bolts, but where would the fun be?

After a glorious romp with little violence and no blood, the story wraps up so fast as to make one wonder why contemporary movies cannot be cut short like old ones.

Notable interpreters are the carefree and muscular Giuliano Gemma - minus the hideous dyed blond hair - as the ineffable Krios and enigmatic beauty Jacqueline Sassard as Antiope. Antonella Lualdi plays nasty Ermione, sporting a bizarre wardrobe and a series of unbelievably kitch wigs.

Il figlio di Aquila Nera (1968)

The poor people War and Peace

[6/10 · 22 May 2024]

A '60s Italian production of some standing, where all the male actors were Italians sporting Anglo Saxon alias and NOT a spaghetti-Western. Just for that it's worth watching.

The plot is about Count Aleksej who plays the part of frivolous seductor at the Czar court, only to turn into the avenger of his people in the Caucasus when his land is invaded by the Russians.

Sad to notice that the Russians still haven't stopped with that kind of behaviour in the year 2024.

Apart from that, the cast also features some genuine foreign actresses, among which Edwige Fenech who plays the main role of Natascia. The name hints to War and Peace, even if this story is not so grand.

Inevitably Aleksej and Natascia will fall in love, even if she's Russian and her uncle wants her to marry the nasty Russian General Volkonsky.

Most admirable in this movie is also the fast wrapping up of the plot after an epic battle with real people and no CGI.

Excellent costumes, decent settings, a remarkable support cast and the amazing battle scene at the end show why Cinecittà in the '60s was "Hollywood on the river Tevere".

Just out of curiosity, note that main character Alexej was played by Mimmo Palmara from Rome, billed as Dick Palmer and that this is one of the very few movies in which Ms. Fenech didn't disrobe, before turning into the "sex icon" of way too many Italian soft-porn flicks.

Wicked Little Letters (2023)

When you think the movie industry can't sink any lower...

[1/10 · 21 May 2024]

...it does. A mystery without a mystery, this is the 2024 version of a minor scandal dating a hundred years ago, but distorted, minced, chewed, and regurgitated to make it a palatable porridge for the contemporary audience.

Even before watching the movie and just by reading the synopsys one can easily guess what's going on: spunky, non-conformist, single mother Irish female? Good person! Middle-aged repressed spinster who has issues with the Irish heroine? Bad!!!!

From there the plot develops into a silly parody of reality, where swearing is so funny - if you're a child, or maybe not even for them, since nowadays there's such a constant flux of swearing on the media that it is exceptional when no F- or C- words are flying around.

Not even worth mentioning the anachronistic ethnically correct cast, which would have been absurd at the time, because the audience is more than happy to go along with the cancel culture and pretend that's "just a comedy, good for a laugh"... so why not make it a Sci Fi comedy, instead of setting it into a very specifically historical period and tell lies about it?

Malice (1993)

A thriller with a decent plot

[6/10 · 20 May 2024]

Once upon a time movies were made with goodlooking actors and a semblance of plot. Not that said plots had no holes, but at least they were not as huge as to make the viewing experience a joke.

In "Malice" a gorgeous young Kidman plays Tracy the seemingly happy new wife of Andy, an associate dean at a New England college. The "happy" couple is trying to start a family in a cavernous, old Victorian house they don't have enough money to fix.

Enter Jed, a dashing surgeon (a young Baldwin, also in his prime) willing to rent rooms. Tracy claims not to like Jed and to like him even less when she has the misfortune of ending under his scalpel due to gynecological issues.

A secondary but vital part of the plot is about a serial rapist at the college, which will push Andy on the road to painful discoveries.

Confess, Fletch (2022)

Tries too hard, not fun and patronizing

[1/10 · 20 May 2024]

I didn't watch the original "Fletch" movie(s) the audience seems so fond of, so my review is based on this stand-alone product.

Jon Hamm portrays the titular Fletch as someone who tries too hard to be witty and cool, failing at both. I guess his disheveled appearance is an attempt to escape the "Mad Men" image, but it only makes him look too old to be that sloppy.

The plot is a convolute murder mystery, and it doesn't help that there are at least nine characters involved, each introduced with an excuse more preposterous than the other.

The movie starts with the body of a gorgeous blonde (cliché) found in a flat where Fletch is temporarily residing, but the main plot should be the kidnapping of an Italian count and the disappearance of some of his precious paintings. Fletch is "involved" (read "fornicates") with Andy, the count's daughter and she asks him to help find her dad and his paintings - or something along those lines.

Enter the billion people mentioned above: two ethnically correct cops (one male, one female, obviously...), the flat's owner, his divorced wife, the count's wife, a neighbor... OMG, the neighbor's part is so incredibly annoying.

Fletch speaks some Italian, and being Italian myself I must agree that his Italian is awful, for comical relief I guess, but it's not funny and Marcia Gay Harden playing Italian/Portuguese is an almost insulting caricature (besides, her Portuguese is appalling).

After some stupid antics, the case is resolved by the ethnic female cop who blames Fletch for his "white privileges". Where did that come from? And why it's impossible to watch a movie without being patronized?

Besides, why would anybody donate paintings worth millions to perfect strangers? Only in bad movies...

The Big Chill (1983)

Growing up sucks

[8/10 · 17 May 2024]

A group of friends from the '60s generation of peace protests, idealism and Woodstock meet again in 1984, for the funeral of Alex, the one who could not adapt to grown-up life.

Alex's suicide for me is the pretest to get the group of friends together to discuss about their crumbling ideals and not a mystery to be solved. Whatever the reason for his suicide, it's secondary to the plot. Alex was a guest of Harold and Sarah, two of the friends who married had children and successful careers. Apparently very comfortable in their grown up lives, we discover that Sarah had an affair with Alex and still feels for him, while Harold can be convinced to act unconventionally.

Michael and Sam are successful professionally, but Sam is divorced and Michael a bit of womanizer, while Karen is a rich but bored housewife and Meg is a successful, single lawyer who just want to have a child. The only misfit seem to be Nick, a Viet veteran who - not by chance - is chosen by Alex's younger girlfriend Chloe as a replacement of the decease.

These friends talk about the past and the wreckage of their illusions, which is what each generation must go through at some stage, from the carefree days of school, open to all possibilities to being over thirty with jobs, financial issues, and some failed romances. That moment when you realize there are increasingly less roads to travel, because you've already been around a lot.

That's why, even if it is rooted in the mid-80s the theme resonates beyond the "hippies turning into yuppies" reductive boundaries. A good movie that propelled Kasdan into stardom, but was followed by other less convincing projects.

11.22.63 (2016)

Smart and engaging

[8/10 · 17 May 2024]

Jake is a recently divorced teacher who gets involved with his dying friend Al's attempt to save JFK. Except that Jake lives in 2016 and he can only thwart the assassination by travelling to the past. The other catch is that the "door to the past" opens only for a single day in 1960, which means Jake will have to hang around for three years in the past.

It's an intriguing premise, developed cleverly. The device of the Al character serves the purpose of giving enough information to Jake so that he can have a smooth sailing in the past and the audience doesn't have to be bogged down with details about the JFK story, which is usually well known. In any case, this series is not about saving the president, but about the consequences of getting involved.

Al advises Jake NOT to get involved with anybody in the past but obviously, Jake does and his involvement derails considerably his mission. He falls for beautiful Sadie and his attempts to help her almost prevent him from completing his self-imposed mission.

Some viewers may be disappointed by the turn for the romantic about halfway when the JFK plot becomes secondary, but it is actually a clever move to make the story relatable, with a situation anybody may encounter in real life: what if breaking up with the person I love would improve their life?

My only negative remarks are about the "vagueness" of the antagonist, the "Past" that wants to prevent the change of history with random interventions that don't make much sense, and in the last episode, Jake dragging Sadies upstairs in the Texas School Book Depository. She had nothing to do there except get in danger to fulfill the final part of the plot.

I didn't read the novel, so my review is based only on the show but considering that Stephen King worked on the adaptation, it means that even he thought this was good enough.

Fiasco (2024)

A faulty farce

[1/10 · 16 May 2024]

I watched two episodes of this series, hoping it would improve but unfortunately, it just got sillier. It seemed funny from the trailer, about a shy, first-time director making his first movie, and everything escalating into a huge disaster, but the cast is too big, and none of the characters is more than a stereotype (the director in love with the female movie star, the pretentious actor, the stupid producer, etc...) and the chances for laughter are few and far between.

The character of Raphael is just unbelievable, nobody that weak would have the drive and perseverance to get the financing for his movie, and the plot about his grandmother seems predictably silly and not something that would get financed.

I also found the "mockumentary" style particularly grating, with the invasive presence of one or more cameramen filming everything on the sly and the constant use of social media.

Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction (2023)

Sterile but beautiful

[5/10 · 16 May 2024]

The plot is little more than a farce, taking place in a fake German dukedom. The duchess, married to a much older duke, has the hots for lascivious painter Cazotte, who's not interested in her but rather in the fearless Valkyrie Ehrengard.

Due to the duchess's machinations, Cazotte and Ehrengard have the chance to spend some time together, holding court to the dukedom heir and his pregnant wife and during this time Cazotte tries to "seduce" - with minimal art - the engaged and uninterested Ehrengard with a plot bound to derail.

The locations and costumes are fabulous, the actors - all unknown to me - do a decent job and the plot moves briskly along, without causing any emotion apart from pleasure thanks to the brilliant aesthetic. Shame about the silly ending.

French Kiss (1995)

Decent comedy

[6/10 · 16 May 2024]

You know what your getting yourself into when watching a 90s movie with Meg Ryan. In this story her character is called Kate, but it's just another version of her trademark quirky, funny and rather goofy persona. What makes Kate just slightly different from other Ryan's characters is a limited and mostly unflattering wardrobe of oversize shirts and pants, offset by an occasional tight vest.

Kate is an American living in Canada and engaged with Charlie, an ordinary guy who during a business trip to France falls in lust with a French girl and decides to marry her. Despite her fear of flying and hatred for everything French, Kate decides to "take Charlie back" and embarks in a crazy adventure with French suspicious character Luc, played by Kline. Despite my reserve about an American playing a French man, Kline's accent is actually quite good and I liked his performance with his slow morphing into a more "human" character rather than staying a caricature.

What makes the movie less enjoyable is Ryan who plays her Kate as a slightly deranged and OTT woman. Also, at the start Kate has zero chemistry with Luc and while his change of heart is believable, nothing much appears to change with Kate, which makes the third act quite unbelievable.

Still, a decent comedy from those bygone times when a man and a woman could have a romance and an American could play a French character without cries of outrage from the social media mob.

Red Dawn (1984)

A relic that aged badly

[4/10 · 14 May 2024]

Watching this for the first time 40 years after its release spares one from feelings of "nostalgia", but also makes appreciation harder.

Probably in the early 80s in the US there was a real fear of WWIII looming close (not that things have improved much) but the development of this plot just doesn't make any sense. Why would Russian and Cuban armies "invade" a village in the middle of nowhere and of no strategic importance? Just to give the teenage actors a chance to become partisans?

The absurdity of the invasion for me undermines the whole plot. It certainly doesn't help that the acting was not stellar, that the guerrilla actions were kind of absurd and that trained troops could be so easily exterminated by a bunch of teenagers.

Not "the worst film ever" but not that good, either.

The Gentlemen (2024)

Entertaining but not stellar

[6/10 · 9 May 2024]

If you're familiar with Guy Ritchie's movies you know what you're getting yourself into. His stories are about eccentric British gangsters who use convolute language, violence and a lot of swearing. That sums up most of this series, inclusive of cool characters, fast editing, atrocious soundtrack and occasional visual tricks.

The saving grace are the interpreters of main characters Eddie (the Duke) and Susie (the Boss' daughter), who have believable chemistry, luckily without any sentimental strings attached. Ray Winstone as the Bobby the Boss is also good, albeit playing it too cool.

The Duke's family lives in a beautiful estate - slightly too grand and with way too much staff - and Eddie's mum is straight out of Lady Chatterley's lover, inclusive of liaison with gamekeeper Geoff and illegitimate offspring, even if both mum and daughter totally irrelevant to the plot, but someone must have told Ritchie a feminist touch was needed, so the daughter is single, pregnant and proudly parading her belly. What's got to do with the plot? Whatever...

Eddie's brother is the idiotic Freddy, I guess a parody of the useless, addict, degenerate aristocrat, but a very annoying character. On the criminal side, the annoying counterpart is Jimmy, a silly pothead who in real life would be terminated ASAP, but in the show he is the "comic relief" (Hint: he's not funny, just annoying as hell). However, the rest of criminals all seem more or less caricatures, starting from the demented Scouses to the suave but tax-evading Johnston, the spillover from Breaking Bad. The show includes the inevitable boxing scenes, gambling, car chases (green Lamborghini, nonetheless!) and Eastern European gangs. However, the criminal world seems to be more fun than aristocratic parties.

One glaring mistake: the Belgian character is a Flemish named de Groot but he speaks French! Ritchie's team should research better, since Belgians are very sensitive to this type of things and even I not being Belgian but having lived there several years, noticed the incongruity of a Flemish character who speaks French. That would NEVER happen.

On the whole it's entertaining enough even if very predictable with each episode creating a previously unforeseen problem to be solved and the introduction of a truckload of characters.

Dante (I) (2022)

Flat storytelling

[5/10 · 7 May 2024]

The film follows Boccacccio's journey from Florence to Ravenna to offer a monetary compensation to Dante's daughter. Dante had been exiled and could never return to Florence, dying in Ravenna after a long series of journeys across northern Italy. His daughter had followed him to Ravenna, to become a nun in a local convent, never wanting to go back to Florence because of the ill-treatment of her father.

Boccaccio, played by Castellitto, was already elderly and not in good health. During his own journey he meets and talks to people who knew Dante and we follow Dante's history as a series of flashbacks.

The problem is that the past and the present look exactly the same, the recollection of Dante's life jumps all over the place and the story never really takes off.

On the good side, the costumes and settings are suitable threadbare, living conditions are shown to be poor and kind of brutal. There are a couple of emotional scenes, but for others the setting is too artificial, made to look like some Giotto's paintings. On the minus side, I did not like the soundtrack at all and some scenes with Beatrice are just weird, inclusive of the creepy wooden doll.

3 Body Problem: Wallfacer (2024) Season 1, Episode 8

Gone with the snapped sail

[2/10 · 1 May 2024]

The unfortunate last episode of a series that started with a bang and ended with a whimper. From mega cool video games, dehydrated bodies going back to life with a jump in the pool, and morally ambiguous Chinese scientists to a bunch of lovelorn ethnically correct failures.

The San-Ti are omnipotent and yet they send a pathetic white male sniper to kill Saul. Clearly, the guy was going to fail, because the show established that all white males are disposable, inept, or just plain bad. So why not send infallible Tatiana? She's a girl, she can do anything better. Or use the female Sophone, she is a supergirl and can kill people in various sophisticated ways. But no... they try with a stupid car accident and a sniper, kind of primitive and bound to fail.

The "Let's save Saul" plot took almost the whole episode, compounded by the trite clichè of the "reluctant hero". They give Saul a job he doesn't want and refuses, even if everybody knows he will end up doing it. Mega waste of time.

Will's brain is lost in space (or is it?) causing deep sorrow to Jin, who after having ignored him for all her life was now hoping for a resurrection.

Given that the target audience for this is young males (most SF fans are males, anyway) there is also a useless scene with nano-girl boss Auggie standing on her moral high ground and pouting about giving clean water to the poor in South America. Thumbs up Auggie!

I enjoyed only the final scene, with Clarence my favorite character, but I still wonder why the San-Ti didn't plan a better operation to wipe out everybody from planet Earth. Not that I would help them, but watching a show like this makes me feel hopeless about the future of the human race.

3 Body Problem: Only Advance (2024) Season 1, Episode 7

Another one bites the dust

[2/10 · 30 April 2024]

One of the few remaining but disposable white males in the show is going to depart our sorrowful planet - metaphorically and literally. Will, or just the best part of him, is sent to the sky (literally), after having spent 19.5 million to buy a star for Jin, because he was madly in love with her even if they have zero chemistry, but after all they're physicians...

After a lengthy, soppy goodbye scene the show is finally ethnically cleansed from the embarrassing presence of the remaining British white male.

Elsewhere, nano-girl boss Auggie decides to flaunt her moral standard by metaphorically mounting on her high horse and riding away in the sunset. Probably her ego wasn't pampered enough, as a mere member of the Staircase Project. Probably they should have kissed her B side more.

Finally, Tatiana the ruthless killer-girl boss is resurrected for a mission to eliminate the now useless Dr. Ye. Not that I am sad about Ye's demise, even if I share her point of view about humanity, but this makes one wonder why the omnipotent girl boss Sophone needs to move her agents around the world to eliminate a useless and powerless old woman. Would you bother so much to squash a bug that's crawling out of your garden?

Arbitrage (2012)

Ambiguity at its best

[7/10 · 28 April 2024]

A tale of greed and deception with a sprinkle of morality, Arbitrage is the story of Miller (an amazing Gere) a powerful businessman caught in what is probably the worst week of his life.

Allegedly a happily married man and a successful businessman, Miller is neither. His marriage is on the rocks, he has a young, French mistress and his business is on the brink of bankruptcy, for which he must find a buyer before it's too late.

As if this is not enough, more disaster strikes, in the shape of a car crash caused by Miller, which is likely to jeopardize his last hope of saving his money and his reputation. Enters Tim Roth as a detective too determined to find the truth and Miller must face a tough moral dilemma.

Definitely one of Gere's best which unfortunately got no rewards as it happens for too many great actors.

3 Body Problem (2024– )

Nano-what?

[5/10 · 28 April 2024]

I did not read the SF novel(s) on which this series is based, which however shouldn't be a requisite, therefore my review is only about the show.

The first episodes have the annoying non-linear structure so fashionable nowadays and used for every new show. The audience is thrown in the middle of a story and a series of flashbacks tells how it started. Chronologically, the plot begins in China in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution and the main character is a young female scientist, Ye Wenji sent to a remote part of the country to pay for her cultural sins. Good start and good acting.

Given her experience, the Ye character develops an understandable hatred for the human race at large, and thanks to her contact with billionaire Mike Evans, the two develop an "assistance plan" for an alien invasion. The clever twist of the plot is that it will take the aliens some 400 years to reach Planet Earth. Will the humans discover the plan and be able to do something to prevent it? So far, so brilliant and not a spoiler, since the alien part is revealed fairly soon in the series. What was worth 10 stars drops miserably with the development in present-day England (is that England?) where mostly non-English people and girl bosses take over.

Two mysterious investigators (Wade and Clarence) contact a group of "5 brilliant young scientists" to work with them. While Benedict Wong is quite good as the sour and unintentionally funny "investigator" Clarence and probably my favorite character, the "Scientists 5" are miscast, the elephant in the room being Eiza Gonzáles as a "nanoscientist" ... or whatever.

One would think she is too busy putting on makeup, going to the hairdresser, and pouting to be able to do any nanoscience, and her "crime" is compounded by the other young females (Tatiana, the Sophon, and Jin Cheng). These girl bosses take over the show with their arrogant, snotty attitudes, while the male characters are mostly disposable wimps. The plot dilutes into love stories, power struggles, and attitude displays while the aliens sail along in their spaceship.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

A pretty pawn in a wicked game

[8/10 · 26 April 2024]

This movie about Marie Antoinette's "glory years" is loosely based on Antonia Fraser's biography and doesn't dwell on the final, miserable period of the queen's life.

The poster promoting the film gives hits of punk and post-punk atmospheres (that pink banner suggesting the Sex Pistols' God Save Queen single cover, etc....) but most of the audience seems to have missed the connection.

The plot shows how the young queen was a pawn in a political marriage, thrown into a court that was a web of deception and corruption, and left to cope with her limited resources. It did not help her that her husband Louis, future XVI, was not much interested in sex and left her sleeping in a cold bed for seven years.

Left to her own device and frustration, Marie "overcompensated" with the company of her friends, gambling and shopping. Not crimes "per se", but advertised as such to the peasants of France. Even her choice of spending time in the splendid Trianon's bucolic peace was criticized by the aristocrats, because she was neglecting the etiquette and by the peasants, as a sign of mocking extravagance. Whatever, Marie did, was wrong and it was easy as always to point out "lasciviousness" as her main wickedness. Like most women, sex was a cause for degrading libels, even if her one and only alleged lover was Count Fersen. When Marie gained some maturity thanks to maternity, it was already too late to save her reputation.

The settings, costumes, and for me even the choice of music underline the decadent opulence of the last days of the Ancien Régime, making for a magnificent experience. A lushness for the senses, with a melancholic ending, sparing the audience the worst part.

Nothing But the Truth (I) (2008)

Stubbornly silly

[1/10 · 23 April 2024]

Beckinsale is Rachel, the would-be heroic reporter who publishes an article about a female CIA operative (Farmiga), uncovering state secrets along the way.

The movie tries to celebrate Rachel as if she's a heroin because first of all, she's a mother, also a top-notch journalist but mainly a very stubborn person. One would think the movie was financed by the #meToo, always ready to celebrate anybody of the female sex, regardless of their merits.

Unfortunately, Rachel has no merit and behaves very stupidly, creating havoc and mistaking her stubbornness for "integrity". It doesn't help that this "heroic" character is played by Beckinsale, who has a limited range (with makeup and without).

The irony of the plot is that the source Rachel so stubbornly refuses to reveal is a child (who else? She's a mother after all..) and that this top-notch journalist based her detailed article on the words of a kid. So much for a careful verification of your sources and why on earth ruin the lives of everybody around you to protect a child who in any case wasn't going to be prosecuted? How sillier can this get?

PS I am a woman myself but I find this tripe unbearable.

Small Time Crooks (2000)

Wrong title but good fun

[7/10 · 22 April 2024]

Tracey Ullman stars and shines in this comedy as Frenchy, the wise wife of the small-time crook Ray (Allen). Frenchy manages to create a profitable business while her husband and his associates develop a stupid plan to rob a bank.

The film's first part deals rather briskly with Ray's failed plan and his rags-to-riches fast climb, while the remaining two-thirds deal with the "problems" linked with having too much too fast.

The main one is being accepted in high society which is important for Frenchy and not at all for Ray, who just wants to retire to Florida. What follows is a breakup, quickly mended by the sudden loss of their money, perhaps a bit too fast, just as their ascent, but required by the plot.

There are many funny moments and witty dialogues and the result is a pleasant movie. My only remark is that the "crooks" and their illegal endeavor are a small part of the plot, while the main plot is about Ray and Frenchy, therefore a different title would have been better.

Radio Days (1987)

Winning nostalgia

[9/10 · 22 April 2024]

The plot is a loose series of events that happens to Joe (the child narrator - a version of Allen himself) and his family, inclusive of parents, aunts and grandparents, intertwined with the story of Sally a loose girl who "makes it" in the show business (the weakest part of the plot, also because I don't like Mia Farrow).

From a description of his neighbourhood to a list of everybody's favourite radio programme, Joe gives an insight of life in the 40s in Rockaway and tell of his fascination with New York and the Radio City Music Hall, the best place in the world.

If one can be nostalgic of a time and place one did not even experience, this would be it for me. Just like the narrator, I find the period he describes charming and fascinating. Obviously, the soundtrack is top, one of the best in any Allen's film. The lack of a structured plot helps appreciate the film even more as a nostalgic trip to a past that by definition is always better than the present.

Nurse Betty (2000)

Yet another failed would be Tarantino

[3/10 · 22 April 2024]

Betty is a doormat of a woman, married to Del, a guy who mistreat her and cheats on her to which she reacts by watching a soap opera, because she's in love with "Doctor David".

Enter two very unlikely hitmen Charlie and Wesley, (Freeman and Rock) looking for a McGuffin (drugs... how original) that Del stole (how? Why? Whatever..) and to make Del talk they torture and then kill him, while Betty is in the back room watching her soap on TV, but distracted just enough to witness the murder.

Charlie and Wesley are the poor person version of Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. They swear a lot and have "philosophical conversations" but are not funny AT ALL, Rock being the main culprit.

Betty in a "fugue state", whatever that may be, drives to California to meet Dr. David, thinking to be a nurse previously engaged to David.

Some appreciated Zellweger in the role but I found her over the top cloying and playing deranged rather than confused. After a final confrontation, Betty is told by Charlie that "This is not the 40s" and she does not need a man, so she goes on living a happy single life and travels to Rome. Disjointed, badly acted and silly.

Secretary (2002)

Kicks... not so much

[1/10 · 20 April 2024]

Whoever watched this based on the poster image and hoping for strong sexual content must have been very disappointed. I watched it out of curiosity and I was also disappointed, but mostly bored.

Gyllenhall plays Lee, a disturbed woman who "cuts herself", therefore a masochist, who gets her first job for lawyer Mr. Grey, an equally disturbed person more on the sadist side, but not too much, just sadistic enough for a mainstream movie.

The story drags on for what seems ages, while Lee develops a liking for her mistreatment at the hands of her boss (mostly spanking) and then she realizes she "loves" Grey. Whatever... to each, their own.

There are only two main characters in this boring plot, with minimal supporting roles (Lee's parents and unfortunate boyfriend) and most of the action takes place in Grey's claustrophobic, sinister office that looks like a set from Twin Peaks, just like the mildly weird, abundantly snooze-inducing plot.

Captives (1994)

The things people do for lust

[5/10 · 19 April 2024]

The beautiful Ormond at the start of her career plays recently divorced Rachel, a dentist still very much upset by her breakup. When she starts working in a prison twice a week, Rachel becomes attracted to inmate Philip. Reading some other reviews, seems like Tim Roth is considered a chick magnet. I find him a good character actor, usually playing cool criminals (or undercover cops) and here he does a good job, albeit in his trademark, detached, almost sleepwalking way.

The "romance" between Rachel and Philip soon turns torrid, since he's allowed out once a week. The two have sex in a restaurant's toilet (charming), exchange glances in prison and have some awkward phone calls.

The elephant in the room is the crime Philip committed. For unknown reasons, Rachel seems not to care at first and doesn't ask Philip only to dig out the truth that he killed his wife. This could be the turning point for a character study, one way or the other, although with a wife killer I see only one way to go, but unfortunately the script takes another direction.

Maybe the inception of a criminal sub-plot was considered necessary to give some punch to what might have been considered a "love story", even if there is little love and a lot of angry sex. However, it derails the plot towards a stupid ending.

Also, it's hard to believe that somebody as attractive as Ormond could not find a suitor outside the prison. The plot would have been more believable with a less attractive female in the lead.