The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

USA
directed by: Wes Anderson
written by: Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson
starring: Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson
seen on 30th December, 2020

I don't know how does Wes Anderson fare with regards to mental health, since his movies don't necesarily reflect his actual reality (but I bet they kind of do and oh wow), but Owen Wilson for sure battles with bipolar disorder and self-destructive depression all his life and oh wow. With this in mind I have big trouble trying to consider this a comedy and maybe I'd even dare say it wasn't meant to be one. The fact that the maker has a sense of humor does not dictate the genre of the film he makes. I would probably label Tenenbaums to be psychoanalysis verging on psychotherapy. Those inner demons are more or less visible in every Wes movie, but this one seems to be the most raw, the most painful and the most uncomfortable to watch. Whenever I watch any Luke Wilson film (including Legally Blonde), I always end up thinking about him finding his brother Owen after his attempted suicide and saving his life, and therefore every Luke Wilson film ends up causing me a little bit of trauma. How big of a trauma will this film cause, opening its veins directly? But perhaps my vision is clouded by my own demons and most viewers don't see the same film as me when watching The Royal Tenenbaums. Lucky them.

The Ice Storm (1997)

USA/France
directed by: Ang Lee
written by: James Schamus + Rick Moody (book)
starring: Joan Allen, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Sigourney Weaver
seen on 30th December, 2020

I would be rather interested to find out how it's possible that Mychael Danna's score for The Ice Storm has been one of my favourite soundtrack for years without me ever seeing the film itself before. In any case, this is one of those movies where it's kind of impossible for me to make my own opinion of them because I remember it being one of my mum's favourite films, and all of my mum's films become shrines and mementos of her and as such I cannot consciously or unconsciously question them.

Nevertheless, I can say that apart from that deliciously melancholy music I was deeply touched by the interplay of what was going on in the story with the enviroment where it was happening: naked trees, dead leaves on the ground, wind, cold, that depersonalized house, and of course ice.

For Sama (2019)

United Kingdom
directed by: Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts
starring: Waad Al-Kateab, Hamza Al-Khateab, Sama Al-Khateab
seen on 28th December, 2020

-"She's saing 'Mum, why did you give birth to me? It's been nothing but war since the day I was born.'" 

I myself am speechless.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964)

Tini zabutykh predkiv
Soviet Union
directed by: Sergei Parajanov
written by: Sergei Parajanov + Mikhaylo Kotsyubinsky (book)
starring: Ivan Mikolaychuk, Larisa Kadochnikova, Tatyana Bestayeva
seen on 27th December, 2020

"So their life went on. Workdays - for work, holidays - for sorcery. Tomorrow is spring."

Magical realism is definitely my favourite genre.

Spartacus (1960)

USA
directed by: Stanley Kubrick
written by: Dalton Trumbo, Calder Willingham, Peter Ustinov + Howard Fast (book)
starring: Kirk Douglas, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Herbert Lom, Woody Strode, Tony Curtis
seen on 25th December, 2020

-"I'm Brian and so is my wife." 

Interesting. When I saw Ben-Hur a couple of years back, every scene I recognized from Life of Brian made me laugh out loud, but while watching Spartacus I was still moved to sincere tears regardless of the laughs Monty Pythons have imprinted in my brain. The actors are really, really good, I'd say it's them what lifts the film above the average sword-and-sandal movie. I loved Kirk the most, obviously, but also Herbert Lom, Woody Strode and Tony Curtis deserve a shout-out, as well as Ustinov, whose acting I would label as "the most modern" of the bunch and I guess that's why he got that Oscar (but I was also a bit surprised that the Academy was able to appreciate that at the time).

I am currently going through a bit of a Kubrick-themed period and as such it does feel like an old (aged) movie that does not peak my interest too much. It's monumental even in places that do not need to be that big, and it does have some rather redundant passages. The refreshing thing is that it does not bring religion into proceedings (and maybe that's the reason why Spartacus brings me to tears without the need to sneer at it). And now for a completely random fact: as I was looking for sources to find out whether Kubrick was religious or not, I found out that he had an IQ of 200, which was news to me.

The Red Shoes (1948)

United Kingdom
directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
written by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Keith Winter + Hans Christian Andersen (fairy tale)
starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring
seen on 19th December, 2020

Very, very intentense. All those details and meaningful props. How completely separated from everybody else Lermontov looks in his sunglasses and a hat, I bet that was the inspiration for Coppola's rejuvenated Dracula in London. How suddenly differently Craster looks in a leather coat. But the most essential thing to me is that the dancer is being played by a dancer, body and soul. There is nothing worse than when a film makes a point of being about dance and then casts an actor that only pretend-dances. (There is more that one film that comes to mind, but the remake of Suspiria is the most recent scar on my heart.)

-"You're a magician, Boris, to have produced all this in three weeks, and from nothing." -"Not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there isn't already a rabbit in the hat."

Stagecoach (1939)

USA
directed by: John Ford
written by: Dudley Nichols, Ben Hecht
starring: Claire Trevor, John Carradine, John Wayne
seen on 15th December, 2020

I will have to have a ponder if it bothers me politically/ideologically or if I'm just supposed to be in awe of the beauty of Claire Trevor and John Carradine and not mind the rest. But I do follow a lot of indigenous artists so I think it does bother me. 

The Handmaiden (2016)

 Agasshi
South Korea
directed by: Chan-wook Park
written by: Chan-wook Park, Seo-kyeong Jeong + Sarah Waters (book)
starring: Min-hee Kim, Tae-ri Kim, Jeong-woo Ha
seen on 14th December, 2020

I'm not sure. Chan-wook Park is indeed extremely talented when it comes to adapting books against their grain and crossing the lines behind the lines considered uncrossable (and his Thirst will forever be one of my most favourite films), but he does not completely win me over with this one. It is not subversive enough to be actually different from the stories read within the story, but at least the whole effort seems to be sincere and genuine (or I chose to see it that way). 

White Heat (1949)

USA
directed by: Raoul Walsh
written by: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts +Virginia Kellogg (short story)
starring: James Cagney, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly
seen on 11th December, 2020

My oh my, that is one cold blooded movie. I wonder how they even got away with it being so. Cagney is magnificent of course, but to me the most wonderful surprise was the part of Margaret Wycherly. That was one dedicated mom.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Portrait de la jeune fille en feu
France
written and directed by: Céline Sciamma
starring: Adèle Haenel, Noémie Merlant, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino,
seen on 9th December, 2020

It bothered me that she could not smell the paint on her. 

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

United Kingdom
directed by: David Lean
written by: Robert Bolt, Michael Wilson + T. E. Lawrence (book)
starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn
seen on 8th December, 2020

Of course there are no speaking female parts when it's as much gay as it could be acceptable/unnoticeable for 1962. Omar Sharif is heavenly beautiful. I myself would be happy with only the first half, it being so visually and sound design-vise perfect and story-vise simple and clean, just the desert and inner demons. The other, more action based and political part I could do without, it did not seem as exceptional. Plus points for soundtrack and brilliant acting even in the supporting roles.

Platoon (1986)

United Kingdom/USA
written and directed by: Oliver Stone
starring: Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen
seen on 27th November, 2020

There was a couple of brilliant moments, but it did not work for me as a whole, as a work of art. The author knows what he's talking about but at the same time it seems as he does not know what he's trying to say exactly. It is reflected in the protagonist who switches his personality in every scene (and they are not mood swings or anything like that, he just keeps changing his character) and Charlie Sheen is just too wooden to convey why. In conjuction with the bland voice-over it all seems like a school assignment on the topic of "war is bad". But damn, Willem is so angelically beautiful.

-"Feeling good's good enough."

Delicatessen (1991)

France
directed by: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
written by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, Gilles Adrien
starring: Dominique Pinon, Marie-Laure Dougnac, Karin Viard
seen on 18th November, 2020

It might be a series of almost unrelated skits at first sight, but everything has its place and is indeed shown to have been planned very carefully, from the Australian to the twice mended condom. 

Little Women (2019)

USA
directed by: Greta Gerwig
written by: Greta Gerwig + Luisa May Alcott (book)
starring: Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet
seen on 14th November, 2020

Oh my god. I hate it. I hate Emma Watson for the way she acts, I hate Greta Gerwig for her depiction of "rebellious", I hate Florence Pugh for reasons I cannot clearly describe yet (but I guess it's either her being miscast or I just find her character adapted too ham-fistedly, because I did love her in Midsommar), I hate the colour palette of costumes and set design and I especially hate the absolute daftness of Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack. 

But after calming down a bit and stopping being so overrun by emotions, I very honestly don't know what the film was supposed to be about or should I say what was Greta's point by making this. By constantly jumping timelines she prevents the viewer from making any sort of connection with the characters or getting any sense of their development and maturing, especially since nobody visibly ages or changes in any way. It is thefore not a simple retelling of a story of a bunch of little women, it's being mercilessly manipulated. But it also is not a reflexive commentary of the historic reality of the author writing her novel and the publisher forcing her to make "popular" edits to satisfy convention, because that only appears in one brief scene of the husband-chase and no other part of the film shows signs of this self-awareness. There is also very little political context and the film even does not explore what makes the Marches different from the general public regarding their beliefs and social views. 

I have no choice than to declare the final product as seeming to be clumsy, unfinished and unsophisticated. It on the other hand seems to be rather loud and noisy. Laurie's love for Jo, for example, is only present because "that's what happened in the book" but never once does the film actually slow down and become intimate enough to show something, anything, developing between the two of them. I would argue that even the relationship between Beth and grandpa Laurence got more space and was better explored than that arguably central relationship. 

In short: the film left me with no positive notions and I simply do not get what was it supposed to be. It's not story centric, it's not a commentary, it does not seem to be worthy all the fuss it made.

Thelma & Louise (1991)

USA/United Kingdom/France
directed by: Ridley Scott
written by: Callie Khouri
starring: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel
seen on 21st May, 2020

Callie Khouri should have made it herself with a low budget, maybe then I could tell what was that supposed to be.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

USA
directed by: Robert Wise
written by: Edmund H. North, Harry Bates
starring: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Billy Gray
seen on 20th May, 2020

Well, I will have to deliberate for a bit but I don't think I will really like it in the end. (Although Michael Rennie really does make a wonderful extraterrestrial being.) I don't believe a message from an actually more developed civilisation would be like this. This is how someone as sordid as humans imagines a message from a more developed civilisation.

Capernaum (2018)

 Cafarnaúm
Lebanon/France/USA
directed by: Nadine Labaki
written by: Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeily, Michelle Keserwany
starring: Zain Al Rafeea, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Yordanos Shifera
seen on 21st April, 2020

Only someone who really has no faith in the potencial audience of this film can compare Capernaum to Slumdog Millionaire.  I will have to think about this some more but it seems to me that Nadine Labaki uses her characters as things and not as people and that does not make me comfortable.

Rocky (1976)

USA
directed by: John G. Avildsen
written by: Sylvester Stallone
starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith
seen on 21st February, 2020

I cried like a little baby, but not at the end, I cried during the scene of Rocky shouting loudly at the old man offering himself as a manager. The actual end seems a litte bit tired, like there wasn't enough time to finish it to perfection, but still finish it enough to be done with it and unleash it upon the world. I can't imagine this story needing any other instalment to tell it better or expand on its theme (and I probably won't watch any other Rocky movie because of that). I don't see it as a "sports movie", to me it's a new wave film: little dialogue, a lot of emotion, humanity dissected. Damn.

Life of Pi (2012)

USA/Taiwan/United Kingdom/Canada
directed by: Ang Lee
written by: David Magee + Yann Martel (book)
starring: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain
seen on 20th February, 2020

Nonsense. I don't get the connection between Baron Munchausen and divine touch, at least not in anything the makers show us or how they show us. This seems like the kind of movie that loses all of its value once people start to admire another attraction... and there simply is no point in films like these.

Under the Shadow (2016)

United Kingdom/Jordan/Qatar
written and directed by: Babak Anvari
starring: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi
seen on 8th February, 2020

Best film ever. If I were to compare it to something, it would be Polanski's "Repulsion". Polanski uses atributes of the horror genre to depict psychological discomfort of his heroine, her distress comes deep from within her and societal pressure is a secondary character in his story, whereas "Under the Shadow" deals with the opossite situation: the heroine and her deepest self are being attacked from the outside, and the director translates and visualizes her suffering through understandable tropes of spooky movies. 

I read a bunch of comments online that said things like "the main character is being a real cow the entire time", as if they spotted a flaw in the film by being the brightest and the smartest, without also noticing that was the point of the whole thing. It's about frustration, about being tired, about being unable to defend oneself. There is a war going on around. WAR! The heroine is under constant attack as a citizen of her country, is under constant attack as a person with a political opinion in an unfree country, is under constant attack as a person yearning for self-realization, is under constant attack just for being born a woman. The film does not glamorize her behavior or her irritated reactions, on the contrary, she gets put through hell. I don't deny anyone the right to say they didn't like the film, thought it was bad or uninteresting, but I do not like to see someone watching a film about going crazy from something unimaginable and then criticizing the heroine for being crazy.

The Lighthouse (2019)

USA/Canada
directed by: Robert Eggers
written by: Robert Eggers, Max Eggers
starring: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Valeriia Karaman
seen on 29th January, 2020

-"If I had a steak... I'd fuck it."

I don't know why it took me so long to admit this: the boys did nothing wrong.

Enter the Dragon (1973)

Hong Kong/USA
directed by: Robert Clouse
written by: Michael Allin
starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly
kcommented on 28th January, 2020

Is it just me or is this a Bond movie... except with Bruce Lee in it? In the sense that it is either really badass, or really funny, depending on your point of view.

Roma (2018)

Mexico/USA
written and directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Carlos Peralta
seen on 24th January, 2020

I view this film just like I view the scene of the fire during the NYE celebrations. I don't understand its purpose and I don't know what to feel.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

USA
directed by: Frank Lloyd
written by: Margaret Booth, Jules Furthman, Carey Wilson, Talbot Jennings + Charles Nordhoff, James Norman Hall (book)
starring: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone
seen on 22nd January, 2020

I wouldn't call the use of title cards between shots as a sign of a clumsy transition between silent and sound film, in fact I'm pretty sure that it's a sign of inexperience and quandary when adapting a literary source into visual language of film. I think it a good thing when dialogue serves mostly as a way to convey the complexities of its speakers' characters, it's not ideal when the talking focuses too much on moving the story forward. A novel has a different structure that a "traditional" film story arc, and I would say I remember commenting dozens (and perhaps hundreds) of times under all sorts of adaptations that only a minority of (Hollywood) screenwriters can masterfully translate (and not simply shorten) a book story, to make it make sense on the big screen as well. 

Other than that, it sure is a cool flick. I wonder what it would be like to see it when it was made. Also, could any of the actors pass as capable/make it big in todays cinema? Could any of their performances be called timeless? Even though his character looks the most like a caricature, I bet that Charles Laughton checks all the modern complex actor boxes. The other two guys would look like models struggling to act today. 

(I haven't read the book, nor have I seen any other adaptation.)

The Greatest Showman (2017)

USA
directed by: Michael Gracey
written by: Jenny Bicks, Bill Condon
starring: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya
seen on 20th January, 2020

I wonder if it's possible that I just hate fun. Or drama. Or happines. Or life. Jesus Christ, what a stupid empty film this is. The intensity of those musical numbers does not change from the beginning to the end, there is no way to escalate it or fool the viewer into thinking that there is some sort of a point to it or whatever so the whole thing is about... nothing in the end? For example, I can't think of a single reason for Rebecca Ferguson's character to be included other than that the creators wanted to have another shiny trinket in there. Biographical films are usually rubbish, but this one gives up on describing life sooner than is common.

Shanghai Express (1932)

USA
directed by: Josef von Sternberg
written by: Jules Furthman
starring: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong
seen on 20th January, 2020

Damn, Anna May Wong was a goddess of her own, it's a shame that nobody mentions her while talking about this film, Marlene makes people forget everything else. I could do without the romantic subplot, the political tension was enough. I wanted to punch that lady with a dog. That is my educated opinion.