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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 30, 2023 15:34:59 GMT
After vaunting the merits of bloodless Iranian and Turkish thrillers, I went to see To Catch a Killer (French title Misanthrope), a total American blood festival starring Shailene Woodley. There are almost 50 bloody deaths in the first ten minutes and the body count exceeds 150 before the end. A mystery killer is also one of the best sharpshooters ever, and he likes to kill at random, which makes his motives even more difficult to determine. Shailene was turned down by the FBI because she is seriously fucked up in the head, so of course she is ideal for figuring out who the guy is. The plot almost made sense at the beginning, but as things progress, it is just Grand Guignol to entertain American gun lovers. Entertainment? I guess that's what the world has come to.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 30, 2023 16:16:00 GMT
Another one to miss
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 30, 2023 17:01:45 GMT
I watched that trailer only to see Shailene Woodley, whom I thought was one of the best things about the star fest that was Big Little Lies. The trailer shows little of her acting, but managed to irritate me with Ben Mendelsohn's voice. He's yet another of the male actors who have taken to whispering their lines. What -- are they opera singers saving their vocal cords for better things? Speak so you can be heard & understood!
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Post by kerouac2 on May 3, 2023 11:27:09 GMT
Quand tu seras grand (official worldwide title Big Kids although the title translate as "When You Grow Up") is a pleasant minor movie about a nursing home which reluctantly accepts a class from the elementary school next door in their dining room when the school kitchen totally breaks down. You pretty much have to deactivate your reasoning skills to stop from wondering 'why just one class of 20?' 'why not just get meals delivered like so many other schools?' and things like that. The point is obviously so we can see the old people and the kids learn to get along so that our hearts will be warmed. Actually, it is not quite as goody-goody as one fears, because there are some irritable employees, a shitty skater boy, and some really upsetting cases of the ravages of old age. And some people die.
Although there were some old actors, the movie did have the merit of using real nursing home residents as extras.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 3, 2023 11:47:16 GMT
Disco Boy by Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese tells the story of Aleksei who leaves Belrus with a friend. They are in a group of sports fans with 3-day visas to see a match in Poland. But they leave the group to flee to France. Unfortunately, the friend dies when they are crossing a river into Germany, so Aleksei is on his own. Not knowing what to do and considerably depressed, he joins the Foreign Legion, which will give him papers and even citizenship after 5 years.
We see the awful basic training (there are plenty of grim videos on YouTube that show what it's like), and finally he is sent to Niger, where there is a local revolt against the oil refineries that are destroying the forest and polluting the country. The legionnaires are there to stamp them out, particularly the leader Jomo, who just wanted to dance in nightclubs and become a "disco boy." Aleksei kills him in hand-to-hand combat and buries him in the mud, since he has been separated from his unit.
Back in Paris on leave, the legionnaires want to party, but Aleksei is sort of possessed. His spirit has merged with that of Jomo. He will become a disco boy. Franz Rogowski is a fabulous actor, as always.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 6, 2023 3:58:21 GMT
Okay, I did it. I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3. Rocket finally discovers that he really is a raccoon. Chris Pratt finally leaves the team and moves back in with his grandparents on Earth. Are those enough spoilers?
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Post by kerouac2 on May 6, 2023 4:09:10 GMT
Un año, una noche (One Year One Night) is a nervewracking Spanish movie about survivors of the Bataclan attack. Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Noémie Merlant are excellent. This is about the 5th or 6th movie that deals with the attacks of 13 November 2015, but this is the first one that isn't French even though the dialogue is 90% in French.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 6, 2023 12:12:31 GMT
Corinne Maseiro is a major French actress who did not succeed because of her looks. Most people would say that she is quite ugly. Anyway, she looks even worse than usual in La Marginale, which she plays a homeless woman, Michèle, living in Orly airport. She waits every day to see if her son is arriving on the flight from Lisbon. No luck. After finding a bag of money, she teams up with Théo, a mentally handicapped cleaner, but he says he has a car. He thinks it is a fine car, but it is actually a mini car that doesn't require a permit. He agree to drive her to Lisbon, but he has no idea where it is.
And so our road movie begins. In a service station restroom where Michèle is cleaning up a bit, a little girl who is there with her mother asks, "Mama, is that a witch?" They get some new clothes, Michèle even goes to see a valliant hairdresser. Then Théo accidentally throws the trash bag full of money into a bin when they are getting rid of all of Michèle's other trash bags of useless items. They drive back and actually find it, but a bit later it is all stolen by a young gypsy woman from Bayonne. They get all of their food out of supermarket trash bins, and Théo has a special talent of getting service station customers to also put some petrol in his car since it is so small and he inspires pity.
But when they get to Lisbon, the horrible truth is revealed. I found this movie very cruel, like real life. The actor who play Théo is autistic, and he also has a cleaner friend with Down syndrome at the airport.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 6, 2023 22:26:04 GMT
It's awful that we've gotten so used to the idea of "perfection" in women actresses that Corinne Maseiro is considered downright ugly. Obviously she's done up to look rough for the movie, but still, she just looks like a regular person -- and with rather good bones, at that.
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Post by bjd on May 7, 2023 6:07:18 GMT
I agree with Bixa. There are several French actresses who would never get work in an American movie and I would never call Masiero "ugly". Look here
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Post by whatagain on May 7, 2023 6:55:34 GMT
I don't find her ugly either but she isn't beautiful. I decided i could not watch her after her performance in Capitaine Marleau, a french series. She irritates me to a point behind comprehension. Yet she is a life survivor, she got oroblems with alcohol, drugs, she was also homeless ? (Not sure of all of this, but she didn't live a linear life).
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Post by kerouac2 on May 7, 2023 7:02:57 GMT
Yes, she was an addict, homeless, a prostitute... it leaves marks on both one's mind and body. The Capitaine Marleau series is her most famous role and beats out the competition every time it is on.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 7, 2023 15:18:04 GMT
After the excellent First Cow, Kelly Reichardt has returned to her normal style and brings us Showing Up, about the art world of mostly unknown people. Michelle Williams is as inexpressive as usual as Lizzy, who is preparing an exhibition at an art centre/school which is run by her mother. Her father was also an artist, now retired. She also has a brother who is apparently a nut case, not too dangerous but you never know. Anyway, she sculpts her stuff, bickers with her landlord and next door neighbour who never has time to fix her water heater, engages in passive aggressive discussions with both parents, takes care of a pigeon that her cat has maimed... Basically not much happens and either you enter into her life or you don't. I think I stood on the threshold, but I was amused by this viewer review on IMDB:
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Post by kerouac2 on May 8, 2023 17:38:10 GMT
I know that most of the "big" countries have some regional movies designed for people who do not live in the capital. Some of the French ones are not even released in Paris, or only in one or two cinemas (when a "normal" release is for about 40 screens in the city and suburbs). Pour l'honneur is designed for southwest France. It takes place in a typical village with all of the typical village characters, and it is about rugby, the prime sport of the region.
But it contains a few major stars and also has a not-so-hidden agenda, which ensured exposure in Paris, too. Basically, the real subject is the arrival of a group of asylum seekers in a village which has never seen these people and where a lot of people do not want them. They were supposed to be housed in the old gendarmerie, but there was a mysterious fire there the day before they arrived, so they end up in the closed hotel of the local café owner, who is one of the people who has nothing against them, besides being the coach for the local pathetic rugby team.
There are only 7 people (who could be afraid of that?), including some Afghans, a Syrian, some Ivorians, a Congolese, who are all looking for a peaceful life after torture or persecution in their home countries. You can probably see a message here.
We have boycotts, refusal to serve in the local grocery store, the usual stuff. The star, Olivier Marchal, is a very gruff former crime unit cop in the real world, and since he moved into the movies, you know that he is not going to accept any shit. You would always want him on your team.
One of the Africans is a perfect kicker. Even if he thinks rugby is a stupid sport compared to football, he quickly joins the team. A little later, one of the Afghans, a former national champion wrestler and a real monster, also joins the team. You know that he will have no trouble crushing the other guys...
Anyway, it is a very pleasant propaganda movie where the different cultures learn to appreciate each other, most of them at least, and one can only hope that it has an effect on some of the "peasants" (rural folk) of southwest France who will have only seen the movie to see their region and/or because it is about rugby.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 8, 2023 17:43:10 GMT
Sounds rather more pleasant than some of the stuff you watch.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 8, 2023 17:59:13 GMT
Only we big city people need to see intense, cruel movies to make us feel better about our own lives.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 10, 2023 15:45:10 GMT
Hawaii is one of those "group of middle aged friends in crisis" comedies which rarely work, and this one certainly doesn't. It starts with a real event from 2018 when a statewide missile alert was broadcast for 40 minutes, creating total panic. It was a false alarm and apparently lasted so long because the governor could not find the password to cancel it.
Anyway, we have the group of so-called French friends who come to Hawaii every year to spend time with their expatriated friend who has a hotel there (inherited). During the alert, they all think they are going to die, so first they say that the love each other and then they spit out all of the venom they have held in for many years. It is kind of embarrassing when they discover they are not going to die after all.
So the whole movie is spent trying to mend their relationships. Ho hum.
It was filmed in Réunion, because the shooting schedule was during the middle of the pandemic and it was not possible to go to Hawaii. I'm sure they saved a bit of money.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 10, 2023 16:04:06 GMT
Le Paradis (worldwide title: The Lost Boys) is a Belgian movie about a juvenile delinquent rehabilitation centre, and the first thing that struck me was how much better it looked than what I have been in French, British, German and American movies that take place in the same setting. Then again, I don't have the slightest idea if the depiction was realistic.
Joe is the main character. You don't know why he is there, but he is about to be released as he reaches age 18. But then a new guy arrives, William, and there is an obvious attraction. Really, very little happens between them, okay a little, but everything is discreet because as you can imagine, it is not a good thing to be gay in such a place.
Joe screws up his release by doing something stupid and is sent back for another 3 months. This raises the temperature with William, who ends up setting the welding workshop on fire so that they can both escape in the panic.
But since they are caught in about 2 minutes, this means going to the real prison with the big boys. Not an excellent trade off.
I was amused by the fact that French actress Eye Haidara appears in both Hawaii and Le Paradis in major roles. In the first one, she is famous for sexual activities using whipped cream and in the second one she is a very dedicated and serious social worker.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 10, 2023 17:55:52 GMT
I think I’ll miss those two.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 11, 2023 13:50:35 GMT
I have mixed feelings about Le Cours de la vie (international title: The Course of Life). It is well acted and well written but it is the quintessential talk-talk-talk European movie with no action of any kind.
A famous script writer comes to Toulouse to give a day long master class in a film school. It turns out that the director of the school is the man she walked out on without explanation 30 years ago. They have both had companions and children since then, but that doesn't mean that past issues are not going to boil to the surface. It is also clear that they love each other even though the love has expired.
And then we have the master class, which like any class has boring parts and fascinating parts. In terms of the script of this movie, many of the students are brought to life with issues of their own, and that is a good thing, because you need a break from the protagonists from time to time.
Nothing is really resolved at the end, which is par for the course in this sort of movie.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 13, 2023 4:38:43 GMT
War Pony does not paint an idyllic picture of Native Americans. It takes place on a Lakota reservation where people live in pretty crummy houses, mostly don't have jobs and spend most of their time stealing things, drinking and using drugs. Family life is very confusing and you don't really know who is a mother or father or who are the parents of the various babies and small children. They seem to be handed around at random. Anyway, the story follows Bill, a young man trying to get his shit together and Matho who is 12 years old but who wants to become a man as soon as possible. Very depressing and authentic since it wasn't written by white people but by the Lakotas themselves.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 15, 2023 5:23:22 GMT
The Russian movie Fairytale by Alexander Sokurov is an absolutely incredible deepfake nightmare. Stalin, Churchill, Mussolini, Hitler are all in some sort of purgatorial limbo, but also there are Napoleon Bonaparte, Jesus and others. They bicker and philosophise in a nightmarish landscape made of warped archival footage and new material all run through the mixer. They guys are all in the same club of world domination. Sometimes they multiply so that you have ten Churchills or a dozen Hitlers chatting. It is totally hypnotic.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 15, 2023 17:13:52 GMT
Le Principal is a very traditional movie about the problems of the vice principal of a junior high school in France (the term is collège, which often creates some faux ami linguistic confusion.) Sabri Lahlali is a model of success for someone from an immigrant family. There is the slight complication that his son attends the same school and his ex-wife teaches there. But their relations are cordial, so there is no apparent problem. But his son Nael has been having some problems with his grades even though he is a good student, and an important exam is coming up soon. Sabri does the unthinkable and provides the question for the history test to his son, who isn't as bright as we had hoped, as his replies to the history question are almost identical to the expected answer. Oops.
There is an investigation by the educational authorities and things go downhill quickly.
One thing I liked about this movie was that is was more realistic than usual about both the consequences and things that people prefer to sweep under the carpet when questions arise.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 16, 2023 13:18:52 GMT
99 Moons is a Swiss movie which leaves little to the imagination. Bigna is a seismologist who has somewhat peculiar sex cravings. She recruits Frank on the internet to assault her in a parking lot wearing a hockey mask. She wrestles him down and sits on his face, writhing until she reaches orgasm. Frank is so shocked that he cries.
Even though she wants a new guy every time, before long Bigna and Frank just can't keep away from each other. He works in a club where everybody wears headphones for the music but it is otherwise totally silent. She uses him various ways for her pleasure, but it is a while before he finally gets to stick it in her.
99 moons is about 8 years, so their relationship comes and goes, their jobs change, their looks change, but their uncontrollable attraction persists, even if Frank sometimes has to relieve himself while masturbating with a suffocation cord around his neck. And Bigna doesn't want to let him pee when they are taking a bath together. Happiness is elusive.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 16, 2023 14:04:04 GMT
Another one to avoid like the plague.
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Post by whatagain on May 16, 2023 14:24:12 GMT
The scenarist (scenario writer) should be given free access to a psychologist.
But at least i got the title : 8 years and some = 99 times 28 days or a moon cycle.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 16, 2023 16:38:23 GMT
The Russian movie Fairytale by Alexander Sokurov is an absolutely incredible deepfake nightmare. Just saw the post on this. Wow, wow, wow. You must have watched the whole thing without blinking!
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Post by kerouac2 on May 16, 2023 16:39:17 GMT
It is absolutely amazing.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 17, 2023 11:22:56 GMT
Jeanne du Barry is really remarkable, not necessarily for its script but for its depiction of the royal court of France at the time of Louis XV. It makes it quite easy to understand why so many of them were sent to the guillotine after Louis XVI was overthrown. And of course, Jeanne du Barry ended up under the guillotine, too, shortly after the king and Marie Antoinette.
She was pretty much a social climbing whore but basically a loveable one, and she made it to the top. Just about all of the royal court despised her, which was a bit of a problem.
It is a fascinating movie (this said by someone who is not a fan of period pieces).
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Post by bixaorellana on May 17, 2023 18:51:46 GMT
This is great -- thanks. I saw the trailer featured at the end of another movie trailer here & quickly clicked on it. I instantly wanted to see the movie, but the trailer I saw was all in French. Thanks for this one with subtitles.
I have to say, after all of Johnny Depp's excessive fascination with roles requiring elaborate make-up, he's finally landed on the period that is perfect for him!
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