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Women Talking (2022)
Beautiful photography and poetic dialogues
When I first saw the ad for this film, it didn't catch my attention. The title, 'Women Talking', isn't that inviting... Later on, I watched a review where the critic sang praises for the feature and mentioned the book on which this film was based. I decided to give the book a go first and then watch the film. I didn't get passed the first ten pages. I did, however, decide to give the film a go and I am glad I did. The film is subtle, powerful, poetic, touching, and beautiful. The photography is superb and at times, looks like an idyllic landscape painting. The cast is fantastic and truly convincing; the dialogues are strong and permeated by poetry that is born from life experience. Maybe the title doesn't do the story justice since women talking can sometimes sound a little pejorative and prejudiced (that was my first reaction too). The film is a great opportunity to put an end to this myth and to show that when women talk, what we hear is reason, eloquence, determination, strength and poetry.
Nurse Jackie (2009)
Brilliant performance
I watched this series a few years ago and I loved it. The performances are brilliant (well, most of them). Edie Falco is simply amazing; I completely forgot that only two years before she was playing Carmela Soprano. We can totally believe she is a nurse and, of course, a drug addict. She is so convincing that I started disliking her quite a lot this time. It is so frustrating to watch her endless ups and downs and relapses... it is also infuriating to watch her destroy her family and herself whilst saving strangers as a nurse.
Zoey could be the annoying happy-go-lucky character but she is just great to watch. Gloria, Thor, and Bernie are also fantastic characters.
The dialogues are clever and sharp, most of characters are believable and the portrait of addiction is sadly realistic... Jackie's struggle to remain clean after each detox/rehab and sadly going back to the drugs is painful to watch.
Despite some flaws - Jackie and her 'crew' never do night shifts, for example - this is one of the best series I've ever watched.
Catherine Called Birdy (2022)
Medieval teens were cool
After watching a positive review of this film, I decided to give it a go. I am not a big fan of 'coming of age' movies, but this one was a pleasant surprise. And I was even more surprised when I read Lena Dunham's name in the credits (I don't really like her work).
This film has a great central performance by Bella Ramsey, but the entire cast is equally brilliant. The dialogues are fast and witty. The setting is beautiful as well as the costumes. The soundtrack is also great as they used modern songs performed by different artists rather than the original ones.
They touch on subjects such as girls getting their first periods in a light and funny way. There is friendship, first love, arranged marriage, free will, fatherhood, motherhood, and growing up.
It is a light, funny, entertaining film with a great cast, direction and historical reconstruction.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
How to lose 2.5 hours of your life
One day there was an exciting Danish film director that came up with some daring fresh ideas about how to make films. He directed a few movies, many of them very good. He became famous and started casting big names for his films. He then, somehow, turned into an extremely pretentious director, who used his name and fame to come up with some silly projects such as The House that Jack Built. Showing gory scenes doesn't make a film 'daring'. It makes it look ridiculous just like The Human Centipede or A Serbian Film. And that's how once a brilliant director turned into a parody of himself. The End.
Verdens verste menneske (2021)
Haven't we all been there?
There is something about continental European movies that are particular to them just like there are things that are only present in Iranian movies, for example. It is refreshing to experience a different culture through a movie, especially when the movie is low key, down-to-earth and depicts normal lives of normal people. The Worst Person in the World was one of this movies. I haven't seen many films set in Oslo, so it was its first positive point. The main actress is great; she is a natural and make her Julie totally believable. Her character jumps from one experience to the other: from a medical student, she becomes a psychology student then a photography one. She has doubts, new ideas, new ideologies, new aspirations in a blink of an eye. Somehow, I identified with all these uncertainties and changes she goes through and maybe that is the reason why I liked the film. But haven't we all had all these uncertainties? Maybe the very last scene could have been different but, regardless being on the verge of cliche, it didn't compromise the rest of the film.
Annette (2021)
The most incredible puppets
I don't like musicals. I find them soooooo boring. 'Why do they need to sing when they want another slice of toast?' I think to myself. Despite my reservations, I decided to give Annette a go. Well... I found the whole singing thing utterly annoying. I didn't like Adam Driver's character one bit. The guy was a standup comedian that bored everyone to death with his unfunny jokes. Then the puppet comes up on the screen. There are different puppets representing Annette at different ages and they are all wonderful. They actually show real expressions (at least to me they did) and they were the best thing in the movie. I didn't like the movie not because it was a bad movie, I simply don't like musicals. But I truly loved the puppets.
A Very British Scandal (2021)
Portrait of British Upper Class
This is another great BBC period drama based in real events. Claire Foy and Paul Bettany portray a very realistic upper class couple where he has a title, she has the money and both have incredibly selfish, arrogant personalities. He is, by far, much worse than she is but even as a woman, I feel no sympathy for her. All I could think of whilst watching the mini-series was how these people are still the ones who make the decisions about how we live our lives in this country (he was in the House of Lords). They have no idea of what goes on outside the door of their wealthy properties... but, as entertainment, I really liked it!
Shiva Baby (2020)
B.O.R.I.N.G
Maybe I'm getting old but all these coming of age movies don't do the trick for me... this one has good ratings and good reviews. Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey! How ultra boring was that? The main character is very unlikeable, her mum is annoying, the incidental music was irritating. The list could go on but I am not gonna waste another minute of my life on this film...
Amateur (1994)
An amateur Huppert?
I've watched this film for the first time when I was in my early twenties. I remembered the plot vaguely and I also remembered I liked it. When I saw it on Amazon, I as excited to watch it again. On the first 10 minutes I started questioning myself why l liked the movie so much? Apart from a few funny scenes and very few funny dialogues, the film is just dreadful. I've never seen Isabelle Huppert acting so badly! Not only her, but all the actors were pretty awful. At the end of the film, I thought that maybe the title meant the actors had to perform like amateurs? This would be the only plausible explanation for such bad acting. Bad directing. Bad plot. Bad. Just bad.