5 short reviews
Okay, so I guess I’m a little bit back. That depends on your definition of “being back”, I don’t know myself if I can continue this, because I’ll be needing to look again for some stable employment, considering that I’ve been in and out of work-from-home jobs with all the coronavirus that has been going on in the last two years. And me and my old family, we survived narrowly covid-19 infections, at the time when there was no vaccine being put out. When Pfizer and Moderna, or even Medicago haven’t brought out any dose of vaccine, I just managed to pull through. I only managed to get a little bit sick, like having the flu or a cold and having nothing worse than that. I just managed to work from home and just soldier on and go forward.
With all the confinement and economic shutdowns and the mask mandate that was done in Montreal since 2019, I would have loved to thank God still for not making me an agoraphobic. He made me a germaphobe, but not a complete agoraphobe. In some way, I am because now I’m always scared to death of someone sneezing somewhere in public, indoor or outdoor, and when that person doesn’t cover their mouth. I get goosebumps, but I can’t start to reprimand adults who are a little bit younger than my age to start wearing their masks properly when too stupid or unwitting to do so.
Despite the coronavirus in 2019, I live my life rather reclusively, almost like I am semi-agoraphobic and I get panic attacks from when I’m around visibly sick people in the open, still to this day. What has been tragic is that I don’t want to step inside a movie theater, even though I have been vaccinated three times with Pfizer and Moderna and perhaps another Moderna or Pfizer dose in the near or distant future, or just another mystery brand from Big Pharma.
So in the end, I turn out to be lucky, like damn lucky, considering millions of people could have been dying, or surviving all around you. Oddly enough, I’ve never seen the coronavirus affecting my neighbors. All this time, some of my neighbors are old and they survived covid-19, or they’ve never had it in their first place. And that is lucky, like real lucky. Lucky for you for not doing anything to you and this thing overlooking you, like that you’ve been saved by the Lord’s grace.
I don’t know what’s up for grabs in my near future.
Buffalo 66 (1998) by Vincent Gallo
Yeah, it’s that movie. And to be honest, I loved it. After doing multiple shorts and music videos, Gallo has made a strong directorial debut. It has a lot of stark realism and experimentation and in some way, it does make me think of Paul Thomas Anderson when Gallo were trying to do a metaphysical approach in their style and storytelling. The realism is mixed in with a certain surrealism and you can see this in Punch-Drunk Love and Magnolia, along with David Fincher’s Fight Club. I do see that the film was well-received in 1998 and it’s also well-received by me, so great job all in all. Gallo is simply awesome in his role of Billy Brown, and Christina Ricci is excellent as the befriended love interest of Billy the young man who got released from prison and his need to show normalcy to his own dysfunctional family portrayed brilliantly by the mother Angelica Huston and father Ben Gazarra. Mickey Rourke plays an interesting cameo as a bookie, and I think it’s because he can do a great goon of a bookie, trying to intimidate Gallo’s character. It reminded me to see him in his last leading role for the Darren Aronofsky film, The Wrestler, but I’ll get to it in due time.
The film, in its direction, has tonal changes, it goes from realism that is gritty and stark to a metaphysical in which we find clever ways to insert flashbacks and giving awkwardness to some scenes in a refusal to shoot in a classical way, in the form of blocking. Finding different ways of blockage at Billy Brown’s home dinner table, so it does feel like jazz and a dance scene in the bowling lane spontaneous and out of nowhere, just to pull you out of the film. A normal viewer may not enjoy this, other kinds of viewers won’t be bothered and won’t care.
Now, I haven’t seen The Brown Bunny (2003), I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it and oddly enough, I hear strange things about it, in a way about its terrible, disastrous reception at Cannes. Maybe I’ll see it or not in this year of 2022, I don’t know.
I give this one 3 stars.
Moneyball (2011) Bennett Miller
I've seen Moneyball (2011), and this film, although being of the year's best for 2011 and being nominated for Best Picture, is Bennett Miller's absolute tour de force as a director with the writing of incomparable talents such as Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.
Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and P.S. Hoffman are astonishing in their solid performances all together and provide lovely chemistry. It is one of the most important film on base-ball, since The Pride of the Yankees and The Natural. It's a mixture of bitter-sweetness and pragmatism for a général manager love of a sport, in which he is trying to save the Oakland A's or Athletics from the agony of having a team being at the utter bottom of a league during a harsh historical period for the team itself.
Based on the true story of General Manager Billy Beane who had to basically a major league base-ball team from the wood-shed. It is riveting and powerful in the way that in more ways than none, you need to follow your brains in order to find proper success..
And not follow blind intuition stupidly. A good lesson in business as much as a good lesson in life that I always instruct my children : use your judgment.
Jonah Hill, a managing statistician, is great in his role. Brad Pitt is superb. You will not regret it. And it's 4 stars because I can understand the critics circles on this one.
It's also as important as the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly"(1973) by John D. McDonald. Nice fact about the film is that it features Robert De Niro as a dim-witted catcher. For a Method actor like him, a role that doesn't resemble him immensely.
My Own Private Idaho (1991) Gus Van Sant
Watching now : My Own Private Idaho (1990) by Gus Van Sant, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.
And it's great... great direction and great performances, more or less a good plot, but it isn't for everyone. You may not love it. But it's stupendous and you need to go through some choices made. It’s an enthralling tale of gay male prostitution and it did the job for me but not in the lurid kind you’d imagine. An art film cleanly done that manages to be theatrical in its approach when Van Sant’s characters Mikey and Scott portrayed respectively by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves change registry from theater english amongst male hookers and vagrants and to normal english discussing with the outside world. Van Sant wants to present to us that his characters are princes in their world and they live by their own rules, undisturbed in their customs.
William Richert delivers an amazing performance, while he seemed to be overlooked in his role. And really why ? Does he just do character acting on stage and that’s it ? I would have loved to see more of William Richert in the 90’s while I was alive in the 90’s as a child.
For a second feature-length film, Van Sant provides a forceful continuation in his work following Drugstore Cowboy, and we gather a glimpse of what can be his great work in the near future with Good Will Hunting in 1997.
Three stars
American Hustle (2013) by David O. Russell
Just seen American Hustle, and it's one amazing flick by David O. Russell. It's great and very enjoyable in direction and writing. Very scorsesian in its feeling but also caricatural in its 70's sploitation.
You would think that the reason for a 70’s aesthetic was a directorial choice and it is, but it does give the movie a certain humor. If the humor is desired by its director or not, is all left to your imagination. But the actors seem to enjoy themselves in this kind of art direction, thinking that it is a period piece of New Jersey in the 70’s, and go through with the humor whilst playing straight.
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence offer fantastic performances. Adams and Bale have remarkable chemistry together, like I woud have seen previously in Adam McKay’s Vice(2018). Editing is also great in this even though in its classical form and shape for a Hollywood film.
I give it two stars.
The Arrival (2016) - Denis Villeneuve
Okay finally I've opted for "The Arrival" by our very own Denis Villeneuve. Haven't seen "Dune" or "Blade Runner 2049" yet, but I have seen "Incendies". I'm sure I won't be disappointed. I'm very positive... like extremely positive.
And I am disappointed. This was long and lengthy and there is no payback from this at the end. Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams give stellar performances but the whole content of it is lopsided and ludicrous in its execution. There is alien contact and we just want to make the aliens as mysterious as possible, leaving us detached with no proper investment in the characters despite the good acting from what could be an asinine script. Villeneuve is a great visual director but in this case made aliens that look like crab octopus creatures boring and Villeneuve just made "Dune" last year. It's kinda funny huh? Well perhaps, he learned from the mistakes of the "Arrival". It's beautiful with visual contemplation but with a stagnant plot that doesn't get off the ground, just like in ETs in their black olive spaceship. Give it only 2 stars.
In hindsight, Frank Herbert's alien characters, when not written originally by some hack screenwriter, are always amazing. For "Arrival", two stars and that's it.
The Interpreter(2014) - Sidney J. Pollack
Watching now : The Interpreter by Sidney Pollack starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn.
30 mins in and this movie sucks...really sucks...Disjointed writing and plot becomes nonsensical with poor exposition. Kidman and Penn seem really away in their performances. Pollack is always great in his direction but this is not an extremely great take, considering that Pollack is immensely good at doing intelligent action dramas such as The Firm, but that film already had a good novel as its basis. Kidman does a solid performance midway through the very end of it.
Yeah well-directed because it's Sidney J. Pollack, I mean the man has done Tootsie, Jeremiah Johnson and The Firm. Still crappy and disjointed plot with lackluster performances. So two stars.
With all the confinement and economic shutdowns and the mask mandate that was done in Montreal since 2019, I would have loved to thank God still for not making me an agoraphobic. He made me a germaphobe, but not a complete agoraphobe. In some way, I am because now I’m always scared to death of someone sneezing somewhere in public, indoor or outdoor, and when that person doesn’t cover their mouth. I get goosebumps, but I can’t start to reprimand adults who are a little bit younger than my age to start wearing their masks properly when too stupid or unwitting to do so.
Despite the coronavirus in 2019, I live my life rather reclusively, almost like I am semi-agoraphobic and I get panic attacks from when I’m around visibly sick people in the open, still to this day. What has been tragic is that I don’t want to step inside a movie theater, even though I have been vaccinated three times with Pfizer and Moderna and perhaps another Moderna or Pfizer dose in the near or distant future, or just another mystery brand from Big Pharma.
So in the end, I turn out to be lucky, like damn lucky, considering millions of people could have been dying, or surviving all around you. Oddly enough, I’ve never seen the coronavirus affecting my neighbors. All this time, some of my neighbors are old and they survived covid-19, or they’ve never had it in their first place. And that is lucky, like real lucky. Lucky for you for not doing anything to you and this thing overlooking you, like that you’ve been saved by the Lord’s grace.
I don’t know what’s up for grabs in my near future.
Buffalo 66 (1998) by Vincent Gallo
Yeah, it’s that movie. And to be honest, I loved it. After doing multiple shorts and music videos, Gallo has made a strong directorial debut. It has a lot of stark realism and experimentation and in some way, it does make me think of Paul Thomas Anderson when Gallo were trying to do a metaphysical approach in their style and storytelling. The realism is mixed in with a certain surrealism and you can see this in Punch-Drunk Love and Magnolia, along with David Fincher’s Fight Club. I do see that the film was well-received in 1998 and it’s also well-received by me, so great job all in all. Gallo is simply awesome in his role of Billy Brown, and Christina Ricci is excellent as the befriended love interest of Billy the young man who got released from prison and his need to show normalcy to his own dysfunctional family portrayed brilliantly by the mother Angelica Huston and father Ben Gazarra. Mickey Rourke plays an interesting cameo as a bookie, and I think it’s because he can do a great goon of a bookie, trying to intimidate Gallo’s character. It reminded me to see him in his last leading role for the Darren Aronofsky film, The Wrestler, but I’ll get to it in due time.
The film, in its direction, has tonal changes, it goes from realism that is gritty and stark to a metaphysical in which we find clever ways to insert flashbacks and giving awkwardness to some scenes in a refusal to shoot in a classical way, in the form of blocking. Finding different ways of blockage at Billy Brown’s home dinner table, so it does feel like jazz and a dance scene in the bowling lane spontaneous and out of nowhere, just to pull you out of the film. A normal viewer may not enjoy this, other kinds of viewers won’t be bothered and won’t care.
Now, I haven’t seen The Brown Bunny (2003), I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it and oddly enough, I hear strange things about it, in a way about its terrible, disastrous reception at Cannes. Maybe I’ll see it or not in this year of 2022, I don’t know.
I give this one 3 stars.
Moneyball (2011) Bennett Miller
I've seen Moneyball (2011), and this film, although being of the year's best for 2011 and being nominated for Best Picture, is Bennett Miller's absolute tour de force as a director with the writing of incomparable talents such as Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.
Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and P.S. Hoffman are astonishing in their solid performances all together and provide lovely chemistry. It is one of the most important film on base-ball, since The Pride of the Yankees and The Natural. It's a mixture of bitter-sweetness and pragmatism for a général manager love of a sport, in which he is trying to save the Oakland A's or Athletics from the agony of having a team being at the utter bottom of a league during a harsh historical period for the team itself.
Based on the true story of General Manager Billy Beane who had to basically a major league base-ball team from the wood-shed. It is riveting and powerful in the way that in more ways than none, you need to follow your brains in order to find proper success..
And not follow blind intuition stupidly. A good lesson in business as much as a good lesson in life that I always instruct my children : use your judgment.
Jonah Hill, a managing statistician, is great in his role. Brad Pitt is superb. You will not regret it. And it's 4 stars because I can understand the critics circles on this one.
It's also as important as the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly"(1973) by John D. McDonald. Nice fact about the film is that it features Robert De Niro as a dim-witted catcher. For a Method actor like him, a role that doesn't resemble him immensely.
My Own Private Idaho (1991) Gus Van Sant
Watching now : My Own Private Idaho (1990) by Gus Van Sant, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.
And it's great... great direction and great performances, more or less a good plot, but it isn't for everyone. You may not love it. But it's stupendous and you need to go through some choices made. It’s an enthralling tale of gay male prostitution and it did the job for me but not in the lurid kind you’d imagine. An art film cleanly done that manages to be theatrical in its approach when Van Sant’s characters Mikey and Scott portrayed respectively by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves change registry from theater english amongst male hookers and vagrants and to normal english discussing with the outside world. Van Sant wants to present to us that his characters are princes in their world and they live by their own rules, undisturbed in their customs.
William Richert delivers an amazing performance, while he seemed to be overlooked in his role. And really why ? Does he just do character acting on stage and that’s it ? I would have loved to see more of William Richert in the 90’s while I was alive in the 90’s as a child.
For a second feature-length film, Van Sant provides a forceful continuation in his work following Drugstore Cowboy, and we gather a glimpse of what can be his great work in the near future with Good Will Hunting in 1997.
Three stars
American Hustle (2013) by David O. Russell
Just seen American Hustle, and it's one amazing flick by David O. Russell. It's great and very enjoyable in direction and writing. Very scorsesian in its feeling but also caricatural in its 70's sploitation.
You would think that the reason for a 70’s aesthetic was a directorial choice and it is, but it does give the movie a certain humor. If the humor is desired by its director or not, is all left to your imagination. But the actors seem to enjoy themselves in this kind of art direction, thinking that it is a period piece of New Jersey in the 70’s, and go through with the humor whilst playing straight.
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence offer fantastic performances. Adams and Bale have remarkable chemistry together, like I woud have seen previously in Adam McKay’s Vice(2018). Editing is also great in this even though in its classical form and shape for a Hollywood film.
I give it two stars.
The Arrival (2016) - Denis Villeneuve
Okay finally I've opted for "The Arrival" by our very own Denis Villeneuve. Haven't seen "Dune" or "Blade Runner 2049" yet, but I have seen "Incendies". I'm sure I won't be disappointed. I'm very positive... like extremely positive.
And I am disappointed. This was long and lengthy and there is no payback from this at the end. Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams give stellar performances but the whole content of it is lopsided and ludicrous in its execution. There is alien contact and we just want to make the aliens as mysterious as possible, leaving us detached with no proper investment in the characters despite the good acting from what could be an asinine script. Villeneuve is a great visual director but in this case made aliens that look like crab octopus creatures boring and Villeneuve just made "Dune" last year. It's kinda funny huh? Well perhaps, he learned from the mistakes of the "Arrival". It's beautiful with visual contemplation but with a stagnant plot that doesn't get off the ground, just like in ETs in their black olive spaceship. Give it only 2 stars.
In hindsight, Frank Herbert's alien characters, when not written originally by some hack screenwriter, are always amazing. For "Arrival", two stars and that's it.
The Interpreter(2014) - Sidney J. Pollack
Watching now : The Interpreter by Sidney Pollack starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn.
30 mins in and this movie sucks...really sucks...Disjointed writing and plot becomes nonsensical with poor exposition. Kidman and Penn seem really away in their performances. Pollack is always great in his direction but this is not an extremely great take, considering that Pollack is immensely good at doing intelligent action dramas such as The Firm, but that film already had a good novel as its basis. Kidman does a solid performance midway through the very end of it.
Yeah well-directed because it's Sidney J. Pollack, I mean the man has done Tootsie, Jeremiah Johnson and The Firm. Still crappy and disjointed plot with lackluster performances. So two stars.
