Our Kind of Traitor (2016)

The only reason why I'm writing this entry is to say that I got something done today... And if it's coming out decently luck might change (hopefully). It depends now how we define "today", but let's get back to "Our Kind of Traitor" until the dawn catches up.

We're speaking about an adaptation from an author who was pretty successful in the last decades - John Le Carre, although the genre we're talking about is an old school spy thriller that's not really common since the '80s passed. A literature professor traveling to Morocco in a romantic holiday with his wife, hoping to warm up a cold relation, is approached by a sort of accountant of the Russian mafia. Who decided to switch sides and come clean after the premature death of a "colleague". And like that, from a literature teacher, our guy finds himself in the position of an MI6 informer, getting involved in a pretty unlikely story, where he's decided to help his new friend.

The movie is helped a lot by the presence of four actors: Stellan Skarsgard, Damian Lewis, Naomie Harris and Ewan McGregor. In that order, not the one on the poster, although all of them play an excellent part. Otherwise, there's not much to see here. A relatively simple story, which as I was saying is not that credible either. All in all, there's a sort of romantic side in all this that I didn't really feel in this genre since "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (same author, 53 years ago). Considering that after all this time it's still working...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Annihilation (2018)

For enhanced effect I "recommend" watching "Annihilation" in the same conditions as I did = with a strong cold + the accompanying headache, at a room temperature of over 25 degrees Celsius, at night, and with mosquitoes humming around you (take note of the quotes before trying this). In this context, at some point I was wondering if I also have a fever or the movie is as surreal as it looks like. Fortunately I think it's the second...

"The shimmer" is a sort of mist with a slow but certain expansion rate, which started from a lighthouse on the USA shore and threatens to cover everything sooner or later. To make it more concerning all teams sent in by the US government did not return. With one exception. Sergeant Kane, who appears back home from nowhere after being missing for one full year. It doesn't take long to be taken back by the military along his wife, Lena, a biologist. And since she seems in danger to become a widow (= the sergeant collapses), she joins a group of other 4 volunteers forming the next team to be sent in. From here onwards...

... We have something that struck me as being very similar to Stalker". "The shimmer" is a sort of the "the zone". However, we don't have the cinematography we had in Tarkovski's movie decades ago, and neither the finesse of the enigmatic tension we had there. What we have here is the consistent dose of question marks in the end and probably we also have plenty of symbolism thrown around, but I didn't have the necessary state of mind to notice it + Hollywood's style requires mutant monsters on screen. There's still work to do it seems until the majority of directors/producers from U.S. to get that "what's not seen is more scary than what's seen", of if this is known to figure out how could you get it on screen.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Early Man (2018)

I finally managed to watch a movie released this year. Unfortunately it wasn't the best choice. "Early Man" is the latest animation directed by Nick Park. If that doesn't sound familiar think on Aardman Studios, or "Wallace & Gromit", "Chicken Run" and other. With this list of references, I had my hopes so high that I utterly ignored the ratings thrown to this by critics (especially since lately I'm not really on the same page with that). Well... I can say it's the worst Aardman production that I've seen by now. First of all, all the action revolves around a simple soccer game, between the stone age team and the bronze age team - an event that's much more present in the story than the trailer shows (there's basically nothing else there). And we don't have more than the classic tale of the outsiders winning, filled with a bunch of bland jokes. For who's familiar with the previous Aardman titles, don't get fooled as I did. It might be acceptable if you don't know about the rest, but it's traumatizing if you've seen something else by Nick Park. It keeps a bit of the humor there, but it's a tiny tiny bit. There's not much else to write about this.... Disappointing.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (just to avoid being mean...)

Summer-Fall 2018 Movie Preview - Part 2

So, given the lack of reviews for this year, I'm continuing with the previews for the next fall. In September we have a reboot for "The Predator". No Schwarzenegger, but Shane Black directing ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Iron Man 3"), so might not be that bad...

"A Simple Favor" seems to have all the ingredients for an average thriller where you have all chances to guess out of the trailer who's the killer. However, it's actually the trailer which made me add this to the list ( or maybe Anna Kendrick + Blake Lively in the same movie :) )...

Let's admit that Eli Roth ("Cabin Fever", "Hostel", "Knock Knock") doesn't seem like the director that you'll hire for a children's move. Therefore, it might result in something actually good, giving some chance to find something a bit more serious in "The House with a Clock in Its Walls" than in the last decade of fantasy that didn't move out from the typical JK Rowling simplicity (not even with "The Hobbit"...). I'm still waiting for an adaptation of "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, but it doesn't seem to come soon...

October is poor in released trailers by the current time. The only that seems a bit more interesting is "Venom". Or a marketing move from Marvel & associates, betting on a super-villain movie from time to time (especially after sort of successfully testing the ground with "Deadpool").

Since neither November doesn't have much yet besides some video announcements for Christmas movies, I stopped at just one of these for closing today's entry. Probably the most interesting out of all = I don't remember having any decent adaptation of "The Nutcracker" by now, so maybe we'll see it this year.