Summer - Fall 2026 Movie Preview

I'm back to the traditional early summer entry, even though I haven't had much time to look carefully at what's coming in the next half of the year. But let's see what I've gathered...

At the beginning of June, "Another World", an anime produced last year, will be released internationally. The interesting part is that it's not Japanese, even though it's an adaptation of a Japanese novel. It's the first feature film by a new generation director from Hong Kong - in fact, the full version of a short animation on the same subject, from a few years ago. I haven't seen it, but it seems to have been quite appreciated, as have the reviews so far for this one.

Also in June we have the newest production directed by Steven Spielberg, who returns to SF with "Disclosure Day". Some critics have already commented that it would be his best film in the last 20 years. I wouldn't bet on that. David Koepp, the main screenwriter, one of the most prolific in Hollywood, has quite a few titles to his credit that left me with an impression of an average popcorn movie, if not mediocre, built on an existing commercial basis (the latest adaptations after Dan Brown, the latest "Indiana Jones", the latest version for "The Mummy", "War of the Worlds", and others). It is true that here he is together with the director on the script, and that he also had some pretty good original titles like "Panic Room" or "Stir of Echoes", but that was a long time ago...

In July we have another summer blockbuster, "The Odyssey", Nolan's already much-talked-about mega-production. I don't know what to say here either - "The Odyssey" is very promising cinematically, but I never imagined Odysseus as Matt Damon... And if I look at the rest of the cast, I wouldn't say that this is the most "interesting" casting decision.

Released last year, passing through the autumn festivals, and apparently ending its wider distribution route in July, "Stille Freundin" is probably the most visually interesting production on the current list as a possible big screen experience. I don't know much about the film, apart from the fact that it follows the life of a gingko tree through about three distinct time periods, but what caught my attention when I saw the trailer released only about two months ago was the cinematography. Sometimes the rest matters less.

To include something fitting the cliché "life beats the movie", at the end of July we have an international distribution of a French production, "L'affaire Bojarski". Probably it adds a bit of fantasy to the real story, but still, it's a lesser-known episode of a Polish refugee after WW2, and catchy enough to be worth a movie.

Also coming from France, we have a new version of the first novel by Albert Camus - "L'Étranger". It's already been screened at several festivals since last year, and got some nominations at Cesar and EFA. From what I could find about it, by August it should have reached almost all of Europe. So far, I have not been tempted by anything produced by Francois Ozon among those that I have crossed with, but here I would make an exception.

David Robert Mitchell debuted in 2010 with an obscure indie that I haven't seen. He continued in 2014 with "It Follows" (no pun intended), another indie that emerged from obscurity at NIFFF, Cannes and many other festivals, where it collected quite a few awards. In my opinion, it probably remains somewhere in the top 3 of atmospheric horror films I've ever seen, and a good example to be taught in school of how to achieve something of maximum effect from this genre with almost non-existent blood and gore. "Under the Silver Lake" followed in 2018, a bit out of the indie zone in terms of cast, which veered from intense to bizarre, being difficult to define as a genre, but decent in terms of originality. After a long break, this year we have "The End of Oak Street" announced in August. At the risk of becoming monotonous with the pessimism for the Hollywood releases above... I have doubts here too. Because this no longer seems indie at all, and cash in requires cash out...

To turn to a more optimistic area, even though I have never been a fan of stop motion, Aardman remains in the very narrow list of mainstream animation studios that made me laugh out loud at almost every big screen production (not that they have many). Even if sometimes it becomes a little too British on the humor side. But maybe with the new iteration of "Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom", announced on September, co-produced by StudioCanal, it also turns towards French. But then again... would it be that good?

We're shifting the genre to adult stuff in October with "Verity", adaptation of a popular novel. The reason for inclusion in the list: we are looking for a thriller + the trailer (guilty pleasure).

We are moving the direction again, also in October. Of this whole list, I can say that I am more confident in the announced animations than in the movies - I think it is the first time that I have three in a series of previews, and the last one, "Wildwood", is the first as expected. The team behind it is the one that also worked on "Coraline", but more notably on "Kubo and the Two Strings", probably among the most intense animations as a metaphor in the last ~15 years. It is true that the same team also has the opposite in its CV, "ParaNorman" (depite all the critical appreciation). But with the trailer below, I remain in the optimistic zone here. The number of views in two weeks says a lot.

In November, we have "Wild Horse Nine". I don't have any Martin McDonagh film that has disappointed me out of the four so far - direction + script - "In Bruges", "Seven Psychopaths", "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", "The Banshees of Inisherin", not even the short one - "Six Shooter". So I would say this is a safe bet.

I end November, and the summer-autumn list, also with an international release from Asia, as I started it: "Godzilla Minus Zero", which I hope will reconfirm its exception from the monster movie genre, and remain in Asia as an influence in the production, as the teaser kind of makes you think... Maybe it's not just an attempt to squeeze a sequel. The previous "Godzilla Minus One" was a more than surprising move in a niche that was limited until then to cheap thrills by definition, especially under the influence of Hollywood. The return to the Japanese heritage brought a dramatic depth at the level of the Mariana Trench compared to the previous puddles in asphalt, even at the level of VFX, coordinated by the director who is also a screenwriter. Takashi Yamazaki has a rather long biography behind him, from which a long time ago I saw "Returner", cheap, but not really thin at the beginning of his career = something that seemed to say then that there was potential.

I think I haven't ticked so many titles in the preview list since the time when I was doing it in two rounds, but back then they were pretty much what I caught on Apple trailers (probably the only use of the multi-colored apple that I ever had). The same now, the reason is that I didn't really have time to search, so I left the selection more relaxed. I hope it's not too relaxed and at least two or three titles will be worth watching on the big screen.

Karakter (1997)

My plan for this entry was to pick a subject out of three variants. The first should have been "Der Himmel über Berlin" (aka "Wings of Desire") from over 40 years ago, which was on my list for a time that's expressed in two digits as well. I have to admit a gap in my cinema experience: Wim Wenders, whom I "successfully" avoided until now, because each movie I've run into (the last being the "Perfect Days" made in Japan) seemed likely to hit some touchy spots. But given the amount of self-inflicted late stress, I was curious how far I could push it, only that I didn't manage to watch it yet, and I had a deadline fixed for this entry. The second option was "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You", quite underrated, but that was too tense. Still, I can't miss the opportunity to recommend it as an example of something quite above average in camerawork for an indie budget, achieved only through the framing, angles, some touches on the colours, and a bit of support from the editing side. Therefore, with some luck (debatable..), I got to the third option, rewatched after almost 30 years, so yet another old movie, "Karakter".

What we have here is a Dutch movie, an adaptation of a novel from the '30s, with the action set in the same period's Rotterdam, following a triangle of three characters, the father, the mother and a son, from the birth of the latter to the demise of the parents. A.B. Dreverhaven, a bailiff, known to be more icier than the cold rains near the North Sea, employs a taciturn housemaid, Joba, and one night gets her pregnant against her will. When this situation is confirmed, the woman decides to leave and manage it on her own. After the birth of the boy, the father starts sending a series of telegraphic letters with the same content: a marriage proposal + a sum to help her, which the mother returns every month, choosing her name for the child: Katadreuffe. From there on, the action is centred more on the son-father conflict, the novel actually having "a novel of son and father" as its subtitle. The mother, with a presence that's more absent, has a role in the story, which I prefer to leave to be unravelled. In the foreground, we have the duel between Katadreuffe and Dreverhaven, which becomes more acute as the child grows, who, despite the precarious social conditions, manages to pursue a career, dealing with obstacles placed in his path by his own father. There's more to tell, but let's stick to the spoiler-free area.

It's interesting how the perception changes after more than two decades between the first and second times watching this. I knew it was a good movie, but it's not as flawless as I remembered. It's quite Hollywoodish as a technique and falls a bit on the theatrical side. The father's role is exceptionally well played by Jan Decleir, a Belgian actor whom I don't remember seeing in other work. However, we also have some overacting here and there, though that's subjective, as always. The camerawork alternates between scenes that could probably be taught in a master class, at least for how the chiaroscuro is integrated, but again, it gets a bit too far I think, with some noir tendencies that don't really fit. You can feel the score's impact from the intro, but afterwards, it's kept in balance. With all the minuses, it's probably one of the best assembled pieces of Western European cinema I've watched.

I had a "debatable.." in the intro for the reason that I don't think the third option was much luckier than the first would have been. "Karakter" is a movie that touches on plenty of aspects of life, from the obvious above, which relates to the parent-child relationship, to a secondary plane of romance that I didn't remember, which somehow fits as a complex replica of the mute one between the parents. But probably the finest nuance, interwoven with the rest of the story's threads, is a different part. "Le travail rend libre" is a phrase originating in a title of a German novel from the XIXth century, reused in French by Auguste Forel, a Swiss entomologist and psychiatrist, in a work about ants from the '20s, where I don't know how many connections are drawn with the functioning of the human brain, but if not there there were in some other works. The German sentence is one that was afterwards denaturated by placing it at the entrance of Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps, but I think it's basic sense is the one from the Forel version = the feeling of freedom is something provided by what occupies your time, something that in "Karakter" slowly grows, to the point when the young Katadreuffe doesn't observe much around him much besides his own carreer. That's clearly not the main theme of the movie, but it's the illusion that sustains overcoming the obstacles. Unfortunately, an illusion remains an illusion, with imminent danger upon waking. At least if you're not aware of it ;)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (slightly subjective)

Project Hail Mary (2026)

It's been already slightly more than a week since I've watched "Project Hail Mary", and my memory is not that helpful lately, so I said it might worth an entry while I still can write something. After all, finding something that's good in the SciFi classic niche is less likely these days than a"close encounter of the -bear- kind".

The movie is an adaptation of a novel by Andy Weir, which got on the list of Hugo awards nominations several years ago. The story is centered around a molecular biology professor, who wakes up somewhere in the deep dark space with a retrograde amnesia, as the sole survivor of a starship's crew. In brief, after some flashbacks, we find out that we're on a mission to save the Sun, which is in danger of being.. consumed, or more accurately said, our teacher should find out how can some culprit microorganism be stopped on doing that. Also in brief, the Earth is not the only planet with such issue, and our solitary astronaut makes first contact with some other solitary astronaut, from some other species, brought by the same reason in the deep dark space . Further than this, we're reaching spoilers ground, so let's leave the story for the movie teathre.

Visually the movie looks really good, but I can't say it's a masterpiece. The audio is ok. Ryan Gosling plays a part that seemed much more fitting than the one in "Blade Runner". But, by far, what keeps the bar high in the movie from beginning 'til the end is the script, with a solid support from the editing. I didn't read the book, but Drew Goddard ("The Cabin in the Woods", "World War Z", "Bad Times at the El Royale") managed to pull out a narrative that takes you smoothly from fun to action surrounded by a bit of drama. Taken separately, probably these would still be at an ok level, but the mixture resulted from the way these are put together, and especially the interleaving of the flashbacks with the current timeline, is the part that probably backs up most of the emotional build-up, and some particular resulting impact. That + the chemistry between the tow main characters, which is also an output of the script.

I must admit that I had limited expectations from this, the trailers pointing more towards a classic linear development and several scenes featuring the alien also add a slightly childish tone. Add to that the fact that "The Martian" (same author and same screenwriter) didn't leave me with the best opinion about it, considering that was directed by Ridley Scott. I still remember that the proportion of eye-rolling there was on par with the praise of being a very credible SciFi (on this my opinion is that "The Expanse" keeps the top position). However, here, this part, however it might be, doesn't feel the need to be analysed. Once more, it's the proof that a carefully executed script, with plenty of witty insertions to balance a subject that's dramatic after all, result in some effect for which I can't find the proper words right now. It was fresh :)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Hamnet (2025)

With the risk of seeming ignorant, I've never had to much interest into Shakespeare, and in particular for the tragedies written in the XVI'th century English. Add to that a very poor opinion about "Nomadland", of an epic boredom IMHO, directed by the same Chloé Zhao as "Hamnet". Therefore, in brief, this seemed like the perfect recipe for a snoring episode at the cinema. Yet again, it seems lower expectations yields high results...

As I was to find out after watching it, the movie is an adaptation of a novel, which I think it explains the consistency it has. It's not something general yet, but for the latest years I noticed a significant drop in the number of original scripts that cross beyond a superficial threshold, even though I'm not near close to watching as many movies as I did like 4-5 years ago, and I'm considerably more selective (maybe that might be the issue...). Moving back, the novel, or in this case the movie, because I didn't read the book, speculates a variant of the Shakespeare's family life, spanning from the marriage of the writer until after the death of one of his children, his only son, Hamnet. The story assumes the well-known play connects to the boy's name and to the impact of the loss, integrating into this assumption the metaphors of "to be or not to be" and others. The idea of the respective association seemed forced to me initially, and as a light spoiler, in a very fine auto-irony, which passes unnoticed over an intense dramatic background, a scene towards the end of the movie suggests the same disbelief. The ghosts from Elsinore and the poisoned intrigues from the Shakespearian Denmark seem to a grieving mother too far from a tragic, but still common family misfortune, given the life expectancy during the time of the plague. At a quick search, the majority of the critics specialised in the literature of W.S. also disagrees with something further than a simple name coincidence, adding to this the unclear circumstances of the child's death, which got lost in time. And still...

Without revealing more, the movie is conducted slowly in a minimalist note, starting with a short lived romance for some initial intensity, brought quickly within a more realistic zone of family problems, and carried through a by-the-book slow burn towards the end. The end which gets you back to the hyperbole of associating Hamnet with Hamlet towards a metaphore that's somehow more credible, maybe also because is supported by exactly who criticised the initial one (paranthesis: the movie deserves watching at least for Jessie Buckley, which delivers an exceptional performance). Maybe it becomes credible again also because you have a construction that's gradually inserting metaphors from a hawk's death that you can relate to some other loss, to a red dress in a greyish environment, which you can relate to whatever you want in the context, from the simple pain to the color brought by a theatre play to folks caught within the daily tedious and worrysome living. But probably credible more than this, because the metaphore is not anymore connected to Hamnet exclusively, but more with what anybody can get from the finale and probably by the desire of the subconscious to give a positive sense to a drama - either by re-connecting two parents when they get that the loss is affecting both of them, either by providing some justification to compromises that sometimes make the life to move forward.

Or another variant :) - the movie may be that dull that makes your brain to create its own story to prevent falling asleep ;) even so, it worked. Or maybe it caught me in the right mood for this, albeit getting over the top in some parts. So, probably a quite subjective...

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Frankenstein (2025) + pingback to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

"Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart..." is probably the most fitting quote from the eponymous novel that could serve as a motto for the latest screen adaptation of "Frankenstein", authored by Guillermo del Toro — director and screenwriter. There are two things that I'm gonna do for the first time in this entry: 1) revisiting the subject of an older review, "Frankenstein" from ’94, dating back to somewhere close to the beginning of the blog, and not because Alzheimer’s has struck me (not yet), but because we need some justice here; 2) if we don’t count that version as well, I’m closing the year in a nontraditional way with a counter-recommendation. After all, I can’t have only positive reviews. Now that we’ve set where we are, let’s see why we can't exclaim “it’s alive" for the 2025 version as well.

About 17 years ago I wrote a comparative review between the first screen adaptation of Frankenstein, James Whale’s 1931 film, and Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 version. I won’t do an actual pingback to that entry, because it gave me yet another confirmation on why I don’t reread my old posts, I’d probably delete half due to stylistic issues, or because of opinions that have changed radically (though that happens more rarely). In short, we need the ’94 adaptation because it remains the most faithful reference to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. The subject is probably well known. Still, for anyone who isn’t familiar with it and discovers the story through del Toro’s adaptation, they’ll be learning it in a profoundly altered form. The impression left by the latest film is as if the author wanted a copyright over the literary material. No exaggeration. The level of change in the script goes down to the year in which the action opens, something probably no one notices, 1857, placing the story even after the publication of the book, which in comparison uses a discreet “17—”, leaving the reader free to choose whatever they like for the period, nevertheless set a full century earlier. But that’s minor. For what’s more significant, we need a summary of the book.

The opening of Frankenstein has always struck me as especially important because of the framework it creates. The novel begins in an epistolary style, with a set of letters in which a young explorer, Robert Walton, determined to reach the North Pole aboard a ship, informs his sister about the difficulties of the expedition, until an unexpected encounter occurs on the northern ice with Victor Frankenstein, found in a precarious state of health. It’s worth noting that the North Pole was reached more than 100 years after the book was first printed. So at the time, it was still a chimera almost as fantastical as the idea of reanimating a body. Therefore, we have the perspective of a young man trapped among the ice banks, with a crew fed up with quests for glory, who nonetheless stubbornly insists on being the first to bring humanity a snowflake from 90 degrees latitude. In this context, Walton is struck by a story more science-fictional than his own expedition: that of a nearly dead man who reached the same point he did, on a dog-drawn sled, chasing a creature brought to life from corpses, regretted from its very first breath. This intro is then followed by the story itself told from both the perspective of Frankenstein and the creature, divided into three books. In the first, we have the steps leading up to the creation and the abandonment of the result; in the second, we have the creature meeting Frankenstein and recounting a process of self-education, making known its demand to be given a partner, accompanied by a warning delivered through two deaths; and in the third, Frankenstein hesitates and ultimately refuses to repeat the experiment, the consequence being the loss of his best friend, his wife, and his father as a result of the creature’s revenge. In the end, the novel returns to Walton’s final letters. The book, despite a literary style that often slips into a somewhat theatrical romantic hyperbole, remains very subtle in this Walton–Frankenstein relationship. Even though Frankenstein doesn’t give Walton an explicit warning until he finally closes his eyes, and even encourages him at first, young Walton more or less understands, after hearing the story, where the limits lie, and more importantly that he isn’t the only one affected by them. In the end, he puts a timely stop to a disaster that would doom the entire crew by deciding to turn back. Thus, this framework closes the novel in a loop, just as it opened it, keeping it confined in the frozen North to the interaction of the two, delivering a moral woven between the lines as described above. The creature returns as a presence only in a final epilog, where it somewhat tempers, through remorse, the predominantly negative image built throughout the novel, centered especially on its murderous instinct, and ultimately chooses to follow its creator. Now let's see how the two screen adaptations did their job...

In the opening of the '94 version, Kenneth Branagh preserves the novel’s line relatively well. The creature is kept in the background, and we have a young Aidan Quinn in Walton’s role, who, even though he has a short part in the film overall, this is essential and captures very well the nuances of the character and the entire idea of being able to change at the end — essential as a human trait being portrayed. The only downside that persists throughout the film might be a slightly theatrical tone of interpretation, with a hint of overacting, but that ultimately aligns with the narrative style of the novel. In del Toro’s version, the opening quickly delivers the creature’s entrance, Terminator-style, flinging sailors left and right, with bowling-champion ability, i.e., straight into a flaming cauldron (it was surplus decoration anyway). The Terminator is, of course, miraculously resistant to any bullet, being affected only by a rotating multi-barrel blunderbuss, probably standard steampunk equipment on any 19th-century vessel. Even more bizarre is that Walton is no longer Walton, but a Danish captain on the brink of retirement, who seems to have also had the North Pole on his bucket list and who's very open to life lessons for his future reincarnation. Maybe I’m too picky, but the credibility of the whole moral construction I mentioned earlier is badly shaken. On top of that, the entire aura of mystery kept by the literary work, gradually revealing its subject, pretty much goes down the bucket. But it's probably better to just place the two intros side by side; then we can more clearly see what kind of atmosphere each production conveys (the 2025 one in two parts, since I couldn’t find a continuous version).

Both movie versions take liberties with the main progression of the story, but the ’94 adaptation remains the more faithful to the book. There is no tyrannical father there, nor one who dies prematurely. Frankenstein leaves to study in Ingolstadt, not somewhere in Scotland (the novel is very descriptive when it comes to geographical locations, which del Toro largely ignores). There is no finance supporter of the research who appears out of nowhere with dreams of eternal life, only to end his existence, and his role in the film’s plot, just as abruptly as he began it (I would have expected at least part of the creature’s anatomy to inherit something from him, if this was anyway introduced as a creative angle). There is no laboratory housed in some castle or tower functioning as a production hall. In the ’94 version we have the section from the novel in which the youngest brother is killed by the creature, which then manages to put the blame onto a servant girl, who also dies innocent, a sequence that serves as a warning of what is to come. Henri Clerval, Frankenstein’s best friend and an essential character, is part of the cast in ’94, somehow replaced by one of the brothers in the 2025 version. In Frankenstein ’94, the main female character, Elizabeth, briefly becomes Victor Frankenstein’s wife and not that of another brother, without the whole insipid romance from 2025, where the creature seems instead to be the primary object of romantic interest. Here, however, we also have the main deviation in Branagh’s version: after Elizabeth is killed (by the creature, as in the book, not by Frankenstein), Frankenstein brings her back to life, but for his own interest, not at the creature’s request. Enough ink has been spilled criticizing this change, if I remember correctly from what I’ve read over the years. Let’s analyze it. Unlike the invincibility granted by del Toro to the creature for the entire duration of the film, which feels more like a detour into superhero movies, the resurrected Elizabeth: 1) does not last long, under ten minutes of real time; 2) is not that far from the book, where there is an attempt to create a mate for the creature; and 3) reinforces the romantic thread that is ultimately fundamental both to the film and to the novel, the creature’s principal pain and the cause of all evil being the absence of a partner and the creator’s refusal to provide one. I don’t know what the Terminator-like bullet resistance in the new version reinforces. Maybe advertisements for body armor.

Technically speaking, del Toro’s Frankenstein is too pastel-toned for a Gothic horror, whereas the image in the ’94 version is far more in tune with the atmosphere one would expect. There is color there as well, of course, but it’s used in contrast either with flames, a red cape, or others, typically against a gray-blue palette that is generally maintained as the base tone and aligns well with the kind of feeling the film is meant to convey. I don’t think the new version fares any better in terms of the soundtrack either. Alexandre Desplat may be a good composer and the melodic line perhaps more versatile, but Patrick Doyle in ’94 (from whom I wouldn’t really know what else to recommend) managed to capture a minimalist sequence that begins in the intro and remains memorable as the main theme of the score.

When it comes to actors I usually hold back, since evaluations there are more subjective, but I don’t think there’s anyone — except perhaps Christoph Waltz, who has no counterpart in the ’94 version since his character is invented — who comes off better in the new adaptation. Branagh delivers a far more credible Frankenstein than Oscar Isaac, who seems permanently on a hair trigger. De Niro comes much closer to the creature’s hideousness and to the dark character conveyed by the novel. Helena Bonham Carter, at least has a role to work with, unlike Mia Goth, who unfortunately isn’t given material that allows her to really act.

Drawing the line, as I wrote in the old review as well: Kenneth Branagh’s film was trashed by critics at the time of its release, and it still carries those evaluations — criticized for being too “opera-like,” for imposing the director’s vision over others’, for overacting, for being kitsch, and for many other things. Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Walking Dead), the screenwriter, once said in an interview something along the lines of it being the best script he ever wrote for the worst film he had ever seen. I’d be very curious to hear an objective opinion regarding del Toro’s script, which never seems to miss an opportunity to add or change something of its own, something that feels more inspired by Hellboy than by the novel. Even in the finale, when the new creature gives the ship with everybody on board a push to release it from the ice, and then waits for the sunset on the horizon of what might be a profitable sequel (after all, it can’t die anyway), as opposed to the flames (© Mary Shelley) in which the original creature decides to end its existence and sever its relationship with the human race. Anyway, given the amount of hypocrisy that seems to permeate contemporary film criticism, much of which has praised the new Frankenstein, I’d expect to hear quibbles along the lines of “well, if it were faithful to the book, the Frankenstein from ’94 had no business ending up on the pyre either.”

As an “epilogue”: 17 years ago I hadn’t finished the novel, which again, isn’t the greatest read, given the early 19th-century narrative style. Now I have finished it. Maybe it’s just a fresh impression, but what I can say is that Branagh’s departures in Frankenstein ’94 make it more Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein than the book itself, much closer to the Romantic movement. Frankenstein ’25 is clearly a del Toro’s Frankenstein, whose most obvious association as a literary piece would be with comic books. Beyond that, it depends on taste. I’ll stick with:

Rating: 2 out of 5 Frankenstein '25 (in assortment with the year)
Rating: 5 out of 5 Frankenstein '94 (subjectively assumed)
+ best wishes for a better 2026, more tranquil, and with better movies ;)

Winter-Spring 2025-2026 Movie Preview

I'm getting back to my periodical entry, with a monthly selection of what's announced for the next half of the year. The "award movies" season is starting, so in theory we should have enough choice, although among what's below I don't think there are many qualified for this.

December has plenty to offer, but despite the stellar reviews I'll keep my doubts for the recently released "Hamnet". I can believe that Jessie Buckley does an Oscar worthy role, but I don't have any trust in Chloé Zhao's direction after the "Nomadsland" experience, out of which there's not much to remember, so I'll skip the trailer for this one. Another production that already got some decent reviews is "Nuremberg", and the patient-psychiatrist relationship between Hermann Göring and Douglas Kelley is indeed a movie subject. Again, however, the script seems a bit too Hollywood-ish, with enough overacting that transpires into the trailer, and which doesn't really seem to capture the case complexity (Kelley was a movie subject after Nuremberg as well). I think this still keeps some documentary value, and overall as a movie = including production and the technical side, it seems to deliver something ok-ish.

If I should choose only one movie for December out of what has a released trailer, that would be "Dust Bunny". The direction + script by Bryan Fuller, as his first big screen movie, doesn't promise much (even worse, he's responsible for a part of "Star Trek: Discovery", the only undigestible series from the entire franchise). Still, the trailer gives a hint of "Leon" mixed with a surreal fantasy a la "Sucker Punch" (underrated), so maybe it has some chance to move out of the classic Hollywood action. It depends how much movie time it spends on CGI with flying bullets and stuff.

I decided to mark "The Housemaid" too for the December list. Paul Feig has made plenty of mediocre movies but also a gem among them, "A Simple Favor" (the first; the second, more recent, I didn't have time to see, is down below in terms of ratings, and I don't see much sense for it anyway). We'll see if the chemistry between Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried here will come out as good as it was between Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. In "A Simple Favor" the script helped a lot, with a solid touch of dark humor; here it seems we'll just have the dark part, without the humor, but we still have some basis in a bestseller novel, so, we'll see.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to see a festival screening for "These Final Hours", a indie production of an Australian director, Zak Hilditch, with the story set on the end of the world, awaited as a cataclismic phenomenon, somewhere on the coast of down under. It wasn't a masterpiece, but what was left from there was some warm feeling (no pun intended, given the cataclism) felt like that on the apocalyptic background setting. In January we have an expected release for "We Bury the Dead", yet another zombie horror, directed and written by the same Hilditch, not so indie this time, however. I'll keep my opinion that this subgenre is not like any other horror, as long as it keeps the early line settled by George Romero, with his "of the Dead". The touch there is set mostly on the psychological side of inter-human relationship in a dystopic environment, and much less on the horror. There are many examples of this, like "The Crazies", "World War Z", "I Am Legend" and "The Walking Dead" as a series, despite all its soapy bits. The same category would also cover another more high-profile production announced for January, the 4-th iteration from Danny Boyle's "28 ..." series - "... Years Later: The Bone Temple". Only that it's not directed by Danny Boyle this time, and it seems to me that there's already quite a lot overexploitation of the setting there compensated with blood and gore to cover it up. So, if I'd have to choose between the two, I'd go for the Australian backed one, as long as it won't get too corrupted by Hollywood during production. s

To bring something a bit different to the list, for the beginning of 2026, we also have a French crime mystery frantuzesc, "Vie privée", released with an early screening at this year's Cannes, starring a Jodie Foster in a French-speaking part of a psychiatrist set somewhere between Maigret and Poirot. We'll see to which one is closer when the official release comes out in January.

"All You Need Is Kill" is the original Japanese manga of the story in "Edge of Tomorrow", one of the best SciFis produced by Hollywood during the last decade. Well, I might be slightly subjective, given when I watched it and the impact it left with the whole idea of a repeated cycle of the temporal perception. Nevertheless, the movie is widely regarded as underrated. Getting back to the Japanses version, unfortunately this was left only on paper until recently, when it finally got some screen time in an anime announced for January. The teaser says almost nothing + I'm not very thrilled by the graphich style. However, given the subject, it's something to keep en eye on, and for who's willing to find out more details, the second clip below, from about seven years ago, provides an extended comparison between the US version and the Japanese manga.

"Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" lands in cinemas in February, being a joint effort of Gore Verbinski (directing) and Matthew Robinson (script). The first is more known for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, but he also directed other better movies, although underrated, the last being "A Cure for Wellness", a thriller from 2016. A plus of Verbinski is his versatility on switching genres - for instance we also have "The Lone Ranger" - a western with some nice accents of dark comedy, "Rango" - an Oscar awarded animation, "The Ring" - a reference in the horror genre. Matthew Robinson got known to me for his supposed involvement with the sequel to "Edge of Tomorrow", mentioned before, another previous reference I know being just "Love and Monsters" which was ok, although a bit Hollywood-ish. Here the trailer builds up a similar impression, so I'll keep lower expectations on this, but who knows? Maybe we'll have a suprise.

On my February list, I also marked "How to Make a Killing", a dark comedy written + directed by John Patton Ford, his second movie after "Emily the Criminal" from 2022. The previous one was lifted a lot by Aubrey Plaza, the reason I've watched it after all, so I might be subjective, but anyway her part there was quite different from other roles. This movie leaves an impression of having a more solid/complex script, so I'll give it a chance.

I'm not watching slasher horrors for quite some time, but I couldn't let February go without "Scream 7", especially considering that Neve Campbell returns one more time as Sydney Prescott, backed by Kevin Williamson which wrote the scripts of the series by its 4-th iteration if I'm not wrong. This time he took as well the directing prosition, so we'll see what results from this. However, after the passing of Wes Craven, Williamson is probably one the most qualified persons for the job. Despite the commercial feeling it manifests, I doubt there's any other slasher horror series to maintain a decent average level for so many years, to exert so much influence on the genre, and to keep a perfect balance between the horror, the dark comedy and the teenage drama, which brings me back every time to a nostalgic feeling on the times when I've watched the first "Scream". And again, Sydney is back ;)

The trailer for "Project Hail Mary" already says more than enough, but there aren't many SciFis out there, and neither trailers out for this spring. So I'll stop to this option for March. After all Drew Goddard (script) also has "The Martian", "Bad Times at the El Royale" and "The Cabin in the Woods" in his CV. So, it can't be very bad.

There's not much to choose for April either, and I don't trust sequels, but again, let's keep some hope for "Ready or Not 2", given that the movie kept the team from its first iteration. With all the red paint that was spilled, that was surprisingly good. The subject is quite straightforward and probably won't provide much surprise, so if this manages to get to at least 2/3 from the level of the first that should be acceptable I guess.

Instead of releases announced for May, where we would have some "Star Wars" spinoff or a sequel to "Mortal Kombat" (to be fair that seems to provide at least some self-irony), I preferred adding to more titles, already released in their home country I assume, but still not distributed throughout Europe. So, with an undefined release date for next spring, we have as well "No Other Choice", the last Korean production by Park Chan-Wook ("Oldboy" + the rest of the Vengeance trilogy, "Thirst" and others), featuring again Lee Byung-hun as main lead, with some extra wrinkles maybe, but still like in possession of an anti-aging formula, and also "Fabula", a Dutch production, which looks like a sort of Guy Ritchie movie in a more continental version.

That's about it. I've chosen a slightly more extended variant that in the previous rounds, from more than one year ago, to compensate a bit the long break. Hopefully it's useful for somebody + and I also hope that I didn't mess it up too often - with previews you never know.

18 - Paprika (2006)

Back. The annual aniversary occasion seemed like a good moment to try a comeback, although I don't estimate frequent entries for the upcoming months. During this one year break I've watched some movies, not so many as back in the early blog days, but there were some titles good enough for this occasion:

• "Conclave" - probably the best movie as "full package" seen over last year
• "Mickey 17" - very underrated
• "Straume" - just in case somebody thinks a movie can't work without having dialogue in it
• "Bugonia" - the Lanthimos/Stone tandem still works, new episode, sufficiently different from the previous to counter some criticism on increasing monotony in the collaboration
• "La sociedad de la nieve" - hard to watch, but it's worth it
• "The Brutalist" - a bit too long, but it's worth it
• "Anora" - good, but slips towards guilty pleasure
• "Companion" - was expecting a guilty pleasure, but good
• "Alien: Romulus" - surprisingly good, above Fincher and Jeunet's iterations, below Scott and Cameron, practically the best comeback of the series since '86
• "Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl" - "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" of 20 years ago is probably more funny (damn, I'm old), but this gets close to it
• "The Accountant 2" - not as good as the first one, but still sufficiently original to move out from the classic action pattern

and there are others too. However, I picked something older for today's entry, "Paprika", probably not as good as many of the above. However, it's the last I watched, and by a strange multi-layered coincidence it really got to me. Among its layers there's a metaphor of cinema as a "reality escape" equivalent to dreams = got synced well with a blog revival.

The movie is the last anime of the 4 produced by Satoshi Kon during his short time span in this world. I've heard about these, but not being very into the genre I kept ignoring them. Until three days ago, since when I've seen the current one in split pieces. Initially, it didn't catch me enough to see it to the end, but still, finally reaching its end after a second break, I understood why I didn't give up. Let's get a bit into the subject: in a not so far future, DC Mini, a new device invented in a research institute permits connecting to a person's dreams. The action revolves among several characters, mostly the employees of the respective institute, among whom a psychiatrist takes advantage of the device to interact with her patients, via an alter ego: Paprika, and in particular with one patient, a policeman plagued with isomnia and haunted by recurrent dreams. The story gets complicated when the DC Mini prototype gets stolen, and as consequence an increasing number of victims starts popping up, manifesting a strange behavior, where the dream dominates the reality. Further, the action revolves against investigating the theft, but more details would result in spoilers, so let's stop here with the story.

"Paprika" has a literary basis, and it's often referenced as an inspiration source for "Inception". I wouldn't say that is more present there than P.K. Dick's "Ubiq". Indeed, there is a common theme of "dream access", which is central in "Paprika", but we have a different story, with a completely different meaning. A story for which its development convinced me that chaotically nuanced surrealism it's not something specific for Hayao Miyazaki + Studio Ghibli in Japanese animes, because we have plenty of it here too. And that's the minus, which at some point makes the movie slightly entangled and hard to follow, not being clear anymore what happens in reality and what in the dream world. Still, finally we get that meaning I was referring to above.

On the plus side, the movie excels technically, at least for an anime. We have scenes that include volumetric nuances to enhance the perspective, a game of lights, and others, very nicely worked out. The editing helps enhancing the impact. We have a soundtrack which cannot get unnoticed, even just for a track that maintains the impression of a chaotic dream with a bunch of harmonic overlaps, where if we extract just the melodic line on a single track, what results is constrastingly calm (see the keys variant below, even though it's with an active reverb/sustain + a high pitch).

That's what the end of the movie gives you. An impression of getting through a rollercoaster, but leaving enough to you to extract whatever metaphor you want from the dream :) = sufficiently complex to interpret by desire. From a balance between live your life vs. regrets to... but I said, no spoilers ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5 ( for the anniversary occasion, otherwise I would've got stuck to 3.5, too much metaphor can be tiring :) )

PS: And still, spoilers :P press play by choice - although that's probably the most obvious metaphor (pretty much what I wrote above):

17 + Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) + blog break

"The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too." This is how "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", ended in 1991, 33 years ago. Now, after these 33 it looks to me that the world is more worried about hypothetical scenarios, either like being wiped out by the AI like in the movie, or getting back to the dark ages when the demographics of a place didn't matter in face of any invaders, or other apocalyptic outcomes. The essence of the last phrase above is sort of lost, given that in the objective reality some die stupidly in overfinanced armed conflicts while others die stupidly in underfinanced hospitals. But when I started this blog, 17 years ago, I didn't do it for politics...

When I started this blog 17 years ago I did it with a personal top 5, and "T2" was just out of it at that time, after watching "The Jacket". I don't have a top 5 anymore, and I'd like to rewatch "The Jacket" because I don't remember it very well. But, by chance, I recently got to see a TV screening of "T2" that somehow came at a moment when I needed it. So, I thought it's the proper time to fix the issue of including this on my blog. I doubt, however, that it does make much sense to discuss the subject of very well known movie, so I'll just stick to a couple of ideas.

I had the privilege to watch "Terminator 2" for the first time in a movie theater, I think in 1992, when in Romania the distribution of made in Hollywood movies just started expanding, with some delay after the official release dates. I was either 9 or 10 years old, and my father decided to take the family out to see a movie, despite the fact that he never was too much into SciFi. The motivation were the visuals, which it was said they're over anything that was released to cinema until then. Re-watching the movie many times, and many years after, I can only say that from this perspective, it sticks to a very select category, maybe together with the first two in the "Alien" series and a few others, where the effects don't show much of their age. The visuals are complemented by one of the two scores (the other being "The Serpent and the Rainbow") that impress through their expressivity considering the specific minimalism of Brad Fiedel, a synth oriented composer, who wasn't used much in the Hollywood mainstream, given that the specific sound lost its trend afer the '80s.

I was saying above that my father was never much into SciFi, but "T2" somehow got to him. And probably it did because the script of "T2" is not one of a deep SciFi, like the "Matrix", which builds up on the same ground idea, but a script that's anchored in a real life context, and besides the credibility factor this creates as well an empathic factor. It's also using the concept of time travel in probably the most direct way, by making an effective journey to the past in order to change the future. But "T2" is not out of nuances, some of which I only see now. For instance, for somebody who watched the first movie in the series in chronological order before "T2" (not my case), at a first watch of this one, excluding spoilers, for a good part of the movie, you couldn't know that Arnold isn't still the evil character and not the positive hero. And there are others too.

Probably what makes "T2" detach from other movies directed by James Cameron, generally lacking depth, is the the contrast it brings at the end on this. A terminator cannot self-terminate, but it can pragmatically decide when it would be the proper time to end its existence, even though it understands the tears of the child who attached to it. In some sense... you could interpret this as not being our right to decide when it's the time to leave, but we could though pragmatically evaluate when it would be most "appropriate" to have an exit from this world, and if that's really the the case, we might get it from -somewhere- ... The problem is that I don't really know who has the right to evalueate this, and maybe sometime it must be considered that a sequel is needed ( "T3" wasn't that bad :) ). Well... it's a way too look at it, a movie is a movie, life is life, and I'm not very objective these days...

It's the first time in the history of this blog when I'm going to close the entries for this year at a number of one digit only, so I'm going to make a wish of "Happy Hollidays!" in advance. I've had blog breaks before, but now I think it's the moment to say stop for longer time. Still, as pragmatic I could see an exit at an anniversary moment, a sequel might be needed someday. So, depending on how -somewhere- it will be decided or on how I will decide, "I'll be back"

Rating: 5 out of 5 ( I said I must fix leaving this out in 2007 ;) )

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Better late than never.. I know that it's probably not of much use an entry about "Dune: Part Two", now, at almost five months after its release, but this year I didn't have much time for movies, and even less to get to see one in cinema. So, finally reaching a couple of less busy days since a while ago, I'm trying to catch up on what I messed. And I'm trying to be selective.

I think there's not much to be said about the subject. Probably for who doesn't know already what's this about, the best recommendation would be to watch "Dune: Part One", or to go for a cliche line like: before "Game of Thrones"/"Star Wars"/"any other epic SciFi involving an empire and a twisted fight for power between rival factions" there was "Dune". At least since 1965, when the first volume written by Frank Herbert was released. Its latest adaptation is completed in the 2nd part, directed and partly written by Denis Villeneuve. The movie resumes the action from the exile of Paul Atreides joined by his mother in the desert along the indigenous fremens population, hunted by the raids of house Harkonnen, the established ruler of planet Arrakis.

I don't remember what I wrote exactly about the first part, but I think what impressed me most were the visuals and less the rest. The impact of the visuals holds here too. I have a major regret that I didn't manate to see this on big screen. As a complete mix of cinematography + art direction + video editing, it's probably the best SciFi I've seen since "Sunshine" (with a mention for "Inception" in this interval). And I didn't forget about "Avatar" or others, but for any visual appreciation there's a dose of subjectivity. In any case, here the camera work goes more deeply as meaning, as in the references before - it's enough to have a look at the contrast between the visual tone warmth of the desert scenes compared to the monochrome coldness of the fight in the arena under the sight of barron Harkonnen.

I stick to my opinion that both Paul Atreides as well as Chani didn't get benefit of the best character casting, and the previous "Dune" versions nailed this better. The rest of the cast compensates this, and I believe it delivers for all the new introduced characters this time. The part that surprised me most in a positive way though, is that the whole tone of the adaptation deviates less from the line I knew from the original "Dune". There are still elements that seem to be changed for no particular purpose, like the execution of baron Harkonnen, which made me to Google search to confirm which is the written version. But it's not something that changes that much a general feeling, like it was somehow expected after the first part. Maybe Denis Villeneuve heard some criticism about it and changed the course towards a more conservative approach concerning the original material. But besides that there's also a perfect way to handle the "mise en scene" of the written stuff. I think it's extremely difficult to find an optimal way to handle the complexity of "Dune" that doesn't seem too stretched or too brief. Here, in thi "Part Two", I think we can see the optimal way.

Maybe I'm either too old or nostalgic, but for me the most impactful overall adaptation of the "Dune" universe remains the "Children of Dune" mini-series, with all its liberties taken from the written part. From what I remember, there they tried compacting more than what's in the volumes corresponding to the title. The series is, however, the sequel for what we have in this movie, and the story has its role in the impact. So, it remains to be seen how "Dune: Messiah" will turn out, which seems to follow. For now, leaving aside the technical part that cannot be compared, what I can say is that among the adaptations of the original novel, Villeneuve managed with "Dune: Part Two" to provide the best, overcoming clearly the previous two versions. And what we have here it's probably going to stick as a reference SciFi for many years to come.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summer-Fall 2024 Movie Preview

With some delay for this year, I'm trying, however to get through a lightning fast preview of some titles announced for this summer-fall season. So, without further ado, what caught my eye is in the list that follows.

With a change in the cast, in June we have a prequel, "A Quiet Place: Day One", which is actually the third part of one of the few horrors that I found to be ok during the latest years. John Krasinski keeps his writer role for this, and as director we have Sarnoski, whose previous activity includes mainly "Pig", again ok-ish. Maybe we get something at least ok-ish here too.

"The Convert" was produced during last year, but its mainstream release date got set to this July. And since it's something different than the typical summer blockbusters...

In August we have the release of "Alien: Romulus", a new iteration of the series, without Ridley Scott as director. Fede Alvarez, replacing him, has more background on classic horrors than on SciFi ("Evil Dead", "Don't Breathe"), and the trailer seems to drag into that area. But, we'll see..

Probably the headline for September is "Wolfs", starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, in a thriller with a promising trailer.

Unlike the other sequels/prequels above, "Joker: Folie a Deux" to be released in October, keeps Todd Phillips as director. Therefore, I'd say it's not to be missed.

I'd close this entry for November with "Gladiator 2", even more considering that I was complaining that we lost Ridley Scott from directing "Alien", but we don't have a trailer yet. And I think the expectations for this are higher than for a SciFi, which pretty much everything that could be told was told in the previous episodes. So, let's wait a bit more for this one.

Gojira -1.0 (2023)

"We'll need a miracle to make it work." "Doing nothing won't cause a miracle, either." - That's an exchange of lines in "Gojira -1.0", which somehow catches the essence of this monster movie, in some way like a metaphor, in the sense that I wouldn't have expected that some Godzilla iteration to be so different, positively speaking, from the rest. In any case, we shouldn't forget that what we have here is not the typical made in Hollywood. Even so, I don't remember hearing a lot about the drama depth of the Japanese series. Because, if we draw a line, what we got here is much more drama than monster movie.

The subject is set at the end of WW2, in a disintegrated Japan, where in the beginning of the movie a deserting kamikaze pilot lands on an island hosting a maintenance post for planes, which during that evening is wiped out by a creature risen from the ocean. But our guy survives, together with the chief mechanic, who accuses him of cowardness on confronting the monster, and blames him for the death of the others. What follows is the more consistent drama part, where guilt follows the pilot when returning back to Tokyo, where he tries to find a meaning to live in the ruins left after the war, together with a woman and an adopted child who lost their parents in some enemy raids as he did. When thing look like beginning to settle somehow, Gojira returns, bringing back the memories about what happened on the island. And from here, the movie starts to resemble more a Hollywood monster movie, but still what follows doesn't lose the much more complex drama tone built up to that moment.

"Gojira -1.0" does not have the standard VFX of a summer box-office, where if you take some scene with explosions and shrapnels, you have good changes to interchange it with a some other from a different movie. It's much more particular what we have here, because first of all it moves onwards from a visual experience that seems more real precisely due to lack of exaggeration in what you can see. We don't have all the possible colors splashed over the screen when something blows up. Besides that, I didn't watch the last Hollywood encounters between Godzilla and Kong, but here the monster looks more like extracted from the old Japanese stop-motions and brought into the modern VFX age. You finally get more "blueish" effects when Godzilla starts using its weapons, but even so what's on screen keeps a much more credible look than what you get in many other movies.

To conclude, the movie deserves watching for the story, out of which I didn't reveal much, and which has a decent density, for its visuals and audio, but mostly for the very good intertwinning between drama and action, and for its continuous metaphor that favors life, which comes in a strong contrast with an idea of exaggerated sacrifice oftenly met in the Japanese culture.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

I'll continue the series of brief entries, with one that's again a bit different from the rest = a short: "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar". I don't know if I had another subject within this category in the history of my blog, but moving over the motivation + the matching with my lack of time, here I really considered that this movies deserves noticing. After "Fantastic Mr. Fox", from 2009, this is the 2nd adaptation by Wes Anderson of Roald Dahl's work, a short story, and what the movie does is precisely to narrate that story. The central part over which it develops is the history of a hindu magician with capabilities of seeing without his eyes, who apparently drains some influences from a real character. The other half of the story I'll leave for watching, it's not that long anyway. The movie is recognisable as a work by Wes Anderson = it has the typical display of colors and the ensemble cast, with transitions from one character to another as protagonist, even if at the scale of a short. But it's especially filled with the typical optimistic tone doubled by fine humor nuances, sometimes barely noticeable. Somehow, in brief, it's like an episode of "The Outer Limits" or "Black Mirror", but in a much more positive light ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5

Anatomie d'une chute (2023)

I don't know if my subconscious was guided by some late problems to choose "Anatomie d'une chute"/"Anatomy of a Fall" as subject for the current entry, but what is certain is that I don't have any other subject left that I've seen this winter, for which I could give a higher rating. Besides that, I also don't have the time today, in the last day of this February (luckily it's a leap year), to put something on the blog for this month too. This movie has the advantage that it can be summarized quickly. We have a german writer, in a remarkable interpretation of Sandra Huller, relocated in a mountain area in France, together with her husband a son left almost blind after a former accident. The woman gets charged as a suspect when her husband is found dead following a fall from one of the floors of the chalet they're living in. What follows is a trial revealing the background of a disfunctional family, untangled, at least as it seems to be, in the end by the son who proves a surprisingly mature objectiveness in analysing the case. Cinematographically, the movie doesn't really stand out. Maybe the editing raises a bit more above the average. However, it's a production that overall can be perceived as... consistent, or better said, heavy, concerning the analysis of a family's life. What's contradictory though is that sometimes is too thin - besides the appearances, there are some parts where it is superficial compared to what can, unfortunately, exist in reality. What's certain is that's good to be watched as warning. But I get to contradict myself on what I was saying years ago about a movie being meant to remove you from reality, at least for a couple of hours :) Maybe I'll get back with something more optimistic next month ;) It depends up to where the falls go.

Rating: 4 out of 5

L'ombra di Caravaggio (2022)

It happens sometimes, quite rarely I'd say, to find in the schedule of the mall cinema non-mainstream titles produced outside US or locally. But it's also rare to make me interested enough for a big screen experience, and to be able to get to what's typically one scheduling per day in cinema requires luck. Well, one exception was "L'ombra di Caravaggio". I can say that visually did worth the time, except that so & so...

The subject, the life of Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio, is one that you'll find very fitting for a movie if you do some quick online research. This production starts from the point where the painter, fled to Naples after being sentenced for a murder during a street brawl tries to find his way back to Rome, needing for this an official papal pardon. The script introduces in the story a character hired by the church for investigating the accused. From here onward we have a radiography of Caravaggio's entire career getting us through the troubled life of the man from his first paintings to the status of recognized artist of the time, but permanently in conflict with the clergy for the freedom taken to depict his works.

The director of the movie is Michele Placido, probably known for his main role in "La piovra" decades ago, and all I can say is that.. well, unfortunately it confirms my opinion that when directing is done by an actor it typically shows, and not in a positive manner. What we have here is a "deconstructed" Caravaggio. The connections are sufficiently coherent for linking the experiences in the life of Caravaggio the man with the impact over Caravaggio the painter, which more or less speculating what history preserves as known facts tries to get to deeper meaning. Still, the keyword remains "sufficiently". You can feel that the movie is sort of disconnected and made by patching pieces, permanently jumping from flashbacks to present and back to the past. Another problem, even more obvious, is the secondary cast. If Riccardo Scamarcio makes a perfect role for how the history preserved the image of the charactere, the rest of actors seemed to me overacting way too often, starting with the "shadow" Louis Garrel as the church investigator. Maybe it's a directing metaphor as reference to the contrast met as specific element in Caravaggio's pieces, although I doubt it. It looks more like an economy for more takes on a scene.

Over all the above problems, we still have left a visual story that's done very well, getting you through the history of Caravaggio's paintings, up to reconstructing an entire piece on the screen. So, I can say that if you're interested in the cinematography of a movie, this one definitely deserves watching. Besides that, what's presented behind the documentary value of the production, is also probably up to a personal interpretation for each viewer, on which, at least at the current time, I'm not sure how objective I could be. The essence is probably that during history, whoever had some level of inteliggence high enough, more obvious in arts but there are examples in other areas, also had his or hers own demons. The important part is how well can you keep these for your own without affecting the people around, and it's complicated to find a balance that allows you to leave something behind you. Over time, history seems to say that Caravaggio managed to get right at least the second part. Besides that... Happy Holidays ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Winter-Spring 2023-2024 Movie Preview

I got to the seasonal entry for the start of winter for what's coming up in the next six months, which once again saves me for lacking another subject. So, let's see...

For December, we already have a release that normally wouldn't be in my area of interest: "Godzilla Minus One" or using its original name "Gojira -1.0". There are two reasons that made me stop to this title: the reviews that got out until now are quite promising and the fact that this is not made in Hollywood = here we have the Japanese alternative to the American version, for which I skipped the last installments. As I said, "monster movie" is not really part of the genres I watch, but for this I'll probably make an exception.

In January we have a light action with some nuance of comedy: "Role Play". The recepy of the wed couple where one (or both) has a secret life is not a new one, but I don't see any other more promising title for the beginning of the year. At least this one has some "fun to watch" potential.

I didn't stop easily in February at a movie with the Marvel logo attached somewhere in its credits, but I've been expecting already for some time to see a better version of what "Next" with Nicolas Cage was (originally a short story by P.K. Dick), and this is something I finally seem to get in "Madame Web". Out of the trailer looks like that the super-hero context, if present, at least won't be dominating this. Hopefully...

The most expected release in March is the second part of "Dune" postponed from November, which I checked on the previous previews list, so let's move directly to April. Unfortunately it's not a month with many released trailers, and the only I can pick is the US replica of the title we started with = "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire". And like that, I ended up having two "monster movies" in this list. Now, everybody can choose which to pick...

I'm going to end with May when we'll have the "Furiosa" prequel, by George Miller to his "Mad Max" reboot from 2015. I wasn't very confident back than in how the movie will end up, but it was a nice surprise. I'm not very confindent now either. So...

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) + 16y

I'm going to move quickly over the last part of the title = the 16 years of age of the probably most unread blog with such an age, which is, however, connected to how I got to the current topic. I've seen I think only three movies this year in cinema (unlike 16 years ago, when the average was at something like 2 per month). Still, I made an effort to get to the final screening of "Killers of the Flower Moon", because I did expect to reach the point of an anniversary entry without having a decent subject for it, and I needed a backup. So, here we are. Luckily, Scorsese still delivers...

What we have here is inspired by a gruesome story, happened in the Osage County, forgotten mostly in the '20s press until a more thorough documenting by a journalist, David Grann, who wrote a relatively recent book, the base for the current movie. In brief, following the oil discovery on the Indian territory during that time, the native American people got rich over night from the exploitation rights they obtained over the land. Obviously, the opportunity to drain their money along with the oil didn't go unnoticed by the white population in the area, who started finding all sorts of means of doing this, from official guardians to administer the obtained income, to businesses based on the overpricing of goods, up to marriages of convenience. In this landscape there was the particular case of a rich farm owner, William King Hale, exerting a major influence in the politics of the area, who put together an intricate plot for increasing his fortune. Among different "mechanisms" like cashing life insurance policies for friends died in suspicious circumstances, his system apparently had a strong root also in marrying some of his relatives with the native people, followed by their deaths due to mysterious diseases and inheriting the rights for the land. And to get more rights, the mysterious disease had to hit first the relative of the final victim, passing their fortune further. In brief, a pyramid of killings, thought in such way that the last one to claim as much as possible from the succession chains in the deceased's final will. The scheme got stuck, however, when the recently established FBI started looking into the matter and also due to the resentment of a Hale's nephew, the consequence being the conviction of the two along a couple of their accomplices. This, unfortunately, after many deaths.

As most of Scorsese's movies, the actors shine more than the technical part, although honestly Di Caprio as the nephew of W.K. Hale seemed to me a bit overacting here, and actually who steals the show is surprisingly not De Niro, but Lily Gladstone as the native American wife. On the technical side, the score, the last in Robbie Robertson's career (who passed not so long ago), is probably the best in his collaborations with Scorsese over the years ("The Irishman", "The Color of Money", etc.). The cinematography is good, there are some nice variations of lights and chromatics sometimes. It deserves a big screen watching, but I don't think I can call it something exceptional. To make a comparison given the setting, "There Will Be Blood" is the first it comes to mind now, and I can say I have more scenes shot there stuck in my mind than what we got here. What's more impactful is the editing, where we have the usual pair made by Scorsese with Thelma Schoonmaker, resulting in an essential part that alleviates the effect of the movie's extended length. Periodically, there are some short insertions, but effective for getting you a bit out of the narrative line, either by placing in a scene with an owl announcing the end of someone's life, or the scene of meeting others passed ones after the end of the life, or others. The most consistent sequence is at the end as a setup of a radio show, presenting us an epilogue of the life of the main characters in the story, closed at the mic by Scorsese himself.

The movie is not the best, not the worst, and at least from the IMDb's statistic 3 minutes shorter than "The Irishman", so neither the most lengthy of Scorsese's :) But still... is a very long one, at its almost 3h30. And you can feel it, but you can also feel the director's experience in this. Meaning that you can have a long movie without obvious lenghts, so it doesn't drag a lot. And for this part I think he got it better than "The Irishman".

Rating: 4 out of 5