Cría Cuervos/Cría!/Raise Ravens (1976) or, Mother Never Lets Go

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The poignant poster for Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos

QUICK REVIEW:

Ana is a girl who lives in Madrid during Franco's dictatorship with her general father, her depressed housewife mother and her two siblings. Ana witnesses her mother's death struggle and tries to poison her father. The grown-ups spare their children nothing, which vitiates them. Ana sees her mother everywhere.

This fateful portrayal of a family is an outstanding, tragic film, which can be viewed literally, as Ana's story; symbolically, as a Freudian mother-nightmare, (SPOILER Ana even recounts her story in her late mother's figure); or metaphorically/politically, as an inventory of Spain in the Franco-years.
English-born pop-singer Jeanette's Porque te Vas plays as a musical motif in this pretty advanced yet accessible film, which came out to acclaim and popularity the year after Franco's death.
It is directed by great Spanish director Carlos Saura (Peppermint Frappé (1967)), who had fathered a son with Geraldine Chaplin (The Impossible/Lo Imposible (2012)), who plays Ana's mother, at the time of Cría Cuervos. The title means 'raise ravens' and comes from the Spanish proverb, 'Raise ravens, and they'll take out your eyes.'
Saura has offered his perspective on this psychological family-themed drama with these words:
"Cria Cuervos is a sad film, yes. But that's part of my belief that childhood is one of the most terrible parts in the life of a human being. What I'm trying to say is that at that age you've no idea where it is you are going, only that people are taking you somewhere, leading you, pulling you and you are frightened. You don't know where you're going or who you are or what you are going to do. It's a time of terrible indecision."

Watch the trailer for this extraordinary film with English subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown, although admissions and reports make me count it as a box office success
[Cría Cuervos was the 6th highest grossing Spanish film in 1976, Saura's biggest hit up to that point. It won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, was Golden Globe-nominated as Best Foreign Film and drew 1.2 mil. and 1.5 mil. admissions in Spain and France, respectively. It was also, reportedly, a hit in other foreign markets including the States, which solidified Saura's status as the best known Spanish director internationally. Cría Cuervos was also Spain's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, but did not receive a nomination.]

What do you think of Cría Cuervos?
Other Saura-films that are worth looking for?

Un Chien Andalou (1929) or, Clouds Cut the Moon in Two

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A magnificent poster for Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou

QUICK REVIEW:
 
SPOILER Woman gets her eyeball slit open. 6 years after: The man wants the woman. The woman is run over. Ants run across the man's hand. A while later. At Spring.

Un Chien Andalou [An Andulusian Dog] is a stunning short film and a chief work in experimental and surrealist cinema, directed by Spanish master filmmaker Luis Buñuel (The Exterminating Angel/El Ángel Exterminador m(1962)) and co-written by Buñuel and Surrealist master painter/artist Salvador Dalí.
The film, - which is only 16-21 minutes long, depending on the version, - is sublime for the poetic unreality it conjures up, and for the strangely recognizable, abstract perception of dreams and the subconscious that it recreates with its remarkable, subversive aesthetic and compositions, which get stored in the minds of its audiences whether they realize it or not.
The film was made on a tiny budget lend to Buñuel by his mother, and they ran out of money before post production, so that he had to cut the film together in their kitchen without any editing equipment besides a pair of scissors and glue. 
Both artists were surprised to see Un Chien Andalou succeed with the Parisian audience, whom they had expected to outrage into a violent mass-reaction. They were subsequently commissioned to make a sequel, which became L'Age d'Or (1930). The film lasts around 60 minutes, but the wealthy benefactors quickly withdrew it, when the Prefecture of the Paris Police banned it.
Another curio concerns the two main actors in Un Chien Andalou: They both ended their lives with suicide: Pierre Batcheff (Love in Morocco/Baroud (1933)) overdosed in 1932, and Simone Mareuil (Peach Skin/Peau de Pêche (1929)) set herself on fire and burned to death in a public square in 1954.

Here is the film, without English subtitles, however - so order it online, if you don't know French

Cost: Estimated around 100,000 franc
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of Un Chien Andalou?
Other surrealist or absurdist short or feature films that you want to recommend?
If you know why both stars of Un Chien Andalou committed suicide, please, inform us

Collateral (2004) - Great, urban, digital age thriller from Mann in his right element

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+ Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Best Thriller of the Year

Gritty Spanish poster for Michael Mann's Collateral

QUICK REVIEW:

A Los Angeles cab driver named Max with unrealized dreams of starting a limo company gets an unusual customer: Vincent is a contract killer, who's got 5 stops to make this night, and he has chosen Max to drive him.

Collateral is a downplayed and very urban suspense picture, which contains cinematography so nice, - of the nightly cityscape among other things, - that the adrenaline often must yield to admiration. Cinematographers: Dion Beebe (Chicago (2002)) and Paul Cameron (Deja Vu (2006)), championed early HD digital shooting on Collateral, and deserved Oscar nods for their effort, (but were snubbed.)
Tom Cruise (Tropic Thunder (2008)) is good as the sociopath Vincent, and Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained (2012)), who was Oscar-nominated for his performance, is also good as the working man in denial, Max. Jada Pinkett Smith (The Matrix Reloaded (2003)), Mark Ruffalo (The Normal Heart (2014), TV movie), Javier Bardem (Biutiful (2010)) and Jason Statham (The Transporter (2002)) in a short cameo complete the exciting ensemble.
Collateral has an eerie reverberation of the cold and indifference of the big city towards its own fates, which sticks. - In short, it's a really good, dramatic thriller.
Directed by Michael Mann (Heat (1995)), whose coming action drama Blackhat (2015) is looking very promising, and you can check out its trailer here.

Related posts:

Michael Mann: 2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Manhunter (1986) - Perhaps the best criminal profiling picture ever

Watch the cool trailer here

Cost: 65 mil. $
Box office: 217.7 mil. $
= Big hit
[Collateral entered the US theaters first and stayed in theaters for 14 weeks, making 101 mil. $ in the US, where it was also Oscar-nominated for Best Editing. It was well-received by critics and nominated for a slew of other awards as well, including 6 BAFTA's, of which it won one for Best Cinematography.]

What do you think of Collateral?
What are your favorite 3 Michael Mann films?

Nightcrawler (2014) or, Lou Bloom's Los Angeles

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A hip, artsy poster for Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler

 

Nightcrawler is the much talked about directing debut of writer/director Dan Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy (2012)), a dark Los Angeles-set thriller character piece with some implicit societal and media-directed critique.

Lou Bloom is a young, ambitious entrepreneur, who one night stumbles upon the world of crime and accident video capturing, which he gathers is a profitable line of business and thus enters with keen enthusiasm and a ruthless eye for business.

Jake Gyllenhaal as the title nightcrawler [a term used in the film for these freelance video-recorders] heightens the film with a performance that is electric and demands attention. He lost 20 pounds for the role, making him appear eerily skeletal, and the fine actor hasn't been this good since Donnie Darko (2001). The cool-to-the-core sociopath that he portrays has some of the charm of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000), although that film was less successful with its source material (Bret Easton Ellis' great novel) and the character of Bloom also never becomes an actively misanthropic psychopathic killer as Bateman did, though one could certainly see him spiral out of control. Bloom is manipulative and lacks an ethical or moral compass; he also stands out as a capitalist shark version of the American dream, who from a certain advantageous angle may appear merely 'driven' and 'ambitious'.
Nightcrawler is disquieting, because Bloom is obviously so good at what he does; commanding people's attention and getting his agenda heard and pushed through, with impunity: He grows through determination and an undeniable rhetorical talent, - as well as an absence of any moral restraints, making him a potentially highly dangerous individual. Gilroy has written Bloom's venture into this guerrilla video-capture world so that his criminal behavior is laid bare up-front, but leaves it up to us to sanction this character flaw, saddled up with Gyllenhaal's charismatic performance. Bloom teams up with an easy subject of his manipulation, a desperate homeless man played terrifically by Riz Ahmed (The Road to Guantanomo (2006)).
Nothing in Nightcrawler seems exaggerated beyond realism, which also raises its level of suspense. In our digital, over-mediated world of today, we may think as we watch the film; what is to say that something like this isn't happening in our city right now?
The troubling success of Bloom comes from his relation to a TV channel executive producer played by Gilroy's real-life wife Rene Russo (In the Line of Fire (1993)) in what nevertheless seems a brilliant piece of casting. Russo has 'grown' one of those Hollywood-actress faces with obvious signs of unnatural meddling with nature that suits this character perfectly, - and, more importantly, she is still an excellent and sexy actress. Bill Paxton (Aliens (1986)) is also great as a tech-enthused competitor in some of Nightcrawler's many darkly amusing scenes.
The media critique of Nightcrawler may shortly remind folks of Network (1976), however, this film doesn't serve its point nearly as polemically as was done in the 1970's movie, as the focus lies on the character of Bloom primarily.
Nightcrawler becomes wildly exciting, as things invariably escalate. It is an excellent production, an adult story that creeps on you for all of its 117 minutes and stays there for a good while afterwards.
 

Watch the trailer for Nightcrawler right here

Cost: 8.5 mil. $
Box office: 50.3 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Opening 2nd in the US behind the horror flick Ouija (2014), Nightcrawler is sneaking its result up at domestic and global box office.]

What do you think of Nightcrawler?

Centennial (1978-79, TV mini-series) - For everyone interested in American history, this is a chest of gold

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A poster for producer John Wilder's Centennial

QUICK REVIEW:

Centennial is one of the most important American TV-series to this day, based on James A. Michener's (Tales of the South Pacific (1947)) book of the same name, it is a historical epic, and also in turn a western, a romance, a drama, a thriller and an adventure. It was a monolithic production, with an (at the time) unheard of 25 mil. $ budget, over 100 speaking parts and a story-span of more than two hundred years. The NBC TV mini-series can be seen as the 12 movie-length episodes it was originally broadcast as, or in 26 45 minute-episodes, arranged for the DVD release. (The series is cut up in natural halves and thirds, as the first and last episode was originally 3 hours long, with commercials.)
The following will contain SPOILERS.
Centennial becomes the name of the (fictional) Colorado town, which is first for many years simply known as 'Zendt's Farm' after the merchant Levi Zendt (Gregory Harrison (Logan's Run (1977-78))), who settles there. The name's similarity to 'century' hints at the grand, epic ambitions of the story and series, which are an ode to the Midwest through some two centuries, often educational at its heart, but never didactic.

The camera work, by Duke Callaghan (Miami Vice (1984-85)) and 3 colleagues, is very mobile and innovative to begin with, as the series' narrator David Janssen (The Fugitive (1963-67)) zooms in right from the creation of the Rocky Mountains to the time around the middle of the 18th century, when the Frenchman Pasquinel (Robert Conrad (The Lady in Red (1979)) plays the silly and arrogant role) arrives to the country and meets the Indian chief Lame Beaver (Syrian actor Michael Ansara (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-80)).
Richard Chamberlain (Shogun (1980)) adds a most likely unintended homo-eroticism to his character, the refined Scot McKeag and his friendly relationship with Pasquinel. Lame Beaver gets shot with gold bullets, which makes Pasquinel turn to gold-hunting, - with two wives and kids all over the place, but he's not a man who lets himself get bound by moral obligations.
His off-spring create troubles in the time to come with their 'unpure' blood, (since Pasquinel had them with an Indian.) Pasquinel dies just as he discovers his gold, and McKeag 'inherit' his Indian family beautifully, - despite the problems of this, just the series' first storyline.
The second storyline begins in 1845 with the falsely rape-accused Levi Zendt, who flees Pennsylvania with his girlfriend Elly (Stephanie Zimbalist (The Awakening (1980))). Both Harrison as Zendt and Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights (1987)) as Oliver Seccombe, who becomes a big cattle ranch owner, play very well in Centennial.
Elly gets bitten by a snake and dies, and Zendt takes an Indian wife instead, but as strife between the cultures heats up, this creates serious troubles, and particularly their red-clad daughter Clemma (Adrienne Larussa (Charlie's Angels (1979), TV-series)) gets a miserable life as a result.
The Civil War is not a part of the series, but the Indian massacre of 1861 under the command of Colonel Skimmerhorn (Richard Crenna (First Blood (1982)) is phenomenal as the blood-thirsty fanatic, who is based on John Chivington, an ex-Methodist minister who led the infamous Sand Creek massacre in Kiowa County, Colorado in 1864) by Rattlesnake Hill is portrayed with force and integrity in all its horror. Skimmerhorn's son turns against his father, and along with, among others, 'potato' Brumbaugh (Alex Karras (Blazing Saddles (1974)), he becomes one of the new faces in the town. In the following great cattle-run episode, The Longhorns (6), John Addison's (Torn Curtain (1966)) epic score really comes into its own.
In 1876, Colorado becomes the 38th state in the US-of-A on its hundred year anniversary, and the town that is the core of Centennial gets its titular name for this reason. The Union Pacific railroad now connects the country, and bar fights and new kinds of immigrants (like Japanese and Mexicans) arrive with rapidity. Seccombe hires assassins to protect his interests. In the end it turns out that his accounts have been kept somewhat too creatively, and in recognizing his dependency upon the land, he shoots himself in despair.
In a terrible blizzard, old Zendt and a lot of cattle die, among others, and afterwards, the Wendell family arrive in Centennial: A theatrical family, who cheat their way to everything. Sheriff Dumire (Brian Keith (The Brian Keith Show (1972-74))) has got his eye on them, but he cannot prove their guilt, when a business man with 5,500 $ suddenly disappears. Here, great suspense enters the series, and young Philip Wendell (Doug McKeon (On Golden Pond (1981))) only confess his family's guilt on the sheriff's deathbed. Anthony Zerbe (The Death Zone (1983)) has a memorable time as the devious Wendell patriarch.
Hereafter follows more depression and less adventure, as America and Centennial become increasingly civilized: The Mexican revolution, racism and more fraud from the town's new matador, Wendell, lead up into the 1930's, where monetary and psychological depression, sandstorms, suicides and murder sweep the parched land.
After Charlotte Seccombe (Lynn Redgrave (Gods and Monsters (1998))) ends up concluding that 'Only the land lives forever', (reminiscent of Scarlet O'Hara's final realization in the classic Gone With the Wind (1939)), Centennial should probably have ended.
Instead, in the pathetically elongated, last episode, The Scream of the Eagles, we fast-forward to the 1970's and a local election, in which the choice 'today' (at the time) stands between industry or respect for nature. - Fairly glum and with far too many flashbacks pasted in, as we also see at many other times of Centennial.
 
Despite this last, acidic reservation, Centennial must still remain the most pure, epic western TV-series created. Although the intros are visually boring, they firmly impress the sweepingly epic quality which is Centennial's regal garment again and again. The fantasy of the cowboy, his horse and his heard is recreated fantastically here.
The series goes at it with sometimes exaggerated bravado spirit, and almost always, unfortunately, with quite poor aging make-up jobs. It holds great supporting role performances from stars like Pernell Roberts (Bonanza (1959-65)), Donald Pleasence (Phenomena (1985)) and Clint Walker (Cheyenne (1955-62)).
It is produced by co-writer John Wilder (Peyton Place (1965-68), writer) and directed by, in different episodes, Virgil W. Vogel (The Streets of San Francisco (1973-76)), Paul Krasny (Mannix (1969-74)), Harry Falk (The Streets of San Francisco (1974-77)) and Bernard McEveety (Trapper John, M.D. (1979-83)).

Brian Keith as Sheriff Dumire in producer John Wilder's Centennial

Best episode:

6: The Longhorns
About the driving of 3,000 Longhorns to Colorado from Texas through the dessert with cattle thieves, Indians and other dangers lurking at every corner around the camaraderie among the men.

A beautiful VHS collection of the entire series

In lieu of a trailer, (which isn't on Youtube), here is the great opening credits of Centennial with John Addison's magnificent music - play it while you read

Cost: 25 mil. $

What do you think of Centennial?
Do you know of any other TV series of American history that can rival it?

City Heat (1984) - Eastwood and Reynolds wrestle dispassionately in Benjamin's messy period affair

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A nostalgia/buddy poster that seems to actively want to invoke George Roy Hill's super-successful The Sting (1973), for Richard Benjamin's City Heat

QUICK REVIEW:

Some murders, corruption, torture, prostitutes and fistfights in Kansas City of the 1930's.

- So superficially and indifferently can the plot of City Heat accurately be summed up. Although its teaming up of Clint Eastwood (In the Line of Fire (1993)) and Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights (1997)) theoretically could have proven a big pleasure, - in a loony car-movie, for instance, - here they are far from it. In fact this may be Eastwood's poorest film as an actor.
City Heat is a forced noir-ish gangster burb, which is unpleasant and coarse to boot. The designs and costumes look like a costume party. The film is truly a dud.
It was originally written by Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)), who was fired as director of the film, and it was rewritten by Richard Benjamin (Made in America (1993)) under the pseudonym Sam O. Brown, who became the director, while Edwards renounced the finished film.
Eastwood got 4 mil. $ for doing City Heat, while Reynolds' jaw broke in an accident on the first day, causing him to be restricted to a liquid diet that made him lose 30 pounds during the production. He was conclusively suspected of having AIDS in the tabloids, and also developed an addiction to analgesics [painkillers]. - Bummer!

Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds even look sour and lost on this German poster for Richard Benjamin's City Heat

Watch the loud, inane trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 38.3 mil. $ (US only)
= Flop, though some uncertainty
[City Heat was poorly received upon release, although audiences in America seemed to flock to see it nonetheless. Since foreign box office results are unknown, the flop status is somewhat uncertain.]

What do you think of City Heat?
Is this Clint Eastwood's worst film?
And Burt Reynolds' worst film?

The Car (1977) - Mildly entertaining car-run-amok action-thriller

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One of the many cool posters for Elliot Silverstein's The Car

QUICK REVIEW:

A mysterious black car without a driver drives people to death in Utah, and it is very hard to stop.

That is the simple plot in this slightly dull b-movie, which it took 3 screenwriters to write. It seems somewhat derivative of Steven Spielberg's better Duel (1971), in which a mysterious truck chases our hero (Dennis Weaver) throughout the film.
James Brolin (Westworld (1973)) does alright in the lead of The Car, as do the other main actors, and The Car doesn't lack tempo or action. The problem is that the main idea is so slight.
It is directed by Elliot Silverstein, who started directing TV in 1954 with Omnibus. He directed four episodes of The Twilight Zone (1961-64), four of The Defenders (1962-64) and three of Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963-64) and then turned to films, where he made acclaimed hits as Cat Ballou (1965) and A Man Called Horse (1970), before The Car led him back to TV, where he did some TV movies. He finished his career with four episodes of Tales From the Crypt (1991-94).

Finnish (?) poster for The Car

Dutch (?) poster for The Car

Cool poster for The Car!

Watch the cheesy trailer here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 5.7 mil. $ (US only, first 2 weeks only)
= A hit, though some uncertainty
[The Car seems pretty low-budget: 4 Lincoln Continental Mark III were customized for the production, and only one survived. There are also no major stars in the cast. Nevertheless, the film was no. 1 in US theaters for two weeks in May 1977. Critic Gene Siskel called it 'The Cinematic Turkey of 1977.']

What do you think of The Car?
What is your favorite car movie?

Change of Plans/Le Code a Changé (2009) - Complications among friends and lovers in Thompson's light dramedy

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This under-table poster for Danièle Thompson's Change of Plans adequately conveys the light complication-comedy the film is

QUICK REVIEW:

10 adults gather for a party in Paris. They dine and talk a whole lot and are entangled in various constellations. We follow them and the developments of their relationships over the course of the following year.

Le Code a Changé is a wonderful, little film with snappy dialog, - although perhaps a little bit too brisk at first, as in 'exhaustingly fast.'
It features some excellent French actors, among them Dany Boon (Welcome to the Sticks/Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis (2008)) and Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly/Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (2007)).
Change of Plans is a jolly dramedy trifle directed by Monacan Danièle Thompson (Orchestra Seats/Fauteuils d'Orchestre (2006)).

Sexy Emmanuelle Seigner in Danièle Thompson's Change of Plans

Watch the trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: 12 mio. euros (14.9 mil. $)
Box office: 14.4 mil. $
= Flop
[Change of Plans made the vast majority of its gross in its home-country France, with other important contributing countries Germany, Belgium and Spain. It made only 44,231 $ in the US.]

What do you think of Change of Plans?
Have you seen other films by Danièle Thompson, and if so, how were they?

Interstellar (2014) - Nolan heads to space in opulent, exciting epic

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+ Best Science Fiction Movie of the Year

A hyper-charged, dizzying poster for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar

Interstellar is the big space opera of 2014, and we may note that this and last year have been good years in this respect: Gravity (2013) captivated the world last year and was a tremendous survival space thriller ride, while Interstellar this year is a grander envisioned, thrilling epic. I didn't, unfortunately, experience it in IMAX, which it is made for (co-writer/director Christopher Nolan (Inception (2010)) is an avid fan of the format), but I highly recommend you to catch it in IMAX if in any way possible,  because the scope of the exploration in the film indeed begs for this huge format.

In a dystopic future, mankind is threatened by dust storms and hunger as crops mysteriously die out, and a former NASA astronaut is put back into service after receiving a mysterious clue from the beyond. Together with a small crew, he must go through a wormhole to search out new planets for the future of the human race.

Nolan cements his position as one of the world's most exciting, ambitious filmmakers here: Co-writing with his brother Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight (2008)), the two have here created a journey into space that transports its audience with a measure of awe, because they seem to spin their narrative with a physicist's integrity. Indeed the events of Interstellar are well-researched and generally realistic, and the seriousness and lack of condescension of the film is liberating and noteworthy. The adventure suffers from some overlength, though, and the plot becomes increasingly hard to understand, not unlike other Nolan titles like Memento (2000) and his best to date, Inception (2010). The ending is the weakest part of the film, as Interstellar seems to want us to bawl out in praise, because it decides to tie its beginning to its end:
SPOILER Never one to include religion or God in his pictures or world-view, Nolan nonetheless here gets metaphysical, as lead Matthew McConaughey (Mud (2012)) acts as a sort of time-space-crossing ghost in a black hole-induced space of alternate universes ad infinitum, which I found highly unpleasant and downright nightmarish. McConaughey comes out as a near Superman, as he survives this, and made me remember my similar, unsatisfied sentiment about Nolan's closing of  of The Dark Knight Rises (2012), in which Batman, incredibly, seems to die, - but then didn't anyway ... Interstellar is still very exciting, like a modern, unique meeting of Giant (1956) and Hud (1963) with Donnie Darko (2001) and Armageddon (1998), which stays riveting throughout in significant part due to Hans Zimmer's (Inception) terrific score. There's also a cool robot (called TARS) and stunning, believable visuals. - Especially the scenes of space flight strike one with the wonder and mind-numbing realities of space, which also links the film directly to Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
A high-point of Interstellar concerns our space mission's visit on the icy planet that a Dr. Mann (Matt Damon (Elysium (2013)) has lived on by himself for years. Casting Damon against McConaughey in this part of the film, whose face has puffed up a bit with age, while McConaughey's has become more taut and emaciated (perhaps because of work and straining roles the last few years), is a masterstroke. This whole chapter of Interstellar was incredible. McConaughey is generally a great lead for the film, although his always cool cleverness can be a bit thick to some at times.
The film has an impressive cast, although I think Michael Caine (Children of Men (2006)) seems more like a benign superintendent than an ingenious professor, and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty (2012)) seemed to struggle a bit with the abstractness of her character's reality, (which is understandable.)
Interstellar makes people gasp out, sniffle, laugh, scream, urge to the people on the screen and ask questions. It is a voyage that will no doubt thrill little boys and girls the world over to pursue the sciences. - Don't miss it!

Related posts:

Christopher Nolan: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or, Batman and the Storm, Darkness, Anarchy, Evil, Depression
Batman Begins (2005) or, Modern, Dark, Smooth Batman

 Watch the awesome trailer for the film here

Cost: 165 mil. $
Box office: 204.1 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say
[Interstellar had a good American debut (#2 with 47.5 mil. $ behind Disney's Big Hero 6 with 56.2 mil. $). It has reached 200 mil. $ worldwide in just 6 days, and will rely on a longer, strong run (similar to Gravity's last year) to turn a profit due to its high budget.]

What do you think of Interstellar?

Hidden/Caché (2005) - Haneke's slick, cold surveillance drama-thriller

♥♥♥♥

+ Best French Film of the Year + Best Mystery of the Year

Spanish poster for Michael Haneke's Hidden

QUICK REVIEW:

A married parental couple who work in the creative industry start to receive videotapes with recordings of their own house as well as ominous drawings in the mail. The man (Daniel Auteuil (Conversations With My Gardner/Dialogue Avec Mon Jardinier (2007)) believes that they may come from a brother, he once never had ...

Caché is a drama thriller written and directed by Austrian film master Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon/Das Weiße Band - Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)).
My sympathy for the leading couple in this film reaches a limit at some point, because they are so awfully 'intellectual', pathetic and ridiculous. The film is told in a starkly realistic style without a score even, and the many emotions going through the main characters are quite palpable, and work to heighten the tension. The film also has SPOILER one of the most shocking suicide scenes that has ever been put on film.
The couple, who is the core of Caché, are pretty much lost throughout the film, and thus Caché itself also gets to feel somewhat lost in my eyes.
Still, it is a smart and sleek European co-production, if not among Haneke's best.
At the moment, he is in preproduction with a film that is set to come out next year with the title Flashmob.

Related posts:

Michael Haneke: Amour (2012) - Tender love, unseizing death in Haneke's pictures

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: 10.5 mil. $
Box office: 16.1 mil. $
= Flop
[Caché was most successful in Europe, which is common for Haneke's mostly very European films, here about French intellectuals. It has won a slew of awards; chief among them, 3 at Cannes, including Best Director. It did make 3.6 mil. $ in the US, which isn't bad for a thriller as minimalistic as Caché, but with its relatively high cost, it didn't sell enough to start turning profits.]

What do you think of Caché?
If you think it is a masterpiece, please, tell us why