Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) - M. McDonagh surprises with a kicker of an amazing movie

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+ Best Dramedy of the Year

Frances McDormand rises like a hurting, vengeful Phoenix on this hype-filled poster for Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

In small town Ebbing, Missouri, a mother grieves over the violent death her daughter suffered some months ago, but her grief has also turned into rage because justice still hasn't been served. She gets an idea that calls attention to her desperation and anger.

Three Billboards takes a powerful premise and spins a punchy, compelling story around it. It is the third film from great English writer-director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges (2008)), who meshes more drama into his comedic streak here than he has before, while keeping his penchant and knack for actively using violence in his narratives. His older brother John Michael McDonagh (Calvary (2014)) is also a terrific filmmaker, but this may be the best film between the two to date.
Frances McDormand (Almost Famous (2000)) is a perfect fit for the lead as the sharp-edged but sympathetic fury of Ebbing, who isn't taking any shit from anybody and whose inner rage simply bars her from seeing any middle road. Mildred Hayes, her character's name, is in a sense a classic American hero, because her life is hit by injustice, but in its face she doesn't simply sit back and wait for the other shoe to drop; she gets up and takes matters into her own hands, she takes charge. Her resolution is universally reaffirming and not uniquely American, of course, and yet it feels powerfully rooted in the Missouri soil here, as well as in the American film tradition.
McDonagh's script is refreshing and exciting throughout, because it circumvents our expectations several times. The classic John Ford-like quality of the injustice plot feels modern and very timely due to McDormand's powerful protagonist and her reckoning with the disappointing police of Ebbing and their violent, racist streak of corruption.
Woody Harrelson (True Detective - season 1 (2014)) is great once again, - SPOILER this time as a sheriff who is terminally ill. Sam Rockwell (Snow Angels (2007)) has the film's most provocative character as the dimwitted, awful cop, - provocative because Three Billboards urges us to see that there's a human being with good sides too, behind the badge of a terrible cop such as Rockwell's man here, whom he plays phenomenally.
Three Billboards is about the nuances between good and bad, and how there's some of both in most people. Despite all its cursing and violence, the film implicitly urges reconciliation among peoples and promotes good and understanding behavior. Caleb Landry Jones (War on Everyone (2016)) is beautiful in the smaller but important part as Ebbing's advertisement manager.
Three Billboards has a stellar ensemble and also benefits from a score from Carter Burwell (Scorchers (1991)), which helps to build the organic, authentic feel of the American South. Another great aspect of it is its central three red billboards, an idea that really captures the audiences' imagination as a tool of activism against injustice.
The nuances of good and bad in Three Billboards are not infinite: There's a border, which is where the murder of Mildred's daughter lies. By that border lies the unforgivable bad, the evil, the entirely cruel actions and callous persons. SPOILER But the film doesn't find these. - The evil has been committed and isn't revisited, (although it might have been relevant), and the perpetrator isn't found. I had to let the film sit for a while to come up with this critique, which is the only one I can form against Three Billboards, which I think is amazing and which I enjoyed thoroughly from beginning to end. It's a real corker, a very funny film and it would probably have robbed its experience of a few laughs and heightened its drama some to have it probe the devastating facts of the murder that spurs the billboards and subsequent actions, - but is might also have raised it beyond question to the status of a masterpiece.

Related post:

2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 12-15 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 121.6 mil. $ and counting
= Mega-hit
[Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri premiered 4 September (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 115 minutes. McDonagh had the idea for the film after seeing billboards about an unsolved crime in the American South. He wrote the parts specifically for McDormand and Rockwell. They drew inspiration for their performances from John Wayne and Lee Marvin, respectively. Ebbing is a fictional town. Shooting took place in North Carolina for 33 days from May - June 2016. The film opened #28 to a 322k $ first opening in 4 theaters, (at a 80k $ average, the 4th strongest of the year), and peaked #7 and in 1,726 cinemas (for now), with a 50.2 mil. $ gross domestically so far. The film has 4 slated coming market releases: Ukraine (1 Mar.), a limited release in China (2 Mar.), Thailand (8 Mar.) and South Korea (15 Mar.). The film has inspired several activist protests with red billboards already: London's Greenfell Tower fire, which cost 77 lives in June 2017, the February 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, which cost 17 lives, and the October 2017 assassination of journalist Daphne Galizia in Malta are some of the injustices without major legal repercussions which has inspired protests shaped over Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to date. The film is nominated for 7 Oscars: For Best Film, Actress (McDormand), Supporting Actor (Harrelson and Rockwell), Score (Burwell), Original Screenplay (McDonagh) and Editing. It won 4/6 Golden Globe noms, 5/9 BAFTAs, an AFI award, 3 Independent Spirit award nominations, the Best Screenplay prize in Venice and several other honors. The film has been voted into #116 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between Batman Begins (2005) and Some Like It Hot (1959). McDormand returns with a voice performance in Isle of Dogs (2018). Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is certified fresh at 92 % with an 8.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri?

Friday the 13th (1980) - Cunningham scores with simple but effective teen killer recipe

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The mysterious, knife-carrying killer's contour frames a drawing of the doomed youths in this very neat poster for Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th

Camp Crystal Lake is an idyllic nature hideout that a group of young counselors intend to reopen 20 years after a fatal drowning took place there. But as it turns out, the camp isn't ready for a reopening.

- The youths at Crystal Lake get it with the knife, the ax, the arrow and what have you, one by one, in this classic and effective teen slasher. Friday the 13th showcases the slasher concept that worked 20 years before it was made as well as 20 years later, and which this film was instrumental in streamlining for scores of more or less inventive reproductions in the following decade. At its best here, it is an entertaining mix of suspense, shocks and spectacular deaths.
SPOILER The ending of Friday the 13th, in which Jason's mother Pamela Vorheers fights the girl Alice and is finally beheaded, is cool, and the same goes for the very last surprise scene (invented by special effects wizard Tom Savini, inspired by the ending of Carrie (1976)) that features Jason in the lake.
Friday the 13th is written by Victor Miller (The Black Pearl (1977)) and Ron Kurz (King Frat (1979)), with co-writer-producer-director Sean S. Cunningham (Together (1971)) contributing story elements. SPOILER Later star Kevin Bacon (Saving Angelo (2007, short)) has a small role in the film that entails a sex scene and an arrow through his throat.

Listen to the film's main theme here

Cost: 0.55 mil. $
Box office: 59.8 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[Friday the 13th was released 9 May (USA) and runs 95 minutes. Cunningham had worked with Wes Craven on his The Last House on the Left (1972) and was also inspired by the success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) to make a "rollercoaster ride" horror. Shooting took place in New Jersey, including in a reportedly still operating Boy Scout camp, from September - October 1979. Betsy Palmer took the role as Mrs. Vorheers to pay for a car and thought the film was "a piece of shit." Composer Harry Manfredini was inspired by John Williams' score for Jaws (1975) in coming up with the film's iconic ki ki ki, ma ma ma sound before the killer's strikes. Paramount bought the distribution rights for 1.5 mil. $ and spent another million to advertise it, (half a million before its release and another half during its run, which peaked domestically in 1,100 theaters.) The film opened #1 to a 5.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it triumphed its way to a sensational 39.7 mil. $ (66.4 % of the total gross), despite bad reviews. The studio's international release of an independent feature without major stars was unusual at the time but paid off, as international audiences were also sizable. The film became the 18th highest-grossing film of the year and its domestic gross wasn't beaten by the first 9 of the following 11 sequels. They are: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), Jason X (2001), Freddy vs. Jason (2003) and Friday the 13th (2009). Cunningham returned with A Stranger Is Watching (1982). Friday the 13th is rotten at 59% with a 5.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Friday the 13th?

Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

1. Die Hard (1988) - John McTiernan

2. Bad Lieutenant (1992) - Abel Ferrara 

3. Dirty Harry (1971) - Don Siegel

4. Bad Boys (1995) - Michael Bay

5. Cop Land (1997) - James Mangold

6. Cobra (1986) - George P. Cosmatos

7. Deer Woman (2005, TV movie) - John Landis

8. Basic Instinct (1992) - Paul Verhoeven

9. Bullitt (1968) - Peter Yates

10. The Guard (2011) - John Michael McDonagh


Another great cop movie reviewed by Film Excess to date:

Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0 (2007) - Len Wiseman 

Other good cop movies and a TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

21 Jump Street (2012) - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
48 Hrs. (1982) - Walter Hill 
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) -John Carpenter 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant (2009) - Werner Herzog 
Chungking Express (1994) - Wong Kar-Wai 
The Crimson Rivers/Les Rivières Pourpres (2000) - Mathieu Kassovitz 
The Dead Pool (1988) - Buddy Van Horn 
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) - John McTiernan 
The Pledge (2001) - Sean Penn 
True Detective - season 1 (2014) - Cary Fukunaga, Nic Pizzolato, creators

Mediocre, poor and/or failed cop movies reviewed to date by Film Excess (in alphabetic order):

16 Blocks (2006) - Richard Donner 
15 Minutes (2001) - John Herzfeld 
22 Jump Street (2014) - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller 
The Car (1977) - Elliot Silverstein 
Coogan's Bluff (1968) - Don Siegel 
Cop Out (2010) - Kevin Smith 
Crime Busters/I Due Superpiedi Quasi Piatti/Trinity: In Trouble Again/Two Supercops (1977) - E.B. Clucher 
Die Hard 2 (1990) - Renny Harlin 
The Enforcer (1976) - James Fargo 
The Heat (2013) - Paul Feig 
The Keeper of Lost Causes/Kvinden i Buret (2013) - Mikkel Nørgaard 
The Killer Inside Me (2010) - Michael Winterbottom 
Shutter Island (2010) - Martin Scorsese 

[34 titles in total]

Previous Top 10 lists:

The best action movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adapted movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date    
The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date

What do you think of the list?
Which cop movies would top your list?
Which cop movies are missing here?
Leave a comment and make your opinions known

Black Panther (2018) - Coogler strikes gold with African superhero - but could have delved into actual African problems

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+ Most Overrated Movie of the Year

Ensconced in dark-blue metallic, futuristic designs, this poster for Ryan Coogler's Black Panther highlights the film's main characters

The African nation of Wakanda, who enjoy a secluded life in technological bliss due to their natural resource, vibranium, has a new, kind monarch in T'Challa. But the kingdom is shaken, when a stranger emerges to claim the throne.

Black Panther is the 18th Marvel Cinematic Universe film and the first in what is destined to become its own franchise within the franchise. It is written by Joe Robert Cole (Amber Lake (2011)) and great Californian co-writer-director Ryan Coogler (Creed (2015)), whose third picture this is, based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Chadwick Boseman (Persons Unknown (2010), TV-series) has the timbre and soft, sensitive eyes that make him ideal for the title character. Martin Freeman (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)) as a CIA operative and especially Andy Serkis (King Kong (2005)) as a wild-man villain are good, the film's only Caucasian characters. Everyone else is African-American, making this tentpole stand out and feel a bit like an inverted huge movie, since it is most often the ethnic minorities who find themselves with just two smaller roles.
SPOILER Serkis is killed off, which is a bit of a shame since he's so damn electric and enjoyable to watch; but he is, and it is to open up for Black Panther's main villain, played by Michael B. Jordan (Fantastic Four (2015)), who is certainly the sexiest villain in recent memory here. The two lead opponents naturally fight, but the film's more thrilling fight scenes are the ones with its female characters: Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave (2013)), Danai Gurira (Restless City (2011)) and especially Letitia Wright (Cucumber (2015), TV-series) (who is actually from Guyana) make the younger women characters come to vivid and enjoyable life here.
The film benefits from a cool score by Ludwig Göransson (Central Intelligence (2016)) who traveled to Senegal and South Africa and recorded musicians for it.
There's an it-vibe and enormous hype surrounding Black Panther at the moment, especially in North America, where it may almost seem like the film is going to cure cancer and end all wars. So groundbreaking is its reversal of the ethnic representations over there, and some of this hyperbole is not just bordering on ridiculous but just plain ridiculous.
The excitement for Black Panther is palpable, but the film talks especially to the African-American audience and their feelings and frustrations, not least in the Jordan character's motivations for his plan of an essentially militaristic revenge campaign on the Western world for its past misdeeds in Africa. - The film's connection to the actual African peoples and their plights now and in the past are far more elusive:
- In the film's first act, some of the young women around T'Challa want Wakanda to start helping refugees in their region. - Despite Wakanda's overwhelmingly developed situation, helping their neighboring African nations with issues of refugees and devastating famine, as has killed millions for the past century, apparently hasn't been on the radar until now that we meet them today.
- Issues of Africa's unique wildlife and its extinction from poaching, pollution and overpopulation is also non-existing in Black Panther, SPOILER in which the only wildlife we meet are rhinos that help one of Wakanda's tribes in battle and well-behaved obey the sound of their whistles.
In this way Black Panther is still a standard action-adventure film for the urbanized Western ex-African (and everyone else) more so than the actual peoples of Africa, whose problems it largely neglects, (and who are also not likely to beat up the film's gross, a pivotal point for a film as expensive as this.) So Black Panther is best enjoyed without thinking too much about the actual realities of Africa, which, however, is a relevant criticism of this particular film. - We can always hope the sequel dares a bolder relevance.
The film is also overlong. But it undeniably has thrilling sequences, a good story and a tempting freshness and sense of idealism about it: SPOILER For instance; what other superhero tentpole ends with the enthusiastic planning of opening an outreach center?

Related posts:

Ryan Coogler: 2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess
Fruitvale Station (2013) - Well-meaning issue drama heightened by stars Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer

Watch an IMAX trailer for the film here

Cost: 200 mil. $
Box office: 520 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say (but already a box office success)
[Black Panther premiered 29 January (Los Angeles) and runs 134 minutes. Wesley Snipes was aiming to star in a Black Panther film from 1992 on, but the project never materialized. Marvel approached Ava DuVernay to direct the film, but she exited as she found they did not "see eye to eye" about the film. Shooting took place in Argentina, South Korea, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Georgia, including Atlanta, from January - April 2017. The film is released in 3D, IMAX and 2D formats and opened #1 with a 202 mil. $ first weekend and a record-breaking 242.1 mil. $ over the full 4-day Presidents' Day weekend, the 2nd best 4-day opening ever, trailing Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (2015) 288 mil. $. Black Panther is likely to end up as one of the top-grossing films of the year. It opens in Russia 26 Feb., Japan 1 Mar. and China 9 Mar., its last announced market. Boseman returns in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel's next blockbuster. Coogler returns with Wrong Answer, again starring Jordan, and is also in talks for a Black Panther sequel. Black Panther is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Black Panther?

Fanny and Alexander/Fanny och Alexander (1982) - Bergman's treasured mammoth drama farewell

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Carefully arranged on a portrait photograph, the title characters of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander attract attention for the film on its Swedish poster

Fanny and Alexander are siblings in Sweden in 1907, born into the large upper middle-class Ekdahl family. After they lose their father, their mother turns to the local bishop for a second, respectable husband. Life has its good and bad times for her and her children.

Fanny and Alexander is a wonderful, warm film about sorrow and death, childhood and religion. - Its thematic range could even be expanded to simply be: Life. It was the first film by Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (The Magician/Ansiktet (1958)) that I saw, and this only makes it more special for me. Bergman wrote and directed the film, which is semi-autobiographical.
Fanny and Alexander is a drama in epic length, which narrative charts a different course than most traditional films. - Still, the way the story is told is masterful, and the actors of the large ensemble carry the film admirably.
The storytelling of Fanny and Alexander is thoroughly evocative, making us feel as though we can almost sense the heat of the crackling fire in the hearth we are watching. The production design in the film, - from the flamboyant Christmas party of the Ekdahls in the first part of the film to the bare, grimly cold home of the bishop, - is detail-oriented and outstanding. Fanny and Alexander is an experience one shouldn't rob oneself of.

Related post:

Ingmar Bergman: The Magician/Ansiktet (1958) or, Fool the Townfolk

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6-7 mil. $ (different sources)
Box office: 6.7 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertain
[Fanny and Alexander premiered 17 December (Sweden) and runs 188 minutes (theatrical version) and 312 minutes (TV miniseries version, - which I regrettably still haven't seen). Bergman wrote the script in the summer of 1979, intending it to be his last film, explaining; "I don't have the strength any more, neither psychologically nor physically." The film was molded around his own childhood in Uppsala, Sweden, which he termed "happy and privileged." The film's 40 mil. SEK budget made it the most expensive Swedish film up to that time. Swedish stars Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow ditched the film for different reasons before shooting and were replaced, which they both later regretted. Shooting took place from September 1981 - March 1982 in Uppsala and in Stockholm studios, Sweden. Gunnar Björnstrand (Filip Landahl in the film) acted despite suffering from Alzheimers, and Gunn Wållgren (Helena in the film) suffered from cancer and was secretly in pain but acted anyway. The film has 60 characters with lines, employed 1,200 extras and featured 1,250 costumes. Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander as a miniseries but for commercial reasons was obligated to cut a theatrical version, which he did with many pains, calling it "to cut into the nerves and lifeblood of the film." A year after the release, the 312 minute full version was released in Swedish cinemas, later recognized as one of the longest films in history. Audiences were large in Bergman's native Sweden for both versions, and it became his biggest hit there. It made 6.7 mil. $ in North America, where it played in the summer of 1983 and was later (in 1991) recognized as the 5th biggest Swedish film in North America up to that time. A world gross is not made public, but the film drew the following crowds; 374k (France), 165k (Germany) and 70k (Denmark). - Whether it became financially successful theatrically is hard to decipher based on these numbers alone. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this one. The film was nominated for 6 Oscars, the 3rd most nominated film of the year: Best Art Direction (won), Cinematography (Sven Nykvist, won), Costume Design (won), Director (lost to James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment), Foreign Film (won) and Original Screenplay (lost to Horton Foote for Tender Mercies). It was barred from the Best Picture race due to Sweden's nominating it for the Best Foreign Film category. The film also won 1/2 Golden Globes, 1/3 BAFTAs, one César award, 3 David di Donatello awards, 3 Guldbagge awards, 2 National Board of Review awards, the Venice Film Festival's FIPRESCI award and many other honors. Stage adaptations of the film has been played in many countries in the new millennium. While Bergman continued to work on especially TV movies, Fanny and Alexander is his last theatrical feature. Fanny and Alexander is fresh at 100 % with an 8.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


What do you think of Fanny and Alexander?

The Final Cut (2004) or, Alan 'the Cutter' Hakman

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Robin Williams looks lost and uncomfortable on this inauspicious poster for Omar Naim's The Final Cut

In a future where devices record people's entire lives, Alan is a 'cutter' whose job it is to make uncritical edits of deceased people's lives. But his new, unsavory client gets him into danger.

A team of talented people are involved in this little-seen b-movie. Robin Williams (What Dreams May Come True (1998)) is good in the lead, and the set design, photography (by Tak Fujimoto (Gods Behaving Badly (2013))) and score (by Brian Tyler (Brake (2012))) are all professionally done.
The idea behind The Final Cut is interesting, but unfortunately it results in a rather banal story here. The film is written and directed by Omar Naim (When Simon Sleeps (1999)). It comes off as a somewhat sexless sci-fi thriller, which attempts to raise some issues that it can't quite handle persuasively in the end.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 3.6 mil. $
= Uncertain - but likely a huge flop
[The Final Cut premiered 11 September (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in British Colombia, Canada and in Berlin, Germany from June - August 2003. The film opened and peaked at #27 to a weak 227k $ first weekend in 117 theaters in North America, where it grossed 548k $ (15.2 % of the total gross). The biggest market was Italy with 1.1 mil. $ (30.5 %). 2nd biggest was Spain with 586k $ (16.3 %). North America was the 3rd biggest. - If the film was made for a very modest 5 mil. $, it should be counted as a huge flop. - It could easily have been higher, in which case it may have actually been a mega-flop. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this one. Williams returned in House of D (2004). Naim only returned six years hence as co-director of the PBS documentary Stand Up: Muslim-American Comics Come of Age (2009) and then theatrically with Dead Awake (2010). The Final Cut is rotten at 37 % with a 5.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Final Cut?

Call Me by Your Name (2017) - Guadagnino explores desire in sensual, erotic treat

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+ Best Romance of the Year + Sexiest Movie of the Year + Best Screen Couple of the Year: Armie Hammer & Timothée Chalamet + Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Timothée Chalamet + Best Italian Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year

The greatest poster for Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name is this little-used beauty, which recalls a scene from the film and also points to its theme of desire and lush sensuality - with the evocative image of a juicy peach

In the summer of 1983, an American professor of archeology resides as before in a villa in Northern Italy, where an attractive assistant and student from America, Oliver is welcomed to stay in the house for some weeks, in which he sparks up a passionate romance with the professor and his wife's son, Elio.

Call Me by Your Name is written by James Ivory (The Guru (1969)), based on the same-titled 2007 novel by André Aciman (Eight White Nights (2010)), and directed as the 5th feature by great Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love/Io Sono l'Amore (2009)), designated the last part of his Desire trilogy (I Am Love and A Bigger Splash (2015) are the previous entries.)
Call Me by Your Name certainly is a film about desire, - actually capital D Desire. It is achingly sensual and erotic. Not that scenes runs amuck in explicit sex as Abdellatif Kechiche's recent, great lesbian love story Blue Is the Warmest Color/La Vie d'Adèle (2013) did. - Which is disappointing to some audiences, and relieving others. And yet, depending on one's tastes, Call Me by Your Name may be the most erotic film to come out in many years. Its sensuality is constant, and its sexually vibrant portrayal of consuming desire is pulsing and sparking off the screen. Call Me by Your Name is hot, hot, hot!
The relation depicted, - between Timothée Chalamet (Homeland (2012), TV-series), who was 21 at the time of filming, but plays a 17 year-old, and Armie Hammer (J. Edgar (2011)), who is (just) 9 years his senior in real life, - could have been taken to thematic places of something about the forbidden fruits, - but this is not the direction in Call Me by Your Name. This is mainly due to the unique, insightful nature of Elio's parents, played with inspiring dignity by Amira Casar (Me and Kaminski/Ich und Kaminski (2015)) and Michael Stuhlbarg (American Experience (2006-09) documentary TV-series). Chalamet and Hammer are impressively natural and delicious to look at in the main parts, playing the kind of cinema infatuation that seems so convincing that one can't help wonder, if it continued off-screen.
Call Me by Your Name is beautifully shot on 35 mm film by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Soi Cowboy (2008)) and benefits from two sensitive songs by Sufjan Stevens created for the film, Mystery of Love and Visions of Gideon.
The film has very little in the way of a conflict, much less anything resembling ugliness. It is guilty pleasure in its purest form: a mountain of exploration has to be conquered; this happens, and then there is the after, the hurt. The lush Italian summer scenery competes with the actors' sudden love, piano playing and intellectual, elitist discourses, SPOILER and the sole conflict of the film becomes that time invariably runs out for this precious summer's romance. At the aching conclusion, we remain with the mushy Elio, and woe to the audience member who doesn't him/herself remember the keen pain that follows an end to a lovely romance such as this.
In this way, Call Me by Your Name is a far opposite to the last major gay break-out film, Barry Jenkins' great Moonlight (2016), which followed a gay man's growing up in a situation that was not lacking in conflict.
Call Me by Your Name is a noble tribute to the strong experiences of love that some are lucky enough to enjoy at some point in life, one of those that bloom but are cut off, short and sweet - and fiercely painful. The romance's loveliness here is so intense and its course so calm and pleasant so as to almost be too much for some, as myself, who can't help but become jealous, in some way, towards the two. We share in their fictional connection, at least, while the movie is on.

Related posts:

 

Top 10: Best gay-themed titles

2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 3.5 mil. $
Box office: 25.4 mil. $ and counting 
=  Already a huge hit
[Call Me by Your Name premiered 22 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 132 minutes. The book rights were bought in 2007, and Ivory was involved first. His script included more explicit sex and nudity, voice-over narration and a section in Rome, all of which Guadagnino removed once he was hired to direct, citing "market realities". Shia LeBeouf was in talks for the Oliver part but was dropped due to his "various troubles." Hammer and Chalamet had no screen test but was chosen following a rehearsal in which they made out convincingly. Shooting took 32-24 days from May - June 2016 on location in the Lombardy region in Italy. Chalamet already knew how to play piano and speak French, but learned the guitar and his Italian lines specifically for the film. The film opened #14, its peak, in 4 theaters to a 412k $ first weekend in North America, the highest per-theater average of 2017. It widened to 815 theaters and has grossed 14.3 mil. $ there to date. It has still to open in several major markets: France (28 Feb.), Germany (1 Mar.), South Korea (22 Mar.) and Japan (27 April). The film is nominated for 4 Oscars: For Best Picture, Actor (Chalamet, - the youngest nominee since Mickey Rooney for Babes in Arms (1937)), Adapted Screenplay and Song (Mystery of Love). It was nominated for 2 Golden Globes, 4 BAFTAs, won an AFI Film of the Year award, is nominated for 6 Independent Spirit Awards, won two National Board of Review awards as well as many other honors. IMDb users have voted it into the site's Top 250; at #186, it sits between Wild Tales (2014) and Platoon (1986). Hammer returned in Final Portrait (2017), Chalamet in Hot Summer Nights (2017), and Guadagnino is returning with two slated 2018 titles; his much anticipated remake of Dario Argento's horror masterpiece Suspiria (1977), also titled Suspiria, and a thriller, Rio. He has also talked of a sequel to Call Me by Your Name and has laid out plans to continue Elio and Oliver's story in several films as François Truffaut did with his Antoine Doinel films. A dubious plan for this by Guadagnino is that Elio does not become a gay man but instead cultivates "an intense relationship" with Marzia (Esther Garrel (Thirst Street (2017))), his female fling in the film. Call Me by Your Name is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Call Me by Your Name?