Meet the free, proud, independent people of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Nothing but reviews. In excess.
From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. December 2024: Updated lists of the best and worst of 2002, 2014 and 2016 - Now with 2,300+ reviews!
Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)
Johnny Depp's Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness (2024)
Hot and cold meet in terms of colors on this star-pushing poster for Lee Tamahori's Next
A Las Vegas magician can see 2 minutes into his future, as he gets involved in a shooting incident. In its wake he is wanted in order to help retrieve a stolen weapon, and he also falls in love.
Next is written by Gary Goldman (Big Trouble in Little China (1986)), Jonathan Hensleigh (Armageddon (1998)) and Paul Bernbaum (Hollywoodland (2006)), loosely adapting the 1954 short story The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick (The Man Who Japed (1956)), and directed by great New-Zealander filmmaker Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors (1994)).
It is regrettably a very bad Dick adaptation. The script is the main culprit: If you ask questions about the plot (as one usually does), almost nothing holds up in Next.
Jessica Biel (The A-Team (2010)) and Nicolas Cage (Astro Boy (2009)) barely make the cut performance-wise, but nothing much happens to their characters in terms of development. Hollow action and CGI doesn't salvage this miscarriage.
[Next was released 25 April (France, Belgium) and runs 96 minutes. Shooting took place from April 2006 - ? in Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada and California, including Los Angeles. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit Disturbia and fellow new release The Invisible, to a 7.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 18.2 mil. $ (23.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 7.1 mil. $ (9.2 %) and the UK with 4.9 mil. $ (6.3 %). Tamahori returned with The Devil's Double (2011). Cage returned in National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007); Biel in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007); and Julianne Moore (Gloria Bell (2018)) in Savage Grace (2007). Next is rotten at 28 % with a 4.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Contrasting colors used deftly on this poster for Ole Christian Madsen's Angels in Fast Motion, which showcases its three derelict main characters
In Aalborg, Jutland we meet Steso, a drug addict rebel with high-minded ideas; Maria, a crisis-hit drug mule; and Allan, a scarred factory worker with a debt. All of them have dysfunctional family backgrounds.
Angels in Fast Motion is written by Bo Hr. Hansen (Speed Walking/Kapgang (2014)) and great Danish filmmaker, co-writer/director Ole Christian Madsen (Lykkelige Jim (1993)), adapting the same-titled 2002 novel by Jakob Ejersbo (Liberty (2009)). The original title, which translates to 'North force', is the name of the now closed power plant by the harbor in Aalborg.
Madsen steals from films that Angels in Fast Motion don't anywhere near in terms of quality (such as Requiem for a Dream (2000) and The Rules of Attraction (2002)). The film has lots of good - but sometimes distracting - Danish rock.
Thure Lindhardt (Kill Command (2016)), Farshad Kholghi (Åndehullet (2003, TV-series)) and others do well in the credible characters created by Ejersbo. Angels in Fast Motion is bogged down by many poor dispositions by Madsen, - excessive use of voice-over, unimpressive camera work, sudden stylization etc., - and it finally comes out a neither very punchy nor a good film.
In this video Madsen talks about his most recent film The Day We Died/Krudttønden (2020)
Cost: Reportedly 20.2 mil. DKK
Box office: At least 14.6 mil. DKK
= Huge flop (returned 0.72 times its cost)
[Angels in Fast Motion was released 4 March (Denmark) and runs 120 minutes. Shooting took place from March - June 2004 in Denmark, including Copenhagen. The film sold 195,265 tickets in Denmark, coming to a gross of around 14.5 mil. DKK. The film won 5/7 Robert awards, Denmark's Oscar. Madsen returned with Prague/Prag (2006). Lindhardt returned in Bag det Stille Ydre (2005); Signe Egholm (Breeder (2020)) in Den Store Dag (2005); and Claus Riis Østergaard (Hacker (2019)) in Cecilie (2007). 2,700+ IMDb users have given Angels in Fast Motion a 6.8/10 average rating.]
Swept in cloudy skies, violence and romance are promised on this muted colored poster for Terrence Malick's The New World
As strange ships arrive from the East in 1608, Pocahontas and her tribes' lives are soon changed forever.
The New World is written and directed by Illinoisan master filmmaker Terrence Malick (Badlands (1973)), whose 4th feature it is.
It is a film that divides its audiences sharply. Those who see the light in The New World really see the light in it. There is no question that Emmanuel Lubezki's (The Harvest (1993)) photography is exceptionally beautiful and that James Horner's (Flightplan (2005)) score is commendable, (although little of the music in the film is actually Horner's, due to Malick's unconventional way of working.)
Malick's nature-romantisizing and pseudo-poetical style in a film where, for the longest stretches of it, nothing seems to happen, are deeply aggravating to me. Colin Farrell (Ondine (2009)) as Captain John Smith is mostly inexplicable in terms of the film's plot and stands back as eye-candy in a pompous, women's magazine style drama.
[The New World premiered 25 December (US) and runs 136 minutes, with the first limited release version running 150 minutes. Malick had been working on the script for the film since the late 1970s. When his planned Che Guevara film failed to materialize, he instead found support for this film. Shooting took place from July - November 2004 in England and Virginia. The film opened #44 to a 30k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #9 and in 811 theaters, grossing 12.7 mil. $ (25.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 3.9 mil. $ (7.9 %) and Italy with 3.5 mil. $ (7.1 %). The film was nominated for 1 Oscar: Best Cinematography, lost to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. It also won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 4 notches over this one. Horner was deeply unsatisfied with his collaboration with Malick, who cut and edited his film right up the time of release, leaving little room for the long score Horner had devised: "I never felt so let down by a filmmaker in my life", he has said. The Pocahontas-Smith romance is usually considered to be a fictional invention, as Pocahontas would have been 12, when she first met Smith. Malick returned with The Tree of Life (2011). Farrell returned in Ask the Dust (2006); Q'orianka Kilcher (The Alienist (2018, TV-series)), who plays Pocahontas, returned in Princess Kaiulani (2009). The New World is fresh at 63 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
The title character sprints through a winter landscape on this poster for Dagur Kári's Noi the Albino
When Nói doesn't get up for school, his grandmother goes out and gets the shotgun and fires a shot off out through his window. Nói may be a wunderkind, as his psychologist announces, - but he is also preoccupied and lazy, and a bit of a rascal.
Noi the Albino is written and directed by debuting, great Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kári (The Good Heart (2009)).
It is an unpredictable film that Kári has made, marking the arrival of the Icelandic Jim Jarmusch-reminiscent auteur. He stylishly serves us a mercilessly cold and undesirable portrayal of Icelandic life, which is only uplifted by harsh absurdly comical scenes, SPOILER such as Nói's dropping pig's blood all over his grandmother and father, or when he has to dig a grave in the middle of a blizzard.
Ultimately Noi the Albino is a tragedy that celebrates the eternal dance with the idea of escape, poignantly understandable here in a small Icelandic fishing village.
[Noi the Albino premiered 24 January (Angers European First Film Festival, France) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in Iceland, including in Reykjavik, and in Cuba. The film opened #92 to a 4k $ first weekend in North America (New York), where it peaked at #81 and in 7 theaters, grossing 60k $ (4.7 % of the total gross). The film sold 5,511 tickets in co-producing country Denmark, coming to approximately 418k DKK or 65k $ (5.1 %). The film won 6/11 Edda awards, Iceland's Oscar, was nominated for 3 European Film awards and several other honors. Kári returned with Dark Horse/Voksne Mennesker (2005). Tómas Lemarquis (Blade Runner 2049 (2017)), who plays Nói, returned in Nina's House/La Maison de Nina (2005). Noi the Albino is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
'Be Italian' lures a swanky cast of five non-Italian stars from this glamorous poster for Rob Marshall's Nine
Guido Contino, the leading Italian filmmaker and artiste, is poised to start production on another film, his ninth. But he is blocked from writing its screenplay, and his wife is leaving him. SPOILER Only when he rediscovers the boy within himself can he return to the work.
Nine is written by Anthony Minghella (Women (1983, TV-series)) and Michael Tolkin (Deep Cover (1992)), adapting the same-titled 1982 Broadway musical by Maury Yeston (Grand Hotel (1989)) and Arthur Kopit (Phantom (1992)), and directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago (2002)).
It is naturally regrettable to any admirer of Italian cinema that the country's artists don't conquer the world themselves with this musical based on cinema icon Federico Fellini's situation following his 8½ (1963). Yet Marshall has mixed a fiery cocktail with a delectable cast of Daniel Day-Lewis (The Age of Innocence (1993)), Penélope Cruz (All the Pretty Horses (2000)), Sophia Lorén (Angela (1977)), Judi Dench (Quantum of Solace (2008)), Marion Cotillard (The Immigrant (2013)), Nicole Kidman (The Railway Man (2013)) and others and marvelous costumes, so that Nine transports us to an Italian wonderland in its best sequences nonetheless. Fergie's (Marmaduke (2010)) number as Saraghina is very good.
Marshall talks about the movie in this 4-minute clip
Cost: 80 mil. $
Box office: 54 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.67 times its cost)
[Nine premiered 3 December (London) and runs 118 minutes. Cotillard was paid 1 mil. $ for her performance in the film. Shooting took place from October 2008 - January 2009 in Italy, including in Rome, and in England, including in London. The film opened #21 to a 257k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #8 the following weekend in 1,412 theaters, grossing 19.6 mil. $ (36.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 7.5 mil. $ (13.9 %) and the UK with 4.5 mil. $ (8.3 %). The film was nominated for 4 Oscars: Best Supporting Actress (Cruz), lost to Mo'Nique in Precious, Art Direction, lost to Avatar, Costume Design, lost to The Young Victoria, and Song (Take It All by Yeston), lost to The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart. It was also nominated for an Oscar, 5 Golden Globes and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Marshall returned with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011). Day-Lewis returned in Lincoln (2012); Cotillard in 3 shorts prior to her theatrical return in Inception (2010); and Cruz in Sex and the City 2 (2010). Nine is rotten at 39 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Daniel Craig a.k.a. James Bond has turned left on this poster for Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time to Die
James Bond has retired from MI6 to work for CIA and live more leisurely. But when old pal Felix Leiter urges Bond to return to locate a kidnapped scientist with a potentially world-threatening bio-weapon, he picks up the baton yet again.
No Time to Die is written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade (Casino Royale (2006), both), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag (2016-19)) and great Californian filmmaker, co-writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Sin Nombre (2009)). It is the 25th in the Bond franchise and star Daniel Craig's (Saint-Ex (1996)) 5th and last turn as the British spy.
Expectations have run sky-high for this film, the most eagerly anticipated major release that has been pushed out several times by the China Virus pandemic, arriving unusually long 6 years since Bond's last outing in Spectre (2015).
Unfortunately there's much to regret about the film, although many (critics included) seem to be so starved for a major theatrical delivery that they are bulldozing over its many weaknesses. The longest Bond film to date, the film may be said to be this egregiously long because it takes a regular Bond film and then slaps a drama on top of it. Any Bond movie is to be evaluated against the legacy going before it, and how it ranks according to franchise-specific metrics. This film had a troubled production (read below for details) and attempts to mosey out of many 007 traditions and do something new, even as it does very traditional things in the directly following scene.
SPOILER The opening scenes are a long, unusual backstory that's not about Bond, which is unheard of. Then followed by romantic drama scenes and then finally the action-packed sensation that is the traditional Bond opening scene. This naturally takes a while, since it is essentially three opening scenarios instead of just one. (Spectre had a terrific, vivid action-packed Mexico City-set opening sensation of the traditional breed back in 2015.) Billie Eilish's opening credit title song is perhaps the worst ever created for a Bond film; slow, unmelodious and depressing, a song few if any will ever want to listen to outside of the film experience, playing to traditionally stylish credits.
The filmmakers obviously want to try to clean up their franchise and embrace the times, which may very well result in an unrecognizable Bond the next time around. SPOILER In this chapter, Bond is deeply in love with the same woman from the previous film, played by Léa Seydoux (Midnight in Paris (2011)), who has given birth to their daughter, (another first). So now family man Bond collaborates with three young women agents, including Lashana Lynch (Powder Room (2013)), who by the way has taken over his 007 agent number, and gay tech and gadget expert Q in his world peace efforts. This is getting very, very far indeed from the glamorous, escapist, violence and sex-based male fantasy that Ian Fleming originally created with the Bond character and universe. My patience for this 'modernization' (or rather, liberal scrubbing) of the 007 universe is thinning fast.
Craig is terrifically watchable as usual, and among the supporting cast David Dencik (Gentlemen (2014)) injects humor into almost every second he is on-screen as the kidnapped scientist Obruchev, and Jeffrey Wright (Hold the Dark (2018)) is warm as Leiter, but no-one else really makes interesting turns. No Time to Die is over-long by three quarters of an hour to an hour, depending on how hard you look at it. This is fatal. It isn't so much edited as it is allowing excesses in different directions, resulting in a film with five villains (besides Dencik and Billy Magnussen (The Big Short (2015)), there's Christoph Waltz (She (2001)), Dali Benssalah (A Faithful Man (2018)) and Rami Malek (Papillon (2017)), all disfigured) and countless long dialog scenes, most of them not good enough to justify their portions of the film.
There are thankfully still rousing action scenes and stunts that pull one from the stupor of these problems and raise the pulse for the best periods of No Time to Die, but this is still a Bond film that belongs with the lowest-rated third portion of the large body of Bond work. SPOILER Worst of all, however, may be the completely horrible ending, in which Bond gets blown up on the bio-weapon island, a new first that is completely out of tune with the entire Bond fantasy and legacy and seems a desperate ploy from filmmakers that have seen Superman die in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and gone, 'we can do that too'. It isn't dramatically satisfying, because it disregards the entire Fleming-created fantasy universe (and its fans), and revitalizing 007 with a new actor after this can almost only go wrong after these many missteps in No Time to Die, as it will either alienate original fans even more or anger the left-leaning howling choir, who seemingly won't rest happily before a lesbian, Muslim, African 007 solves the climate crisis as Bond, (while raising a litter of multi-colored kids). Take it or (rather) leave it.
[No Time to Die premiered 28 September (London, England and Switzerland) and runs 163 minutes. John Hodge and Danny Boyle were hired to write and direct the film but left due to creative differences in 2018, delaying the production. Craig was reportedly paid 25 mil. $ for his performance. It was he who requested the Waller-Bridge be hired to rewrite the script and add to its female characters and humor. Shooting took place from March - December 2019 in Norway, Jamaica, England, including London, Scotland, Italy and the Faroe Islands. Composer Dan Romer was replaced with Hans Zimmer due to creative differences during post production, the first time this has ever happened on a Bond film. The first of three release moves due to the China Virus pandemic cost 66 mil. $ additionally lost on marketing. Each month after that reportedly incurred another 1 mil. $ in interest charges. The massive costs led MGM to negotiate with Apple and Netflix about selling the film to them for VoD, but their 600-850 mil. $ asking price was too steep for the companies, who were reportedly offering no more than 400 mil. $. The film opened #1 to a 55.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it fell to #2 in its 2nd weekend and has grossed 111.7 mil. $ to date. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are the UK, remarkable not far behind the US with 94.2 mil. $ and Germany with 46.2 mil. $. The film is opening in China 29 October and in Australia 11 November. It will need to gross at least 300 mil. $ more in order to go in the black. Fukunaga is returning with 3 episodes of miniseries Masters of the Air. Craig returns in Knives Out 2 (2022). No Time to Die is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Warm colors adorn this pleasant poster for Mira Nair's The Namesake
Gogol grows up with Indian parents in the US, where he becomes Nick. But following his father's death, he reassumes his birth identity as Gogol, while his cultural division is not without its hurdles.
The Namesake is written by Sooni Taraporevala (Mississippi Masala (1991)), adapting the same-titled 2003 novel by Jumpa Lahiri (The Lowland (2013)), and directed by Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay! (1988)).
The Namesake is a colorful account of fate, beautiful in a way, and it is a terrific contemporary portrayal of a problematic life as a second-generation immigrant in the West.
The acting is fair, and the great challenge of filming this 30-year spanning story succeeds commendably. The Namesake is in a way perhaps almost too well-meaning to really take new ground.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 9.5 mil. $
Box office: 20.3 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.13 times its cost)
[The Namesake premiered 2 September (Telluride Film Festival) and runs 121 minutes. Shooting took place from March - June 2005 in India, including in Calcutta, Sydney, Australia, New York, Denver, Colorado and in Boston, Massachusetts. The film opened #26 to a 248k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #12 and in 335 theaters (different weeks), grossing 13.5 mil. $ (66.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were India with 1.8 mil. $ (8.9 %) and the UK with 1 mil. $ (4.9 %). The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit award and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Nair returned with 3 shorts prior to her theatrical return with Amelia (2009). Kal Penn (We Are Men (2013, TV-series)) returned in Deck the Halls (2006); Irrfan Khan (Haider (2014)) in Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghante (2006); and Tabu (Khanjar (2003)) in Sarhad Paar (2006). The Namesake is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
