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?

The Social Network (2010) - Fincher's a-hole biopic leaves me cold (and more anti-Facebook than ever)

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Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg behind the huge tagline for David Fincher's The Social Network

 

The Social Network tells the story of how a group of assholes created the platform that made the rest of the world a bit more socially distanced, unsympathetic, frat-boy-like assholes like themselves: Facebook.

The film is written by Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball (2011)), based on (but apparently more accurately; written around the same time as) Ben Mezrich's (Reaper (1998)) The Accidental Billionaires (2009), and directed by Coloradoan master filmmaker David Fincher (Se7en (1995)). Like many of Fincher's films, The Social Network is deeply competently made and phallocentric. He brandishes a peanut-sized heart here with a film that doesn't really awaken any emotions, despite dislike for several of its characters. It races towards the finish line and in doing so feels pretty shallow, not unlike the invention it portrays.

The actors do fine jobs, although it is sad to watch Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale (2005)) as alienated and humanly blunted as we get him here. Armie Hammer (J. Edgar (2011)) plays a pair of twins, which are the film's most sympathetic and funniest characters.

The Social Network is without a doubt among the most overrated films of the year.

 

Related reviews:

 

David Fincher: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) - Fincher's Nordic noir is technically astute but overlong and redundant

Alien 3 (1992) or, The Monsters Go to Jail!

Watch a teaser trailer for the film here

Cost: 40 mil. $

Box office: 224.9 mil. $

= Huge hit

[The Social Network premiered September 24 (New York Film Festival) and runs 120 minutes. Sorkin began writing and researching based on a 14-page book proposal, while Mezrin was also writing his book. Filming took place in Massachusetts, Maryland, California and England, beginning in October 2009. The film opened #1 to a 22.4 mil. $ first weekend, staying atop for another week and spending a total of four weeks in the top 5 in North America, where it grossed 96.9 mil. $ (43.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 16.9 mil. $ (7.5 %) and the UK with 16.8 mil. $ (7.5 %). Several people portrayed in the film, including Zuckerberg, found that it was historically inaccurate, especially in upping the drama of the lives of the main characters. The film got nominated for 8 Oscars: It won for Best Adapted Screenplay, Score and Editing. It lost Best Picture to The King's Speech, Actor (Eisenberg) to King's Speech (Colin Firth), Directing to King's Speech (Tom Hooper), Cinematography to Inception and Sound Mixing also to Inception. It was also nominated for 6 Golden Globes, winning 4, and for 6 BAFTAs, winning 3. It was on at least 78 critics' top 10 list of the year, topping 22 (including Roger Ebert's), reportedly the most for any film of the year. In its first week out on DVD and Blu-ray, it made an additional 13.4 mil. $ on that. The Social Network is certified fresh at 96 % with a 9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Social Network?

J. Edgar (2011) - Eastwood, Black and DiCaprio's great, intense biopic

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1 Time Film Excess Award Winner:

Best Make-up and Hair: Alessandro Bertolazzi, Kathryn Blondell, Sian Grigg, Duncan Jarman, Tania McComas, Carol A. O'Connell

3 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black (lost to Rory Stewart Kinnear, Lynne Ramsay for We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (lost to Jack Black for Bernie)
Best Make-up and Hair: Alessandro Bertolazzi, Kathryn Blondell, Sian Grigg, Duncan Jarman, Tania McComas, Carol A. O'Connell (won)

+ Best Biopic of the Year

Leonardo DiCaprio as the titular intelligence hawk, Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar

QUICK REVIEW:

Presented with jumps in time of several decades, some of the most important cases and periods that define FBI founder and chief through 48 years, J. Edgar Hoover is portrayed.

Contrary to the unbalanced opinions of many, regular audiences and critics alike, (perhaps due to the politically controversial figure that is the subject here), J. Edgar is actually a mighty fine film, master filmmaker Clint Eastwood's best since Gran Torino (2008).
Dustin Lance Black's (Milk (2008)) sensitive script covers the Lindbergh-baby kidnapping, the G-Men PR of the 1930s, Hoover during Roosevelt's presidency and his de facto power over them through various extortions, through to Nixon and Martin Luther King, - and to Hoover's life-long confidant - and secret love of his life - Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger (2013))). It is all presented in superiorly controlled fashion, soberly, and phenomenally played by Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) in the imposing title role.
J. Edgar is both moving and an important piece of historical drama about one of the most powerful men of the 20th century.

Related posts:
 
Clint Eastwood: American Sniper (2014) - Eastwood conveys an American man and myth in electric masterpiece
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess   
The Changeling (2008) or, The Christine Collins Story
The Dead Pool (1988) - The highly entertaining last Dirty Harry movie (actor)
City Heat (1984) - Eastwood and Reynolds wrestle dispassionately in Benjamin's messy period affair (actor)
Tightrope (1984) - An undervalued Clint Eastwood sex killer thriller (actor)
Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business! (actor)
The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller (actor)
Dirty Harry (1971) - Eastwood's great, signature renegade cop character comes to life (actor)
Coogan's Bluff (1968) or, Dopes and Hippies, Beat It! (actor)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho (actor) 

Leonardo DiCaprio, impressively, also remains believable as Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar in his latter years

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Cost: 35 mil. $
Box office: 84.6 mil. $
= Minor flop
[J. Edgar nearly made the financial cut theatrically, and probably earned a small profit with video and TV exploitation. DiCaprio was Globe-nominated for his acting in it. It opened with a 11.2 mil. $ opening weekend and grossed 37.3 mil. $ (44 % of the total gross) in North America. Though derided by several dubious critics, J. Edgar also has other fans besides Film Excess: Like Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter, David Denby of The New Yorker and Roger Ebert, who gave it 3½ stars out of four (equal to my 5 hearts.)]

What do you think of J. Edgar?