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. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label Timothée Chalamet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Timothée Chalamet. Show all posts
The smooth, hairless visage of twinkie headliner Timothée Chalamet with his signature lazy-horny stare, against a colorful horizon make up this stylized poster for Elijah Bynum's Hot Summer Nights
A young man is to spend the summer with his aunt in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1991, and there he soon becomes a business partner and friend of the local pusher.
Hot Summer Nights is written and directed by debuting Elijah Bynum (One Dollar (2018, TV-series), writer)).
Right before lecturing the world on the tragic consequences of drug dependence (in Beautiful Boy (2018)), the then fumbling Timothée Chalamet (Wonka (2023)), - yet before his breakthrough in Call Me By Your Name (2017), - just wanted to entertain with drugs viewed as a product like any other. There is a vibe of braindead consumerism about this film, which is thickly sauced in hit songs and unnecessary narration (from a random other boy in the vacation spot apparently...) Another part of the vibe is the way the young stars are peddled as irresistibly sexy by Bynum and cinematographer Javier Julia (Argentina, 1985 (2022)).
The attempt hardly succeeds in a dour and unexciting story that is lacking in contemporary relevance. Despite the sexy young Chalamet this is a poor call of a film.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Unknown, projected 3 mil. $
Box office: 246k $ (international gross only); 300k $ projected final gross
= Box office disaster (projected return of 0.1 times its cost)
[Hot Summer Nights premiered 13 March (South by South West Film Festival) and runs 107 minutes. Shooting took place in Georgia and Massachusetts. The film's North-American gross has been kept secret, - it must be tiny, - and the film only has public gross numbers from 3 markets: Russia with 141k $, South Korea with 89k $ and Lithuania with 15k $. If made on a conservatively put 3 mil. $ budget, the film would rank as a box office disaster. Bynum returned with Magazine Dreams (2023). Chalamet returned in Lady Bird (2017); Maika Monroe (Villains (2019)) in The Scent of Rain & Lightning (2017); and Alex Roe (The 5th Wave (2016)) in Forever My Girl (2018)). Hot Summer Nights is rotten at 44 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Stars assembled in a restrained color palette make up most of this poster for Denis Villeneuve's Dune
Paul Atreides is the heir in the House of Atreides, sent to rule the planet Arrakis, where the spice harvest is vital for space travel in the universe. But he and his mother soon find that they may have been set up to fail...
Dune is written by Jon Spaiths (The Darkest Hour (2011)), Eric Roth (Suspect (1987)) and Canadian master filmmaker, co-writer/co-producer/director Denis Villeneuve (August 32nd on Earth/Un 32 Août sur Terre (1998)), adapting Frank Herbert's (The Dragon in the Sea (1955-56)) same-titled 1965 novel.
Herbert's sci-fi classic has been adapted before (without much luck) by David Lynch as Dune (1984); and Chilean-French Alexander Jodorowsky's major Dune adaptation fell to pieces in the 1970s, chronicled in documentary Jodorowsky's Dune (2013). Now the novel is 56 years old and hardly modern anymore. It takes place about 8,000 years into the future but its widely spanning plot and universe feels more like a viking saga than a realistic situation we will actually find ourselves in far into the future.
Villeneuve has gathered a large, fine cast with the transfixing Timothée Chalamet (One and Two (2015)) in front as Paul Atreides. Stellan Skarsgård (The Railway Man (2013)) is made out as a giant fat villain as Harkonnen, and Jason Momoa (Pipeline (2007)) is enjoyable as the film's alpha warrior with the fitting name Duncan Idaho. His fight scenes are among the film's most exciting moments, along with flight in the Dune world's peculiar insect-like helicopters and one sandworm monster attack.
The dichotomy of harsh militaristic evil with greedy-capitalistic characteristics set against a people 'of the earth' with simple survival and fighting skills and no major power structure (here the so-called Fremen tribe which Paul goes to meet) is familiar SF fantasy territory to say the least, and there's no alleviating humor, romance or sex in Dune, which is very serious throughout its elaborate but easily followed story, most of which takes place on a desert planet, (so also no exotic lush worlds but a deliciously crackling sound design.) - As an experience it may therefore leave you feeling parched.
Despite the fascinating production design, costumes and engaged stars, Dune suffers from some of the same malaise that hindered Villeneuve's preceding film Blade Runner 2049 (2017) from really scoring; it is very long and serious, and it made me zone out and doze off once or twice, despite its respectable credentials. I predict it highly doubtful that Villeneuve's announced 2nd and 3rd Dune movies will ever see the light of day.
[Dune premiered 3 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 155 minutes. Peter Berg was initially hired to direct the film for Paramount. Villeneuve had read the book as a teenager and said, "Dune is my world." Shooting took place from March - July 2019 in Austria, Slovakia, Norway, Jordan, Budapest, Hungary and in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Hans Zimmer elected to drop scoring Christopher Nolan's Tenet in order to score Dune, a favorite novel of his. Despite protests from Villeneuve, Dune will release in North America simultaneously theatrically and VoD at HBO Max for its first month, as is the case with all Warner Bros. 2021 titles due to the China Virus pandemic. The film's release has been pushed out almost a year due to the pandemic, and the release strategy's effect on the possibility for Villeneuve's planned Dune trilogy is yet unknown. The film has released to solid numbers in several mostly European markets yet, but has several major markets left to open in, including North America and China. A traditional theatrical evaluation requires the film to pass 412.5 mil. $ in gross to become profitable, however the streaming strategy is making the evaluation murky. IMDb users have rated the film in at #107 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Dangal (2016) and The Father (2020). Villeneuve is scheduled to return with The Son (miniseries). Chalamet returns in Don't Look Up (2021, VoD). Dune is fresh at 90 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
+ Best Adaptation of the Year + Best American Movie of the Year + Best Big Hit Movie of the Year + Best Ensemble of the Year: Eliza
Scanlen, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet,
Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Louis Garrel, Chris
Cooper+ Best Massachusetts Movie of the Year + Best Melodrama of the Year + Best On-Screen Couple of the Year: Saoirse Ronan & Timothée Chalamet+ Shooting Star Actress of the Year: Florence Pugh
The four beautiful, fresh-faced young women stars of Greta Gerwig's Little Women shine bright on this delicate, well-composed poster for the film
We follow the four March sisters Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth, as they develop from youths to women in 1860s Massachusetts. Little Women is written and directed by Californian master filmmaker Greta Gerwig (Nights and Weekends (2008)), whose 3rd film it is, as well as the high point in her career so far. It is the 7th adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's (Under the Lilacs (1878)) same-titled 1868 autobiographical novel. The film is a delightful wonder, a sumptuous production with a deliciously flowing and pristine score by Alexandre Desplat (Suffragette (2015)). The costumes are masterful and full of bold colors, which fit the youthful, hopeful spirits of the characters perfectly. The ensemble is likely the year's most splendid, and each breathe wonderful life into Alcott's rich story: As the sisters, we have newcomers Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects (2018, miniseries)) and Florence Pugh (Malevolent (2018)), who is wonderful as Amy, and major stars Emma Watson (My Week with Marilyn (2011)) and Saoirse Ronan (Lost River (2014)). Timothée Chalamet (One and Two (2015)) is the vibrant, charming Laurie, the delectable neighbor who enthralls more than one March sister, and both Ronan and Chalamet are canonically good and as sweet as can be. This also seems like it simply must be the last time that these two can seem like a 16 year-old Waif and Adonis, (he is 24 now, she 25); the brilliant, innocent gleam must naturally come to an end for them, and it may come around now so suck them in as the chalices of youth that they still very much are here. Completing the cast are a solid group of proven actor greats; Meryl Streep (Dark Matter (2007)), Laura Dern (Wilson (2017)), Tracy Letts (Homeland (2013-14)), - very satisfying as Jo's direct New York editor, - Bob Odenkirk (Long Shot (2019)), Louis Garrel (Two Friends/Les Deux Amis (2015)) - another young hot male actor, - and finally Chris Cooper (The Company Men (2010)), who is great as Mr. Laurence. Little Women is a very positive and sweet film and story. At times it may come close to feeling too lovely, (strange thing, hu), but then you remember that this is the story of four young sisters, who inhabit a very lovely world, not least because of the firm, positive values they get with them from home, - and it is, after all, very nice to inhabit a lovelier world for a couple of hours than the one you have for the surrounding part of your life, when it is so well-made and deeply moving as Little Women is.
Gerwig has structured the story ingeniously with advanced chronology, always keeping us close to its flame. She has also directed the film so that it is a great drama that you realize underway is a melodrama, and which comes to its end in a staggeringly wonderful, romantic climax, which at the same time plays with the audience's expectations in an intelligent way, underlining the film's themes of female independence and artistry in a patriarchal society. If you know the story, you'll know where it goes, but Gerwig makes Little Women as toweringly universal, pregnant with meaning and feeling above all that you'll want to absolutely catch this treasure in a cinema. Related posts: Greta Gerwig: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Cost: 40 mil. $ Box office: 133.6 mil. $ and counting = Box office success (returned 3.34 times its cost) [Little Women premiered 7 December (New York) and runs 135 minutes. Sarah Polley was in talks to make the film, before Gerwig was hired. It is the 7th adaptation of the novel. Emma Stone dropped out months prior to shooting and was replaced by Watson. Shooting took place in Massachusetts, including Boston, from October - December 2018. As on Gerwig's previous film, Lady Bird, she banned cellphones from the set. The film opened #4, behind holdover hits Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Jumanji: The Next Level and Frozen II, to a 16.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#3) and has grossed 86.7 mil. $ (64.9 % of the total gross). The film has 18 more markets announced to open in the coming months, including Germany, South Korea, China and Japan. Its final gross may well grow way past 150 mil. $, and could even cross 200 mil. $. It is nominated for 6 Oscars: Best Picture, Actress (Ronan), Supporting Actress (Pugh), Adapted Screenplay, Costumes and Score. It was nominated for 2 Golden Globes, is nominated for 5 BAFTAs and won an AFI award, among many other honors. IMDb's users have voted it in at #238 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) and Before Sunset (2004). Gerwig is announced to next head the long-in-gestation Barbie movie. Ronan returns in The French Dispatch (2020); Watson does not have her next acting gig announced yet; Pugh returns in Black Widow (2020), and Scanlen in The Devil All the Time (2020). Little Women is certified fresh at 95 % with a 8.59/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of Little Women?
+ 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.
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?
