charmaments Reviews

Fireworks Wednesday (2006)

Good, but not great.

[7/10 · 8 February 2017]

I watched this film with a mixed group of people, some Iranians, some non-Iranians who had seen many Iranian films and some who had never seen an Iranian film before.

The ones who had never seen an Iranian film were amazed, thinking this is the greatest thing sine sliced bread. The rest merely liked the film. The first group was shocked by how good this thing is, probably unaware that Iran makes actual films (maybe thinking Iran just makes anti-US films?), but what amazed them is how real the story felt like and how different it is from anything they had seen before.

Yes, Iranian films are very realistic because they chose subjects that are not implausible to begin with. It's not difficult for Iranians to act roles of husband, wife, child, father, son, roles they actually play in real life. What's more difficult is to act roles they don't play in real life - Sassanian knight, medieval poet, secret agent, drug dealer, prisoner, etc.

This film's originality is because there are few Hollywood films (or even world films) like it. In that sense it is quite original. In another sense, it is very Iranian and there are quite a few Iranian films like it.

This movie is a slice of life into the lives of a married couple through the eyes of a cleaning lady who they also use for errands, as a babysitter, as a spy and as an alibi. She is a poor, simple and rural girl, and thorough her innocent eyes we see the lives of the upper middle class, how their financial security does not save them from living in a personal hell. It is a slice-of-life film taking place in a 16 hour period, a story that drops you gob smack in the middle of the story and leaves you without an ending.

That is my biggest problem with the film. I have no problem with a slice-of-life stories. I really love them. I have no particular problem with stories that don't have proper beginnings, that just start in the middle letting your brain connect the threads together, arranging the pieces of the puzzle as you get new bits of information. I actually think that this may be a better approach than an exposition at the start of the film - such as an introductory text, or overhearing a conversation that sets up the story in its entirety, i.e. something like "I think my husband is having an affair. I think it's the neighbor. I saw her number on our caller ID. Someone heard his voice on her answering machine. He also smells like a woman's perfume. Could you please spy on her for me?" That's a terrible way to start a film.

I'm also neutral on stories without a clear-cut ending. Or a story without a central character. But films like this are unsatisfying.

No beginning and no ending is a bit too much for me. It's as if you went to your friends house, a married couple, watched them fight for a few hours, get dragged into it, provide an alibi, and then leave. That's the movie.

Of course, there's more to it than that. This movie is a window into Iran, into the Iranian middle- class, into married life in general, into Tehran and into Newrouz. In 100 minutes, we get to see through this window into a country, a social class, a building, a nuclear family, a city and a festival. But we don't get to see a story. We overhear a story, we catch a glimpse of it, like seeing a couple fight in a restaurant. If you're there long enough, you'll hear the entire history of the couple, along with the lists of mistakes each of them has done, but you won't hear a conclusion. Contrast this with About Elly, which is also a slice-of-life film, but has a clear beginning and end.

The lack of conclusion is not the only flaw with this film. It's that this kind of film is not really original for Iran. Someone listening to a jazz song for the first time might think it's completely new, but when you hear more and more you realize that that piece may not have been all that original after all.

I want to see Iranian filmmakers challenge themselves, try to do something that is not just uncommon for world cinema, but uncommon even for Iranian cinema.

There are other weaknesses in this film - the music - the traditional music during the day festivities was good, the bandari songs played during the night festivities were good too, but the soundtrack (played during dramatic scenes) was not good. It was too loud and just not one of the better things from Iranian music. Iran has a rich history of music but there's a big disconnect between Iranian musicians and filmmakers. The only films that have great music are ones about musicians it seems.

Other than that, everything was excellent. Cinematography is brilliant. There are two scenes that stand out, Simin walking on the street and the car ride during Newrouz. A must watch for cinematography fans and film students.

Everything felt realistic. You never feel like anyone is acting. It feels more like a documentary than a stage play, which is a good thing.

It is a good film, but not really a must-watch.

Status: Svoboden (2016)

Boring chick-flick - don't watch, no spoilers, only some non-trailer references

[3/10 · 8 February 2017]

How do you say "chick flick" in Russian? Doesn't matter, because this film fails even by chick- flick standards.

It currently stands at 5.8/10 on the main Russian movie review site (their version of IMDb), buoyed by teenage girls perhaps or Danila Kozlovsky fangirls, but I'm not feeling that generous.

I would rate this film at zero for entertainment factor, but that's harsh. This film is not terrible, it's not a disaster, it's just really not good. It's in that no-man's land between a bad movie and a mediocre one that is barely worth watching.

The biggest problem here is the script. The script, oh, the script. Screen writing is an art best left for professionals. And so is directing. And so is editing. I won't say that Pavel Ruminov is not a professional, but he certainly should not be making films where he is all three, screenwriter, director and editor. It is said that the only thing worse than having a bunch of yes-men to high-five every stupid decision you make is to have yourself as your own yes-man in every position.

A director already has a lot of power and influence and can make a bad script into something acceptable. An editor has less power, but can still try to salvage something out of a dud. When a bad idea goes from napkin to screenplay to RAW to the editing suite all in the hands of one man, there is no hope for this film.

For example, Nikita (the main guy) does a Robert De Niro impression at the start of the film. You get a few chuckles. This is repeated once more and again and again and again. Way too many times. Smart scripts are like magic tricks. They show you something, then it's gone, then it comes back at the end in a dramatic moment. You can't keep pulling a rabbit out of a hat over and over and over for 90 minutes.

Everything here is a cliché, from the girl to the protagonist, to his best friend. The soundtrack of the film is not great and the songs (that characters play) are quite bad. Danila is attractive, but I'm not buying his acting or personality. His charm feels like an act and his depression feels insincere, exaggerated and staged. More of a "look at me, I'm depressed" than a real depression. Someone who goes on a depressed drinking spree starting at the liquor and going to work drunk would have something more than a 1.5 - 2 day stubble. These tiny oversights are not me nit-picking, it just shows you the lack of attention paid to details. I won't list all of them because it's not worth it. Needless to say, Danila has a stubble at the start of the film, then he meets the girl and has the same amount of facial hair, then they break up and he has the same amount of facial hair, despite him being super ultra depressed.

They're selling Danila's pretty face rather than a story. It's all shallow and flat. His best friend is a pale, geeky-looking, shorter man with early-onset male pattern baldness, not really a bad looking dude, but someone there so that we don't take our eyes of Danila. He is less of a character and more a sidekick. He's there to sit there and support Danila's story, listen to him whine and watch him do De Niro impressions over and over.

Whatever.

The only things worth seeing in this film are the montages, which were a nice way to show the passage of time or tell a lot of things without taking a lot of time. This is something that other filmmakers should learn. This film does that to a nice effect. The cinematography is also top notch. I was surprised by how good it was, considering that many Russian non-art films have awful TV-like cinematography. This film actually has a colorist, camera movement, depth of field, smart lighting, camera angles, light parts, dark parts, did I say realistic lighting? Day looks like day, night looks like night, homes look like homes, malls look like malls. It's not all one florescent show.

All in all, this film was made for money first and foremost, but it doesn't deserve any of your money or your time.

The Brothers Grimsby (2016)

Terrible film, unfunny - sad to see the decline of SBC

[4/10 · 2 February 2017]

If you're a fan of Baron-Cohen, don't watch this. It's a big disappointment for a career that once shone so brightly.

If I had to rate Baron-Cohen's works, it would be the original Ali G TV show, then the US version, then the early British film, maybe tied with Bruno and Borat, and this is way, way, way at the bottom.

Ali G used to make me laugh so hard I would cry. I still watch those old DVDs sometimes and it's still funny, many years later. This film was not funny the first time.

A lot of the intelligent word play, intentional misunderstandings and confusions, all those tiny smart things are gone. Baron-Cohen once made a joke about selling or buying nuclear weapons from/to the UK, when the guest said "Kazakhstan does not have nuclear weapons" to which Borat replied "turn off the camera, this interview is over."

You laugh because of the implications, the unspoken idea that Kazakhstan might have nuclear weapons. A crazy thought. Have the joke is on the camera and the other is your mind filling the blanks.

Here, there is no subtlety, nothing unspoken or unsaid. Everything is shown. The insides of an elephant, an elephant orgy, butts, testicles, you name it. Everything is explicit.

It's not crass humor, it's crassness instead of humor. We all laughed at Borat saying "I took a bit sh*t to a dinner party" or references to his sister, a prostitute, being recognized by the Almaty Chamber of Commerce. We laughed at "sexy time" or him awkwardly coming on to guests or Uncle Jamal's "accident" with a vacuum cleaner.

It wasn't subtle, but it was not unsubtle either, and it was very effective.

Here, it's all overdone. Instead of Baron-Cohen asking a copper if a court would believe that he was cutting his lunch with an attack knife, rushed to pick the phone and the knife slipped into his sock and stayed there while he caught the bus to work and accidentally stabbed someone a few times, a highly ridiculous and contrived story, laughing at Ali G's dumb criminality, here this film has him screaming into a megaphone at a world cup final "we are scum."

Baron-Cohen's former personas were a social commentary, providing funny commentary and criticism at everything, from the United Nations to country clubs, from bars in the American South to environmentalist protests in the UK.

This show is just a series of cheap laughs at easy targets. Fart jokes, fat jokes, tea-bagging, etc.

There were some actual moments of comedy, but they're lost in a sea of meh.

Tuesday, After Christmas (2010)

Don't watch this film - no spoilers - Don't say you weren't warned.

[3/10 · 31 January 2017]

This is a "slice of life" film. To give you an example, Fight Club is about the few months in which the main character establishes his first fight club and network of franchises across the country. It's a story that spans quite some time, so some parts are compressed - the highlights are shown, the rest is implied or shown in montages.

Some films focus on a much thinner slice, the peak of the story. This story attempts that. We are not to see the beginning of the relationship, the honeymoon phase, the stagnation and then the affair. We are introduced to the characters already in the middle of the affair period.

The "peak" of this story is the time Paul has to make a decision. Without spoiling the story (not that it could be spoiled), Paul has to chose between these two women, supposedly, according to the synopsis. With deductive reasoning, you can already guess that he is not the one who says "you have to make a choice" - this man is a cheater, his actions already show that he wants both at the same time. So you can guess that this "make a choice" ultimatum was made to him by someone.

But there isn't really much of a choice. We are shown his two lives, a completely normal, uneventful domestic life with his wife and child on one hand and a new relationship on the other, with more passion, since it's the start. In short, one has brushing teeth, shaving and quiet dinners and the other has pillow talk.

This is all from the photos, there are no spoilers here.

Almost everything is in real time, meaning, we're not given the highlights. You know how pillow talk lasts 1 minute in films, whereas in real life it's 15? Don't worry about it, here you get the whole 15. You know how waiting rooms last a long time whereas in films it's seconds? Well, it's all in here. Do you want to see people Christmas shopping? In real time? It's here. It's all long takes.

This film is a short film with little story fattened up with banal scenes that add nothing.

Surely some will see it as some sort of Romanian version of American Beauty, i.e. the middle class dream is not all that great, but this film is seriously overrated. The reviews are all glowing, but it only has 7/10. The number of people giving it 9 and above is almost equal to the number of people giving it 5 and under.

Consider that there is some pre-filtering going on. The average person would not watch a Romanian film to begin with, so the only people voting are people used to more minimalist foreign films. It's still not good though.

The cinema of Romania has experienced many difficult decades, where filmmakers were not allowed to tell the truth about what was happening in their country. This film does not have any of these shackles. Instead, the director showed the real Romania, reality as it is, without a pinch of salt to boost the entertainment value.

Either add a bit of spice to the film to make it more enjoyable or cut it smarter to only show the best parts of this normal life. Even if I were to edit my own boring life, I'd be able to make it interesting by editing out the boring parts.

This film does not only not cut out the boring parts, it is just the boring parts. Those parts are the main focus and that's why it's getting such high praise from people who hate car-chase scenes and roof top fights. I hate car chases too, but I don't want to see a complete, uncut dental appointment from parking to exit.

My friends did not finish this film but I did. They didn't even bother asking what happened later.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Inception (2010)

Great idea, great execution

[9/10 · 31 January 2017]

Almost everything has been said about this film, even though it's slightly polarizing. People that like it love it, but there are many that can't stand this film or its popularity.

This is my review after watching it the second time, the first being in the theater, the second on Blu-ray.

This is almost a perfect film so I will only talk about the things I didn't like.

The action scenes are too long. The snow scene at the end (The one from N64 Goldeneye) was way too long and pointless. The best parts of this film are the idea-based ones - "let's implant an idea in his head" "let's use his father as bait" etc. Instead, we get a lot of "let's have a car chase scene in this city" "let's have a chase in a crowded African bazaar," "let's have a shootout in the snow."

This may be my favorite blockbuster film of all time, but the action goes a little bit on the side of excess.

9/10

Her (2013)

Ted Mosby get a computer girlfriend

[2/10 · 27 January 2017]

I'm surprised by the insane amount of praise this film gets, but then I remembered that I strongly disliked this film but didn't bother giving it a review. If folks that didn't like this film don't review it then it looks like everyone agrees that this film is perfect, which it isn't.

The main character is a version of Theodore Evelyn Mosby from How I Met Your Mother, although here he's called Theodore Twombly. You know the deal He's just a sensitive guy, living in the big city looking for the right one, but no one gets him. He wants Mrs. Perfect, but perfection doesn't exist. So instead of being less intolerant of people's imperfections, Ted wants out. Mosby keeps going from woman to woman saying "she's not the one," but Twombly decides to date a computer instead.

The personality is completely unlikable and the film attempts to make you empathize with someone who is intolerant of others and intolerable himself.

The AI is the perfect woman for Ted, she gives him exactly what he wants while asking for nothing. She has no flaws whatsoever and exists only to make Ted feel better. There's nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong, but the film doesn't let Ted look in the mirror and look into his own soul and mind - how did he become like this? How did he become someone who simply cannot tolerate living with anyone? We are social beings by nature. We would not have reached a population of billions and developed all these things like microprocessors, software, speech recognition and artificial intelligence if we were not social.

But this film doesn't explore these issues. Is Ted's asocial/anti-social behavior the result of a society that has become too consumerist and materialistic for him? Did society lose its soul? Did big corporations kill the concept of society and replace it with consumers?

Did we replace the social experience of a concert with Spotify? Did we replace the art gallery with an iPad? Did Youtube kill the cooking/tango class? Maybe, but the film never says it.

So we're not really sure if Ted wants out of this particular society or if he wants out of any society because the film never comments on these issues. We don't know if the world sucks and Ted finds solace in AI or if the world is a wonderful place that Ted rejects for AI.

The film shows that many people are in love with their phones, but how did things get this way? Why are things this way? Is there anyone trying to change things? Is Ted a victim of this society or the worst culprit?

The film ignores all these issues and makes it a fluff piece. It is a pretty commercial for a fluffy, pastel-colored, soft-filtered commercial for an ideal world in which this love story happens. The film is neither critical of Ted nor of the world that makes him fall in love with a computer. We are supposed to marvel at technology and at paying a big corporation a monthly subscription for love, something that is supposed to be free.

It is a dystopia where people can't stand each other, corporations run the world, everyone is dressed the same, megacorp monopolies run the show (everyone has the same phone, everyone has the same operating system, there are no rival products), and people tell their deepest secrets to always-listening machines protected/sponsored(run?) by the state in the name of love, as long as you pay your monthly bill.

GoldenEye (1995)

Did not age well. This is film is a hot-dog for a starving man, but hardly high cuisine.

[5/10 · 26 January 2017]

The six-year hiatus meant that people were going to accept almost anything and that's exactly what they got. If you're starving for Bond, this low-grade beef of a film will do. But if you're seeing the Bond films in a sequence, you'll realize how weak this film truly is.

It feels like a "previously on Bond" sequence before a TV show. It is as by-the-book as it comes, a film written by a checklist or excel sheet to hit all the points and check all the boxes.

Some may blame Brosnan, but it's hard to blame him for this script. What can he do with just cheesy one-liners? They're barely witty. Some of them are not even good enough for an 80's cop film action hero, much less coming from the mouth of a classy Bond.

Boring action, cheesy action, random motives, spoon-feeding the audience the story, a villain with a scar to not confuse the children as to who is the bad guy.

Fails in the face of both predecessors and successors.

The Haunting (1999)

What is the genre of this film?

[3/10 · 26 January 2017]

As a horror, it's not scary. As a mystery, it's not that mysterious. As a thriller, it's not thrilling. as a fantasy, it's not fantastic.

I'm not trying to be funny, but this is a horror film that has barely any fear in it. I'm not a fan of jump scares, but at least they scare you. There are no dark scenes, no silences, no creepy music, no scary situations. There's too much light throughout the film. The monsters are primarily furniture - a bad with some sort of sharp tentacles, statues that come to life but go back to being statues after being slapped with a broom for a bit. Also the bed stops attacking when other people are looking at it.

There is no real mystery. There's some ridiculous story about children or a painting or whatever, but you don't wonder what's the secret. They're mentioned at times, but it has no consequence on the plot. It's just anecdotes rather than plot points.

The whole thing is contrived - a sleep study in a haunted house.

The acting is ridiculous, as well as the casting. But I don't blame the actors for this dud of a script.

The tentacle bed is the only interesting scene in the film in that it is not CGI.

Despite the Falling Snow (2016)

A Cold War era film with Cold War spectacles/retrovision

[3/10 · 25 January 2017]

Now that the Iron Curtain has collapsed and we have access to not only to modern Russia and former Soviet and Bloc countries, but we can now uncover stuff that took place in all those years without any restrictions. Historians even have access to restricted stuff as governments have made a lot of it public.

This film looks like an 80's film that imagines how things were like in the Soviet Union. There are many things about it that show a Western Cold War perspective of life in the Soviet Union, as well as politics and such. It is not well researched, if at all. The same director has a story about two women in a relationship in the apartheid era and another film about a Muslim woman who cancels her wedding because she's in love with another woman. These are her three feature films. I haven't seen the other two, but seeing how clichéd and un-researched Despite the Falling Snow is, I doubt that she spent a lot of time researching Islamic society or apartheid South Africa.

I say "director" when people expect me to say writer, but Sarif is the writer for all her films. This lack of outside input doesn't help.

So many directors spend endless hours researching life in their own country in the 90's and 80's, times when they were around. They put the time and effort to research the language, clothing, technology, etc. This film doesn't waste any time on that. "It's just in the Soviet Union, accept it. It's not accurate, move on. Just look at Ferguson. Isn't she pretty?"

If some actors are type-cast, then Samim is type-directing. Cheesy love story, history as a back drop rather than a setting, very beautiful actresses to distract from the plot. In almost every film that's what people talk about, good and bad reviews, how beautiful the actresses are.

Most people that watch films want a bit more than eye candy.

Pele: Birth of a Legend (2016)

A football film for everyone, for the whole family, but maybe not football fans

[6/10 · 25 January 2017]

This is a family film more than a football film. In case you were unaware, family films are not just movies that can by watched by anyone of any age, but specific genre film that can be watched by everyone at the same time, as in a family, often at home.

As such, don't expect much depth or drama. There is a death, but it's early on so that it doesn't "hurt" too much. The Lion King and Bambi had early deaths too. This is just like that. The story has a lot of clichés, poor-vs-rich, black-vs-white, South America vs Europe, players too poor for shoes, children committing minor theft, parents against the game (but then changing their minds), Pele's style criticized (but then it turns out to be the best style), the bad (evil, not quality) players turning good, child Pele promising to win the World Cup for his crying dad, practicing with fruits, etc. I'm not going to list them all, but if there is a cliché in this film, they most likely have used it.

Although they are clichés, it's not a bad thing that they mentioned them. The rich-poor divide is real, so as the racial divide in Brazil, but this film doesn't shy away from these issues. It comes out as a Brazilian nationalist film "We're all Brazilian, rich or poor, black or white, born here or elsewhere" but it's more heartwarming than chest-thumping. Europe still thought of South America as a colony and Italy, for example, was notorious for poaching South American players with Italian heritage to play for the Italian national team. The even poached previous world cup winners from Argentina, which is illegal now.

This film is more like one of the many films of orphans or street kids doing cute things, but with a football flavor.

I don't blame this film for this family-oriented direction. Brazil also made a dark football film, Heleno, but it did not receive a lot of success. The family-oriented market is a lucrative one.

Watch Heleno if you want a real biopic about a footballer, even though there's even less football there.

If you like a feel-good family movie about the adventures of street kids, watch Bekas (2012).

If you want a football movie from the same era (also set in South America in the same time period) then watch Montevideo: Taste of a Dream (2010).

These are my wine-pairing recommendations.

As for Pele: Birth of a Legend, it is what it is, a cute, family football film about poor kids that speak English. The fact that they speak English tells you about the target audience more than anything my review ever could.

The Return (2003)

Show, don't tell. But also, don't show. An enigmatic waste of time.

[2/10 · 25 January 2017]

There is an unwritten rule for good cinema - it's show, don't tell. Cinema is a visual medium and we want to see the story as observers, as if we're actually there. Now these kids have not seen their dead of god-knows how long, to the point where they weren't sure if it was really him at first.

Who is this person? Why did he disappear? Why is he back?

In an amateur film, we'd have a narrator or a block of text telling us at the start. In weaker films, the mother would have one conversation telling them everything, briefing them, basically. In another kind of weaker film, the dad would do it. "Here you go kids, this is what you want to know."

In a good film, we'd have this information revealed to us slowly. For example, they're at a gas station and the dad uses someone else's card/wallet to pay. Let's say that they see him acting suspiciously from the police. Or he sees someone he recognizes, someone who calls him by a different name. Let's say they see his wallet and he has a photo of his other family. He takes off his shirt and there are some Vor tattoos (prisoner and criminal subculture). Or army tattoos. You give us bits of information, here and there.

Of course, none of this was done. The father takes them to a lake and that's it.

I had hoped that he would tell them things, here and there, conversations, not a whole "this is everything you need to know" conversation, but they talk and he says something here and there. And with these bits we piece together the picture.

But this was not done either.

You know the feeling when you come into the room and there's a film playing, the middle of the film, where you don't know what's happening. Imagine a slow scene, where not much is being said, and you just don't know what to make of it because you missed the first hour of the film? This is basically that.

It's a slow scene from a film made into a complete movie. The information is never revealed.

I'm fine with a film leaving some to the imagination. It makes the experience fun as we come up with different theories and talk about it. But this film basically leaves the whole film to your imagination. What's the point? Why even put the disk into the player? Why not turn off the film and just imagine a film from start to end.

I'm not complaining "not enough backstory" but there's no story either. There's no context to the events, barely any events and that's about it.

And for those who say "cinematography is beautiful" - no, not really. They chose beautiful things to shoot to begin with. Photos of beautiful landscapes and vistas are not necessarily "good photos" - just as photos of pretty girls are not necessary "great photography." This film shot beautiful visuals, but it's just a pretty screensaver. There's nothing special.

It's all too obvious. They chose a desolate, distant place to go, the film is shot in dark, dull and grey colors with low contrast (intentionally underexposed?) and the subject matter is dull and gloomy. It's trying to hammer the theme rather than be subtle about it.

It is really forced and pointless.

This film is the polar opposite of Michael Bay-style Hollywood films, it goes so far the other direction that it becomes terrible. The solution to obesity is not anorexia or starvation, but this is what many directors do nowadays.

2 stars for production quality and the acting of the children.

War Dogs (2016)

A slightly underrated film

[8/10 · 24 January 2017]

This is not an 8/10 film, but it's not 7/10 either. I'd give it 7.6 and rounding up to the nearest whole number.

Great casting and acting. The acting could've been a little better, but I think the point was to make this film more light-hearted and less of a deep drama. I'm conflicted about that choice.

The film has a good amount of a relationship drama, the friendship between the two entrepreneurs, a cross-border smuggling action scene, enough jokes to cut the tension, which made this film more mainstream and easier to watch for most people.

Perhaps a gritty, dark film about weapons and war would've been too intense for many and would've polarized people into loving or hating this film, rather than having most people liking it.

My wine-like "goes with" recommendation: I recommend the show The Night Manager to go with this film.

Pawn Sacrifice (2014)

A disjointed, mildly entertaining film filled with historical/biographical inaccuracies

[6/10 · 18 January 2017]

This is the ultimate problem of historical or biographical films. Films exist on a scale, realistic on one end and Hollywood on the other. Most based on a true story films try to be in the middle. This one went too far the Hollywood side. Notice I didn't say "entertaining" - films can be completely realistic and entertaining and completely unrealistic and still be boring.

The real Fischer is so interesting, so there was no need to reinvent a new person to tell the story.

Fischer had a father figure who was in his life, he just didn't know it was his actual father.

Fischer was interested in languages and learned them to read chess periodicals and was not one to go around saying "Speak American" to people.

The film has Fischer choosing to lose his virginity to a prostitute, picking the person, time and place. He's completely in control. Even though in this same film he can barely control his emotions. In real life he met a girl during the tournament and he got "caught up in women and sex" to the point where it cost him the tournament, the only tournament failure in his career.

Isn't that interesting enough to make a film out of it? Why change the story for change's sake?

Anyway, other than random script issues, which later become editing issues, the story is the weakest part of this film.

The rest is top notch. Production quality is high. Liev Schreiber, bravo, bravo, sir, on your Russian.

The film, overall, is a highly polished, professionally produced mediocre picture. There is no reason to see it again and it's difficult to recommend to anyone but serious chess or Fischer fans.

A Heart in Winter (1992)

One of the best French films of all time

[10/10 · 18 January 2017]

This film is not for everyone, but it is in my top 20 of all time (that has Inception as number 1, if you were wondering).

There's so much in this film that I don't even know where to start. It's a love-triangle of sorts. It's a game of one-upmanship. It's the lack of bro-code. It's love, it's envy. It's two people at the top of their game, a virtuoso violinist and her equivalent in the luthier business.

This film is like instrumental music. There are so many interpretations and they're all equally right.

A top violinist, Camille, falls in love with her luthier, Stephane, despite her having a boyfriend in his businessman of a partner, Maxime? Or is it simply the attraction of top professionals to each other? Stephane says it was just a game to see if he could steal her from Maxime, just for the thrill. But why was Camille attracted to him? Why was this beautiful, talented woman attracted to Stephane? She's irresistible to anyone, but not to him. Maybe she wants what she cannot have.

Stephane is not just unmoved by her throwing herself at him, he pushes her away. Although it is not said in the film, Stephane appears to be autistic. He is indifferent to Camille's interest towards him, has no feelings of friendship towards Maxime, and only feels emotion towards his mentor who was severely ill and dying. Stephane is so "heartless" that he was left to assist his mentor in euthanasia, while no one else could.

Stephane is an autist in a non-autistic world. He is not understood and people constantly accuse him of faking it, of being a sham. Camille said "no one is like this" but he is. He isn't acting. Everything he does is logical and makes sense. He's a professional at the top of his profession. He has a protégé doing an internship. He has a business partner in a shared venture and then his own private business. He has normal conversations. He enjoys music.

It is everyone else who appear mad in his eyes. Camille for throwing her relationship for nothing. Maxime who attacks his friend and loses his partner over nothing. His mentor's rocky relationship with his wife. Stephane is sane and calm, living a life without highs or lows. That's what no one else gets.

Ironically the only time Stephane attempts something illogical and non-autistic, the game of stealing Camille's heart, that's the only time that everything backfires or completely falls apart. Winning the game cost him his business and non-friendship with Maxime, he lost his friendship with Camille and got yelled at, screamed at and hit in public.

There are films with random things added by checklist to reach certain demographics. This is not one of them. Everything is interconnected like Celtic knots. The music thread runs through the film, as a soundtrack and as the plot. Stephane repairs violins, that's how he meets Camille, he attends her rehearsal and recording sessions. He loves music and her music. She admires his professionalism and enjoys his attention. When things fall apart, she jeopardizes her career, almost risking the cancellation of a tour. Everyone is connected to everyone, there are no loose threads or random sub-plots.

Sautet builds a world to tell this story. The only sad thing is that it ends so soon. This is a must watch film.

10/10.

Sadly, this great film is very difficult to get. The DVD is low quality and is region-locked. The film is not available on Blu-Ray. Not on Netflix. Not on Amazon or iTunes. It is available in iTunes France, but you have to have a French credit card to buy it. It's insanely complicated to get this film. The rights owners should do something to make it a tad easier.

This film has an amazing soundtrack that was released on CD. Now it has disappeared. You could look for it used, but it's hard finding it. It's not on Spotify or iTunes.

Dossier K. (2009)

Barely okay.

[6/10 · 12 January 2017]

I give this film 5.7 which I'm rounding up to 6. This is not a good film and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

It had the potential to be a good film, even a great one, but this opportunity was wasted. The acting is good, the sound is good, music, lighting, editing, cinematography, all the ingredients were good, but the script wasn't.

The idea of an Albanian blood feud in a Western European country is a brilliant one, but even though it's the central issue in the story, it's just not that well done.

The problem is the script itself. Even though it's based on a book, these adaptations don't always work out well. The book has so much more time to tell its story. The film has to do it in 2 hours. If the book is not suited for a film, you get a mediocre film. If you change too much, people complain that it's not similar to the book and give it low scores. It's a difficult enterprise.

This film's competition is not films like Infernal Affairs, The Departed, The Silence of the Lambs, etc. but a whole lot of excellent TV cop shows that have the expertise and the time to tell a long story.

A blood feud is something that needs time. You need a reason for the first murder, then you need retaliation. So far, it's just a revenge killing. You need at least one or two more to make it full vendetta. But murders of people we don't know or care about don't give the scale of this problem. Random characters dying on TV don't make you flinch. It's the murder of people you love/hate that make you react, but in 2 hours, there's no time for all that.

The story is not just about the Albanians, but about the police detectives. But it's the same thing with the cops. When Linda died, I just shrugged.

There are things that are just amateur though. For example, when they go through the camera at the boy's ceremony and instantly find the man they're looking for. Too easy.

I liked the hotel room trap with the porn and I wanted the film to be more of that.

Ultimately the only reason for anyone to watch this film is to see the Albanian vendettas on the screen. Albania is a poor country without much of a film industry, so other than The Forgiveness of Blood, this cultural practice doesn't get much screen time.

If you're not interested in that and are more into police dramas, this isn't a great one.

5.6/10

Critical (2015)

Very realistic, but not very great

[7/10 · 12 January 2017]

I came here after seeing Line of Duty (which I rate 10/10) from the same creator. I knew it was a medical show and having seen House and others, I knew what I was getting into.

The problem with this show is the same problem with many medical shows. They're procedurals. Every week you get a new patient who is treated and released by the end of the episode. It's a formulaic format, even if they come up with new and original injuries every week.

Because the patients are disposable characters and story lines, the show needs continuity, so it finds it in office romances, gossip and office politics. This creates a reversed situation from serials. Serials have a main story arc that runs throughout the season and the little gossip, romances and love interests are the side dish.

For example, you tune in to Line of Duty (same creator: Mercurio and same star, Lennie James) and you're curious as to what the next step is for the Gates investigation. You're curious about the professional work, not the gossip.

Here it's the opposite. Since you can't tell who the next patient is, you're only left with gossip and office romances that have continuity. There is some office politics and bureaucratic power plays, but they're so minor that no one could care.

There's not enough gossip to keep it interesting for people that like Grey's Anatomy and there's not enough continuity for everyone else to tune in. I myself don't care for the office romances and politics, and since patients only last an episode, there's no reason to care about them either.

There's no way around this in a medical show. House MD goes around this and makes it about ethics and hard choices. But here the patients are slabs of meat and can't say or do anything.

People simply prefer shows with more continuity now. That's why In Treatment worked because it's continuous, same patients, same cases. A conveyor belt of patients gets boring quickly.

That's what happened to this show, even though everything else was very, very good.

Hell (1994)

A film about jealousy and mental illness

[7/10 · 8 January 2017]

I've seen this film many years ago and have watched it again tonight. It is a good film about two topics that don't get much attention. We often see jealousy on the screen, but it is often weak, humorous, self-harming or benign. We see mental illness on the screen, but it is rarely combined with something like jealousy. These two elements together form a deadly cocktail.

I say two, but here there are many small things that make this a recipe for disaster.

• The couple have, or are beginning to have, financial troubles. This adds a strain on even the healthiest marriage. - Nelly is a flirt who does things that make render even the least jealous partner jealous or suspicious. - Nelly is a liar. She lies about small things (cost of a bag, gambling), but it's enough to cause suspicion. - Paul is jealous and the thought of his wife with someone else burns him up. This is not a rare trait, but many jealous people don't have trust issues. They're jealous if they see something that bothers them, but suspicion and mistrust is its own disease. - Paul is suspicious of his wife and does not trust her at all. It does not help that Nelly flirts openly in front of him and lies to him. This fuels the problem. - Paul hallucinates and imagines things. He sees things that aren't there. - The lack of common friends or family means that the couple are in an island of their own misery. Paul has no one but customers to tell him that he's losing it. There are no parents or in- laws that could help him with his madness or, help him with the truth.

The film is intentionally ambiguous with some scenes, the boat scene with Martineau which was one of the biggest catalysts to his suspicions and the loss of her necklace, which she did indeed lose, but we are unsure if it was in the attic or not.

The fact is, audio/visual hallucinations, such as seeing something else on the projector screen or hearing voices from a sleeping woman are one thing, but actually picking up an item is something else.

Near the end we see a really interesting montage, Hitchcock-like, a fast cut of imaginations and hallucinations. I wish the film had more of that.

I'm disappointed that the film had no ending. It really had no ending, showing us a text saying "Without end" instead of giving us a conclusion. There is no way this couple could keep on going like this. The escalation from mere suspicion to battery and rape was quick, within weeks at most. This is an unsustainable relationship and an end, in one form or another, was near. It' just too bad that we didn't get one.

All in all, a good film about an interesting topic or intersection of topics.

7/10.

Ruby Sparks (2012)

Barely tolerable - the goodwill of cute and quirky runs out pretty fast

[4/10 · 7 January 2017]

There are several problems with this film. The premise is far-fetched, but fine, I'll accept it. But Calvin's behavior is nonsensical. When he thought that Ruby was a figment of his imagination, he did not do anything to disprove it - record it, ask your neighbors if they see her, lift her so that she can change a light bulb, I don't know, think of something. Going out on a date and running into her by accident is so contrived.

Then comes the most annoying part. We have a protagonist with a god-like power and he does not know what he wants. That's the worst part of the story, it's difficult to watch and it's completely annoying. He is that indecisive, dissatisfied - he's just a problem-seeker. This is a guy who goes to restaurants, doesn't pick an item from the menu but makes up a random dish with his own ingredients and instructions, has it delivered to perfection and yet he still complains. Such person does not deserve love nor attention.

In short - this is a story of a guy so picky that his ideal woman is not good enough for him. He says he likes her the way she is, but he lies, he lies to himself and to others. People get bored, fine, but he gets bored with his own ideal partner and gets bored so quickly, yet he does this Ted Mosby "I'm just a lonely guy looking for true love" crap.

We're supposed to feel for him.

The ending is in poor taste. A forced happy ending. How does he plan on explaining to his family and friends that this is someone else? It's not the same girl, she just looks exactly like his ex-girlfriend. What he tell this new girl?

The writers/director of this film didn't give a hoot, so why should we?

Vodka Lemon (2003)

Not another Kurdish movie!

[4/10 · 6 January 2017]

My title is a pun on "Not Another Teen Movie," if it wasn't obvious.

This is a film in which nothing happens. I know that a lot of people say that, but this time it's real. You can check my review history and know that I'm an art-house fan, but this really pushes it.

There are two major problems in this film - one is the lack of plot. If you want a story in which there is a story, this is not one. There are scenes, some dialogues, but there is no story. It's the equivalent of a cinematic webcam feed of the lives of Kurds in some village in the mountains. Just any random Kurd on any random day. Films usually try to make stories about interesting people having interesting stories, or regular people having interesting stories, but this is a story about regular people having regular stories.

The other problem is that Kurdish movies have become stuck in a loop, producing the same kinds of movies, orphans, refugees, poverty, isolation, mountains, difficult terrain, etc. Kurdish movies used to mean "films in Kurdish" not a genre of film. You could substitute all the Kurdish in the film for Georgian, Armenian, Russian or even Estonian and it would still be a Kurdish film, not because the director is Kurdish, but because it's slowly becoming a cliché. I actually didn't know who the director was until the end of the film.

This desolate village in the snowy mountains is beautiful, but it gets boring quickly, in this film and in general.

This film is like A Time for Drunken Horses, but without a story.

Ex-Soviet Kurdistan is one of the most unique parts of the (non-existent) country, yet this setting was wasted on this film.

I don't recommend it to anyone but for people that have a deep (beyond cinematic) interest in Kurds or someone who has seen most Kurdish films. It is a curiosity at best.

Divertimento (1992)

There's nothing to spoil

[3/10 · 6 January 2017]

It's a film about a painter with the oil-painter's equivalent of writer's block who is inspired to paint again and finish a particular painting after meeting an attractive young woman. He paints her. That's the whole film.

This is the shorter version (2 hour, 5 minutes) of La Belle Noiseuse, which is infamous for being four hours long. A four hour film where nothing happens.

The expression "watching paint dry" explains this whole film.

All this stuff about "a struggle for truth or meaning," "life," "art," "artistic limits," etc. are lies. There's none of that here. They refer to it, mention it once or twice, but that doesn't mean the story deals with this topic in any meaningful way. One could say the story is about Quebec, because they mentioned it once.

Beart is nude in some scenes, but I doubt that people in 2017 will be running to low-resolution VHS/DVD's to watch a 90's actress show some skin for a few minutes. This may have been a selling point in 1991, but we now have real movies and real porn all on this magical thing called "internet."

I'm not against nudity in films if used to further the story. I'm not even against it if used to sell a slower story to a larger audience. But here they try to sell no story whatsoever.

The big curiosity here is the production. This film is based on a Balzac short story, but it has 3 credited writers - the director and two others. The three writers took Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece" and Henry James' "The Liar," "The Figure in the Carpet," and "The Aspern Papers," taking something from each, put their 3 heads together and came up with a script in which nothing happens.

The four hour version won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival.

If you really want/have to watch one of these, make it the shorter one.

Panfilov's 28 Men (2016)

Great film, underrated due to heavy anti-nationalist sentiment

[8/10 · 4 January 2017]

I usually prefer to talk about the a film, what's on the screen and not about what's going and what's being said around it, but I'll make a slight exception.

Russia churns out a lot of war films and a lot of films with patriotism as the key (sometimes only) ingredient. There is an understandable fatigue of these films (just like some are tired of comic book or superhero films) so people are now giving low scores to any war film, regardless of its merits.

Russia also has a lot of people that love to see Russian films fail. Russia produces a lot of trash and cash-grab (popsa) films so you have people that call everything that comes from Russia as popsa and want to see it fail.

No, this film is not a box office failure nor a financial failure. Yes, the budget is underreported, (which is strange considering people want to see bigger budget films) but it seems to have made its money back already. One cannot compare it to American films with bigger budgets, star power, the advantage of English, etc.

Without going into spoilers, this film is about a battle, or series of battles, between a Nazi Germany Panzer division and Soviet (Russian and Kazakh) defensive positions. If you want a love story, you've come to the wrong place. If you want a superhero, you've come to the wrong place. Rambo doing it all by himself, taking down the Wehrmacht and killing Hitler himself? Wrong place.

This film has been de-Sovietized, reducing references to Stalin, red flags, Marxism, Communism, etc. People seem to take issue with that and feel that this point makes this film a 1/10 film.

The fact is defending a trench is defending a trench. It makes no difference if one does it for the union of republics (USSR) or for a particular republic (RSFSR). In this case, the soldiers were defending (the road to) Moscow and it was not inaccurate that they were defending Russia. Yugoslav WW2 films also have people talking about taking/defending particular regions (Slavonia, Vojvodina, Kosovo, Serbia, etc.) and that does not necessarily mean they denied the existence of Yugoslavia.

Not that this film has not been de-Sovietized. It has, but it's not such a big deal. People still referred to each other as comrade, and yes, there were not a lot of flags and hammer-and- sickle stuff, but this was an undersupplied unit, lacking both men, guns, ammo and supplies.

The production values are quite high and this film lacks the TV-cheesiness of many Russian films and shows.

The Russians are not presented as good people, nor are the Nazis presented as evil. There is no need for that. We know who's who. This was like two boxers in the ring - "this is where we are now. Let's settle this."

It's dark, without being gloomy and depressing. It's violent without being disgusting.

It has professional acting, professional camera work, professional lighting, sound and CGI.

The script is not very deep because this is a film about men defending a trench. It sets out to do one thing and does it very, very well.

8/10.

Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995)

A weaker version of Un Coeur En Hiver

[6/10 · 4 January 2017]

This film is so similar in feel to Un Coeur En Hiver that it feels like a sequel of sorts. Of course, it is by the same director, stars the same actress and has the same writers.

The problem with this film is that it is a watered-down version of the story. If UCEH is the meat, NEMA is the soup made with the bones of that film.

UCEH had drama, psychological struggle, a love-triangle (of sorts), a serious talent and career under jeopardy, a business and business relationships being threatened, strong feelings and major pain. This, in comparison, is much less the sequel of that film than an aftertaste. Instead of a professional violinist we have a part-time typist, part-time cashier at a bakery. Instead of deep emotions and fire, we get some warmth, instead of conflict we have nothing. Nelly divorces her husband with total coldness, yet he just shrugs it off. I'm fine with a character having a cold heart, but this film is a world without emotion. Nelly feels nothing towards her husband, the husband is indifferent to his wife leaving him, she doesn't react much when she sees him with another woman, not a hint of residual feelings, no jealousy, seller's remorse, nothing. Nelly's feelings towards Arnaud are weak, his feelings towards her are also not that strong beyond attraction, but no jealousy whatsoever. Nelly's feelings towards her boyfriend are weak (she doesn't want to move in with him) and his feelings towards her are just as weak ("You don't want to move in with me? Good night. Don't call me again. Have a good life. We're finished here. Cheque please.").

The characters are all variants of the same person, all somewhat cold, distant, calculated and passionless. I can understand the lack of fire from a dying marriage, but not from a new relationship considering living together. Break ups, divorces, hookups, crises, meetings, attractions, all have the same level of intensity - 3/10. No peaks, no lows. Just a slow cook form start to end.

There is no change of circumstances, no twist and ultimately no plot beyond an attraction of an older man to a pretty woman typing his dictation.

Line of Duty: The Caddy (2014) Season 2, Episode 6

They did it again: Season Review

[10/10 · 3 January 2017]

After Gates died and the case was closed, I was disappointed that the characters from season 1 were not returning and that the case was over, Tommy got away with it.

When the season started with Denton, I initially thought that this was an entirely different cast, focusing on a new officer, with new Anti-Corruption detectives and a new case.

I was somewhat wrong and I'm glad that I was.

Slowly, bit by bit, the cast returned. Arnott, Hastings and Fleming at first, then Dot and finally Morton. As the case unravelled, we discover that it was about the murder of some police officers and Tommy, from season 1. It's all connected.

I'm not a fan of procedurals because I like bigger stories with side plots and detail. I don't like disposable plots or characters, and this show does none of that. Everything matters. A tiny offhand comment by Dot in season 1 turned out to be important, he is the dirty Caddy after all, but he's not the only one it seems.

The more they dig, the more they find - dirty cops, affairs, killers for hire, underage sex trafficking, you name it.

That small thread of Dot being dirty, a twist ending for season 1, turned out to be incredibly important in season 2. We all knew Dot was dirty but believed that all he wanted was to pin the name "Caddy" on someone, anyone, else, but the twist is even more insane - Dot, in attempting to go clean and get rid of Tommy, architected a massacre that killed Tommy and a few other police officers. During the course of the investigation more were to die.

There are many shows that rely on tropes and clichés or obvious plots that lead to guessing games online and off. This is not one of them. I tried several times to guess what was going on and I was not even close.

Some of my guesses could've made good plots: missing persons being subverted/involved in trafficking and underage prostitution. Tommy's gang using Missing Persons to find and kill lost underage prostitutes. Dryden using missing persons to find his love child Carly to kill her. Dryden being blackmailed with his love child Carly. Pregnant Denton threatening to go public about the Dryden affair and her pregnancy.

The fact that I couldn't get it shows how great and creative this show is.

La répétition (2001)

An idea in search of a story

[5/10 · 3 January 2017]

The premise of this film is an interesting one and has some potential. A woman discovers that she is in love with her childhood friend after meeting her so many years later.

The basic idea is good, the execution, from a technical point of view is good. The acting is completely convincing, the scenes are to the point, there's nothing cheap about this film, thanks greatly to grants and tax credits from Canada who funded such a kind of unprofitable film that would never be possible.

I simply wanted more from this film, but there isn't anything there. Louise discovers her lesbianism but none of that is explored. Is she attracted to other women? Is she no longer attracted to men? Is she even in attracted to Nathalie? Is that her physical type? Or is it just some sort of girl crush? Is she in love with her? Why?

There are many aspects to relationships, from physical, sexual, emotional, friendly, shared interests, but none of them are explored. Because of that, Louise takes the form of a nagging but nurturing mom. She gets her auditions, buys her stuff, tries to take care of her, but gets nothing in return. Nathalie brings home men and Louise just looks at her with disapproval and disappointment, not jealousy.

If that's the intent of the director, then why was this "you're not my mother" aspect not explored?

It just looks like Louise wants to adopt her childhood friend who grew up, if one could use that word, to become a petulant, childish brat.

If it were about personality, Louise would find someone with a better personality. If it were about physical appearance, then Louise would be attracted to other women.

What is attractive about Nathalie, in this case, we will never know.

If the producers of this film felt strongly about it, perhaps they would release it in higher quality (at least 720p) on modern streaming platforms or on Blu-ray but I think the lack of attempts to remaster it speak volumes about the demand and the reception for this film.

Hannibal (2001)

My personal favorite of the series

[9/10 · 3 January 2017]

Yes, this is an unpopular opinion but I simply prefer this film to The Silence of the Lambs, having watched both in the span of 24 hours. There's just much more story here.

The difference between the two is the story, in this one, there's the intertwining of many stories - four investigations - the FBI under Starling, the FBI under Krendler (under the influence of Verger), Starling's own investigation after her suspension, Pazzi's own investigation for the purpose of earning a reward. These are all intertwined by the common thread of Verger, who buys Krendler and the FBI outright (and cheaply, I might add), hires Inspector Pazzi in the conspiracy to kidnap and uses Starling as bait.

This film is more gruesome than TSOTL, the boars, the brain surgery and was very funny at times, such as when Hannibal overhears a couple saying "Let's get something to eat" and answers "Why not?" to himself.

This film is still fresh after all these years because it introduces something that is rare in cinema - the sophisticated and moral madman. Hollywood is filled with crazy inbred chainsaw madmen who live in areas with poor cellphone service. Then there are the often sophisticated Nazis, who are not moral, funny or likable. Rarely do you see a film about a villain going after another villain and have the audience root for him to get away with it.

Things are much simpler these days - good guys and bad guys, or flawed heroes and villains with a backstory, but it's still black and white.

This film is criminally underrated.