As a lover of the Ripley's stories (I have watched Delon's, Malkovich's and Damon's ) I cannot stop loving so far(I am in episode 2) the visual and thematic transformation that Zaillian has made of the Ripley's theme. It's radical to turn the Amalfi coast and Caravaggio into black and white. Also his creation of silence. I believe he wants to turn the characters too. Andrew Scott , always so sweet and likable, as the villain. Scarface Flyn (not sunnyface Jude Law) as Dickey who I am afraid Zaillian is urging us to dislike profoundly, starting with his highly bad taste in art. I wonder whether Zaillian wants us to accept Ripley's resolution.
Reviews
32 Reviews
Siberia
(2018)
Great and compelling film about Siberia
23 February 2024
The title of the film is Siberia and it is in that cold and raw landscape where one must look for its cinematic meaning. There are secondary views of beautiful St. Petersburg but the action and love are in gray, dark and cold Siberia. Reeves is perfectly casted for this role and the character of Katya, his lover is both beautiful and powerful, full of pathos. The film makes a great turn when many of the Siberian characters that first seem to siege and harass our protagonist become his friends and allies. A film about silence where the tension is not in what is spoken and obvious
but in the whole emotional craft of its filmmaking. I never get tired of rewatching.
Nada
(2023– )
Beautiful series with lamentable appearance by De Niro
19 December 2023
This beautifully shot series is funny and great with great performance of Luis Brandoni as a food critic. There are majestic images of Buenos Aires, its river and streets and a great inside shots of a beautiful BA apartment. Ironically, where the series fails is by forcing a Hollywood American actor into the story in order to attract viewers. The great American actor is not funny, is known to play mostly gangsters or criminal settings that have nothing to do with the show's subject matter, is not credible as a New York writer who appears to be very interested in BA but speaks very little or no Spanish and is starting to learn to eat beef. What is worse there is absolutely no acting chemistry between Brandoni and De Niro. At the end, the series appear to make a great effort and propaganda about having DeNiro and it is the producers, director and DeNiro himself who hurt the series the most; specially in the last episode when the two actors joint and collide.
Napoleon
(2023)
Poor film about the character and French history.
23 November 2023
An irresponsible film about Napoleon. Sir. Scott tries to psychoanalize Napoleon with a tendency to the worst making him a clownish brute; or a joker, theryby the poor casting choice of Joaquim Phoenix. The film is almost a comedy; but at the end Scott tries to moralise listing the deaths assumingly left by Napoleon in the European battlefields. Also he tells us that Josefine basically treated Napoleon with disdain and contempt that is not historically documented. This is an Anglo film about a great Frenchman and French history that is not going to help the UK and their misguided Brexit to get back into Europe.
Marie Antoinette
(2006)
Bad and irresponsible film.
19 November 2023
Bad film and irresponsible. Bad: the American language, the casting. ( poor Judy Davis and Steve Coogan into these roles, they cannot avoid their greatly comedic personalities; Kirsten is marvelous; but is just her) Coppola turns the French Revolution into a pink cake; it's a movie made by a teenager; still this film about Marie-Antoinette has been watched by many more Americans and people around the world than any other film about the subject matter or personality. That's why it is irresponsible. (Google movies about the French Revolution and this film appears first) We hope that the American queens, like Coppola is with her linage, take the world and history more seriously than Marie-Antoinette did.
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy
(2021–2022)
Great food and travel show but poor host
22 July 2023
It is understood that CNN has a big challenge to replace the creativity and charisma of Antonhy Bourdain , someone who is by nature and talent a story teller and writer and who is not afraid to explore limits in his trips and dishes. So good was Bourdain in his trips and episodes around the world that he himself became an object of attraction, interest and fun. (Who can forget his eating in a shot glass an still beating cobra heart!) But the selection of Tucci is a poor one. The good actor is not a writer and word/expression creature and cannot properly react to the visual beauty of Italy and its amazingly and great looking food. I am watching because you have to. It is a beautiful show with a very good technical team and many resources. But the lamely narrated interaction of the place and food with a this narrator diminishes the quality of the show.
Glass Onion
(2022)
A downgrade from first film
24 December 2022
Definitely a downgrade from first film, the second Knives Out is a convoluted commercial and product placement extravaganza to the point that it may not be an actual film. It may rather be seen as a two hours and a half advertisement of celebrity actors, high paying brands, exacerbated color, the Greek islands and a plot that manages to give you a headache. So quickly moves the director of this story that one feels he underestimates his audience by fearing to bore them if he applies actual film craft to his actors and plot. The antics of Benoit Le Blanc played by Daniel Craig of course saves this production from been actually almost unwatchable. We hope that with a third Knives Out the franchise will return to actual film making that is as enjoyable and funny as the first.
Mozart in the Jungle
(2014–2018)
Good try
9 October 2021
Good try, but a better oportunidad lost to do something better or even great with the Bernal/ conductor center character. Couldn't the producers hire the counseling services of a real musical conductor to inform Bernal well intended acting? He is good but could have been great as the extravagant center of this comedy. And why is he Argentinian and not Mexican?
The New Pope
(2020)
Majestic Sorrentino
13 August 2021
Only Sorrentino can give us so much meaning, be it cinematographic, political, moral, aesthetic and philosophical. Someone referred to him as a "maximalist"; as to oppose the stinginess of other unfortunate apparently creative concept as minimalism. This creator and director is like a semi-god in today's artistic world. And the transformation he has make from John Malkovich typical cinematic persona is just outstanding. One gets almost exhausted with so much. And the surprising bonus of this second season is the comedy! With grand introductions with the Pope meeting real celebrities and hilarious endings that mostly involve dancing. Really beautiful by Sorrentino!!!
Loro
(2018)
Another multi-meaningful piece by Sorrentino
4 June 2021
This film is all grandiose, beautiful, meaningful, disgusting and devastating. Loro means Them, who are the people who make Berlusconi possible. In one exchange with his grandchild the film shows us that Trump did not even create our current epistemological political crisis with the subject matter of truth. It started with Him Him as they secretly refer to Berlusconi. Grand film that leaves you depleted and despondent not about the protagonist but about those who make his leadership possible.
Red Dragon
(2002)
Downgraded from grand prior Hannibal
26 May 2021
Once you limit Hannibal to a jail cell in US and take this protagonist out of his natural confines such as Firenze, Italy in the prior film, most of the allure is gone. We need to see this character as a flaneur strolling civilized European streets with grand suits purchasing perfumes in sophisticated boutiques ; and above all, getting rid of rude people.
Persécution
(2009)
The pathology of Love
26 May 2021
Romain Duris is loved by both his female girlfriend and a male psycho stalker because "he misses half of what goes on" in the world. So much for the pathology of those who love us only when they can find a big gap. Brilliant French film purely based on ingenious screenplay, and one more brilliant performance of an ingenuous Duris.
The Trip to Greece
(2020)
Very funny in an innovative way, and also serious
24 May 2021
If you love understated filmmaking whose whole is more than the sum of its parts you will adore The Trip film series that sadly apparently has come to an end with The Trip to Greece. Coogan and Brydon allow themselves to be men/children and give themselves to their weightless senseless and infantile spontaneous humor while having delicious courses of meals (the director always jumps to the actual kitchen what allow us for for breathing and a break from the small boys jokes at the dinning table ) There is also love and sex for the boys. How could that be missing within the confines of specially Italy, Spain and Greece. Still, since the first The Trip set in England you can sense the underlying sense of existential despair and fragility of its main two characters and thereby of every living creature. The movies actually end up been much more than the sum of its parts. And still lots of laughs!!. They will become classics.
Happyish
(2015)
Just Brilliant and philosophical
16 May 2021
Happyish is just brilliant in conception and writing. Title suggesting that we are lucky of we achieve a sort of little happiness and more important all the discourse about the tyranny of the ideology of happiness . Coogan brings perfect insights about the stupidity and superficiality of the worlds we live and about what is believed important and meaningful. The series is perfectly written and very philosophical and profound. This is my 3rd viewing and I am still finding brilliances here and there.
Measure for Measure
(I) (2019)
Good adaptation, lacking more Shakespeare
1 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
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