Displaying Review 51 - 54 of 54 in total

• Hollow Man — for The Social Network
  Written by lezard on 03.09.2023

  Can you picture Donald Trump promoting mutual understanding, sharing, with a special touch of subtlety and delicacy, or Poutine promoting the woke culture, brotherly love for the homosexuals and peace for neighbouring countries ?
  Well, this tour de force was nevertheless achieved by Mark Zuckerberg, due to his genius for computing. He created a network based on the sharing of private life and the promotion of friendship. BUT … we don't know anything about his private life, if he has any (thanks you for setting an example!), he is a reknown sociopath without a real friend. And he sells conviviality and togetherness ! Bravo !

  The movie tells about the beginning of his amazing success. The film is brilliant and surprisingly thrilling. The challenge was great : how can you render the story of people in front of their computers with no real life whatsoever interesting ? Fincher passes the test with flying colors. He could possibly film painting drying and make it worth a watch.

  What is a bit scary is what the movie tells about us and the epoch we live in.
  First there is the main character. Okay, you can think all this is cool, awesome, but the « hero » is a real asshole, a laughable jerk! He may look moving to a teen, due to his « nice » depressing, « I'am all lost » antisocial character but his sensibility is close to that of an oyster !

  His girlfriend, to whom he talks like s..t, with arrogance and scorn, dumps him. What does he do ? Call her a bitch on the internet. The emotional reaction of an 8-year old whimsical, angry child !
  His best « friend » ? He betrays him miserably.
  His college «mates ». He steals their idea, once again because according to him they only accepted him in the lobby of their club and not inside. The poor thing is upset. And you know what ? We don't care because they are also arrogant pricks who think they are the crown of creation just because they come from wealthy families and are in Harvard.
  Sean Parker who talks Mark into moving to California ? A hipster mostly interested in girls and parties and whose conversation reveals an unfathomable void. He turns to be as afraid of the Police as a little boy !
  As to girls, they are in the background, stupid for the most part, chosen for their good looks and only interested in getting laid with boys if they are famous or rich or both. A fantastic step for feminism !

  ALL OF THEM ARE PATHETIC !
  And they embodied the dream of a whole generation ? HELP !

  Zuckerberg is now one of the 10 richest men on the planet and still doesn't know how to live. He has achieved the heist of the century : People give him from free what he sells for gold. Oh yes, rob me please !!
  Since the arrival of Facebook, has conviviality, sharing, mutual understanding and friendship made huge progress ? See for yourself. Millions of people wouldn't say hello to their neighbour but are so proud to have a Facebook friend in Hong Kong or Calcutta !

  As To Donald Trump, his only merit is that he shows what he really is, a whimsical, racist, sexist, ignorant would-be dictator. The worst thing being that it works. We really have the politicians we deserve.
  Fincher should think about his biopic. It would make him interesting for two hours.

• The Italian Job — for I soliti ignoti
  Written by lezard on 23.10.2023

  There's nothing worse than a horror movie that is not scary or a comedy which isn't funny. And it's really challenging to make people laugh.

  I soliti Ignoti is a funny, entertaining comedy, though, of course, such an assertion is difficult to prove.

  In this film, everything works smoothly and beautifully. The plot is quite thin : a bunch of crackpots plan to break into rich houses and steal everything. We think about "The Ladykillers » by Mackendrick. Classic indeed, but nevertheless, something is being born on the screen : the tone is right and the social background contributes to making the film much more than just another comedy. Of course the « Italian comedy » existed before but it gains here a new dimension, and both a lightness and a faint melancholy which turns laughter into something indispensable. An inconsolable cheerfulness.

  Successful scenes follow one another : at the pawn-shop (Woody Allen must have seen and remembered this one!), at the boxing match, in the ballroom, and the heist itself, which is an irresistible parody of "Du rififi chez les hommes" by Jules Dassin, a big hit of the 50's in Europe.

  The stupidity of the protagonists is the funny side of the story but the characters, though they are losers, aren't depicted in a scornful or condescending way, and it's not a proof of their inferiority (contrary to the characters of the ferocious and hilarious « Fargo » by The Coen brothers, for instance) but, on the contrary, of their humanity.
  Moreover, because they are so genuinely Italian, they become instantly universal, adding their names to a long list of famous, magnificent and sympathetic idiots, ftom the six partners of « A Midsummer Night's Dream » to Didi and Gogo by Beckett, Laurel and Hardy, and the two dimwits of « Kakushi-toride no san-akunin/Hidden Fortress » by Kurosawa.
  A movie to watch and rewatch just for fun and also to be lucid.

• THE SORROW AND NO PITY — for Antichrist
  Written by lezard on 25.11.2024

  First of all, a few words about Lars von Trier and his fans. While I can perfectly understand people may like his work, when I discuss the matter with some of them, the same argument always comes back: he is a genius, people, the critics don't understand him, they are wrongly shocked. As if (and it was repeatedly told me) because he was misunderstood and shocked, he was a genius. I am sorry to say that total morrons can shock, and being misunderstood is not a sign of brilliance.

  The second thing is purpose. While watching any of von Trier's movies, I know his (possibly only) goal is to provoke and to transgress. It could be fun when I was young and there was something punk about it. (Yes, « Breaking the Waves » was a kind of « Ordet » where prayer was replaced by sex, with a rock soundtrack.) But Thirty years later trying to shock systematically is just pathetic. And when you ask him, he answers he is joking, even when he says « I am a nazi. » Funny joke indeed !

  It is all the more pathetic as von Trier is a great director when it comes to filming, producing memorable pictures and scenes, to creating an atmosphere as well as directing actors.
  But what is all this talent for ?

  Filming the death of a toddler like a christmas fairytale, with slow motion like in Leone's westerns ? Filming the grief of his parent like an absolutely sordid and squalid descent to hell, in a place called Eden (what culture ! What intelligence!) ?
  
  The best part of the movie is when nothing happens, when the woods play their fantastic role, when fantasies, old fears are lurking outside. Yes, von Trier creates fantastic images, but the whole thing is pointless. What happens is just stupid and vile.

  Does he want to demonstrate something, about grief, good and evil, about human relationships ? What we can barely grasp of what he says about women is simply repulsive. We don't learn a simple thing about human nature while watching the movie. And on the other hand the movie isn't what you call entertaining. So what's left ?

  Can you just imagine a couple having actually lost their child and watching this ? This is an insult to grief.

  Von Trier was supposedly suffering from breakdown when he wrote the script. Is it the way he cures himself ? Let him write about Xmas or football then and leave true human tragedy to sensitive adults. Because what is clear about almost any of his movies is that he doesn't like people. There is not a second of empathy in this movie.
  Plus, as I began, trying to shock the audience with such a theme (grief after a child's death) is not only childish but nauseating. It looks like the sick juvenile jubilation of defacing human sorrow.

  Kubrick, for instance, didn't like humanity very much and didn't produce a single « nice », sympathetic hero in his movies. But he brilliantly managed to debunk society, desire, science, war, sex, adventure, and not to ruin intimacy and pain. Von Trier seems to take a sick pleasure into desecrating human mind or soul.

  To add insult to injury, he dedicates his movie to Andrei Tarkovski. This too must be provocation. Tarkovski was a mystic director who constantly declared a work of art has to adress god or deal with transcendence. There is absolutely no transcendence in « Antichrist ». Only immanence, the immanence of squalid things which drag grieving people into an abyss of filth.

  Alas, « The House that Jack Built » has come to confirm this appetite for filth and sick pleasure, with the same alibi of « great » pictures. This can probably be very interesting for therapists, not for me.

• Dog – Day - Afternoon — for Chien de la casse
  Written by lezard on 31.01.2025

  This is a great movie, a movie with a heart.

  First there is the place : a small town in the south of France. Cities harbour millions of movies, as well as suburbs. Province towns have their share too. But villages are forgotten.

  Then, there are the characters : two buddies, the talkative and the silent one. This could sound familiar, it isn't. This pair is brand new. In their silence and words, in their weird relationship, in their boredom, in their eventless life there's hope, well hidden and there's fear. There is the weight of the past, of the missing ones as well as of the living ones.

  She comes in. One falls for her. They part for some time. Jealousy, anger, a bit of drug dealing, a bit of hope, a bit of fight.

  Telling the story doesn't say anything about the movie. It is not true, it is accurate. Its isn't realistic, it is authentic.

  The actors are really mindblowing.

  Watch it !