MATT'S 2018 FILMS

THIS IS A MUST SEE FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING THAT THEY ARE SERIOUS CINEPHILES. STUDENTS OF FILM WILL RELISH THE HISTORY OF SPIELBERG TAKING US BEHIND THE SCENES OF ALMOST ALL OF HIS FILMS AND WHAT HE WAS THINKING IN THEIR CREATION. WATCHING THE FILM CLIPS ALONE WILL MAKE IT ALL WORTHWHILE ITS DURATION NOT KNOWN TO ME AS IT FLEW BY AND I TRULY HATED TO SEE IT END. CONGRATULATIONS STEVEN, YOUR FILMOGRAPHY LEGACY WILL LAST FOR GENERATIONS.....TRULY YOU HAVE ADDED TO MY JOY OF BEING A FILM ADDICT AND HOPE THAT THERE IS MORE TO COME. PLEASE, MY READERS GET BACK TO ME AFTER YOU SEE IT EASILY AVAILABLE ON HBO. Is there a filmmaker whose work speaks for itself more completely than Steven Spielberg’s? Arguably the most popular director of the last half-century, his output doesn’t exactly scream out for reappraisal (because, well, we’ve all appraised it pretty highly already). So if the purpose of “Spielberg,” premiering Saturday on HBO, isn’t to shine new light on an under-lit career, what is it? For well over two hours (it’s almost as long as “Blade Runner 2049”), Susan Lacy and her team tackle one of the most beloved and successful careers in the history of film, hitting most of the expected way stations along the trail. It’s undeniable that Steven Spielberg changed film history, and I’m actually of the minority belief that some of his 21st century output stands among the best of his career ("A.I. Artificial Intelligence," "Minority Report," "Munich," "Lincoln," "Bridge of Spies"). I’m of the age that it would be difficult not to be a huge fan of his seminal work, and consider “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” desert-island films. However, “Spielberg” crosses the line into hagiography regularly and with reckless abandon. Given how much I adore his films and respect him as an artist, if this felt like fan service to me, those of you with less tolerance for his work should probably skip it. For the majority of its running time, “Spielberg” moves chronologically. In fact, it’s at its most interesting when it chooses not to apply that rigid structure, occasionally spinning off into tangents such as how Spielberg works with fear, his focus on father-son relationships, and his interesting recent role as one of cinema’s most interesting historians. Spielberg’s films are so well-known that stories about their power or value feel repetitive. “Jaws” is terrifying, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is ambitious, “Schindler’s List” is personal and powerful—we know all that. But when Lacy starts to tie thematic ribbons around multiple films in Spielberg’s career, her work has more power, especially when the filmmaker himself is open and willing to speak out how his relationship with his father influenced that thematic undercurrent in his work.

AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX THIS 2011 FILM DONE BY THE EXTREMELY TALENTED ITALIAN DIRECTOR PAOLO SORRENTO IN HIS FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM. TO ME BECAUSE OF HIS UNUSUAL AND CREATIVE STYLE, HE IS MY FAVORITE. HIS EARLIER FILMS GREAT BEAUTY AND YOUTH WERE 10'S FOR ME. HIS NARRATIVE, PERFS, CINEMATOGRAPHY, MAKEUP, MUSIC, ETC ARE VERY STYLISTIC AND APPRECIATED BY THOSE WHO ARE STUDENTS OF FILM. THE STARS ARE AMONG THE BEST WORKING TODAY, SEAN PENN, FRANCES MCDORMAND, HARRY DEAN STANTON(NOW DEAD), AND JUDD HIRSCH AND OTHER SURPRISES. MAGNIFICENT SCENIC CINEMATOGRAPHY ALONE WORTH YOUR TIME. CONVOLUTED REVENGE STORY ABOUT FATHER NOT SEEN FOR 30 YEARS AND HIS HOLOCAUST EXPERIENCE ABOUT THE PERSECUTERS. TOLD IN BROKEN ENGLISH, IRISH, HEBREW AND OTHER LANGUAGES. IN THE FILM THE QUESTION IS ASKED, WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE THE JEWS AND A LAME ANSWER IS SUBMITTED. IS IT REDEMPTION HE SEEKS OR REVENGE? Paolo Sorrentino's first English-lingo production is a road trip of stunning scope yet deep intimacy, featuring an aged rock star-turned-Nazi hunter played by Sean Penn at his transformative best. Paolo Sorrentino’s coolness credentials are well established, but he’s earned the right to be considered “cool” in an entirely different way with “This Must Be the Place,” a film that brims with warmth, humanity and respect in ways one doesn’t often find in the work of coolmeisters like David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. Quirky, hilarious and moving, Sorrentino’s first English-lingo production is a road trip of stunning scope yet deep intimacy, featuring an aged rock star-turned-Nazi hunter played by Sean Penn at his transformative best. The pic may baffle but is certain to generate massive highbrow press and long-term cult status. Though not a dime of Stateside coin is involved, this is very much a patchwork quilt of Americana reflecting the helmer’s engagement, in ways both positive and negative, with the country and its mythology. It’s also that rare film directed by a non-American that gets not just the locales but also the cadence of the language absolutely right, with a script full of great lines and images of lingering beauty. Reducing the film to a plot description risks trivializing Sorrentino’s intentions, yet the seeming absurdity of the premise highlights the helmer’s ability (seen in his earlier pics) to reach deeply intelligent conclusions from what seem like bizarre setups.

THIS IS A FASCINATING DOCUMENTARY DONE BY HER NEPHEW GRIFFING DONE THAT REFLECTS HER WRITING, FAMILY CONNECTIONS AND LIFE TO SAY NOTHING OF REFLECTIONS ON LOS ANGELES ELITE AND NYC. JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold Movie Review Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold Movie Poster JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD (2017) Director Griffin Dunne Documentary A fond and appreciative portrait of one of American journalism’s superstars, “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold” may not contain any revelations that will surprise those who’ve followed Didion’s eloquent, often autobiographical writing over the years. But the fact that it was made by her nephew, actor/filmmaker Griffin Dunne, gives it a warmth and intimacy that might not have graced a more standard documentary. The interview with the writer that wends through the film is actually more of a conversation between aunt and nephew, with the two recalling family events and Didion frequently waving her arms windmill-like for emphasis. While she has always appeared slight, age (she’s 82) and the punishments of fate have added to her frailty, yet she seems engaged and happy to help her kinsman tell her story. California and tragedy both loom large in her writing, so it’s appropriate that she begins by recalling that her ancestors came West with the Donner Party, but stuck to the planned route rather than veer off on the supposed short-cut that doomed their fellow immigrants. Born in Sacramento, Didion was interested in stories and writing even as a child, and her encouraging mother later pointed her toward a contest that won her a job with Vogue in New York after her college graduation. Landing in New York at age 20 in the mid-'50s, she was appropriately enchanted. Yet the real romance she found there wasn’t with the city but with a temperamental Irish-Catholic writer named John Gregory Dunne. The two became not only spouses but sometimes-collaborators and each other’s best critic and editor. Their life partnership seems like a true marriage of souls. After Joan had been in New York eight years, the couple decided it was time to leave and moved to an idyllic beach house north of Los Angeles. Since it was the mid-'60s, they also landed in a place of roiling cultural ferment that Didion became famous for chronicling. She profiled the Doors, partied with Janis Joplin, had acting hopeful Harrison Ford as a carpenter, and hung out with the likes of Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

PALME D'OR WINNER IS A MULTILEVEL FILM COVERING SO MANY CONTEMPORARY ISSUES, IT IS THE PERFECT FILM FOR CLUB DISCUSSION. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND SEEING THE FILM WITH A PAD AND PENCIL AND THEN READY YOURSELF FOR A WILD RIDE COVERING ART MUSEUMS, POLITICS, HYSTERIA, HUMOUR, CULTURE, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, FAMILIAL DYSFUNCTION, CULTURE....AND MANY MORE. THE STAR, CLAES BANG NOT KNOWN TO USA AUDIENCES I PREDICT WILL QUICKLY BECOME A HEART THROB AND SEEN IN MANY AMERICAN FILMS. RUBEN OSTLAND ACHIEVED INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS WITH FORCE MAJEURE ABOUT A FATHER WHO IN A STRESSFUL SITUATION ABANDONED HIS FAMILY TO SAVE HIS OWN ASS FROM AN AVALANCHE AT A SKI RESORT. THIS FILM ALSO EXPLORES FAMILY DYNAMICS. THE LEVEL OF SATIRE IS SO HIGH THAT IT RECEIVED MY 10/10 RATING. OUR WORLD IS SO OUT OF BALANCE IS EXPRESSED IN SO MANY WAYS.THE BOTTOM LINE: Modern society is mordantly weighed and found wanting. Claes Bang and Elisabeth Moss star in Ruben Ostlund's satire tackling Swedish art, commerce, politics and national identity. Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund takes modern society’s temperature and finds it dangerously overheated in the madly ambitious and frequently disquieting The Square. Following his unnerving 2014 international hit Force Majeure with a work that addresses some of the world’s pressing ills with very dark and queasy comedy, Ostlund juggles quite a few balls here, arguably a few too many to keep them all airborne for nearly two and a half hours; some significant cutting would unquestionably improve the film’s critical and commercial prospects. But it’s still a potent, disturbing work that explores the boundaries of political correctness, artistic liberty and free speech in provocative ways and should receive significant exposure internationally. White liberal guilt is probably a relatively new phenomenon in historically all-white Sweden, but the local version of that concept is what drives much of the drama here. Waves of immigrants over the last couple of decades have altered the face and dynamics of the citizenry, giving rise to inequities, mistrust and fears more familiar to other countries in the West.

THIS WONDERFUL FILM HAS OSCAR WRITTEN ALL OVER IT AND HAS A METASCORE OF 94 WHICH IS A VERY HIGH RATING, PERHAPS NEARLY THE HIGHEST SO FAR THIS YEAR. TO ME IT RELAUNCHES A GENRE KNOWN TO US IN LOW BUDGET HUMAN DRAMAS THAT EXPLORES HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND FAMILIES. AN EXAMPLE WOULD BE A WONDERFUL LIFE AND MANY MORE. NOT SURPRISING THIS COMES FROM NOAH BAUMBACH AND GRETA GERWIG IN THEIR RECENT FILMS. THIS FILM CELEBRATES PARENTING AND INDIVIDUALISM IN A BEAUTIFUL WAY. IS THERE ANYTHING IN LIFE THAN THE EXPLORATION OF MOTHER DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS? THIS FILM CHOKED ME UP AT LEAST A DOZEN TIMES. WRAP UP BEST ACTRESS OSCAR FOR SAOIRSE RONAN NOW! MOTHERHOOD IS FAR AWAY THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF FAMILY THAT EXIST AND AS I WATCH FROM MY OFFICE WINDOW THE DEVOTION AND LOVE FROM MOTHERS FOR THEIR SICK CHILDREN AS THEY TAKE THEIR CHILDREN INTO THE PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY OFFICE ACROSS THE STREET. I AM SO VERY PROUD TO SAY THAT ALL 3 OF MY SONS HAVE RISEN TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF MOTHERHOOD THAT COULD EVER BE. STEVEN AND MARC GOT IT FROM SHARON, JASON FROM HIS MOTHER JANET. THIS FILM IS NOT TO BE MISSED. “Lady Bird” is indie darling (and one-time mumblecore muse) Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, and the character is basically her, 15 years younger and played by Saoirse Ronan, sporting a vampire-red rinse and a face full of acne (both signs of its attention to detail). Early Telluride reactions seem particularly impressed that such an accomplished film could be anybody’s first, although those who’ve been following Gerwig’s career surely saw it coming: She’s been starring in, co-writing and even co-directing smart, soul-baring dramedies for more than a decade. The real surprise is just how honest and personal this film proves to be — again, par for the course with Gerwig, and yet, fairly rare among first-time directors, who haven’t had nearly so much practice simply being real. The only thing missing from “Lady Bird” is Gerwig herself, although one could argue that she inhabits every frame of this movie, and especially those in which Ronan appears — that’s how thoroughly the young Irish actress channels her Sacramento-raised writer-director. And wouldn’t it be great if this were but the first instance of a career-long series of stand-ins, the way Woody Allen casts stammering act-alikes to basically play him on screen? Not that you have to be familiar with any of Gerwig’s previous roles to appreciate “Lady Bird,” and considering the college-age demographic to which this A24 release is most likely to appeal, the vast majority probably won’t have seen a single one.

THIS WEEKEND I HAVE SEEN 2 FILMS THAT RATED 10/10 AND ALSO VERY HIGH METACRITIC SCORES AND DESERVEDLY SO. IN A RECENT REVIEW I PREDICTED A BEST OSCAR FOR SAOIRSE RONAN,(LADY BIRD} WELL NOW I AM SAYING WRAP UP TWO WITH THE OTHER ONE FOR FRANCES MCDORMAND IN THIS FILM. SHE WAS AMAZING AND BOTH PERFS ARE WORTH YOUR TIME. Martin McDonagh IS A WONDERFUL DIRECTOR AND WRITER WITH A SHORT FILMOGRAPHY INCLUDING IN BRUGES AND 7 PSYCHOPATHS. I LOOK FORWARD TO HIS FUTURE WORK. SHARON AND I BOTH MARVELED AT HIS CREATIVITY AND UNPREDICTABILITY IT IS A WILD RIDE, BUT WELL WORTH YOUR TIME. McDORMAND plays a grieving mother driven by an implacable thirst for justice in Martin McDonagh's darkly comedic drama, which also stars Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell. The roadside billboard is an iconic feature of the Americana landscape, with quaintly illustrated graphics welcoming travelers, offering hot coffee, comfort food and a warm hotel bed, or bidding farewell to those departing, often with a folksy "Y'all come back now"-type sentiment. There's no such reassurance in the tattered signage standing abandoned in the morning mist in the opening shots of Martin McDonagh's blisteringly funny and richly textured third feature, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Instead, they loom like desolate memories of a time of prosperity and happiness, suggesting a Walker Evans image of a Great Depression highway to a place beyond hope. Accompanied on the soundtrack by the glorious voice of Renee Fleming singing Irish poet Thomas Moore's "The Last Rose of Summer," set to a melancholy traditional Celtic tune, that image catches the eye of Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), and from deep within the world of infinite pain and anger she inhabits, a plan takes shape. After the entertainingly larkish but low-caloric carnage of Seven Psychopaths, McDonagh returns here to the peak form of his debut feature In Bruges, and of his best work for the stage. A stupendous showcase for the formidable gifts of McDormand that also provides plum roles for Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, this is a corrosively humorous drama of festering injustice, Shakespearean rage, grave reckoning and imperfect redemption, which unfolds with the epic dimensions of a classic Western showdown.

A WOMAN FILMAKER AND STAR, 2 INCREDIBLE TALENTS EXPLORING SEX AND AGEING. INCREDIBLE TALENTS THAT THE MATURING LADY WILL APPRECIATE. TAKE YOUR G.F., NOT YOUR HUSBAND OR B.F. “Like in a tacky bedroom farce?” a middle-aged lothario asks, bewildered, when an angry lover throws him out midway through “Let the Sunshine In.” He’s in the wrong, though he has reason to be incredulous: He’s in a Claire Denis movie, after all, and “tacky bedroom farce” is about as far from her highly refined repertoire as it’s possible to get. Luckily, it remains so by the end of this exquisitely judged romantic comedy, which maps out the transient pleasures, pitfalls and emotional culs-de-sac of mid-life dating with all the close human scrutiny and hot-blooded sensual detail of her sterner dramatic work. Perfectly small rather than slight, and radiantly carried by Juliette Binoche — in a light-touch tour de force to be filed alongside her work in Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” — this turns out to be a subtler departure than it outwardly appears for Denis, most evoking her other Parisienne drifting-hearts study, “Friday Night,” in its bittersweet tone. If the humor in “Let the Sunshine In” is slightly amped up by its maker’s usual standards, it hardly reaches for its chuckles: Denis, like the best artists, knows all human life is a comedy, albeit with an unhappy ending. That gentle wryness, coupled with an ensemble heavy on French A-listers, should make this one of her more commercially viable outings following its premiere as the opening film of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. (Four years after the equally rigorous, tonally opposite “Bastards” played in Un Certain Regard, “Let the Sunshine In” again invites the question of just what this modern master must do to get a Competition slot.)

GARY OLDMAN IS SPECTACULAR AND DESERVANT OF THE BEST ACTOR OSCAR. THE WHOLE FILM IS SO WELL DONE.....SETS, PERFS, TOGRAPHY, DIRECTION 75 METASCORE AND WORTH IT. NOT TO BE MISSED. SAW THIS FILM ON MY OWN OUTSIDE OF THE FESTIVAL Hidden behind fake jowls and a receding hairline, Gary Oldman delivers one of the great performances of his career as Winston Churchill. With all due respect to Christopher Nolan, no filmmaker has captured the evacuation of Dunkirk better than Joe Wright, who evoked the sheer scale of England’s finest hour via a five-minute tracking shot in “Atonement.” Now, with “Darkest Hour,” Wright returns to show the other side of the operation. Set during the crucial early days of Winston Churchill’s first term as prime minister, this talky yet stunningly cinematic history lesson balances the great orator’s public triumphs with more vulnerable private moments of self-doubt, elevating the inner workings of British government into a compelling piece of populist entertainment. Whereas Nolan’s “Dunkirk” so thrillingly illustrated the military rescue at Dunkirk, all but banishing Churchill to a newspaper article read aloud at the end of the film, “Darkest Hour” spends nearly every scene at the prime minister’s side — except for the first couple, during which Churchill is dramatically absent, represented only by the bowler hat left behind in his empty seat in the House of Commons

FROM ARGENTINA COMES A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT FOR ME AS THIS IS THE FILMAKING TEAM THAT RECENTLY CREATED WILD TALES THAT I HAVE SEEN 4 TIMES. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT, THEN YOUR ARE TRULY MISSING OUT ON A GREAT ONE. THE SUMMIT PREMISE STARTED OUT WELL THEN DETERIORATED INTO A PSYCHODRAMA WHICH WAS LAME AT BEST. IF THEY HAD STUCK TO THE THEME OF POMPOUS EGOCENTRIC POLITICIANS GATHERING FOR A SUMMIT OF S. AMERICAN LEADERS DISCUSSING AN OIL TREATY, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE TO TODAYS UGLY POLITICS, BUT IT FAILED TO MAKE THE GRADE. TECH ASPECTS WERE ALL FIRST CLASS AND THE CHILE SKI RESORT WAS SPECTACULAR. Back on Earth (or at least in the official selection), the talented Argentine director Santiago Mitre, who won the top prize at Critics' Week in 2015 for "Paulina," appeared in Un Certain Regard this year with "The Summit," a political thriller that takes an unexpected detour into Hitchcock's "Spellbound" territory. The film is set during a summit of South American leaders, who have convened to discuss an oil alliance. The politically malleable president of Argentina (Ricardo Darín), already facing exposure for corruption, has another problem when his daughter, Marina (Dolores Fonzi, from "Paulina"), suffers a psychiatric episode. A doctor (Alfredo Castro, from Pablo Larraín's films) puts her under hypnosis, and suddenly she has memories of events from his life of which she could have no knowledge. Is someone pulling the strings? Maybe not with respect to Marina's head space, but Christian Slater shows up as a United States state department representative who attempts to influence the negotiations. Like "Paulina," Mitre's film doesn't entirely coalesce, but it shows a certain daring in fusing two genres that don't normally go together.

A MAGNIFICENT CANNES FEST AWARDEE FROM BRAZIL/PORTUGAL. THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IS EXTRAORDINARY AS ARE MOST OF THE TECH CREDITS. EACH FRAME OF THE FILM IS SUITABLE TO BE MOUNTED ON YOUR LIVING ROOM WALL. THE NARRATIVE CAN BE CONFUSING, NEVER THE LESS REFLECTED THE HARDSHIPS OF FARMING AND BIGOTRY OF THE TIMES. A backlands tragedy set in early 19th century colonial Brazil, Daniela Thomas' slow-burn slavery drama unfolds on a luminous black-and-white widescreen canvas. As a member of the key creative team behind the Rio Olympics opening ceremony last year, Daniela Thomas helped to conceive a celebration of Brazilian cultural identity that refused to gloss over the shameful chapters of the past. One of the most powerful sequences in that arena spectacle was the arrival of African slaves. Pushing stylized plows while shuffling along on shackled feet, they gradually integrated in the Olympics pageant with indigenous Brazilians, European colonists and subsequent immigration waves to form the ethnically complex mestizo population of today. In Thomas’ darkly oneiric epic, Vazante, the director and her screenwriting partner Beto Amaral take a deeper plunge back into history to examine once again the roots of that mosaic of miscegenation in a context far removed from civilization, bristling with the tensions of violence, subjugation and forced cross-cultural cohabitation. Set in 1821, when Brazil was on the verge of independence, it's a slow-burn drama with a fairly austere attitude toward conventional exposition, dialogue and character development, which will confine it to the commercial margins. But the film is also transfixing in its formal rigor, impressive craft and striking visual beauty. Those factors, plus its searing depiction of racial cruelty and the weight given to its female characters in a patriarchal world, should spark some specialized distribution. Photographed by Inti Briones in the inky textures of black and white, Vazante was shot on rugged locations in the craggy Diamantina Mountains that evoke the Wild West. Loose, handheld camerawork tracks mule trains through dense vegetation, composed interiors are illuminated by period-appropriate light sources, and the novelistic action is punctuated by imposing shots of malevolent skies that look like the charcoal drawings of a disturbed mind. They give the illusion of magnifying the already expansive widescreen frame to twice its size.

THE PREMISE AND TECH PRODUCTION VALUES WAS REALLY QUITE GOOD, THEN THEY RAN OUT OF ENERGY AND IT FELL FLAT ON ITS FACE. DISAPPOINTING. METASCORE 76 SO A DARLING OF THE CRITICS, BUT NOT ME. “War is war. Life is life. You can’t lump them together,” says a burly construction worker early on in Valeska Grisebach’s Western, immediately invoking the dichotomy between civility and savagery at the heart of the genre referenced by the film’s title. The seasoned audience member will recognize the hollowness in such a statement, as the most ageless westerns have proven time and again that violence—physical and otherwise—is the engine of civilizing progress. And though blood is scarcely spilled in Western, the film nevertheless teems with nervous tension as a German construction crew descends on a modest Bulgarian village to conduct work on a hydroelectric power plant in the hills nearby. In a supremely understated style, Grisebach sets this all-too-modern scenario in motion and charts the ways in which power and privilege unconsciously manifest themselves, turning a boilerplate engineering initiative into a loaded culture clash. The film’s grizzled lone-wolf protagonist, the contract worker Meinhard (Meinhard Nuemann), first encounters ingrained animosity when he heads to town to procure cigarettes and is refused service by a hissing convenience store clerk. Because Meinhard is from Germany, his mere presence is enough to set the woman off, as his country’s occupation of Bulgaria during World War II is evidently still fresh on her mind. A stoic introvert and avowed pacifist, Meinhard avoids doing anything to escalate the situation, and generally resists the bullish negligence of co-workers like Vincent (Reinhardt Wetrek), who commemorates his troupe’s arrival by harassing a woman from town hoping to enjoy an afternoon swim near the work site. Meinhard’s low-key demeanor increasingly frustrates his unprincipled peers, who seek to cultivate a rah-rah boys’ club with overt nationalist sentiments, and expect the same when they learn of Meinhard’s history as a Legionnaire.

THIS FILMAKER HAS LEARNED HIS CRAFT FROM PEDRO ALMOLDOVAR AND MAKES AN EXCELLENT FILM, ALTHOUGH THE ENDING FOR ME WAS NOT AS SATISFYING AS I WOULD HAVE LIKED, BUT TYPICAL OF PEDRO. WELL SHOT, DIRECTED AND OKAY CINEMATOGRAPHY. MANY SPANISH OSCAR EQUIVALENT AWARDS Manuel Martin Cuenta, who has long had a cool eye for a lonely guy in films including Half Of Oscar and Cannibal, returns to the theme with an archly satirical tone in his latest film. Álvaro (Javier Gutiérrez who British audiences are most likely to remember from thriller Marshlands) is short in stature and on talent. A notary in a cramped office, his days are accompanied by a constant drone of conversation from his colleague, punctuated only by the squeak of a fan. Despite being desperate to pen a novel of high literature (it's unlikely Álvaro would see himself doing anything so cheap as 'writing'), he is in the shadow of his wife, who already has a successful page-turner to her name - a fact that everyone from his writing teacher (Antonio de la Torre, enjoying himself immensely in a rare comedy role) to his co-workers is constantly reminding him of. When he is forced to take leave from his job and discovers his wife is having an affair in short measure, Álvaro sees it as the moment to make or break his career - and possibly his life- moving into an apartment block. After being berated for not keeping things 'real' in his class, Álvaro views the move to his new flat as an opportunity and begins to treat many of the block's other occupants as characters, just waiting to be manipulated. Drawing on information from the building supervisor (Adelfa Calvo, stealing every scene she is in), coaxed out of her via increasing amounts of attention, he also insinuates himself into the life of his elderly, borderline fascist neighbour, who has some not-so carefully guarded secrets, and starts recording arguments between his Mexican near neighbours Enrique (Tenoch Huerta) and Irene (Adriana Paz), whose kitchen conversations play out within earshot of his bathroom.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY ALONE MADE THIS FOR ME AN AMAZING FILM EXPERIENCE Cecil Beaton, the Oscar-winning set and costume designer of 'My Fair Lady' and 'Gigi,' emerges as a colorful and sometimes controversial personality in this comprehensive documentary. Most younger audience members probably would draw a blank at the name Cecil Beaton, but he was a major figure in the arts for almost 60 years. Love, Cecil, one of the most engaging documentaries shown at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, should help to restore a bit of his reputation. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland made earlier docs about fashion maven Diana Vreeland (her husband’s grandmother) and art collector Peggy Guggenheim, so she’s revisiting comfortable terrain here and trains an affectionate but unsentimental eye on Beaton. He is probably best known for designing Oscar-winning films Gigi and My Fair Lady, and the film opens with the famous Ascot sequence from My Fair Lady — a panorama of stunning black-and-white costumes in Edwardian England, certainly one of the most striking musical sequences ever filmed. The doc quickly reminds us that Beaton’s talents went beyond his memorable costumes for period films. In a way he was frustrated by his own wide-ranging interests, and he wondered if he might have been more successful if he had concentrated on just one field. But Beaton was too restless for that, and he succeeded as a photographer, a theater and film designer and a gifted writer in a series of published diaries. The diaries form an important part of this film; they are read by Rupert Everett, who perfectly captures the imperious and witty Beaton spirit.

FROM LEBANON COMES THIS AMAZING FILM THAT I FAILED TO SEE AT PSIFF 2018 DESPITE THE AM.AZING SURGE OF ENTHUSIASM FROM MY FEST FRIENDS. IT IS NOW DOWN AT THE WESTPARK THEATRES IN O.C. ON ALTON NEAR CULVER. THE TECH ACHIEVEMENTS ARE 10 10 10 IN EVERY CATEGORY. BUT THE STORY ITSELF IS WORTH EVERY SECOND OF YOUR TIME. HOW A SIMPLE INSULT CAN TURN INTO A NATIONWIDE CONTROVERSY. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS FILM TO ALL MY READERS. THE PERFS ALONE ARE WORTH YOUR TIME. THE TIMES ARE SO RELEVANT TO OUR CURRENT POLITICAL IDIOCY. TRUMP'S IGNORING THE WOMEN, AND DEFENDING THE MEN IS PURE INSANITY AND JUST SO WRONG. The latest film from Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri ('The Attack') is a courtroom thriller that explores questions of guilt, justice and honor in the Middle East. A single slur becomes the lightning rod for a court case that grips but also bitterly divides a nation in The Insult, the latest feature from Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri (The Attack). The film pits a Palestinian construction worker — and technically a refugee — against the owner of a balcony he did some work on, a car mechanic who is part of a Christian political party in Lebanon. Their spat over a gutter leads to words, then blows and then a trial that becomes less and less about the insult and subsequent bodily harm and more and more about the morass of long-standing sectarian grievances that completely warp people's sense of justice.

CANNES 2018 DEBUT WITH HIGH STATUS FROM THE ATTENDING CRITICS. THE STYLISTIC IMTPRINT BY OZON IS VERY EVIDENT. ESPECIALLY THE UNPREDICTABLE ORIGINAL NARRATIVE. HIS USE OF MIRRORS AND UNUSUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY IS SO OZON. THERE IS MUCH TO UNDERSTAND AND DIGEST, BUT WORTH YOUR EFFORT. IF YOU ARE AS BIG A FAN OF FRANCOIS OZON, AS I AM, THE YOU SHOULD RUSH DOWN TO THE WESTPARK TO SEE THIS FILM. MY FAVORITES ARE SEE THE SEA, UNDER THE SAND, SWIMMING POOL, 8 FEMMES, CRIMINAL LOVERS, 5X2, YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL...... The films of François Ozon operate on a heightened plane that should really be called the Ozon Layer – a realm of thin air, light heads and giddy views where the French provocateur has carved his niche. His latest, which drew screeches of delight from critics at the Cannes Film Festival last night, is an erotic thriller based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel Lives of the Twins, in which an initially sexually inhibited psychiatric patient (Marine Vacth) embarks on simultaneous affairs with her therapist (Jérémie Renier) and his twin brother (Jérémie Renier again, with his hair combed differently), who is also a therapist. Shiveringly sexy and slippery as satin, with its tongue stuck everywhere including its cheek, it’s like the wildest Frasier episode they never made, and hits all the parts

THIS FILM ABOUT A GROUP OF SYRIANS WHO RUN INTO BOMBED BUILDINGS TO SAVE LIVES BROUGHT ME TO TEARS MANY TIMES. THANK YOU STEVE GORDON. PURSUIT OF MANKIND FOR THE COMMON GOOD IS SO POSITIVE IN THIS FILM. AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX AND SHOULD BE SEEN BY ALL MY CINEPHILES.BE PREPARED TO SOB MANY TIMES. THIS WONDERFUL DOCUMENTARY GETS MY VOTE FOR THE THE OSCAR. Dir. Feras Fayyad. Syria/Netherlands, 2017, 102 mins It was once thought that powerful television footage from Vietnam would forever change how war was conducted. Yet wave after multi-media wave of distressing images, TV footage and powerful documentaries have emerged from Syria in recent years and nothing has altered the course of this shameful proxy war. Small surprise that Syria’s anti-Assad search-and-rescue organisation The White Helmets, whose heroism is catalogued in the high-quality, staunchly verite documentary The Last Men In Aleppo, have come to the belief that the world has set its face against them. Editing is clearly complex given the variable footage, but each emergency call and every character is successfully individualised and identifiable, and several arcs snap into the overall narrative drive. Last Men In Aleppo catalogues human tragedy wrapped in a humanitarian disaster. In a final twist which seems unlikely, but is still worth hoping for, viewers would embrace this tough but necessary film, helping it turn the tide of public opinion. The 40-minute Netflix doc White Helmets, about the same organisation, has already been championed by George and Amal Clooney, and the actor has expressed a desire to make a feature film on the subject.

A MADE FOR TV DRAMA BY NETFLIX WITH THIS MUCH EXCELLENCE IS THE NEW NORMAL. SCENE AFTER SCENE HAS SO MUCH DEPTH AND HIGH QUALITY THAT IT CONFUSED ME. IT WAS TRULY AN EXCELLENT FILM BY ALL SERIOUS ANALYSIS. PERHAPS A LITTLE TOO LONG AND REPETITIOUS HOWEVER SEEMS TO STICK TO THE MAJOR THEME OF THIS YEARS FILMS. USA BIGOTRY COMES THROUGH LOUD AND CLEAR. IT IS OVERDUE AND APPROPRIATE. Premiered on Saturday, a day of million-woman marches, Dee Rees’s masterful film of racial divide in 1940s Mississippi says much that we all might heed. “I dreamed in brown,” Carey Mulligan’s Laura McAllan recalls in voiceover, commenting from some unknown point in time about a life on a farm in the Mississippi delta. It’s a life spent in struggle with the land, one bad crop away from hardship, only clean on Saturdays, forever sweeping death from her doorstep. “The country life,” she calls it. It’s not just Laura whose thoughts we hear in Mudbound, Dee Rees’s masterful adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s 1940s-set novel. This is a giant of a story, very much the soul of America in microcosm, and as such each of the players deserves and gets our sympathy. Well, everyone except Pappy, Laura’s racist father-in-law whose interment in a hastily dug grave bookends the story. When we meet Laura, she is 31 and destined for spinsterhood, only for Henry (Jason Clarke) to whisk her away to matrimony. Whether she loves him is debatable, but she does enjoy being needed. With Henry’s brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) flying bombers over Germany, Henry buys a farm and begins working the land. On the property is a sharecropper family headed by Hap (Rob Morgan) and Florence (Mary J Blige). Their son, Ronsell (Jason Mitchell), is fighting in a tank division.

IDI KO ENYEDY OF HUNGARY MADE MY FAVORITE FILM OF 1989 WON THE CAMERA D;OR AT CANNES, A VERY PRESTIGIOUS AWARD. HER LYRICAL POETIC STYLE IS VERY PLEASING TO ME AND THE TECH ACHIEVEMENTS IN BODY AND SOUL ARE JUST AS IMPRESSIVE. THIS OSCAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE NOMINEE IS VERY DESERVANT OF THIS HONOR. BASICALLY IT IS A LOVE STORY THAT INVOLVES FOREST ANIMALS. YOU MUST HAVE AN ACTIVE IMAGINATION TO ENJOY THIS UNIQUE FILM. THIS IS A MEMORABLE FILM AND YOU WILL FREQUENTLY THINK BACK TO THE STORY AND CINEMATOGRAPHY. KEN TURAN SAID IT BEST: It's the magical we see first, as "On Body and Soul" opens not with its human characters but with a drop-dead gorgeous sequence superbly shot by cinematographer Máté Herbai. A magnificent stag and a self-possessed doe, alone in a stunning winter landscape of bare trees and snowy ground, stand together, their bodies touching, all but human in their palpable connection. THIS FILM IS NOW AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX. PLEASE SEE IT AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. ALSO AVAIL ON NETFLIX IS LAST MEN IN ALEPPO WHICH I ALSO THINK IS WORTH YOUR TIME. Borbély, the European Film Award winner, is a dazzling professional, able to create a convincingly vulnerable Mária who is achingly believable in both her daring and her limitations. Effectively playing against her is Morcsányi, who in real life is one of Hungary's top publishers, someone who has worked with people like Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz. "His physical type made me think of Clint Eastwood in 'Gran Torino,'" the director has said, and the comparison is apt. Also doing remarkable work are those two deer. The magnificent male needed months of training and the director, quoted in the Hollywood Reporter, said "we framed the deer the same way we framed the human actors." It works. For lovers of the theatrical experience, the only sad note in all this is that in Los Angeles "On Body and Soul" is only available on Netflix, the first time in memory a foreign-language film of this quality has not had even a token moviehouse playdate. Finally, however, we're grateful to have something so memorable to experience, no matter what screen it's on.

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING DOCUS I HAVE EVER SEEN. THE WORLD OF FASHION AND PHOTOGRAPHY, I HATED TO BLINK FEARFUL OF MISSING SOMETHING. ANDRE IS SPECIAL BUT INSIGHT INTO ALL OF HIS DESIGNER COLLEAGUES WAS FASCINATING. PUT THIS NEAR THE TOP OF YOUR TO SEE LIST AND WILL SOON BE ON AMAZON PRIME OR NETFLIX. FABULOUS FILM. Over the years, many people have attempted to talk longtime Vogue style arbiter and all-around fashion icon André Leon Talley into making a documentary about his pioneering journey – including his friend and soon-to-exit Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. But it took looking into director Kate Novack’s “beautiful eyes”, according to the towering 67-year-old himself, to sign on the dotted line. And we’re grateful he did. Novack’s solo directorial debut, The Gospel According To André, charts how an African-American man from humble beginnings in the Jim Crow South (Durham, North Carolina) survived the fashion world’s unforgiving chiffon trenches to become one of the planet’s most ubiquitous and beloved tastemakers – all the while breaking the race barrier guarding the upper echelons of mainstream fashion publications. To no one’s surprise, The Gospel features an all-star cast attempting to outdo one another in effusive proclamations about their brilliant, frequently kaftan-clad friend. Tom Ford raves about his “fabulous insanity”, will.i.am likens him to the “Kofi Annan of what you’ve got on” and the routinely unimpressed Anna Wintour describes his sartorial knowledge as “impeccable.” And yet, whether you’ve come across his byline in the pages of WWD and Vogue, enjoyed his live commentary during the annual Met Galas or seen him judge four cycles of meltdowns and miracles on America’s Next Top Model, chances are you’ve wanted to know more about the six-foot-and-a-half enigma. Because Talley has always kept his private life at a safe distance from the loquacious, uber-knowledgeable savant persona he’s cultivated. In fact, during a post-film Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival, Talley compared the experience of repeatedly having to confront his past on camera to open-heart surgery.

A WELL ACTED AND DIRECTED FILM EXPLORING GAY ATTITUDES IN A HASIDIC BRITISH COMMUNITY. ALL IN ALL A MISFIRE.

A MARVEL COMIC BLACKPLOITATION MOVIE WHICH SHOULD NEVER HAVE COME OFF THE SHELF

FASCINATING DOCUMENTARY ON RUTH BADER GINSBERG, BUT POORLY DONE. MAINLY JUST TALKING HEADS

I LEARNED MUCH ABOUT MYSELF IN WATCHING THIS INCREDIBLE DOCUMENTARY. EASILY AT THIS POINT MY SECOND FAVORITE FILM OF THE YEAR, JUST BELOW THE POPE FILM. NOW WHY DID I GIVE IT A 10, METASCORE OF 84. AND ROTTEN TOMATOES A 94....VERY HIGH. IN MY OPINION IT IS BECAUSE THIS FILM TRULY RATTLED YOUR BRAIN AND MADE YOU THINK CONTINUOUSLY. FOR ME MY CLINICALLY THINKING WISHED FOR A PAUSE IN THE FILM EVERY MINUTE, TO WRITE MY THOUGHTS. THIS IS ONE OF THE VERY BEST DISCUSSION FILMS THAT YOU WILL EVER SEE. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS DOCUMENTARY IS FIRST CLASS IN EVERY DIMENSION, THE MUSIC. A MUST SEE, RUN TO IT INCLUDINGAT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. In 1980, a 19-year-old man named Robert Shafran walked on campus for his first day of college. To his bewilderment, the kids greeted him as if they knew him already and were surprised that he was back. It didn’t take long for Robert to figure out that he had an identical twin brother named Eddy about whom he knew nothing. After they met, and it was reported in the press, yet another identical twin brother named David contacted Robert and Eddy. Director Tim Wardle’s carefully structured and suspenseful documentary “Three Identical Strangers” starts at this point where all the brothers first met, and it mimics the “can you believe it?” tone of their initial press. Robert, Eddy, and David made the rounds of all the talk shows in 1980 and became media celebrities. They also all moved into the same apartment in Manhattan, and they enjoyed some wild times.

THE MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF THE YEAR THAT SHOULD BE SEEN BY EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF THEIR RELIGION OR POLITICAL PERSUASION. MADE BY WIM WENDERS, A 72 YEAR OLD MAJOR TALENT CONSIDERED PART OF THE GERMAN NEW WAVE OFTEN CONFUSED WITH WERNER HERTZOG(FITZCAROLDO). WIM HAS WON MANY INTERNATIONAL AWARDS INCLUDING OSCARS AND THE PALM D'OR IN CANNES. MY FAVORITES INCLUDE WINGS OF DESIRE, PARIS, TEXAS, PINA(DOCU), BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, AND THE SALT OF THE EARTH. IT WOULD BE VERY SATISFYING FOR MY READERS TO PURSUE HIS EXTRAORDINARY FILMOGRAPHY. THE POPE FILM SHOWS OUR CURRENT POPE PREACHING ABOUT HIS MARCH FOR THE COMMON GOOD OF ALL PEOPLE AND HOW WRONG IT IS TO BE MAINLY IN THE PURSUIT OF MONEY. A HEALTHIER PLANET IS FRONT AND CENTER THROUGHOUT THE FILM. HIS EMBRACE OF ST FRANCIS OF ASSISSI IS EVIDENCE THROUGHOUT THIS MAGNIFICENT DOCUMENTARY. LIKE ST FRANCIS HE HAS CELEBRATED THE CHURCH AS A BASTION FOR THE POOR. HE DRIVES A FIAT AND NOT THE POPEMOBILE, RESIDES IN A SMALL APARTMENT LEADING BY EXAMPLE SAYING WE MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN GOD AND MONEY. HE IS AGAINST PROSELYTIZING AND THAT PRIESTS SHOULD TALK LITTLE AND LISTEN. EVERY TECHNICAL ASPECT OF THIS DOCU IS FIRST CLASS, EDITING, CINEMATOGRAPHY, MUSIC AND SHOULD BE COMPARED TO RBG WHICH WAS INTERESTING, BUT VERY POORLY DONE. THIS FILM MORE THAN ANY OTHER WILL APPEAL TO YOUR HEART. INTERESTING AND NEW TO ME WAS THAT ST FRANCIS OF ASSISSI PREACHED ENVIRONMENTALISM. MY EXPERIENCE WITH MOST OF MY RELIGOUS FRIENDS IS THAT THEY DO NOT JOIN THESE RANKS. THE MOST RECENT REMARK I HEARD WAS THAT POPE FRANCIS SHOULD STICK TO RELIGION AND IGNORE GLOBAL WARMING.

The name choice was apt. St. Francis, the film points out, was a kind of revolutionary, embracing poverty, finding holiness in nature and generally “taking the gospel seriously.” For his part, Pope Francis has rejected some of the privileges of the papacy, has spoken frequently of the importance of being good stewards of the Earth and has urged all who will listen that we should all “become a bit poorer” and that he would like to see “a poor church for the poor. Early in the film, Francis tells a young visitor to the Vatican that he did not seek to become pope, and pokes a bit of fun at anyone who might want the job. But after listening to the pontiff, and watching him visit refugee camps, wash the feet of prisoners and engage in many other humane and exemplary actions, we can’t help but agree with the assessment of an aged nun, an old acquaintance of his from Argentina: “His life is a sermon.”

AT 530 A.M. OCT 10, 2018 I RECEIVED A TEXT FROM STEVE GORDON THAT THIS IS AN EXCELLENT FILM. I REPLIED THAT IT WAS ON MY LIST, BUT NOT NETFLIX RELEASED ON OCT 10. HIS REPLY WAS THAT IS WHY HE WATCHED IT AT 230 A.M. GREAT FILM ABOUT A NORWEGIAN EVENT IN 2011 THAT A TERRORIST ALONE KILLED 77 PEOPLE AT A SUMMER CAMP ON AN ISLAND. HE WAS PART OF AN ARMY THAT WANTED TO STOP ALL IMMIGRATION, SIMILAR TO OUR CURRENT POLICIES. MY GRANDFATHER WAS AN IMMIGRANT FROM BELARUS TO ESCAPE PERSECUTION AND SEEK A BETTER LIFE FOR HIS FAMILY. WHITE SUPREMACY AND ULTRA NATIONALISM IS EXPLORED IN DEPTH IN THIS FILM. PAUL GREENGRASS IS THE ENERGY BEHIND THIS MASTERFUL PRODUCTION. HE HAS A VERY IMPRESSIVE FILMOGRAPHY AND USED NORWAY LOCATIONS AND ACTORS, BUT IT IS IN ENGLISH. NETFLIX HAS AN ENGLISH DESCRIPTION OPTION UNDER SUBTITLES WHICH TO ME WAS VERY HELPFUL IN UNDERSTANDING THE FILM. IT IS A VERY CONTEMPORARY ISSUE THAT SHOULD BE SEEN BY ALL CITIZENS OF THE WORLD. 22 July review – Paul Greengrass's searing account of Anders Breivik's mass murder 5 / 5 stars 5 out of 5 stars. Drama and journalism meet in this brave and masterly film about the 2011 massacre of 77 people in Norway by a smirking, far-right extremist Isak Bakli Aglen (Torje Hanssen) and Jonas Strand Gravli (Viljar Hanssen) on Utøya. Isak Bakli Aglen (Torje Hanssen) and Jonas Strand Gravli (Viljar Hanssen) on Utøya. Photograph: Erik Aavatsmark/Netflix ‘Welcome,” reads the banner on the Norwegian island of Utøya, early in the new film directed and co-produced by Paul Greengrass. The kids are already arriving, a blur of happy faces, here for the Norwegian Labour party’s annual youth summer camp. Badly assembled tents and games of frisbee ensue. More than two hours later, the credits will roll. You may find you stay until they end, still needing a second or two to put yourself back together. 22 July is Greengrass’s account of the 2011 massacre on Utøya of 69 people, most of them teenagers, by the far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik (who had already killed eight people earlier in the day with a car bomb in Oslo). The result is searing. In his last film, Jason Bourne, Greengrass revived the character whose action adventures have filled half his career. This is the other half – the junction of film and journalism, drama and the record. On Utøya, the camera settles on Viljar Hanssen (Jonas Strand Gravli), gawky and vocally idealistic. Twenty-five miles away, an adult man wears a police uniform purchased online – Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie), engaged in the drab mechanics of mass murder. In central Oslo he parks one unmarked van outside the office of the Prime Minister and drives away in another. Moments later, the first vehicle explodes. Eight people died here. For Breivik it was just a prologue. Reaching Utøya on a tiny ferry, he politely tells the camp leader that given the chaos in Oslo, he is here to secure the island. “You will have to cover them up,” she says, gesturing to his guns. “They will scare the children.” A Greengrass trademark is what he calls the “unknowing camera”, events always a beat ahead of us. Here, with dreadful certainty, we already know. You may be reminded of another of his films, United 93, the real-time transcript of the hijack of the fourth flight on 9/11. Unwatchable and yet impossible to look away from. The same applies to the scenes on Utøya. But in United 93, the final descent fades to black. In 22 July, Breivik’s surrender only ends the first act. As in real life, he lays down his weapons to begin promoting his personal brand, a florid anti-immigration platform. A self-proclaimed soldier, he preens grotesquely. For Greengrass, this is a challenge. There must be a point to evoking this much horror – and it has to be bigger than Breivik, a smirking narcissist who would love nothing more than a film about him. On screen, he relaxes in police custody, snacking on pizza, grandly holding forth. He pauses to proffer his index finger. He has sustained a small cut – probably, he says, from a skull fragment of one his victims. Medical attention is required. Otherwise, it might become infected. You could take such cartoon monstrosity as the sign of an over-eager scriptwriter. Police reports describe it as exactly what happened. Soon, he has a lawyer, the stone-faced Geir Lippestad (Jon Øigarden). You can make out Greengrass behind Lippestad, wrestling with his own dilemma of how to make this film without becoming a stooge. Part of the answer is Viljar Hanssen– left for dead on the shore of Utøya. While Breivik has his finger bandaged, Hanssen undergoes emergency surgery. He wakes blind in one eye, bullet fragments still lodged in his brain. His uncertain recovery shares the story. Real-life terror: is it exploitative to use human suffering for cinematic thrills? Legal drama unfolds. But the trial is not about guilt or innocence. Instead, Breivik demands Lippestad prove him sane. Greengrass peers into his political feedtank. Like United 93 a decade ago, July 22 serves as an origin story for continuing trauma. While Breivik’s network of far-right “brothers” may have been illusory, talk of hate groups across Europe feels grimly prophetic. In the past, Greengrass’s masterstroke was lending the Bourne movies the feel of reportage. Now, the goal is different – to give real-world events proper gravity. 22 July is set in neutrally decorated rooms. The closest thing here to a rousing Hollywood speech is a vignette from another Utøya survivor, Lara (Seda Witt), recalling life as a refugee. A rare adrenal set piece – Hanssen, raging, careers across the tundra on a snowmobile – is spotlit by stillness elsewhere. We hope that Hanssen overcomes. But the film’s restraint is its own kind of fightback. Writing about Utøya, Karl Ove Knausgaard called Norwegian culture “deeply sincere, almost innocent”. Greengrass embraces that. Refusing to make Breivik spectacular, the film pays tribute to process, how Norway gave him precisely what he was entitled to so as not to give him what he wanted – scale, martyrdom, glamour. 22 July is a brave and careful film. Midway through, Lippestad visits Breivik’s self-involved mother Wenche Behring (Hilde Olausson). What happened, she says, was awful. Then she adds: “The way the country’s going … it’s not like it used to be.” For a moment, Lippestad cannot find the words. “These are difficult times,” he says, eventually. Greengrass has made the perfect film for them.

THE LAST 30 MINUTES BY IT SELF IS WORTHY OF YOUR TIME.....TO ME THE MUSIC ALONE IS WORTH MY 10 RATING. Pure pleasure permeates Bohemian Rhapsody, a joyful, impish portrait of Freddie Mercury and Queen that doesn’t worry about making the case for these artists’ greatness but does persuasively argue that being in a rock ‘n’ roll band is a blast. Appropriately for a group known for its theatrical, crowd-pleasing tunes, this authorised-by-the-band biopic carries itself lightly, serving up familiar plot points with panache and a sense of humour, while at the same time investing in the story’s emotional through-line, building to a genuinely moving climax. But just as Queen would have been nothing without Mercury’s arresting, sexy presence, so too is Bohemian Rhapsody dominated by Rami Malek’s magnetic, frisky and unexpectedly poignant performance as the late lead sin.

THERE WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH FILMS NEGATIVE TO RACISM. THE UGLY SEGREGATION ISSUES ARE HISTORICAL AND STILL PRESENT. AN UNUSUAL ROAD MOVIE THAT SURPRISINGLY IS QUITE ENTERTAINING DONE BY PETER FARRELY(THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY). A BRONX GANGSTER AND A CLASSIC PIANIST TRAVEL THROUGH THE UGLY SOUTH ILLUSTRATING HOW HORRIBLE THE SOUTHERNERS WERE TO THE COLORED. Vallelonga, known to his friends as “Tony Lip,” was a former bouncer at New York’s famed Copacabana nightclub when he was hired by Dr. Shirley, an acclaimed jazz musician, to be his driver and de facto bodyguard during a tour he planned largely through the Deep South—a daring project for a black performer in 1962. (The film’s title refers to The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide to hotels, motels, restaurants and other businesses that served black customers, or as Tony perhaps anachronistically notes, people “traveling while black.”) Tony is crude, loud, plain-spoken and kinda racist; Dr. Shirley is erudite, refined, exacting and kinda uptight. But Tony, temporarily unemployed, needs the good money Dr. Shirley is paying, and Dr. Shirley needs someone with Tony’s reputation for handling tense situations. It’s clear from the outset of their journey who’s boss, though it’s still difficult for Dr. Shirley to get the “quiet time” he needs in the turquoise Cadillac Coupe de Ville the garrulous Tony commandeers.

A BRILLIANT BIO OF VINCENT VAN GOGH DONE BY A VERY TALENTED DIRECTOR, JULIAN SCHNABEL, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY. WILLEM DAFOE'S PERF IS DESERVANT OF OSCAR CONSIDERATION. THE PAINTINGS AND COLORS IN THIS MAGNIFICENT FILM ARE WORTHY OF MY 10 RATING. “What do you paint?” The question comes from an asylum inmate who is seated next to Vincent van Gogh (Willem Dafoe). Van Gogh replies with a single word: “Sunlight.” That may be as good a description of van Gogh’s art as you’re likely to get. In his brief time on this planet (he died, in 1890, at 37), and the even briefer period of his full creative effusion, van Gogh painted flowers, wheat fields, vineyards, cafés, chairs, boats, starry nights, and himself, but what he really painted was the light that bounced off those things and rippled through them. He painted the ecstatic holiness he saw in that light, with each brush stroke a mystic gob of sensuality and spirit.

A VERY BORING PERIOD PIECE FROM UK THAT MEETS ALL THE REQUIREMENTS OF EXCELLENCE IN CINEMA, ESPECIALLY THE 3 FEMALE PROTAGONISTS. THE ORIGINAL CREATIVE GREEK FILMAKER YAGOS LATHIMOS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MAGNIFICENT FILM. HIS PREVIOUS FILMS WORTHY OF PRAISE INCLUDE DOGTOOTH AND THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER. In addition to its sumptuous visuals and delectable wit, this must-see Fox Searchlight release offers a balanced triumvirate of formidable female leads rich in surprising character shadings. Without a trace of didactic protofeminism, their roles speak volumes about the savvy required of women to use their influence in a bitterly divided political landscape, not to mention pursue their personal agendas.

EVERY SCENE IN THIS MAGNIFICENT FILM WILL STOP YOUR HEART WITH ITS BEAUTY. AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE INCLUDING NETFLIX. SO SEE IT AND IF NOT AND I FIND OUT YOU MAY NOT RECEIVE ANY OF MY CINEMAPHILIA NOTES. THIS SHOULD BE A 10 PLUS. MANY DESERVED AWARDS. THE OUTSTANDING AMAZING FEATURE IS THE CINEMATOGRAPHY....A MUST SEE FOR MY READERS. IT HAS A 96% METACRITIC RATING, VERY HIGH AND DESERVEDLY SO. “Roma” is the rare movie in no hurry to reveal what it’s about. Alfonso Cuarón’s first project in his native Mexico since “Y Tu Mamá También,” “Roma” has more in common with that movie’s character-based storytelling than any of the bigger productions he’s made since; it also exhibits a mastery unique to his command of the medium. The bittersweet tale of a housemaid in a middle-class neighborhood of Mexico City in the early ’70s, “Roma” channels Cuarón’s memories of his upbringing into a ravishing, meditative, black-and-white saga that mines its bittersweet story from the inside out. At its center, Cleo (remarkable newcomer Yalitza Aparicio) works for a well-to-do family headed by Dr. Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) and his energetic wife Sofía (a scene-stealing Marina de Tavira) along with their four kids (Cuaron based the youngest of the unit on himself). A descendant of indigenous Mesoamerican tribes (the movie includes both Spanish and Mixtec dialogue), Cleo has a comfortable routine as an extended member of the family. When the kids gather to watch television in the evening, she’s right there with them, a kind presence enmeshed in their daily life and able to live one of her own.

IN SPITE OF 3 NEGATIVE REVIEWS 3/5 STAR, THIS IS A FABULOUS FILM. TRUE CINEMATIC CRAFTSMANSHIP IN EVERY ASPECT. THIS IS A STORY THAT NEEDED TO BE FILMED. THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH THE FILM. BUT THE REVIEWERS. OBVIOUSLY BURNED OUT SEEING TOO MANY CANNES FILMS.

I SAT THERE FOR 2 HOURS AND 40 MINUTES BEFUDDLED BY THIS EASTERN EUROPEAN FILM AND STILL WONDER WHY I DID NOT WALK OUT.