Black Swan

 

Black Swan 2010

• Director: Darren Aronofsky
• Seen by this director: The Wrestler, The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Natalie Portman – many
• Mila Kunis – Jupiter Ascending, The Book of Eli
• Vincent Cassel – Derailed, Birthday Girl, Jeanne d’Arc, Elizabeth
• Winona Ryder – many including Looking for Richard
• Barbara Hershey – Daniel Derondoa, Swing Kids, The Last Temptation of Christ, Run for Your Life
• Why? I can’t remember if I liked it
• Seen: Once before. Now 21 September 2023        

             Nina (Portman) gets her dream ballet role as both the White Swan and the Black Swan in Swan Lake. She is technically excellent but her neuroses stop her dancing from being passionately expressive. Long story short – she can’t take the pressure and starts having paranoid hallucinations. Her neurotic mother (Hershey) and predatory director (Cassel) don’t help.

       Portman is often good and she won an Oscar for this role but I found her very one-note, always anxious and weepy. Why did the director choose Nina in the first place?

       Now that I see it again I seem to remember not being terribly impressed the first time. I’m not impressed this time either. It’s not bad, but it’s not as good as its reputation.

 2 ½ * of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place beyond the Pines

 

The Place beyond the Pines 2012

• Director: Derek Cianfrance
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Mahershala Ali, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta, Dane De Haan
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Ryan Gosling – Barbie, First Man, Blade Runner 2049, La La Land, The Nice Guys, Crazy Stupid Love, Drive, Lars and the Real Girl, Half Nelson, The United States of Leland
• Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Joy, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Words, He’s Just Not That Into You
• Eva Mendes – Once upon a Time in Mexico
• Mahershala Ali – Alita Battle Angel, Green Book, Hidden Figures, The Hunger Games, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Ben Mendelsohn – Ready Player One, Darkest Hour, Rogue One, The Dark Knight Rises, Australia, Vertical Limit
• Ray Liotta  - this and that
• Rose Byrne – The X Men, I Give It a Year, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine, The Dead Girl, Casanova, Star Wars
• Dane De Haan – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
• Why? A good cast.
• Seen: 20 September 2023                 

             Three stories in one.

       Luke (Gosling), a stunt motorcyclist, learns that his ex (Mendes) has his baby. For no discernible reason she seeks him out even though she has a new man (Ali) and Luke decides he’s going to take over. He has no money. He robs banks. He gets caught.

       A rookie cop (Cooper) is the one to catch him, but there are crooked cops on the force and he exposes them.

       He becomes states attorney and powerful. His son meets up with Luke’s son.

       It doesn’t work. What a disappointment from these great actors.

 2* of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Time

 

Good Time 2017

• Director: The Safdie brothers
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Robert Pattison, Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Buddy Duress, Tahlia Webster, Barkhad Abdi
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Robert Pattinson – Tenet, The Lighthouse, High Life, Remember Me, Twilight, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Jennifer Jason Leigh – Annihilation, The Hateful Eight, Margot at the Wedding, The Road to Perdition, eXistenZ, A Thousand Acres, Georgia
• Barkhad Abdi – Blade Runner 2049
• Why? Pattinson. Forget Twilight. He’s a good actor.
• Seen: 19 September 2023                 

             Connie (Pattinson) and his mentally challenged brother Nick (Safdie) rob a bank. It doesn’t go well.

       Connie will do anything for Nick but everything he does just makes things worse. It becomes a dark urban nightmare. One absurd trippy mess after another ensues and there is no indication whatsoever that this can end well.

       The film has been compared with Dog Day Afternoon for its similar atmosphere of a desperate frantic situation with a desperate frantic loser. Pattinson is every bit as good as Pacino. Maybe even better.

 4* of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing for Time

 

Playing for Time 1980

• Director: Daniel Mann and Joseph Sargent
• Seen by this director: Mann: Teahouse of the August Moon. Sargent: Warm Springs, Out of the Ashes, Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
• Based on the book by Fania Fénelon
• Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Alexander, Maud Adams, Christine Baranski, Robin Bartlett, Marisa Berenson, Viveca Lindfors, Melanie Mayron, Max Wright, Shirley Knight
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Vanessa Redgrave – Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, The Thirteenth Tale, The Butler, A Song for Marion, Coriolanus, Atonement, The Pledge, Girl Interrupted, Cradle Will Rock, Lulu on the Bridge, Deep Impact, Mrs Dalloway, Wilde, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Howards End, The Ballad of Sad Café, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Prick Up Your Ears, The Devils, O What a Lovely War, Isadora, Blow-Up, Camelot
• Jane Alexander – Terminator Salvation, Fur, Warm Springs, The Cider House Rules, Kramer vs Kramer
• Maud Adams – Radioskugga, James Bond
• Christine Baranski – The Big Bang Theory, Mamma Mia 1&2, Into the Woods, Chicago, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
• Robin Bartlett – The Glass Castle, Inside Llewyn Davis, Shutter Island, Postcards from the Edge, Moonstruck, Sophie’s Choice
• Marisa Berenson  - Colour Me Kubrick, Cabaret
• Max Wright – The Norm Show, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Snow Falling on Cedars, Alf, Reds
• Shirley Knight – The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, As Good As It Gets, The Outer Limits and many other series
• Why? A good film.
• Seen: Once before. Now 18 September 2023        

             Fania Fénelon (Redgrave), a celebrated and renowned musician from Paris, ends up in Auschwitz. She’s Jewish and a member of the resistance.

       She’s recruited into the prison women’s orchestra. They play for the pleasure of the Nazi guards, they play as other prisoners arrive at the camp and are separated into queues, as they are marched off to work, as they are marched to the gas chambers.

       The other prisoners hate them.

       Fania struggles to keep her sanity and humanity in the midst of the horror.

       It’s perhaps the best film about Auschwitz I’ve seen and in an excellent cast, Redgrave is nothing less than phenomenal.

 5* of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Giver

 

The Giver 2014

• Director: Philip Noyce
• Seen by this director: Gone Baby Gone, Rabbit-Proof Fence
• Based on the book by Lois Lowry
• Cast: Brenton Thwaites, Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Taylor Swift, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes, Odeya Rush, Cameron Monaghan
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Brenton Thwaites – Pirates of the Caribbean, Maleficent
• Jeff Bridges – True Grit, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Seabiscuit, The Big Lebowski, The Fabulous Bake Boys, The Last Picture Show
• Meryl Streep - many
• Taylor Swift - Cats
•  Katie Holmes – Woman in Gold, Batman Begins, The Ice Storm
• Alexander Skarsgård  - Big Little Lies, Melancholia
• Odeya Rush – Lady Bird
• Why? The book.
• Seen: 17 September 2023                 

             In a future society, complete equality is mandatory. Feelings are strictly controlled, colours, music and beauty are forbidden. Memories of cruelty, crime and war have been supressed so that only one of the Elders, the Giver (Bridges) has access to humanity’s memories.

       At the transition to adulthood ceremonies, Jonas (Thwaites) is assigned the position as Receiver, the next keeper of memories.

       I quite liked the book but the film is jam-packed with platitudes. Love is beautiful, colour and music is beautiful, feelings are beautiful. Sure war and all the bad stuff that Jonas is shown is bad but come on.

       Read the book. It’s more believable, less preachy and more enjoyable.

 2* of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Soil (Rouge)

 

Red Soil/Rouge 2020

• Director: Farid Bentoumi
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Zita Hanrot, Sami Bouajila, C´line Salette
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Sami Bouajila – London River
• Why? It sounded good.
• Seen: 16 September 2023                 

             Nour (Hanrot), a nurse, gets a job with her father’s (Bouajila) help at the chemical factory where he and most of town work. She’s happy to be with her family again but dismayed and increasingly upset by the lack of the employees’ health care, the shoddiness or absence of safety equipment, and most alarming, the factory’s dumping of toxic waste nearby. Everyone, including her father, tells her to leave it alone, the factory is breaking no laws.

       Her continued investigation shows otherwise but she’s blocked at every turn by the factory bigwigs who are afraid to lose their state subventions and permits, by the workers who are afraid of losing their jobs, by her family.

       There have been many good whistle blower films. This is among the best.

 4 ½ * of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How I Live Now

 

How I Live Now 2013

• Director: Kevin Macdonald
• Seen by this director: State of Play, The Last King of Scotland
• Based on the book by Meg Rosoff
• Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, George MacKay, Harley Bird, Anna Chancellor
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Saoirse Ronan – Little Women, Mary Queen of Scots, Lady Bird, Brooklyn, Hanna, Atonement
• Tom Holland – Wolf Hall
•  George MacKay – 1917, Pride, Sunshine on Leith, Defiance
• Harley Bird – Doctor Who
• Anna Chancellor – Testament of Youth, Hysteria, Hustle, Breaking and Entering, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Longitude, Cold Lazarus, Karaoke, Four Weddings and a Funeral
•  Why? Ronan
• Seen: 14 September 2023                

             Teen-aged American Daisy (Ronan) is neurotic, hostile, unhappy, and sent by her newly re-married father to step-cousins in England. She’s vegan, germ-phobic and appalled by her wild, unsupervised, rural step-cousins, from the pesky Piper (Bird) to the fit Eddie (MacKay). Their mother (Chancellor) is a high-ranking peace negotiator who is never home because war is about to break out.

       War breaks out. The kids are separated and the rest of the film is escape and survival. It’s a good film in which young Ronan’s acting prowess is already evident.

 3 ½ * of 5