Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[mlrg]

Black Panther 4/10

[Precious Doll]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) Ethan & Joel Coen 6/10
Sorry to Bother You (2018) Boots Riley 6/10
Outlaw King (2018) David Mackenzie 1/10
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) Lasse Hallstrom & Joe Johnston 4/10
The Resistance Banker (2018) Joram Lursen 4/10
War Machine (2017) David Michod 4/10
13th (2016) Ava DuVernay 7/10
Beasts of No Nation (2015) Cary Joji Fukunaga 4/10
King Cohen: The Wild World of Fimmaker Larry Cohen (2018) Steve Mitchell 6/10
Into the Inferno (2016) Werner Herzog 5/10
Mascots (2016) Christopher Guest 5/10

[Reza]

Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018) 5/10

Reza,

Have you ever seen the TV series?

Not yet but I believe it's on YouTube so will watch it.

[Precious Doll]

Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018) 5/10

Reza,

Have you ever seen the TV series?

[Reza]

Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018) 5/10

This heist movie throws in everything and the kitchen sink - police brutality, sexism, interracial marriage, a tough talking black woman wielding a gun - and is very busy with loads of characters but not enough screen time to do any of them justice. There's just too much going on in this adaptation of a British tv series (the setting here is switched from London to Chicago) which had more time on its hands to do the story justice. McQueen, coming off the Oscar winning "12 Years a Slave" directs this genre piece in a frantic and flashy manner interspersing the action with flashbacks depicting the lives of the women before they became widows. This is perfect as popcorn fair but nothing close to being the kind of film that has critics going gaga over it. A renowned thief (Liam Neeson) and his three partners are killed in a botched robbery. His widow (Viola Davis) is threatened by a local criminal into paying him the $2 million her husband owed him. After finding her husband's diary which has plans for a heist she enlists the widows (Michelle Rodriguez & Elizabeth Debicki) of the men who were killed during the robbery. The plan is to steal $5 million, pay off the mob, and split the rest. The plot is strictly formulaic with no sense of urgency or danger as the women go through the motions of the robbery. An eclectic cast is wasted in small parts - Colin Farrell as a corrupt politician, Robert Duvall as his racist father, Carrie Coon as one of the widows not involved in the robbery, Jacki Weaver as the abusive mother of Debicki and Daniel Kaluuya as the sociopath brother of the crook who gives the women a hard time. Davis, in action mode, narrows her eyes and acts wounded - she not only has a husband who died and left her with a burden but a teenage son who was killed by cops. The film is quietly stolen by Debicki as the abused wife who turns tricks with a john (Lukas Haas) and who transforms from a frightened victim into an empowered woman which she conveys through her facial expressions in a few short underplayed scenes. Extremely disappointing film has nothing we haven't seen before.

[Reza]

Every Day (Michael Sucsy, 2018) 3/10

Pretty high schooler falls for a person called "A" who inhabits a different person's body - boys and girls of every race and gender possible which in itself is the glaring message - every 24 hours making the relationship kinda dicey. Stupid premise, based on a book that was unbelievably a New York Times bestseller, has an appealing lead (Angourie Rice) struggling to keep afloat what is basically a rather average teen romance.

The Making of a Lady (Richard Curson Smith, 2012) 4/10

Old fashioned period piece with gothic overtones hinting at a bodice ripper but more in line with the Barbara Cartland school of melodramatic literature. It has elements of a thriller which becomes an outright horror effort. An educated lady (Lydia Wilson) with no means is taken in as a companion to a lady (Joanna Lumley) only to be dismissed curtly. Taking pity on her the lady's nephew (Linus Roache), a widower in line to a great fortune, takes her as his bride and brings her to his huge isolated mansion in the countryside (shades of Daphne Du Maurier's Manderly) complete with a butler and maid who both suspiciously resemble Mrs Danvers. The plot takes on a melodramatic turn after the husband is recalled to India by his regiment and his nasty cousin (James D'Arcy) and Indian wife turn up on her doorstep. Soon they are trying to poison her and kill her unborn child in order to take over the estate. Rambling story keeps getting more and more absurd with the screenplay (based on a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett) tossing in a drowning, death by gunshot and an attemped smothering as the heroine is subjected to peril at every ten minute intervals. The rapid pace condensing far too much plot into a short running time hampers the film considerably.

[Precious Doll]

Aus dem Nichts / In the Fade (Fatih Akin, 2017) 5/10
Kruger goes through the motions with a dead-pan expression and was surprisingly awarded the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Kruger's Cannes win wasn't all that surprising. Last year (2017) you may recall lots of handwringing at the lack of female directors included in the main competition at Cannes. Films like Western (Valeska Grisebacj), Faces, Places (Agnes Varda) & Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis) were regulated to side-bar competitions whilst lesser films were in the main competition. Any three of those would have been a better choice than Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled wh0 clearly won director due to the lack of female representation in the Competition because the film has little to command it.

What few people noticed was the that films selected for competition lacked great roles for women. Of the 19 films in competition only 10 had 'a leading lady' but not a single performance in any of those films screamed 'great performance'. The nearest to great was easily Maryana Spivak for Loveless. I thought Diane Kruger was good within the constraints of the film narrative but its not a performance worthy of best, but given the weak competition she was in some respects a no-brainer for that award.

[Reza]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2018) 9/10

The Coen brothers have come up with a quirky anthology film set in the far distant West with death as the common theme in all six tales. Clearly a pastiche as the brothers tip a witty hat to the films of Ford, Leone, Corbucci and Tarantino along with a slapstick touch of Mel Brooks. The witty screenplay plays havoc with the genre as the film's first tale begins in Ford's familiar Monument Valley with the camera zooming on to Buster Scruggs (William Blake Nelson), a singing cowboy on a horse - not unlike Gene Autry or Roy Rogers - whose goofy grin disguises his sharp shooting skills which he proceeds to use with much glee. The body count in all but one of the tales is very high, often coming up unexpectedly and in vicious fashion. An eclectic cast plays assorted characters familiar to the genre - a bank robber (James Franco), a traveling showman (Liam Neeson), a grizzled gold prospector (Tom Waits), a young girl (Zoe Kazan) on a wagon train and passengers (Brendan Gleeson, Tyne Daly) on a stagecoach. The hilarious screenplay (with romantic, comedic and tragic elements), Bruno Delbonnel's glowing cinematography which captures the spectacular western locations, the costumes, production design and special effects all combine together to create one of the most impressive Westerns in some time. And Delbonnel desrves an Oscar for his outstanding work.

Love, Simon (Gregg Berlanti, 2018) 8/10

Extremely perceptive screenplay about the coming-of-age of a gay high school teenager. What is astonishing is that a major studio chose to go ahead with this subject usually a trope of independent cinema. Simon (Nick Robinson), a typical popular teenager with a close group of friends, comes from a well adjusted family with cool parents (Josh Duhamel & Jennifer Garner) and a kid sister. But he has a secret. He is gay which he has kept hidden from all close to him. When that secret is exposed he has to face family, friends, the entire school and his secret love with whom he has been annonymously carrying on a regular chat on the net. The film is a bit too clean-cut but nevertheless has many laugh-out-loud and crowd pleasing moments along with a great scene between mother and son which delivers the film's main message of love, acceptance and tolerance. Charming and heartfelt film with a wonderfully nuanced performance by Nick Robinson.

Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018) 8/10

The highly innovative and original structure of this mystery uses the internet to tell a story about a missing girl (Michelle La). Her father (John Cho) uses the net - jumping through facebook, twitter, instagram, tumblr, YouTube - to try and find clues to her whereabouts. A detective (Debra Messing) also doggedly pursues the case with both working in tandem. Our vantage point throughout the film is limited to a computer screen as we watch the events unfold - the disappearance, the man's desperate interrogation of people who knew his daughter, his interactions with the detective, the discovery of the girl's car, the detective's deduction of abduction and murder which then leads to an unexpected conclusion. The suspenseful twists and turns of the screenplay, superb direction and the excellent performances by Cho and Messing make this a highly unique film and a must-see.

The Nun (Corin Hardy, 2018) 3/10

The demonic nun from "The Conjuring 2" gets her own spinoff film which here explains her origin. Extremely atmospheric film is derivitive to the point of being silly and absurd with by-the-numbers scenes that are meant to provide shock and horror but provide only memories of far better horror films from the past where all that goes on here was done better there. A nun's suicide at a remote Romanian Abbey sets off a chain of events that unleash unbridled horror. The Vatican sends a priest (Demiàn Bichir) and a young novitate (Taissa Farmiga - sister of "The Conjuring" star Vera) to investigate. Arriving at the eerie abbey (Corbin Castle in Romania is used as location which is famous for being Dracula's castle) and things immediately start going bump in the night. The nuns at the abbey act jumpy, there is talk of a portal which may be open through which evil is unleashed, vicious attacks take place on the priest and the novitate which involve demons from their own past leading up to the titular nun's appearance who looks like a clown dressed in a habit. The fantastic location is a major plus but it cannot compensate for a script that is downright silly and has more laughs than scares. Skip this.

Blue Night / Here and Now (Fabien Constant, 2018) 1/10

Dull maudlin drama about a singer (Sarah Jessica Parker) who is medically diagnosed with a fatal disease. She spends the whole day walking around in a trance, absent mindedly interacting with friends, her band members (she even manages to sleep with the drummer despite her trauma), outwardly pretending nothing is wrong but inwardly cringing at the possible outcome. Parker is one note throughout in an underwritten role and her character is totally unbelivable. She gives no impression of playing a legendary jazz singer. The film tries to recall Agnés Varda but doesn't even come close.

Columbus (Kogonada, 2017) 9/10

Not since Antonioni (and to a lesser extent, Woody Allen) has architecture played such a stunning role in a film. Kogonada, along with his cinematographer (Elisha Christian), has created simple but spectacular images on screen chosing Columbus, Indiana as the film's setting. The city, known for its modern architecture and public art, becomes an eclectic backdrop for the characters in the story who are placed in interesting ways positioned in front of important buildings, churches, alleyways, doorways, sculptures and interiors of rooms. The exquisitely sparse screenplay is in turns moving, full of sadness but also exhilarating at the same time. A Korean-born man (John Cho) travels to Columbus to care for his father, an eminent architect, who is in a coma. We also meet a young girl (Hayley Lu Richardson), obsessed by architecture, who works in a library, cares for her mother who was a former meth addict, and who has long discussions with a co-worker (Rory Culkin). A chance encounter with the old architect's son allows the two to wander the city as she talks to him about the buildings. Their conversations become more personal - they discuss his lack of feelings for his comatose dad and her fear of leaving her mother and going out into the world to use her talent. Delicately acted by both leads, this is a remarkable first film from Kogonada. The visually hypnotic images will stay with you for a long time.

Aus dem Nichts / In the Fade (Fatih Akin, 2017) 5/10

For a film that won numerous awards from around the world this is shockingly quite ordinary. A German woman (Diane Kruger) is devastated when her ex-convict Turkish husband and son are killed in a bomb attack. The police suspect the man's shady past as cause for the attack even though she describes seeing a suspicious woman leave a bicycle outside the office where the blast took place. Eventually the police round up a Neo-Nazi couple who are suspects. During the long trial the accused couple are let off on a technicality so the woman decides to take matters into her own hands. The conventional screenplay, based on similar attacks on minorities in Germany by Neo-Nazi groups, is presented in an extremely banal way with no sense of urgency or tension. The film is presented in three static acts making it seem like a stiff play. The director lingers through scenes where often nothing much happens slowing down the action considerably. The film boils down to being merely a revenge drama with absolutely nothing to say about racism or explaining why the attackers targeted minority groups. Kruger goes through the motions with a dead-pan expression and was surprisingly awarded the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

[Reza]

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) 9/10

Incredibly Carpenter's horror film - a re-imagined remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks classic - flopped upon its release. The film was unfairly thought of as an "Alien" rip-off and had the bad luck to arrive on the heels of the overated "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" with its child-friendly cute alien. The form-changing version on display here is all gnashing teeth, a blood and guts soaked piece of wobbly flesh that attacks its prey and transforms itself into the dead host but not before creepily scurrying like a giant spider with huge tentacles which it uses to pry open human flesh. Norwegian scientists discover a crashed alien spaceship buried under ice for thousands of years in the Antarctic. An awakened alien destroys their research station killing all the scientists and using a dog as its host arrives at a nearby American research station. It soon creates havoc as one by one it starts killing off the scientists. A gruff alcoholic pilot (Kurt Russell) deduces what is going on and he and his mates (Wilford Brimley, David Clennon, Donald Moffat, Richard Dysart, Keith David, T.K. Carter, Richard Masur) spend their time in a state of terror and paranoia trying to guess which of them have fallen prey to the monster alien. Carpenter starts off slowly but soon goes for the jugular as flesh is torn, limbs are flayed apart, blood gushes profusely and the death count rises. Spectacular make-up effects, Dean Cundey's crisp and striking cinematography, taut editing and a sparse score by Ennio Morricone help to create a horror masterpiece which has rightfully now been accepted as a classic of the genre.

Innocent Bystanders (Peter Collinson, 1972) 5/10

Frantic spy thriller, one of many imitations of the Bond franchise, is not only terribly dated but tries to use violence, rapid fire editing and a flippant attitude to appear hip. A Soviet scientist (Vladek Sheybal), holding an important formula, defects and various factions are out to get him. The heads of the American and British Intelligence (Dana Andrews & Donald Pleasance) use a washed up agent (Stanley Baker) as a decoy but he, along with an "innocent bystander" (Geraldine Chaplin) whom he kidnaps, prove far more resourceful than the two bumbling agents actually assigned to the case. Globe-trotting chase film has a couple of thrills and anusing moments but its all pretty deja vu. Baker, too long in the tooth and wearing a hideous toupée, has non-stop fight sequences â la Bond. A miscast Chaplin appears to be at sea in this genre but she manages to create an interesting character and holds her own in what is a rather messy film.

The Dinner (Oren Moverman, 2017) 2/10

Two boys pull a mean and nasty prank on a homeless woman by burning her alive, videotaping her death and loading the film onto YouTube. Their fathers - a politician (Richard Gere) and his estranged brother (Steve Coogan), a former high school teacher, along with their wives (Rebecca Hall & Laura Linney) meet up for dinner at a posh restaurant to discuss the situation their sons are in. Shrill, hysterical drama has the four characters involved in a shout fest as the director tries to deflect this stagy material with assorted flashbacks showing how fucked up everyone was in the past just as they all still are in the present. None of the characters are appealing and the film's abrupt ending adds to the overall fiasco this project proves to be. Skip this lousy film.

Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (R.S. Prasanna, 2017) 8/10

Bollywood has certainly come a long way and is increasingly coming up with screenplays about audacious social issues. Here it not only attempts to handle pre-marital sex between an engaged middle class couple but takes it a step further in dealing with the man's performance anxiety which leads to erectile dysfunction. A serious issue is presented with humour (playing to a section of the male movie going public) but hitting home with its underlying serious message thanks to very funny dialogue and hilariously camouflaged quips. Despite a second half that tends to go in a different direction to close loose ends this is a film that sensitively handles a prickly subject and superbly presents a middle class Delhi mileu through outstanding production design and a slew of accurately drawn characters. The leads are played by the charming Ayushmann Khurana and Bhumi Pednekar who maintain their great screen chemistry after their first film "Dum Laga Ke Haisha". The film is stolen by Seema Bhargava as the girl's outspoken mother who explains "the birds and the bees" to her using Ali Baba (of 40 thieves fame) entering the cave as a veiled analogy.

[Reza]

Raazi (Meghna Gulzar, 2018) 5/10

There is something very unreal about this supposed true story. Young Kashmiri Muslim girl (Alia Bhatt) is coerced by her dying father to spy for India. The period is during the tensions of the Indo-Pak war of 1971. A marriage is arranged for her with a young Pakistani army officer (Vicky Kaushal) and she is trained to get secret information across to India through a convoluted method using a series of undercover Indian agents. Bollywood has never been able to capture the actual nuances of a Pakistani milieu (although this time round it is still better than "Veer-Zaara" where all Pakistanis appeared to be exiles from Lucknow). The film is also hindered by a terrible score (by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy) that recalls tv serials where every emotional or suspenseful moment is highlighted by the intrusive music. The film's saving grace is Alia Bhatt who superbly balances her character's many faces - starting off as a naive student and going from plucky trainee to shy bride to loving wife and ending up as a cold blooded killer. Yet she manages to keep her character very human as guilt eats at her soul for harming the family she has feelings for and with whom she has integrated into as a wife and daughter. This film is also regressive in continuing to spread hatred between both India and Pakistan in the name of patriotism. The film was a massive hit in India and banned in Pakistan. Do we really need art to cause rifts? I guess we do if it brings in money and plays on our patriotic emotions to continue feeding the ego of our armed forces. Sad and a reality for both countries.

Ramchand Pakistani (Mehreen Jabbar, 2008) 8/10

Emotionally heartbreaking film, adapted from real events, that began in 2002 when an eight-year-old boy from the ‘’untouchable’’ Hindu Dalit caste in the Thar Desert accidently crosses the Pakistani- Indian border. Precocious young Ramchand (Syed Hassan Fazal), angry at his mother Champa (Nandita Das), runs away from his village and wanders over the border into neighboring India. His father Shankar (Rashid Farooqi) anxiously chases after him but both father and son are captured by the Indian border patrol and jailed. Their fellow detainees are mostly people, who like them, have walked unwittingly across the border and have remained imprisoned for many years, some losing their minds and others losing hope. Meanwhile the distraught Champa refuses to give up hope and waits for years for the return of her husband and son. Simply told story details the lives of the poor who have been incarcerated due to unmitigated red tape and bureaucracy which, due to tensions between both countries, spells doom for poor people whose lives are spent in waiting. The screenplay follows the day-to-day life of the child as he interacts with other prisoners, the male prison warden and one female warden (Maria Wasti) who is made responsible for the child’s education. She is a mother-figure, but refuses to touch the child because of his low caste. Mehreen Jabbar delicately touches on themes of class barriers without taking sides allowing no judgment or finger pointing which lets us, the viewers, focus instead on the human story. Poignant and moving tale which dramatizes one family’s struggle against social and religious discrimination to contextualize the complicated relationship between the two countries.

[Reza]

Lust For Gold (S. Sylvan Simon & George Marshall, 1949) 5/10

A fortune hunter, searching for gold in the Arizona mountains hidden by his German grandfather decades before, relentlessly pursues a myth. In flashback we get to see the story of the immoral German (Glenn Ford) who discovers by chance a cave full of gold and who commits multiple murders in order to hide the location of the cave. The man is seduced by a grasping greedy woman (Ida Lupino) who plans with her husband (Gig Young) to dupe him out of all his gold. Discovering her plan he confronts them both at the entrance of the cave with dire results. B-film is a weak variation on "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with Ford looking bored but Lupino in fine form as the calculating femme fatale.

Summer of '84 (François Simard, Anouk Whissell & Yoann-Karl Whissell, 2018) 6/10

A slasher film, steeped in 80s nostalgia, goes a very familiar route but ends up going into directions one is not expecting. As with most such films bits and pieces are glued together to form a whole as memories of "The Goonies", "Rear Window", "It" and assorted slasher films are regurgitated to come up with what we get to see here. Four horny tweens get upto mischief in suburbia during their summer vacation. One is obsessed with conspiracy theories and suspects the next door neighbour cop of being the serial killer in the news who has murdered 13 teenage boys. His posse of friends include a fat kid, a nerd and the cool kid wearing a leather jacket. All four get into the act and start spying on and following the cop. The cool chick next door, who baby sat one of the boys, also gets in on the act and helps the boys. The adults, when told, are angry and sceptical. The screenplay follows the usual tropes of all such films with familiar shocks but goes a disturbing step beyond which differentiates this film from most similar slasher films.

Occupation (Luke Sparke, 2018) 6/10

Aliens attack Australia and small communities band together and fight back. Similar to "Independence Day" and shot on a low budget without managing to maintain any sense of credibility but then which film about aliens does? Such premises are always so far fetched and to get into the groove of these plots you just need to go with the flow, ignore the absurd reasonings provided and sit back and enjoy the suspense sequences rooting for the characters to kick ass and get out alive. The unknown (at least to me) Aussie cast all do well going through the motions.

iBoy (Adam Randall, 2018) 4/10

Movie plots keep getting more and more absurd. An awkward introvert (Bill Milner) is shot in the head by a gang of hoodlums whom he comes upon when visting his girlfriend (Maisie Williams). The girl is raped and he is left in a coma. Waking up he is told that fragments of his shattered iPhone are now imbedded in his brain. This gives him freaky superpowers where he can use his mind to send texts, hack and explode phones and set off electrical fires. This silly premise sets him up as a vigilante - the male version of "Carrie" - as he goes after the street hoodlums (all of them his childhood chums) and the sleazy gangster (the superb Rory Kinnear) who controls them. Milner plays such a lifeless character that instead of rooting for him you just end up cringing at his helplessness. Maisie, on the other hand, is a standout as the strong willed ferocious girl who uses her anger to lash out. Miranda Richardson plays the boy's sassy old grandmother.

Ah-ga-ssi / The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016) 8/10

Exquisite re-working of Sarah Waters' book, "Fingersmith", with the story transported from 18th century England to early 20th century Japanese-occupied Korea. This kinky erotic period thriller, with shades of Hitchcock and a tip of the hat to "Gaslight" and "Les diaboliques", can easily be termed a lurid lesbian potboiler or a masturbatory male fantasy. However, the director brings to it a heightened sensuality in depicting female emancipation through sex while exposing how grotesque male sexuality is in comparison. The story is presented in three acts with each viewed from the perspective of different characters. A suave but low-born Korean crook plots to swindle a Japanese heiress of her fortune and hires a petty pickpocket to act as her maid and help him woo the lady. The plan is to seduce and marry the rich woman and then have her committed to an asylum after taking over her fortune. The heiress lives with her elderly uncle who plans to marry her himself and has trained her to read aloud erotic literature to him and his audience of male friends. The plan goes awry in more ways than one. The maid falls in love with the lady and in a twist to the original plan finds herself incarcerated in the asylum instead as the swindler and lady run off together. The second act depicts the entire story from the rich woman's perspective and things seem very different as the revealed double cross evolves into a lurid triple cross ending with a scene involving sadomasochism with flashes of torture involving a paper cutter and drill. Superbly designed film has gothic mise en scène mixed with minimalist japanese interiors giving the film a stylish flourish. The director boldly shoots graphic sex scenes between his two actresses giving those scenes a voyeuristic feel adding to the film's mystery and twisted depravity which ultimately leads to triumphant liberation.

Ninja Assassin (James McTeigue, 2009) 5/10

This is such a camp fest - kick-ass action scenes with ripe dialogue to boot courtesy of old chinaman talking in syllables as he doles out advice to his army of students being trained as deadly ninjas. When his most prized student (South Korean pop star Rain) goes rogue all hell breaks loose as the ninjas come after him in droves flying almost invisibly through the air dressed in tight black body suits â la Mrs Peel. The body count involves stabbings, gouging, decapitation and every know form of violent death as blades slice open bodies and blood gushes. Naomie Harris is the Europol investigator who unwittingly gets involved in the war between the lone ninja and his former colleagues and in particular his master who wants him dead. Great fun but instantly forgettable.

Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006) 5/10

The hit 80s tv series about two hip and cool pastel-outfitted detectives, James Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, was made famous by Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas. In Mann's slick, stylish but empty big screen adaptation the roles are taken by Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx with the two going through a typical police procedural plot involving undercover work trying to get a drug baron. Mann's flashy direction works during a sequence involving a tense raid followed by a shootout which is filmed with an intense pulsating immediacy but his screenplay is derivative. The romantic angle of the plot has Crockett involved in a bittersweet affair with the drug baron's wife (Gong-Li, tough and sexy) while Tubbs has to see his girlfriend (Naomie Harris) suffer through a kidnapping and hostage situation. This is Mann using a huge budget but coming up with what is strictly a B-film. I did like the ultra-cool, spur-of-the-moment idea of Farrell & Gong-Li getting into a high speed boat and zoom across the bay to Havana just to drink mojitos. Dion Bebe's cinematography gives the film gloss.

The Remains of the Day (James Ivory, 1993) 8/10

Tragic story about repressed emotions, misplaced politics and sticking to a regimental way of life without thinking about life's consequences. Ruth Prawar Jhabvala's exquisite adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's book becomes a sumptuously produced film by the Merchant-Ivory team, most of whom here had already worked together on their previous film "Howards End". The story takes the form of a road trip and becomes a memory piece as a butler tries to amend his past by seeking someone he admired a long time back. A rigid butler (Anthony Hopkins) and a housekeeper (Emma Thompson) circle each other with deeply repressed feelings while in the employ of Lord Darlington (James Fox) at his huge estate. The screenplay covers in great detail the fascinating heirarchy and workings of staff at a huge estate. The Pas de deux between Hopkins and Thompson is the crux of the story and both actors give magnificent performances. Hopkins' sad eyes convey vast depths of sadness as he rigidly goes about his job working for a Nazi sympathiser without letting politics cloud his propensity to serve his master. Thompson, with a sharp tongue and a no-nonsense manner, falls in love with the butler but she holds back her feelings because he too fails to reciprocate. Twenty years on after she had left her job and having gotten married, he seeks her out to try and get her to return to Darlington Hall now owned by a rich American (Christopher Reeve). Quietly introspective film harbors an emotionally wrenching core at its center.

Three Hours to Kill (Alfred L. Werker, 1954) 6/10

Tough cowboy (Dana Andrews) on the verge of marrying his pregnant sweetheart (Donna Reed) is framed for the murder of her brother. Almost lynched and hanged by the town folk he manages to escape but returns three years later to find the killer and clear his name. His former girlfriend and mother of his son is now married to one of the suspected killers. Whodunnit western has good action scenes and a lovely performance by Dianne Foster as the saloon girl in love with Andrews. The end, not quite an homage, is lifted straight off "Shane" but without being moving like that classic film.

I Remember Mama (George Stevens, 1948) 9/10

Charming, sentimental and nostalgic Americana is about an immigrant Norwegian family in turn of the century San Francisco. Based on the play by John Van Druten which was in turn adapted from a book by Kathryn Forbes about her Norwegian-born grandmother. The plot revolves around a family of four siblings, their hard working dad (Phillip Dorn) and the no-nonsense but kindhearted "Mama" (Irene Dunne) of the title. The film, a series of funny and poignant vignettes involving colorful family members and friends, is directed with a light touch by George Stevens. Mama handling money matters, a child going through an operation, a sick cat being put to sleep, a timid spinster aunt (Ellen Corby) daring to get married, a lodger (Cedric Hardwicke) reading aloud Dickens and Conan Doyle to the family, the scary boistrous Uncle (Oscar Homolka) who proves to have a heart of gold and the eldest daughter (Barbara Bel Geddes) who is an aspiring writer. Dunne, speaking with a Norwegian lilt, is the heart of the film as she holds the family together through thick and thin. Superbly acted by the entire cast - Dunne, Homolka, Corby and Bel Geddes were all nominated for Oscars - this is the kind of old fashioned entertainment no longer found at the cinema but is a reminder that such films had heart and were a wonderful throwback to one's own childhood leaving you with a tear and a smile.

[Precious Doll]

Roma (2018) Alfonso Cuaron 4/10
Widows (2018) Steve McQueen 4/10
She's Out - Sequel to Widows Season 2 (1995) Ian Toynton 5/10
Fast Workers (1933) Tod Browning 4/10
Offenders (2018) Dejan Zecevic 4/10
Amanda Knox (2016) Rod Blackhurst & Brian McGinn 7/10
Our Souls at Night (2017) Ritesh Batra 6/10
Thunder Road (2018) Jim Cummings 5/10

Repeat viewing

American Horror Story - Season One (2011) Various 9/10

[Precious Doll]

El Angel (2018) Luis Ortega 6/10
They Will Not Grow Old (2018) Peter Jackson 6/10
The Cured (2018) David Freyne 3/10
Gotti (2018) Kevin Connolly 1/10
Eighth Grade (2018) Bo Burnham 6/10
First Reformed (2018) Paul Schrader 8/10
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? (2018) Travis Wilkerson 6/10
What Will People Say (2017) Iram Haq 4/10
Widows TV Series (1983) Ian Toynton 6/10
Widows 2 TV Series (1985) Paul Annett 6/10

[ITALIANO]

Would also like to see how We the Living holds up. It was restored in the early 1980's and seems to have disappeared to fingers crossed with that one.

Good luck with We the Living. The original version - the one which was shown at Venice and then distributed in two separate parts in cinemas because of its 4-hours-plus running time - seems to be very difficult to find here. I have only found a much shorter version. obviously heavily cut. But it's certainly a historically important film.

[Reza]

Submergence (Wim Wenders, 2018) 2/10

Trite romantic film lacks chemistry between the two stars and is boring to boot. A bio mathematician (Alicia Vikander), about to go down into the depths of the ocean for research, anxiously awaits a message from a man she met and fell in love with some time ago. He (James McAvoy) is an expert on wells but in reality a spy who is rotting in a cell in Djibouti captured by Islamic jihadists. Both recall their brief time spent in a tavern on a remote coast in Normandy where they met on a beach and fell deeply in love over a three-day period. Flashbacks show them walking alongside towering cliffs, frolicking on the beach and in the sea and making love in their hotel room. She talks endlessly about her work and the threat of suffocating at the bottom of the ocean in a submarine. Vikander spends most of the film staring at her phone while McAvoy tries to survive his hellish captivity by engaging a doctor (Alexander Siddig), who works for suicide bombers, in philosophical discussions. Strange film from Wenders which wastes the talent of both stars and also glaringly reminds that the director's truly great films were made over three decades ago. The only saving graces are the cinematography of Benoît Debie and the score by Fernando Velázquez.

Lust For Gold (S. Sylvan Simon & George Marshall, 1949) 5/10

A fortune hunter, searching for gold in the Arizona mountains hidden by his German grandfather decades before, relentlessly pursues a myth. In flashback we get to see the story of the immoral German (Glenn Ford) who discovers by chance a cave full of gold and who commits multiple murders in order to hide the location of the cave. The man is seduced by a grasping greedy woman (Ida Lupino) who plans with her husband (Gig Young) to dupe him out of all his gold. Discovering her plan he confronts them both at the entrance of the cave with dire results. B-film is a weak variation on "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with Ford looking bored but Lupino in fine form as the calculating femme fatale.