Tag: Tilda Swinton

‘Ballad of a Small Player,’ ‘The Home,’ ‘Det Andet Offer,’ and More | Bite-Sized Reviews

Top Row (L-R): ‘Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix);’ ‘The Home (Lionsgate /Roadside Attractions);’ ‘Det Andet Offer (SF Studios).’
Bottom Row (L-R): ‘Under Stjernerne På Himlen (SF Studios;’ ‘Opus (A24),’ ‘The Amateur (20th Century Studios).’

Every once in a while, I don’t quite have enough to say or the time to put it into enough words for me to write full, dedicated reviews for everything new that I see. So, from time to time, I will just post a short review on Letterboxd, and, as you may have noticed, sometimes these reviews find their way to this site in the form of bite-sized reviews in a compilation article. That is exactly what’s happening today.

In this article, I’ll give you my thoughts on two Danish films starring the same stand-up comedian turned actor, an action thriller that came and went without much fanfare, a mystery thriller that also came and went without making an imprint, a recent Netflix casino flick, and a retirement home-set horror film that may just be one of the worst films I’ve seen this year. Let’s get to it.

Continue reading “‘Ballad of a Small Player,’ ‘The Home,’ ‘Det Andet Offer,’ and More | Bite-Sized Reviews” →

The Killer (2023) | REVIEW

Michael Fassbender’s unnamed murder-for-hire sitting and waiting for the opportunity to arise in David Fincher’s THE KILLER — PHOTO: NETFLIX.

Directed by David Fincher — Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker.

No one does dark crime films quite like David Fincher. The world-class filmmaker who got his start as an assistant cameraman on The Return of the Jedi and as the director of several music videos (over the years he has won himself Grammy Awards for these efforts, as he has worked with artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, and others) before he eventually debuted with Alien 3, has made a lot of different kinds of films but some of his most popular efforts have been concerned with darkness, crime, and meticulousness, with films like Se7en (this film reunites him with Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker), The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl. With The Killer, the filmmaker’s twelfth feature film and second Netflix feature in a row, he has taken a story that admittedly may sound quite generic and turned it into something that is uniquely Fincher and quite good. Here he proves that even though Gone Girl came out almost ten years ago, Fincher’s expertise in the handling of this kind of material is a light that never goes out.

Continue reading “The Killer (2023) | REVIEW” →

Asteroid City (2023) | REVIEW

Jason Schwartzman’s Augie Steenbeck leaning out of a window in Wes Anderson’s ASTEROID CITY — PHOTO: Focus Features / Universal Pictures International.

Directed by Wes Anderson — Screenplay by Wes Anderson — Story by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola.

Everyone who has ever seen one Wes Anderson film knows exactly what a Wes Anderson film looks like. His signature style has made him a lot of fans and admirers over the years, and it has also earned him some notable imitators. Nowadays, with the advent of AI, automatically generated images, and the like, a trend of recreating fake film trailers in the style of Wes Anderson has surfaced. You can now go online and find several videos hyping up fake Wes Anderson-style films with AI-generated images of well-known actors that don’t exactly look right (I even saw one for a fake American adaptation of the iconic Danish Olsen Gang films). With the emergence of such artificiality leading to so many conflicting emotions, might I suggest that you check out the real thing? Asteroid City, Wes Anderson’s eleventh feature-length film, is well worth seeking out. As a matter of fact, I think it might be one of his best. 

Continue reading “Asteroid City (2023) | REVIEW” →

REVIEW: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

The titular wooden boy in Guillermo Del Toro’s PINOCCHIO — PHOTO: NETFLIX.

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Gustafson — Screenplay by Guillermo Del Toro and Patrick McHale – Story by Guillermo Del Toro and Matthew Robbins.

The story of Pinocchio has been told and retold over and over again since Carlo Collodi first wrote it in the 1880s. Nowadays it is mostly known for its classic 1940s Disney adaptation about a wooden boy who wants to be real and who sings the classic line about there being no strings on him. This year, Disney even tried to release a live-action remake which came and went without making much of an impression. Hopefully, fate will be kinder to Netflix’s stop-motion animation film that is directed by Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Gustafson, as it presents a more mature version of the story that updates the classic tale to a time of war.

In Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (titled thusly, even though he is not the only credited director), Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley) is heartbroken from the loss of his son Carlo decades ago in a bombing raid. On one of his nights out drinking, Geppetto screams angrily to the skies as lightning flashes above, and the woodcarver decides to cut down the pine tree that was planted in his son’s memory. Geppetto goes to work and carves the tree until he has created a wooden boy. When Geppetto passes out, Sebastian J. Cricket (voiced by Ewan McGregor) witnesses a spirit bringing the wooden boy to life as Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Adamant that Pinocchio must be exactly like Carlo and be kept away from real-world dangers, Geppetto soon finds out that he cannot control his new lively boy, who gradually becomes more and more interesting to a traveling circus and the Italian government.

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REVIEW: Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Idris Elba as the Djinn and Tilda Swinton as Alithea Binnie in THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING — PHOTO: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer..

Directed by George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) — Screenplay by George Miller and Augusta Gore.

Quite clearly a passion project for the Australian filmmaker, George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing is based on A. S. Byatt’s collection of short stories titled The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. It follows a British scholar named Alithea Binnie (played by Tilda Swinton) who, while in Turkey, buys an antique bottle, which, later, unleashes a great and powerful Djinn (played by Idris Elba). The Djinn is desperate for Alithea to make three wishes, but she — as a narratologist with a deep understanding of narrative structures, traits, and tropes — is worried that the Djinn is just a hallucination or possibly even a trickster. In an attempt to convince her, the Djinn tells her his life story.

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REVIEW: The Souvenir (2019)

Theatrical Release Poster – A24 / Curzon Artificial Eye

The following is a short review of The Souvenir — Directed by Joanna Hogg.

Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir is a semi-autobiographical film about a young and posh film student’s romantic relationship with Anthony, a seemingly both successful and self-important somewhat older man. In her first major film role, Honor Swinton Byrne (the daughter of Tilda Swinton, who is also in the film, and playwright John Byrne) plays Julie, the aforementioned aspiring filmmaker, whereas Tom Burke (Only God Forgives) plays Anthony, whose addiction threatens to tear their relationship apart. It is one of the most critically acclaimed independent films of the year. However, I think that Joanna Hogg’s coming-of-age film about toxic relationships, artistic growth, and privilege is disappointingly dull and uninvolving. Continue reading “REVIEW: The Souvenir (2019)” →

REVIEW: Okja (2017)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of Okja – Directed by Bong Joon-ho.

In October 2015, the first Netflix ‘original’ movie was released. Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation was a great film for Netflix to champion as an example of how great their films can be. However, while Fukunaga’s film was recognized by the Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and the Hollywood Foreign Press, the Academy Awards completely ignored what was one of the best films of the year.

Then, at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Netflix’s newest original movie – Bong Joon-ho’s Okja – was met with boos as the festival elite rebelled against the Netflix way of distributing films. Nevertheless, the film itself overcame the harsh and unfair critique that its distributor was getting, and it is easy to see how and why, because Bong Joon-ho’s Okja is the best non-documentary Netflix original film yet. Continue reading “REVIEW: Okja (2017)” →

REVIEW: War Machine (2017)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of Netflix’s War Machine – Directed by David Michôd.

In 2015, Netflix acquired the distribution rights to a film directed by David Michôd and starring Brad Pitt, one of the true movie stars of our day. Netflix acquired the film prior to having premiered both Beasts of No Nation and The Ridiculous Six later in 2015, and this film was thus one of the first major motion picture projects that Netflix had acquired.

Now, in the summer of 2017, the film now titled War Machine has premiered. It has been a long wait for people like me who were excited to see such a high profile production premiere on the streaming service, but it is finally here and, honestly, I don’t think it was worth the wait. Continue reading “REVIEW: War Machine (2017)” →

My 17 Most Anticipated Films of 2017

2017-anticipated

2016 is almost over, and I really can’t believe it. It feels like the summer movie season just ended, but here we are at the end of the year. That also means that we need to start looking forward to some of the films that are released next year. I, obviously, don’t know if any or all of these will be good, or even great, but with this list I’m trying to point out which films I’m super excited for. Continue reading “My 17 Most Anticipated Films of 2017” →