May 3, 2024
April 22, 2024
April 18, 2024
Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer (2024) ***
"You can't go around apologizing for jokes. They're jokes. So I've got a plan. The next time I get cancelled over a joke, the next time I upset people with a joke, I'm gonna come out on the day of the cancellation, I'm gonna make a statement, a public statement. I'm gonna say, I've rehearsed this, I'm gonna say 'I'm SORRY!' And the people I've offended will say 'You don't really mean that apology.' And I'll say 'So you're saying I can say something and not mean it.' Now you're getting it."
January 1, 2024
Argylle (2024) *
Except for a terrific dance sequence with Dua Lipa and Henry Cavill at the very beginning of the film, this is a truly awful spy comedy starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell.
December 12, 2023
Top 10 Films of 2023
1. "About Dry Grasses" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey)
2. "The Zone Of Interest" (Jonathan Glazer, UK)
3. "The Holdovers" (Alexander Payne, USA)
4. "Past Lives" (Celine Song, South Korea)
5. "Oppenheimer" (Christopher Nolan, USA)
6. "Poor Things" (Yorgos Lanthimos, USA)
7. "Smoke Sauna Sisterhood" (Anna Hints, Estonia)
9. "Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World" (Radu Jude, Romania)
10. "Perdidos en la noche" (Amat Escalante, Mexico)
Other great films:
20 Days In Mariupol (Ukraine)
Anatomie d'une chute (France)
Anyone But You (Australia)
BlackBerry (Canada)
A Brighter Tomorrow (Italy)
Les Chambres rouges (Canada)
Chlopi (Poland)
Chuzhaya (Russia)
Concrete Utopia (South Korea)
El Conde (Chile)
La Cordonniere (Canada)
Crépuscule pour un tueur (Canada)
The Delinquents (Argentina)
L'Ete dernier (France)
The Eternal Memory (Chile)
Fallen Leaves (Finland)
Farador (Canada)
Le Festin boréal (Canada)
Les Filles d'Olfa (Tunisia)
Frontières (Canada)
Godland (Iceland)
Infinity Pool (Canada)
Io Capitano (Italy)
Jeanne du Barry (France)
Jour de merde (Canada)
Mistral spatial (Canada)
Monster (Japan)
One Day We'll Tell Each Other Everything (Germany)
La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (France)
Perfect Days (Japan)
Le Procès Goldman (France)
Przysiega Ireny (Poland)
Robot Dreams (Spain)
Rojek (Canada)
Saltburn (UK)
Society Of The Snow (Spain)
Solo (Canada)
Suzume (Japan)
Testament (Canada)
Yannick (France)
Zielona granica (Poland)
Top 3 Shorts:
1. "The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar" (Wes Anderson, USA)
2. "The Swan" (Wes Anderson, USA)
3. "Poison" (Wes Anderson, USA)
Other great shorts:
Island In Between (Taiwan)
Knight Of Fortune (Denmark)
Top 3 Music Videos:
1. "Kill Bill" (Christian Breslauer, SZA)
3. "The Beatles: Now And Then" (Peter Jackson, The Beatles)
Top Commercial:
"Breaking Good" (PopCorners)
Other great commercials:
TV Top 5:
1. "The Last Of Us" (HBO)
2. "The Morning Show: Season 3" (Apple)
3. "Daisy Jones And The Six" (Amazon Prime)
The Crown: Season 6 (UK)
Top 3 Cartoons:
1. "Once Upon A Studio" (Dan Abraham, Trent Correy, Disney)
2. "Letter To A Pig" (Tal Kantor, Israel)
3. "Our Uniform" (Yegane Moghaddam, Iran)
Other great cartoons:
Top VR film:
"Colored" (Stéphane Foenkinos, Pierre-Alain Giraud)
Top Stand-Up Comedy Show:
"Chris Rock: Selective Outrage" (Joel Gallen, Netflix)
Weak films of 2023:
Cœur de slush (Canada)
Une Femme respectable (Canada)
Les Hommes de ma mere (Canada)
Marry My Dead Body (Taiwan)
Le Plongeur (Canada)
The Queen Of My Dreams (Pakistan)
Le Règne animal (France)
Richelieu (Canada)
Simple comme Sylvain (Canada)
Sweet Dreams (Holland)
The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany)
Le Temps d'un ete (Canada)
To Kill A Tiger (India)
Who's Yer Father? (Canada)
Weak shorts:
The After (UK)
Invincible (Canada)
Weak cartoons:
Top 3 Musicals of 2023
1. "Barbie" (Greta Gerwig, Warner)
2. "Wonka" (Paul King, Warner)
3. "The Color Purple" (Blitz Bazawule, Warner)
November 11, 2023
About Dry Grasses (2023) *****
Complex and fascinating film about a Turkish teacher in a small Kurdish village and his ambiguous relationships with a young female student, a handicapped woman and a male colleague. Gorgeous cinematography, profound philosophical discussions, and surprising narrative developments.
The Holdovers (2023) *****
Fabulous film set during a winter break in a New England college at the end of 1970. Profound, surprising and very touching.
The Zone Of Interest (2023) *****
Winner of the Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. A chronicle of a quiet family life in an idyllic house and a beautiful garden located next to a wall. The film is based on the testimonies provided by survivors and individuals who had been employed by the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig.
October 10, 2023
Poor Things (2023) ****
Emma Stone gives the greatest performance of her career as a a young woman in Victorian era London who, after being crudely resurrected by a scientist following her suicide, runs off with a debauched lawyer to embark on an odyssey of self-discovery and sexual liberation. A masterpiece of steampunk cinema, with amazing art direction and eccentric cinematography.
Barbie (2023) ****
Definitely not for kids, this is a rather cynical satiric comedy about feminism and patriarchy. Many jokes try very hard for a second or even a third degree, but don't always succeed. In fact, by subverting everything and refusing to take anything at face value in the first half of the film, "Barbie" might confuse some viewers in the second half, when it suddenly strives for some first degree humour with decidedly mixed results. For instance, if Barbieland is supposed to be a mirror image of the real world, as the first half of the film suggests, then logically, in the second half of the film, the feminist revolt led by all the Barbies could be interpreted as encouraging men in our world to revolt against the feminists who are, after all, trying to do exactly the same things as the Kens in Barbieland.
A Brighter Tomorrow (2023) ****
Nostalgic film about Italian Communists in 1956 slowly realizing the totalitarian nature of the Soviet system of government.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2023) ****
In the darkness of a smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences, washing off the shame trapped in their bodies and regaining their strength through a sense of communion. Feminist cinema at its best.
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