acandiani Reviews

The Dinner (I) (2017)

A film is a film is a film

[8/10 · 27 November 2022]

Poor disappointed Hollywood lovers that think the good cast was burnt because they did not like to see Richard Gere and co in this movie. A film is a film is a film. A book is a book. The book is great. The film does not have to be the expected photocopy. Or we would rate Tarkovsky's Stalker poorly because the Strugatzi's brothers actually wrote a completely different book from Tarkovsky's masterpiece. You watch a movie not to find what you lived in a book. You watch a movie to discover different subtleties and enhance your perspective. You don't watch Apocalyspe Now hating it because oh Kurtz is not as in Heart of Darkness. This is a good film. A very good theatrical representation of a family drama. Bergman, Ibsen, Woody Allen's lovers would understand. The others, please, keep watching Jurassic Park.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

a film about incommunicability

[10/10 · 17 July 2020]

This is a movie that will stay with you forever, for better or for worse. Same as you cannot read The Catcher in the Rye when you are fifty, because you will dismiss the book as you have gone past the thoughts of the main character. His actions and his experience no longer apply to you, LA DOLCE VITA has the same opposite effect when you are finding yourself "in the midst of your life" and at fifty look ahead and indeed behind you. This is a film about incommunicability. The lack of any chance to being understood, and as the main character wanders around Roma's sweet life, he cannot esxpress himself and cannot make himself being heard, so he lives life superficially, surrounded by extras that live life by the day, throwing hours forward, only trying to achieve an immediate "success", a quick orgasm, a financial advantage, while feelings are impossible to share at any stage. The incommunicability is exemplified by the character of the philosopher Steiner, who we might think, by looking at life from a different and deeper angle, might elevate himself over the shallowness of all the other characters and that by taking his life stops time (see Dostoevsky's Kirillov) and opens the eyes of Marcello to the meaninglessness of life. Interestingly, this movie won the Palme D'or taking the prize away from Antonioni's L'Avventura, another film about incommunicability (in fact the two worked together for quite some time). The end of La Dolce Vita runs parallel to another Antonioni's masterpiece, The Red Desert, where the two main characters, Mastroianni and Monica Vitti, find themselves unable to communicate and understand what someone else is trying to tell them. Another movIe that has taken a lot from La Dolce Vita is the more recent The Great Beauty. Both main characters are writers but they are disillusioned and live the Roman life surrounded by shallow or simply lost eccentrics each and everyone trapped in their own personal world in search of immediate gratification (and many more similarities). Please do not miss this masterpiece and do not dismiss it for its forced frivolity.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)

a copy is a copy is a copy

[2/10 · 23 September 2018]

Even when you want to be totally supportive of this very creative (her previous movie) director, you cannot forget that a copy is a copy is a copy. Reading her interviews denying that she intentionally remade I'm a Cheerleader is quite upsetting. If you wrote this script and presented it as a thesis, you would surely be told that this is simple plagiarism. I invite everyone to go and seek I'm a Cheerleader. Same themes, same locations, same era, same characters, so much so that after one minute, you know where the movie is going. I'm a Cheerleader is super funny and very deep at the same time. The Miseducation is neither when compared to a movie that was brilliantly directed 20 years ago and let's say that it's also a cult with cinephiles of ALL kind. I cannot believe for once that the judges that gave Desiree Akhavan her award were not aware of the similarities (identical scenes) with the previous movie. If I had not known the previous movie (I repeat Desiree Akhavan does not say this is a remake of that movie!), then I would have probably appreciated The Miseducation a bit more. But same as when you copy someone else's ideas, you either own what you did or you sooner or later will be found out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where successful musician are taking other people's songs and only admitting doing so if caught. Desiree Akhavan I love your first movie. Desiree Akhavan this is a copy and a copy is a copy is a copy.

Annihilation (I) (2018)

tarkovsky is surely rolling in is grave

[1/10 · 15 March 2018]

Based on Jeff VanderMeer's novel, Annihilation is not only way too similar to Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker but even more similar to the Strugatsky brothers original book Roadside Picnic. Shall we also say that there are many elements of Tarkovsky's Solaris (the book by Stanislaw Lem) in this movie too, same as in the novel too. For Jeff VanderMeer to deny any "borrowed inspiration" is sensationally ridiculous. The film is atrocious. Let's just think that the "alien" is annihilated with a simple bomb, I mean, no one could think of it before? We know 5 minutes into the movie how it's going to end. We have watched it all before. I am not criticising the director or the audience that wants to be lightly entertained with movies like these, I am just expressing my opinion here: if you like serious movies that can make you think, well do not bother with this one. maybe just watch Stalker or Solaris again, please.

Song to Song (I) (2017)

unbelievable

[1/10 · 24 June 2017]

Malick goes up and Malick goes down. Visually beautiful movies that can engage you for the rest of your life, like TREE OF LIFE or THE THIN RED LINE, are completely torn apart, in terms of credibility, by monstrosities as Song To Song or To The Wonder. This Malick version of LALALAND (one of the worst moves ever and totally already forgotten in cinema history) is appalling. Everyone can quote the "visuals" as much as they want but it's not even about the non-story of the movie and the little flashes of these ultimate "superior" lives thrown upon us mortals. it's the total uselessness of these characters (ah, if only they were Swedish... maybe Bergman would have known what to do with them, but they are Americans and they are Hollywood and they are as empty as Hollywood can be). We get to see these people's wealthy abodes and who lives like that really? Inside never lived before empty houses, no furniture, no nothing, just always everything so sterile, same as the minds of the famous actors that like cameos or clichés appear on the screen just to portray the inutility of their wanton lives. Patti, oh Patti, why did you participate in this abysmal movie? why would you want to share your intimate thoughts with these group of leeches? My heart breaks. I want the dinosaurs back to roam the Earth and destroy these wasted minutes spent watching nothing.I want passionate people and not empty mannequins. I want and expect cinema from Master Malick and not this please, please, please.... the horror, thee horror....

Somewhere (2010)

venice masterflop

[8/10 · 27 August 2011]

yes, i gave it 6. maybe because you can still watch the whole thing as if you were watching a documentary on Hollywood "poor" actors. Lots of people on here have greatly commented on the "problem" with this movie. I am here to criticise the decision to award the movie one of the most prestigious prizes in cinema. How can anyone compare this movie or put the movie on the same level as Rosencrantz and Guilderstern or Ivan's Childhood or Per Grazia Ricevuta, My Own Private Idaho, Rashomon, Last Year in Marienbad, Deserto Rosso, Belle De Jour, among many. OK, we know, after the supreme Gore Vidal awarded Tom Stoppard's movie the Leone D'Oro, Venice decision makers CONFORMED and invited "realist" directors to celebrate a wanton Chinese pathetic movie. They haven't always got it right.... and compare SHORT CUTS (poor!) to Kiewslosky (BLUE) the same year.... or monsoon wedding!!!.... and we understand the criticism given to mediocre film director quentin Tarantino (who hasn't got an original idea of his own ever) for the decision to award this movie the prize.... but someone can surely stop these people from ruining the importance of Venice! I repeat, yes, you can watch the movie and see it as a realistic documentary on American life. But I prefer Vincent Gallo, Jim Jarmusch and or indeed Michelangelo Antonioni on the rendition of the same themes.... anyway, just an opinion.

Ricky (I) (2009)

no no no

[1/10 · 23 July 2011]

Having watched all his other movies, it was only time before I stumbled into this film. I have 3 kids and reluctantly lately watch movies with kids. The movie starts in a typical French Ozon way. No stress, no fuss, no problems. We are captured. We get into it. Slowly we are dragged into his realm. And then... everything goes wrong. There is no way a mother wouldn't run to the hospital if she discovered her son to have bruises on his back. NO WAY. It's not realistic or convincing to say that "I don't want doctor involved"! Please! And then she blames the lover for the bruises and sends him away. But when the wings appear!!! She does not call him to apologise.... WEAK And when they finally face the media, showing off the flying chicken, sorry, Kid, the rope is so thin, it is unreasonable to imagine this happening in real life (because this is the problem with the movie, it's trying to convince us this is actually happening in real life!!!) with such lack of security, and of course he flies off into nowhere! Terrible. The characters are not developed. With the exception of the daughter of the main character, no one is into the performance (ok, maybe the chicken child is having fun). I went to bed thinking it could be a 5 for trying to introduce something new and for the beginning of the movie. But really, it's a ONE for trying to convince us with absolute rubbish. The first scene is possibly the only intriguing part of the whole movie that slowly disintegrates with no solution, answer, meaning, appeal.... oh, what a mess!

Moon (2009)

everything

[5/10 · 22 February 2010]

this film is everything ... someone else has done before. so we have tarkovskij's solaris, soderbergh solaris, blade runner, space odissey and silent running, a bit of this and a bit of that glued together and here we go with MOON. the acting is good but the story is lame. would you ever watch this film again? no. there is no secret message, no deep layers, no secondary plot, no enlightenment, nothing at all. suspense is a 5 minutes job, in half a scene. it's just what it is and what you almost know from the beginning. are we supposed to think? sit and enjoy? wonder what happens next? nothing happens. mr jones just needed to get cliff martinez to organise the soundtrack and he could have had a whole space package copycat. There is no need for aliens or special effects but some originality please!

Beautiful Kate (2009)

not sure

[6/10 · 18 February 2010]

so many great actors that played their parts wonderfully, but at the end of the day, there is not one bit of originality. The film is trying to be a mixture between America, Sam Shepard, fools for love and the typical Australian movie, small community, smelly pub, indigenous people, broken cars, isolation, loneliness, etc... same same same, including soundtrack (including red mullet actor!). well-acted and that's it. are we ever going to see a movie about the REAL Australia, where actually people live? Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane.... why always in the surreal empty landscape with the small good (or ill) willing community? when you strip the film bare, there is not much there, lots of empty scenes to fill up the nothingness of the events. events that are so predictable, that there is not one aspect left to the imagination. Is that going to happen? yes it is. no element of surprise, no enlightenment. OK, good thing, apart from the acting, it's shot very well, but is that enough to produce another Australian movie?

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Theft and exploitation

[1/10 · 21 July 2004]

Let's imagine Tarantino holidaying in Italy and re-making "La dolce vita".... Well, this is how I see Kill Bill. Choose the right soundtrack, steal the clothes from Bruce Lee and redo a Kurosawa (I WISH!) that happens to be very close to the Lone Wolf series with all the same gore effects. A 5 minutes plot, with a lot of blood. Surely the cartoon and the fight series could have been shortened (just over 1 hour 30 mins!!!) so that there would be no need for a number 2.... but, money is money and Tarantino makes more money throwing on to the market a double 'bill'.... Hurrah! Let's all be ripped off! Looking forward to "La dolce vita" Tarantino way now.... surely a masterpiece....

Dogville (2003)

film, theatre, dogma, Lars is confused

[6/10 · 19 July 2004]

I cannot truly say that I liked or disliked the film. Lars Von Trier surprises us once again. At least no one is singing or dancing this time. The fact is that I don't think this is a film. It's a theatre piece. It's like going to a theatre and recording the scenes one after the other. Everything is left to the imagination but is that a film? Nicole Kidman is as poor and vague and detached as usual and maybe she just went to Sweden on holidays to ski, who knows. On the contrary, Ben Gazzarra, Lauren Bacall, James Caan and rest of the crew seem to do the minimum but with such a strong charisma that one can endure the experience of watching the story as it unfolds. Actually, the story is pretty ordinary and very dry, almost an in-between 'early Lars' and 'Dogma Lars'. Not sure.... And also, why would anyone want to watch that again? Give me Tarkovskij any day please Lars!

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

very poor

[4/10 · 17 July 2004]

if it wasn't for the cast no one would notice it's a very poor scripted movie special effects and nothing else there is no plot there is only a cast that seems to enjoy the absurd script boooring! has it been edited too much? or is it just a hollow film? did they all want to go to mexico on holidays/ or were they already there? poor, very poor

Alexandra's Project (2003)

a short movie too long

[4/10 · 12 December 2003]

It's just a short film that has been stretched to the limit to become a movie!!! Camera focusing on chair 10 seconds. Camera focusing on fridge 20 seconds. Camera focusing on him crying too long! It's a good idea that has been pushed and pushed and pushed for at least 30 minutes too long! Also, his reaction is ridiculous, does not matter what, nobody will react like that! Drinking beer, while trapped at home, sitting on a chair, pausing the video and thinking before playing it too many times! Not to mention the bizarre scene with the neighbour giving him something to drink! I think that normal case scenario, after coming back home at the end of the movie, anybody would have called the police or paid for someone to find the children and the wife...... it sucked a bit!

Elephant Juice (1999)

you are all wrong (ah!)

[9/10 · 10 December 2003]

I think that unless you have lived in London, you cannot understand this film. It's not bad at all. If you hate the characters, well, that's another story, the problem is that all Londoners (British Londoners) are like that, sorry! It's all about sex and nothing else matters and who has got time to know if that's right or wrong, here comes another one....

Stealing Beauty (1996)

awful

[1/10 · 6 November 2003]

I cannot believe this film is by Bertolucci! How can anybody compare Last Tango in Paris with Stealing Beauty? The actors are all sleeping. There is no action. There is no story actually! Just a bunch of useless people that live for no reason, have no emotions, etc... It is not sexy enough, not intimate, not engaging, just empty with a story that from the very beginning we already know about. If this is what he wanted to say, please, don't say it, but I am sure, unfortunately, the film will please a certain kind of audience, the same one that dreams about Tuscany as heaven.... well, yes, it's heaven, but....

Solaris (2002)

solaris tarkovsky and lem

[9/10 · 8 September 2003]

The fact that there are no special effects a la Hollywood style is already a bonus. the fact that we are forced to use our brain is fantastic. the fact that we are always told a story and a happy ending and the funky soundtrack and the aliens coming out etc... that 'sucks', sorry! I believe the film is very different from the typical u.s. Clooney movie, but then again the director is no typical director. The music score is as mesmerising as the action, in fact there is no action, just feelings. Tarkovsky dealt more with knowledge and science and the moral of men of science trying to discover and exploit and where is the truth and where does man fits in. It had to do a lot with love and memory too. This is what this film is about: the setting is not important, it is just a mise-en-scene, it is just a stage, where memories are observed and relived, where love expands through time. we get used so quickly to science-fiction meaning special effects, and maybe we should go back and watch the original solaris and 2001 space odyssey etc... This is a film about a man and his memories, that is all, no aliens, please.

Stalker (1979)

the best film ever made

[10/10 · 11 June 2003]

look at U.S and their over budget movies and consider this film: redone in a hurry and under budget. The best film ever made. The best suspence. The best actors. The best story. The best director ever. There is no limit to the depth of this film. The way one feels after watching Stalker will depend on one's inner moral. Can we be bullied into happiness?