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Reviews
Weiner (2016)
Almost certainly the best documentary I've ever seen
I'm not going to do a precis of the film, given others here already have.
But: 1) I'm a picky so'n'so, and I think anything above 8/10 requires bribery or blackmail. Yet I barely hesitated on giving this full marks. 2) Most of the reviews are from men, who are bemused as to why Abedin stayed with Weiner for so long. As a woman, I'd suggest it's because ... 3) I've never seen charisma come over before on a screen. There's watchable in terms of actors, but that's different. This guy OOOZES charisma, to the point that it's leaking out of the screen. She didn't stay with him because she wanted to stay, she stayed because she struggled to leave.
This review is being written on 9/11/16, i.e. the day of Trump's victory in the US election (he makes a brief, hugely hypocritical contribution in the first 10 mins). The BBC showed this over the weekend, which was just after the Clinton / FBI / Abedin / Weiner contribution to the e-mail issue. Either the Beeb got *very* lucky on scheduling, or they pulled a blinder on rescheduling.
Trump has no self-awareness, cares nothing for his electorate, and struggles to stay away from women. Weiner's the opposite on the first two points, but identical on the third. Watch this film if you want to see the kind of human who should be allowed power, as opposed to the sociopath who's achieved it.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
What a waste
So, if we ever doubted how important a director is to getting the best out of actors, here's the proof. In the hands of Almodovar, with his rightly favoured stars of Barden and Cruz, this could - and possibly would - have been a fantastic tale of emotion & confusion. As it is, we get two of the brightest stars of Euro cinema reduced to 2-D pastiches of "passion", with astonishingly pointless & witless dialogue.
Woody - you were better than this. We all know you're past your prime, but why don't YOU accept it, & go back to the style when you had a lightness of touch, wit, and verve?
Scarlett - the camera loves you, but you're gutless without someone behind it who knows what they're doing. Woody ain't it. OK, I thought "Lost in Translation" was abysmal, but that's because I'm not entertained by superior imperial racist crap. You were fab in "Girl with a Pearl Earring", because it was about your stillness & inner radiance. Try taking a few REAL chances rather than going, ooo, this might make me look edgy. For now you're just a curvy Keira.
Bardem, Cruz - learn from this. Neither of you have anything to prove, after all. So don't work with icons because they're icons from the past. Work with them because they turn out art in the present.