The Saint of Fort Washington – 1993

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One of my favorite movies of the kind: social insignificance, urban survival. The acting by Danny Glover as Jerry, a homeless Vietnam veteran and Matt Dillon as Matthew, a schizophrenic photographer, is very good, I’ve always liked Danny Glover, the same I can’t say about Matt Dillon, but this character fitted, I enjoyed it. The plot is interesting if you see the plot as a way of showing different human characters and how social hierarchies or the environment they're in, don't dictate the individual characteristics. Photography I have a mix opinion, if I think about the city of New York in the eighties and nighties, this is alright, but could be better with the material available in that time, but if I think about how the author photographed the New Yorker's humanity in that chaos and misery, is amazingly good, is poetic in some cases. The soundtrack is one of the worsts I've ever heard in a film, but there is an exception, the scene Matthew took the first photograph with actual film in the camera, that is touching, but all the rest is annoying, but maybe i was hoping for something more dramatic and the author didn’t wanted that, well, not exactly dramatic, something more in accordance with the time/place it was filmed.

The Sunset Limited – 2011





A play written by Cormac McCarthy, now converted by Tommy Lee Jones into a film. Stars Tommy Lee Jones as the white man, a teacher, also a suicidal atheist and Samuel L. Jackson as the black man, a blue-collar worker, once convicted of murder, later converted to Christianism. The author didn’t had an easy task, converting the play into this film, it all takes place in a single room in suburbs of New York City, something that doesn’t pre determines the failure of a film, some great movies were all made in a tiny room, I actually prefer it that way if we’re talking about discussions, arguments. The cast obviously is enormously relevant, the film depended on dialogue majorly emphasized by facial expressions and characters actions, both actors were superb, I especially liked Samuel L. Jackson, the accent, the look in his eyes while he told the “jail house story”, the sense of humor while he told stories about alcoholism.The soundtrack or the ambient noise completed every pause perfectly, the camera managed to film from almost every possible angle in the room. About the characters, while one is very well educated individual, narrowing the decision of committing suicide to the civilization current lack of interest in the intellect, culture, art, literature, the other narrows everything to a book, the bible. While one sees the world as a forced labor camp where everyone is compelled to keep going until the final day, the other sees it as a journey to something else. The author used comedy to make the audience keep watching the film with the mentality he wanted, he didn’t intended to make the movie dramatic, heavy. The dialogue diverted many times to various subjects, day life subjects to make it more enjoyable, not just the quid pro quo, like a tennis match we’re used to in this kind of films, where one wins and the other loses, one of the particularities of this film, is that one is not trying to make the other lose. There’s a scene, I especially enjoyed very much, where they’re both eating a magnificent soup, “soul food from the ghettos of New York city”, the delight on there face while they’re eating the soup, one trying to guess the ingredients, it made the audience wonder, what soup was that? I still wonder, I made a search and didn’t fond a god damn thing, if you watch the film and you know what soup that is, please let me know. Overall is a very good film about faith extremism, one in blackness, nothingness and the other in absolution, an higher entity.

Time Out of Mind - 2014

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https://i.imgur.com/ARJgI2N.jpg

The similarities between this film and the first one I reviewed are obvious. They have both actors I admire and whose work I haven't quite saw yet. They are both about homelessness, and they are both in New York city. Despite that they are different films. Time Out of Mind have a particularity that I haven't seen in most films of this kind, the author didn't romanticize the character difficult situation. We have Richard Gere as George, a homeless man, lost is job, house, wife and daughter. He ghosts New York corners and park benches, sells is jacket to buy a six-pack, have a hard time falling asleep in the hard benches around the city, wakes up without shoes, kids took them for the fun of it, so he sleeps during the day riding the subway trains, is waken up so people can take his picture while he doesn't have any cloths on. This man doesn't have a place to go during the day, isn't an artist, a intelectual, neither a spiritual enlightened person, a very unattractive character the author created, not romanticized in any way, just the raw reality, I liked that. One of the major differences between The Saint of Forth Washington and this film, is that the first one tried to show us the humanity, solidarity shared by those in the worsts situations and the lack of it in those who aren't in bad situations, this film is the exact opposite, shows the bureaucracy of the system, yes, shows some people swimming in that bureaucracy, yes, but also show us samaritans that really wanna to help without asking anything in return. Also emphasizes the mental health condition of this homeless community, a community that is not as close as we might think they are, and that's the point of the film in a way, they are a ghost. The soundtrack was alright, very soft, not trying to dramatize anything. The cinematography is what really got me, they used stationary shots, filming behind something, a wall, a window, zooming until reaching the character, the character is not highlighted, in some scenes you see a crowd and you don't know where the character is, the camera is slowly zooming until you finally see him, in some scenes you only see the character in the background, while you are watching a stranger, someone without relevance for the plot having a conversation, this technique is crucial to elevate what I believe is the main subject of this film, insignificance. This is a character tormented by lost, by meaning nothing, he still believe is going to find his death wife, his been in the streets for ten years but he refuses to call himself a homeless, when he notices that people simply disappear in that city without anyone having any remembrance of who they were, he tries to conquer his daughter affection.

Adrian Grunberg, 2019


Vietnam veteran comes home, unable to adapt he never leaves the war driving him to make new ones: the franchise, the glorification of a veteran when so many of them needed it. Last Blood is pornographic violence like Bergman used to say, violence for the sake of violence, violence for entertainment, but still, it’s the John Rambo of our times, sadly.

Quentin Tarantino, 2019


Create nostalgia through pop-culture: a long time trait of Tarantino's, spread across an entire film. Showing the insanity, ambition, urges, anxieties and insecurities, the needing of gratification of an entire industry used to idealize role models across the world through a TV screen, Tarantino managed to show that insanity literally, by using two of the biggest names in Hollywood today to create his long-time ultra violence fetish.

Martin Scorsese, 2019


A beautiful wrapped box with nothing inside. The box had cinematography, editing, script and storytelling, production, renown cast, Harvey Keitel just for the nostalgia sadly, but when you open the box to look at what’s inside: nothing. A biography that lets you know that’s not good to be a gangster. It's lacks the content I'm used to with this author.

Joe Talbot, 2019

A love story, love for San Francisco, a place where originality and genuineness aren’t pointed at, where diversity it’s welcomed, the perfect conditions for gentrification to prey on, to grab and take, but they can’t keep it, because they don’t have it. A beautiful poetic portrait of a city, an introspection of the ones who made it, they’ve never really owned it, but they’re not the ones losing it. If you are going to San Francisco, be sure to not forget your wallet, the people you were going to meet are not going to be there.

Todd Phillips, 2019


Smiling not to cry, smiling to adapt, depressive, making them smile to belong, for a cuddle, for a sign of acceptation. Ingenuity and unrelation confronted with an unbearable, harsh reality that looks like an institution of deceiving, indifference, insensibility, ingratitude, lack of empathy, it feels better when isolated, no confrontation. Dreaming, fantasizing of you being himself in a crowd, in a relationship, a mirage of what it could be, only if. This is the depict of the only if, accepting it, it’s glorification, destroying the institution for acknowledgment, a not allowed fantasy because if you don’t understand it, you’re in it.

Trey Edward Shults, 2019


A novelette, also appears to be the new best thing, pick everything that seems to be cool and mix it all together: aspect ratios, colors, songs it doesn't matter... looks like the new hip-hop, everything mingled and no one understands a word they say, because, they don't have anything to say, but it's flashy, appealing, I guess it's needed to catch attentions of a generation easily bored and distracted. This is to me a emotionally dramatic Uncut Gems, it doesn't have any value, I find it insulting.

Sam Mendes, 2019


Get a pot. Put Saving Private Ryan old cliche story frame. Chew some Come and See without teeths. You got 1917. Big hollywood style production for huge hollywood audience. Story without closure, no character development, long shots without any particular use, attempting to convey shock with strong images, total fail, no sentimental expressions in the characters. No value, too much evident effort and lack of it.

Terry Zwigoff, 1994


Is this the bottom of depraved artistic sincerity? Or is it the top?

Trey Edward Shults, 2015


When your mother tells you: "Once you become a parent you'll understand". This is what she meant. You're now looking at her face understanding her past struggle faced with your inability to comprehend. Circle of life.

Alexander Payne, 2002


The Deliverance
by Anthony De Mello – Wellspring 1986

To see life as it truly is, nothing helps so much as the reality of death.

I imagine I am present at my funeral.
I see my body in the coffin,
I smell the flowers and incense,
I witness every detail of the funeral rites.

My eyes rest briefly on each person present at the funeral.
Now I understand
how short a time they have to live themselves,
only they are not aware of it.
Right now their mind is focused,
not on their own death or the shortness of their life,
but on me.
This is my show today – my last great show on earth,
the last time I shall be the center of attention.

I listen to what the priest is saying about me in his homily.
And as I scan the faces of the congregation
It gives me pleasure to observe that I am missed.
I leave a vacuum in the hearts and lives of friends.
It is also sobering to think
that there may be people in that crowd who are pleased that I am gone.

I walk in the procession to the graveyard. I see the group and stand silent at the grave
while the final prayers are said.
I see the coffin sink into the grave – the final chapter of my life.

I think what a good life it was,
with all its ups and downs,
its periods of excitement and monotony, it’s achievements and frustrations.
I stay on beside the grave
recalling chapters of my life
as the people in the crowd go back
to their homes, their daily chores,
their dreams and worries.

A year goes by and I return to earth.
The painful vacuums I left behind
are steadily being filled:
the memory of me survives in the hearts of friends,
but they think about me less.
They now look forward to other people’s letters,
they relax in other people’s company;
other people have become important in their lives.
And so it must be: life must go on.

I visit the scene of my work.
If it still continues, someone else is doing it,
someone else is making the decisions.

The places I used to frequent only a year ago:
the shops, the streets, the restaurants… they are all there.
And it doesn’t seem to matter that I walked those streets and visited those shops and road those buses.
I am not missed. Not there!

I search for personal effects like my watch, my pen, and those possessions that had sentimental value for me: souvenirs, letters, photographs.
And the furniture I used, my clothes, my books.

I return on the fiftieth anniversary of my death
and look around to see
if someone still remembers me or speaks of me.

A hundred years go by and I come back again.
Except for a faded photograph or two in an album or on a wall
and the inscription on my grave, little is left of me.
Not even the memory of friends, because none of them exists.
Still, I search for any traces
that are possibly left on earth of my existence.

I look into my grave to find a handful of dust
and crumbling bones in my coffin.
I rest my eyes on that dust
and think back on my life –
the triumphs, the tragedies,
the anxieties and the joys,
the striving's, the conflicts,
the ambitions, the dreams,
the loves and the repugnance's
that constituted my existence
-all of its scattered to the winds,
absorbed into the universe.
Only a little dust remains to indicate that it ever was,
that life of mine!

As I contemplate that dust
it is as if a mighty weight is lifted from my shoulders
-the weight that comes from thinking I matter.

Then I look up and contemplate the world around me
-the trees, the birds, the earth,
the stars, the sunshine,
a baby’s cry, a rushing train, the hurrying crowds,
the dance of life and of the universe-
and I know that somewhere in all of these are the remains of that person I called me and that life that I called mine.

Dome Karukoski, 2019


Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
Hermann Hesse – Wandering 1920

Jaco Van Dormael, 2009


The Dream of Life
by Alan Watts – Out of your Mind

Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have.

And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be."

And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have.