Cynema De Bergerac's Holy Mountain 🎥

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OI!
Pozdrowienia.

No yearly film logs. No more posting here. My viewings will be posted here. Reviews; all that jazz.
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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
No pozdro.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.





For what it's worth, Darkest Hour will be remembered as the film that got Gary Oldman the Oscar, as it’s shown in history classes for years to come (you know, that "boring one.") If I wanted to watch fat, white people drone on about stories that I've already heard about, I could just watch home movies from my family’s past Thanksgivings. This was beyond dull.

The fast, willfully intense pace attempts to make the film more interesting, and somehow, it makes everything feel more monotonous. Also, It’s presentation feels pretentious, resulting in a hollow cinematic experience. Those empty visuals are exemplified when a plane flies over a child, only for the camera to focus on the aforementioned adolescent’s hand, as it curls and tightens the view of the hovercraft. It signifies that war ends badly for many fighting it. What is the director trying to state here? I see nothing different or profound in anything the filmmakers behind the lenses are trying to convey. It’s empty drivel; all style, and no substance. And, the cinematography, while competently shot, becomes headache inducing when the color palette looks like a wet, paper-towel in a school bathroom. It’s just so ugly to look at. Especially with Melting Churchill’s face in every frame. A decent portion of this film is nothing but showboating, and the Director’s constant use of extreme close-ups on Oldman’s face didn't help.

Speaking of which, Oldman is pretty solid as Winston Churchill. It's a performance that such a marvelous talent like himself, could do in his sleep. And while you could just bite the meat off the screen whenever he screams at his war cabinet, it honestly borders on being one-note. Once again, this is mostly the Director’s fault. His primary aim behind the camera is to tilt the film into Oldman’s favor, in an attempt to make his performance the key for the audience to appreciate Churchill. There’s nothing to hold onto with our protagonist. But hey, what else would you expect in straightforward Oscar Bait; a lack of an arc shouldn't be surprising. Every figure who opposes Churchill, is so dull and undeveloped that any suspense surrounding a political face off is meaningless.

As expected with these kind of movies, the filmmakers blatantly altered (and even fabricated) some of the events that actually took place. I would excuse that if it were warranted to benefit the film, and make it more enticing for the viewer. But none of it is. The screenplay by Anthony McCarten is pedestrian, at best. The continuous arguing and shouting matches only exist (once again) for Gary Oldman, so that he doesn’t suffocate under numerous pounds of latex. When a train full of civilians, and a five year old girl convince Winston Churchill to have Britain stand its ground, in a corny terribly-written sequence: I’m going to have a problem, with your little history fabrication. It's borderline insulting, and not just for the sake of history. It's insulting for trying to be emotionally manipulative, in an attempt to the make the audience care when It's not warranted, given the underdeveloped psyche of Churchill. Joe Wright attempts to show you what he's feeling, tell you what he's thinking, but none of what he presents is even remotely passable for the viewer to full understand or feel anything. It's overly dramatic and cookie cutter.

Darkest Hour, while moderately entertaining in aspects, unfortunately has nothing else to offer but unabashed love for Churchill, as it falls under the common tropes many one-note biopics do: devoid of any complexities that are usually required to make these films even remotely interesting, in the slightest.



Couldn't disagree much more: it was way more entertaining that I expected, though obviously that's subjective and probably not worth belaboring too much.

Less subjective is the "devoid of any complexities" part, since Churchill is (fairly) portrayed as demanding, exacting, and belligerent. Even before we see him, we get someone explaining to his new secretary how unreasonable and awful he's going to be to her!

Anyway, a lot of the criticisms are fair, even if I'm not nearly as bothered by them, but that's the only point I'd take issue with on a purely factual basis. Thanks for the review.



Holy f83ing shat. I stayed up WAY too long, and I'm still trying to keep myself awake because I bingewatched H3H3 all night.

Gonna try and kill multiple birds with one giant stone. Might post some reviews when I gather all my thoughts up.



Hope to jebbus I don't put on Joe Pera.





Best thing I could say about Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody is that it’s not a complete trainwreck. Or, "I guess it could’ve been worse". What it all adds up to, as a whole, is something rather Oscar-baity, and kind of VH1-ish; borderline on being made-for-TV tier, despite the budget (how much of that is a result of re-shoots or Bryan Singer's vision, I'll let you be the judge). Though, not without it's fair share of cinematic moments (glimmers of hope, if you will). That being the Live Aid Performance, Malek charismatically roaming around on stage to the tunes of the band. Along with Freddie finding out his disease to "Who Wants to Live Forever" (probably the only part of the film I started singing along-with, due to how strongly the medley fits in thematically within the context of the film). "Ayo".

What really held my interested throughout was Rami Malek's lead performance. In actuality, I don't know if anyone really has the charisma to play Freddie. I've also seen probably half a dozen people go as Freddie for Halloween, and then do karaoke. Copying the iconic moves from his stage performances doesn't exactly take a top tier actor to pull off. But somehow, he made it his own; expressions, mannerisms, posture, etc. And for that I applaud him to a degree. And while Malek IS great at capturing Mercury's stage presence, and could easily handle the heavy emotional stuff, I couldn’t help but think how much the mouthpiece was as a source of constant distraction (to the point that there were times when I couldn't even appreciate his acting). Yes, Freddie Mercury had extra teeth, and when he opened his mouth you could see he had some big chompers. That doesn't mean he looked like a jackrabbit when his mouth was closed. Also, I didn't think Malek got Mercury's speaking voice quite right. Malek has a gravelly quality to his voice, which he couldn't fully disguise, and it sounded strange coming out of Freddie Mercury's mouth. And Malek is not "terrible" by any means, he's just too self-aware. Yes, this is a flamboyant portrayal from one of the most flamboyant icons in music, but I could just see between the lines of Malek's performance. It's loud, robust, but there's no deep understanding of Freddie Mercury, and that falls on both Malek and the screenplay. Everything scratches the surface, but never puts any effort into digging deep into it.

Everything else is borderline mediocre; the direction, cinematography, writing, and everyone else's performance besides Rami Malek is fairly flat (Lucy Boynton’s character, along with her bad performance, is particularly dull and uninteresting). The film editing in particular is an abomination (48 cuts in 76 seconds. Now's that's quality.) Now, someone would argue It's supposed to symbolize the frantic fast-paced life of a rockstar. But, even in scenarios where the quick cuts aren't needed, it mindlessly inserts them. And the sound work is also fairly dreadful. I suppose the only major positive of this disappointment of celluloid is that you could tell just by the events of the film that the members of Queen had far too much respect for Mercury to not include midgets running around with plates of coke on their heads. After all the disgusting slew of musical biopics that meaninglessly delve deep into their protagonists degenerate antics (The Doors, Sid and Nancy), this film actually does head-and-shoulders maturely above the rest while still slightly adhering to the parabola formula in a fine manner. If you wanted to see coke parties and over-the-top rockstar life: you're not getting it. Freddie's flaws are rarely shown, and only used as a plot device for his own redemption. And yet, all of that admiration for the band's respect for their longtime companion comes crashing down when the screenplay flatters the other band members. Apparently any tension within the band was entirely Freddie's fault; who knew? And aside from the ex-wife, you don't really have any good supporting characters bouncing off the lead. There wasn't any sense of bonding within the band, or sense of how much time had passed. Then, at the end, he's with this guy you saw him have one scene with, years prior, and then you get the cards at the end about how he died. Very little emotional impact in what should have been a heart wrenching film.

All in all: a flawed crowd-pleaser. It's entertaining, at best, if you like Queen, but it's nothing memorable if you strip that away.