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Tutta colpa di Giuda - [It's All Judas' Fault aka Let's Blame It On Judas]
Davide Ferrario, 2009
Comedy, Musical
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
A prison-set musical about a female theater director who sets up a reinterpretation of the Crucifixion.
Oddball piece that employs actual prisoners to play themselves and probably works all the better for that. It has to be said it's not a particularly visually appealing piece with the obviously low-budget filmmaking and use of a rather drab Turin prison as its primary location, but it does have a surprising amount of heart and the kinship to Stomp in some of the musical numbers lends interest to them. That's not to say it doesn't drag at all, it does at times, and none of the narrative beats should particularly surprise - until the very ending ... which unfortunately didn't particularly work for me.





The Darkest Minds
Jennifer Yuh Nelson, 2018
Action, Adventure, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller
DVR - Film4


From IMDb:
Imprisoned by an adult world that now fears everyone under 18, a group of teens form a resistance group to fight back and reclaim control of their future.
YA adventure that incorporates extra-sensory powers in order to both allow events to be more spectacular when desired and the narrative to do pretty much as it pleases. The effects often aren't that impressive though, the tale has a rather flat middle section and both the characters and screenplay are very much by-the-numbers - with all the requisite beats to try and appeal to its target audience of young adults. There's really nothing to make this overly appealing for those beyond that target audience though, average fare presented somewhat below averagely.





Sikisma - [Stuck]
Arda Murat Akdag, 2015
Drama
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
A light and humorous exploration of one couple's marital problems.
Primarily a two-hander concerning an assistant referee and his actress wife talking through their issues whilst stuck in the lift of their apartment block. The acting from both is perfectly acceptable and their conversation is generally well enough written, with a few moments of humour dotted here and there and certainly rings true to life in places. Sadly though the piece is not only bookended with two weakly played peripheral characters, who initially help set the scene, but then opts to also periodically interrupt the central conversation with those same two characters attempting to resolve the couples predicament. The narrative admittedly follows the expected path, with no twists or surprises, but would've still scored higher had it just been a two-hander.


+



The Midnight Swim
Sarah Adina Smith, 2014
Drama, Horror, Mystery
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
Spirit Lake is unusually deep. No diver has ever managed to find the bottom, though many have tried. When Dr. Amelia Brooks disappears during a deep-water dive, her three daughters travel home to settle her affairs.
Low-budget, hand-held mix of drama about dealing with loss and pseudo-horror with an invented mythos and the usual attempts at creating creepy, unexplained incidents or fake scares à la any number of found-footage horror movies of a similarly minimal budget. It's not badly acted but for me the mystery aspects are completely lame, the filming style (albeit reasonably competently compared to some) is not one I enjoy, the drama isn't remotely near interesting enough to compensate and the reveal kinda undercuts what has gone before.


+



He liu - [The River]
Ming-liang Tsai, 1997
Drama, Romance
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river; his dysfunctional parents are unable to provide any relief for him or themselves.
Slice-of-life drama that is a little more playful at times than previous offerings that I've seen from the director and also has more dialogue (though still quite sparse), both of which make it a little easier to engage with. The content is a mix of human dynamics and relatively serious issues though (pollution and the effects of a debilitating condition), and whilst it still retains the same unhurried type of pace as his other early cinematic works it's the more rounded piece of the first three offerings imo. Definitely one f*cked-up family sexually though, that's for sure





Alfonsina y el mar - [One More Time]
Pablo Benedetti & David Sordella, 2013
Drama
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
An 80-year-old actress returns to the small Chilean town of her youth to fulfill her father's dream of creating a TV channel in a place which has never known television.
A somewhat meandering piece which is a curious mix of the whimsical and the wistful that plays more like a documentary in places. The score often doesn't really suit that well imo, but is thankfully kept to a minimum so it doesn't impinge too much, and whilst proceedings never really hit any highs until the final minutes the relationship between the two principals is enough to keep it watchable.





Sabrina
Billy Wilder, 1954
Comedy, Drama, Romance
DVD


From IMDb:
A playboy becomes interested in the daughter of his family's chauffeur, but it's his more serious brother who would be the better man for her.
Reasonably fun romp in which all three leads are in decent form. Unfortunately though, despite some nice sequences, imo it's not Wilder at the top of his game leaving it a rather patchy affair that relies on the charms of those three leads far too much. Even a somewhat below par Wilder is still better than many though.





You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Sabrina
Billy Wilder, 1954
Comedy, Drama, Romance
DVD


From IMDb:

Reasonably fun romp in which all three leads are in decent form. Unfortunately though, despite some nice sequences, imo it's not Wilder at the top of his game leaving it a rather patchy affair that relies on the charms of those three leads far too much. Even a somewhat below par Wilder is still better than many though.



Sabrina is one of the few movies where I prefer the remake over the original version. They're both good movies, but I think Humphrey Bogart was miscast in the original.
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Sabrina is one of the few movies where I prefer the remake over the original version. They're both good movies, but I think Humphrey Bogart was miscast in the original.
Tbh when it comes to parts that involve kissing Ms. Hepburn I'm of the opinion they were all miscast. It should've been me every time



Tatal fantoma - [The Phantom Father]
Lucian Georgescu, 2011
Drama, Romance
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
American professor Robert Traum embarks on an adventurous and amusing journey through Bucovina to find Sami the projectionist, the only person alive that can tell him anything about his Romanian Jewish descent.
A bit of a mess imo that sadly never really works on any of its attempted fronts - neither as a romance, as a drama nor as any sort of cultural commentary. Having large portions of the dialogue in English unfortunately makes them quite stilted and lifeless. The narrative isn't always that cohesive, having elements seemingly thrown in to try and make it a little more 'colourful'. The lead, Marcel Iures, may be one of Romania's most celebrated actors but has little to work with here and his character comes across as flat and uninteresting.


+



Patardzlebi - [Brides]
Tinatin Kajrishvili, 2014
Drama
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From IMDb:
Nutsa lives with her two small children in suburb of Tblissi, Georgia. With her Goga, they would bee today a regular family if he hadn't been arrested.
Slice-of-life drama that's generally acted well enough and is somewhat effective in it's glimpses of the degradations those on the outside of the prison regime have to endure during visitations and the strain put on relationships between those inside and out. Not all of the drama feels realistic though - the extramarital dalliance may be there to help show her frustrations but it feels shoehorned into the story and would have benefitted from a little more groundwork imo whilst the overall depiction of the prison regime is almost certainly somewhat sanitised compared to reality.





Stars In My Crown
Jacques Tourneur, 1950
Drama, Family, Western
DVR - TCM


From IMDb:
In 1865, the small Southern town of Walsburg has become so dangerous, that Parson Josiah Doziah Gray gives his sermons while holding a gun.
Nicely enough acted and a well put together piece and even though far too 'family' oriented and twee or schmaltzy in places for my taste it also has enough of a darker tone at times to at least partially offset that.


+



Devoured
Greg Olliver, 2012
Drama, Horror, Thriller
DVD


From TMDb:
Malevolent forces within the walls of an old restaurant torment a cleaning woman who is trying to earn enough money to pay for her son's operation.
Slow-burn that's more of a character study of a descent into madness, which is actually made pretty clear I think just after the half hour mark. Unfortunately it still seems to strive for a level of ambiguity beyond that point which for me made it far less effective, and I think both presenting the female (owner? boss?) as fiercely abusive and most of the male characters as sexual predators was overkill and unnecessary. It's quite sparse on dialogue, which is probably for the best as what there is isn't really up to much, relying on sight and sound to set the tone - which they do reasonably well. Overall though there's little on offer that hasn't been seen elsewhere and whilst the final minutes prove fairly bloody they also serve to not only highlight the deceit that has gone before but also the implausibility of the tale.


+



Sabrina
Billy Wilder, 1954
Comedy, Drama, Romance
DVD


From IMDb:

Reasonably fun romp in which all three leads are in decent form. Unfortunately though, despite some nice sequences, imo it's not Wilder at the top of his game leaving it a rather patchy affair that relies on the charms of those three leads far too much. Even a somewhat below par Wilder is still better than many though.


I really wasn't a fan of this. This is the only Hepburn film I've seen so far, but I wasn't really impressed by her, Bogart is miscast, and their relationship doesn't feel real (I read afterwards that none of the cast really got along, so that might be the reason)... but more importantly, I wrote this about the story back when I saw it in 2017...

Another issue is that the film seems to move between being a romantic comedy, with some slapstick hints, or being a more serious, more dramatic endeavor. In that struggle, none of the genres is that well defined. The film is never that dramatic, the comedy is never that funny, and the romance isn't that believable either.
I gave it
and it's easily well below all the other Wilder films I've seen.
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I really wasn't a fan of this. This is the only Hepburn film I've seen so far, but I wasn't really impressed by her, Bogart is miscast, and their relationship doesn't feel real (I read afterwards that none of the cast really got along, so that might be the reason)... but more importantly, I wrote this about the story back when I saw it in 2017...
Another issue is that the film seems to move between being a romantic comedy, with some slapstick hints, or being a more serious, more dramatic endeavor. In that struggle, none of the genres is that well defined. The film is never that dramatic, the comedy is never that funny, and the romance isn't that believable either.
I gave it
and it's easily well below all the other Wilder films I've seen.
I think you probably either fall for Audrey's charms or you don't, she never was gonna win the Worlds Greatest Actress award but she still warms my heart every time I see her I'd be more than happy watching an hour of her simply picking daisies tbh

The casting of Bogey doesn't bother me as much as it seems to most people, for sure the role could have been better cast but his character is supposed to be somewhat lacking in humanity and he plays that well enough imo. I'd agree the romance simply isn't believable though and it's most certainly not Wilder at his best.

Can't say I've ever felt Sabrina really tried for serious drama.



Bella Vista
Vera Brunner-Sung, 2014
Drama
DVR - Filmbox Arthouse


From TMDb:
In the dead of winter in the mountain valley of Missoula, Montana, Doris has just returned to the U.S. after years teaching English abroad.
She came. She saw. She left. Sorry for the spoiler but that's about the level of depth the central character has in this rather tedious piece that purports to look at 'belonging'. It does have the occasional nice shot of scenery though.


+



The Incredibles
Brad Bird, 2004
Animation, Action, Adventure, Family
DVD


From TMDb:
Bob Parr has given up his superhero days to log in time as an insurance adjuster and raise his three children with his formerly heroic wife in suburbia. But when he receives a mysterious assignment, it's time to get back into costume.
Pretty decent affair that's paced quite nicely, engaging throughout and provides quite a few laughs whilst dealing with its themes of acceptance, fun, equality, fun, teamwork, fun, family and perhaps most of all - fun.


+



Michael Clayton
Tony Gilroy, 2007
Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
DVD


From TMDb:
A law firm brings in its 'fixer' to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.
Unremarkable offering where the central tale may not be that original but does manage to maintain interest and benefits from a well suited performance from Tom Wilkinson as the unbalanced lawyer who sets it all in motion. Unfortunately though most of the fleshing out of the titular character feels like redundant 'dressing' to me and I'll never understand why any director opts to completely undercut a passage that clearly is supposed to be infused with tension by revealing the outcome earlier in proceedings.