I was skeptical of Luca Guadagnino's films like Call Me By Your Name until I saw them. It felt like Luca is making high brow dramas that are designed solely as tear-squeezers that appeal to contemporary politics. But then I saw his movies. From Call Me By Your Name to instant horror classics like Bones And All he proved time and time again that he is truly great. His movies are insanely visceral emotional roller-coasters that are not afraid to be sincere, while every other movie these days cannot take anything seriously. But then came a trailer of Luca Guadagnino making a movie about Tennis.

There is a sub genre of film which includes my movie Moria's Race and things like Spy Kids. Those are movies where child characters are opposing adults. And winning them. But there is a kind of spectrum in this sub genre. Spy Kids franchise, for example, is very clean and sterile. Trying as hard as possible to get a good age rating. While others might get a bit riskier. Riddle Of Fire is one such film.

People accuse me of many bad things for making a movie where kids go against their parents into dangerous situations. Apparently they never seen Super 8. One criticism I hear often about Super 8 is that the kids in this film are way too brave! No wonder Steven Spielberg is attached to this project. He made and produced a fair share of anti-ageism films in his career.

This had to be done finally! One of the biggest inspirations for Moria's Race, one of my favorite childhood movies, one of the best action films ever and perhaps one of the most colorful films: Speed Racer by the Wachowskis.

From my review of Drive you probably know that I like the taste of Nicolas Winding Refn's cock. And in this review I will be sucking his cock once again, while drooping saliva all of his masterpiece Only God Forgives.

I was not sure if I wanted to see Barbie. I certainly didn't want to see it together with Oppenheimer. But the funny thing is, I still didn't review Oppenheimer, while here I am reviewing Barbie. I think I have the same reason here as with Nope as of why I avoided it. You know Nope was directed by a black man. And it was one of its main selling points. Barbie is directed by a woman. And everybody is talking about it. And it feels forced to watch a movie for that kind of reason. So I avoided Barbie until now. But since I had a Ryan Gosling marathon, I though that I might as well get into this film. And oh my god. I have thoughts!

It was very nice to have a marathon of Ryan Gosling movies, because I stumbled upon this unique masterpiece. Lars and the Real Girl is a story about a sad relationship. About a man named Lars and his girl named Bianca who is sick and getting worse and worse with every passing day. The twist is, Bianca is actually a live sized sex doll.

I decided to give myself somewhat of a Ryan Gosling marathon, after re-watching Drive the other day. I gave myself a challenge though. I didn't want to watch the stuff I already like. I didn't want "Only God Forgives" ( which I will review soon ). I didn't want "Blade Runner 2049". I wanted something else. Something that I personally would not select normally. And therefor I put Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Imagine a situation when you have to go to school on a weekend to basically waste your morning there. Imagine that somebody wanted to make a movie about it. It would be the worst kind of movie idea imaginable. How could you even make that interesting? Well John Hughes did. The movie should not work under any circumstance, but it does. And it does so well, it's a bloody cinematic miracle.

It is very strange to me that this is the first time I review anything by Nicolas Winding Refn here. I love this director and his style a lot. The movie Drive is perhaps the best introduction to him that you could ever get. It is his fastest paced movie ( apart from maybe Bronson ). He likes to be very slow. Drive is paced more or less like a normal film. That is why, if you want to start getting yourself into Nicolas Winging Refn I would recommend starting from Drive.

Have you ever wondered what would Alfred Hitchcock do in the age of CGI and VFX? What kind of strange insane shorts he would come up with? Well Robert Zemeckis set out for himself a challenge to find out. He is notorious for using visual effects creatively. A lot of people might be familiar with the mirror shot he did in the film Contact. So something like trying to make a Hitchcockian thriller of the 21st century was just about the right kind of thing for Zemeckis.

Being a fan of mostly action cinema, and plot heavy thrillers makes it feel as if Call Me By Your Name has no plot what so ever. But it is a mistake. Luca Guadagnino is a kind of director that tends to film very subtle movies. But if you are paying attention and you are invested in the characters themselves, those movies tend to have very strong effects. This is why I love Call Me By Your Name so much. It is as if I went on a vacation to Italy myself and spent my time with the characters of this movie. As if I had become their friend. And as if I myself got invested in their day to day little struggles.

There are a couple of movies that are so dear to me that I keep watching the end credits all the way through. Often crying through them. And Leon: The Professional is one of those movies.

I was avoiding Nope for a few reasons. One of them was because people kept saying that it is very disturbing. It has a scene which I thought was to traumatize me. Now that I actually saw the film I can tell you that Jordan Peele, the director of Nope is not Lars Von Trier and therefor the scene is not actually that bad. To be quite frank, it seems like shooting that scene the way Lars Von Trier would have done it probably goes against the message of the movie.

If you saw 300 or the Snyder's cut of Justice League you know what to expect from Zachary Edward Snyder. A lot of cool ass slow-mo shots. A lot of detailed frames with a lot of particles and stuff. A lot of mood shots that are there probably only for beauty. And a lot of violent violence. Rebel Moon is not an exception. It is very much a Zack Snyder movie.

Natalie Portman is an interesting figure in the world of cinema. And the movie May December is a meta-analysis of Natalie's psychological journey through Hollywood. It is not a surprise that her first movie Leon: The Professional caused some levels of controversy. It was mainly an action film, so there was not that much controversy. But the dramatic elements of the film were questioned a lot by American audiences. Even Natalie Portman herself, being half-American described Leon as "cringe". And it seems like the growing obsession with all kind of sexual misconducts in Hollywood together with growing feelings of cringe from Leon made her into needing a movie like May December to evaluate everything and understand the phenomenon better.

Lars Von Trier is an interesting filmmaker. He directs mostly very depressing movies that are very hard to watch. Breaking The Waves is an interesting case study in his filmography because on some weird level this is one of the rare examples of a Lars Von Trier film with a happy ending. Even though you could perhaps argue that the ending is nowhere near happy at all.

The Spark is great in all the things that graphical artists value. It looks jaw-dropping. But it fails for me in the story-telling aspect of it. What is the story of The Spark? A character falls down a hole and finds there a clue. And because of how utterly bored he is, he decides to follow that clue until reaching a place where he finds grass. A thing that he was programmed to find. Yes, it is not as straight forward as him just walking there by himself and finding the grass. There are obstacles along the way, but non of them make any impact.

Asian cinema is different from American cinema. When in America filmmakers are often armed with enormous budgets, Asian cinema is trying to survive with what it has while still delivering the same, if not more, entertainment value. It's not that hard when dealing with dramas. There most of the time the story is about a few people in few locations, talking and crying with one another. Which is not expensive. But it's an entirely different challenge when you are trying to compete within the action-film market.

Conceptually the film is very much like Stanley Kubrick's "The Shinning". It deals with a parent going slowly insane and becoming a threat to the children. Both movies suggest a possibility of a supernatural explanation of the insanity. But the movies are made in such a smart way where there is enough doubt in those supernatural occurrences that you can read it as psychological deterioration only. Which is a very interesting challenge to a filmmaker. And young Spielberg pulled it off.

In my review of Babylon I claimed that it was 1941 of Damien Chazelle. But there is one filmmaker that makes 1941s all the time. And his name is Michael Bay.

I miss the times when you could see a David Fincher movie in the cinema. The last time he made a true cinema picture was almost 10 years ago in 2014. Since then he fully embraced the DRM filled streaming dis-service models. And his latest film The Killer is a straight to Netflix production. And it seems like he himself feels a bit off about it. Because if we take the character as a proxy for Fincher himself. This character is complex in how much he tries to justify himself being a terrible person.

I would say that Babylon, the 2022 film directed by Damien Chazelle is Damien Chazelle's 1941. I wrote an article describing how 1941 is the ultimate Steven Spielberg movie and how there is a certain type of over the top insanity you can expect from a good filmmaker going completely unhinged. 1941 wasn't received well. People in the cinema were reportedly closing their ears from the shier amount of loud explosions that happened in the movie. Babylon is the lowest rated movie from Damien Chazelle. But it doesn't mean that the movie is dull, or badly made. Both 1941 and Babylon are explosive insanity-fests showcasing the ability of a good director to maintain focus in an absolute chaos. Both films are incredibly well directed. There are complex shots and interesting cuts all through out. But perhaps they had injected so much energy into the movies that the movies overdosed the audience. And therefor received worse reviews.

A movie titled simply "RRR" is perhaps the greatest achievement in the entire Indian cinema landscape. You are probably familiar with the term "Bollywood". There is a misunderstanding in the world that Bollywood simply means Indian cinema. It's not necessarily true. Bollywood is Indian cinema from the center of India. And Bollywood movies all shot in the Hindi language. India has a dozen or so states and a dozen or so languages. Each state and even each little region of those states have different languages and dialects. RRR was made in the state called Andra Pradesh ( Telugu: ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ ) where people speak Telugu ( Telugu: తెలుగు ). And the movie is a part of Tollywood, not Bollywood. Though quite frankly, even that is not true, since the director of the film Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli ( Telugu: కోడూరి శ్రీశైల శ్రీ రాజమౌళి ) known as simply S. S. Rajamouli ( Telugu: ఎస్. ఎస్. రాజమౌళి ) treated this film as an all Indian movie, using actors from different states of India, and dubbing the film into multiple Indian languages. Making the film Indian in general, not simply Tollywood.

I reviewed a lot of films on this website and in almost every review I mention the name of Steven Spielberg. It's not because every movie I review is made by Spielberg. But it seem like every director can be viewed on a scale of Spielbergness. And the higher you go on that scale the better. At the top there is Steven Spielberg himself.

Between the 1970s to the 1990s there was a very interesting period in Hollywood. Directors like Steven Spielberg came from relative nobodies to super-stars. Which inspired a lot of directors to take upon the formula of sentimental adventure and try doing something else with it. My Girl looks like a movie clearly inspired by Spielberg, but not quite Spielbergian, in a sense that it doesn't deal with extraordinary circumstances, but rather deals with a family and friendship dynamics.

Seth Rogen is an interesting filmmaker. Sometimes I feel like he is a manifestation of me when I will be older. But to be honest it's just wishful thinking. Wait for my review on The Fablemans to understand why. Seth Rogen is Jewish. He looks kind of big. Sometimes directs movies. He has Ukrainian ancestry. And he is a fighter for Freedom. Basically me. No... Wishful thinking. I don't think I will get anywhere near as popular. Basically Spielberg. Yeah that's better.

Francis Ford Coppola, a director behind things like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now did not direct Vampire's Kiss. It was directed by Robert Bierman. A director who did mostly work for TV. And who's directing style is not necessarily bad. I don't think he is bad. The movies do not feel terribly directed. It's just it seems that as a director he is not necessarily exciting.

In some way the movie actually is very similar in concept to Beau Is Afraid. The main character has anxieties about leaving home. And in both films the main character has to go outside on the journey. And in both films the worst type of things happen to them. But while Beau Is Afraid is more about bad situations just being unlucky. In this movie, it is as if the film was written by Richard Stallman and it's a compilation of fears somebody in the Free Software community might feel.

It is very hard to describe the style of Luca Guadagnino, the director of Bones And All. His films are very good. But it seems like he is not interested in plot, which is weird, considering that the movies are good. He is famous for his erotic dramas, films centered around a sexual tension between people, like his perhaps most acclaimed movie Call Me By Your Name, in which all the substance comes from very subtle things. A character looks a certain way on another character. Or perhaps holds onto another character's hand for way too long. And you have to piece together all these little clues to even start feeling some kind of presence of a plot. Because if you don't pay attention it all looks like people just casually hanging out. And then suddenly a payoff happens, which would make sense only if you paid attention to the little clues.

It's so weird to be watching The Vast Of Night almost right after No One Will Save You. One movie has no dialogue, while the other is just dialogue. To be honest, it might seem very strange to make a film so dialogue heavy, if we didn't have people like Quentin Tarantino who shows time and time again that movies with a lot of dialogue can work fantastically.

Gareth Edwards is a type of writer / director that I can relate to. I remember watching the Star Wars movie that he directed Rogue One back when it came out and feeling like I know what this guy is doing. Like I myself want to be that guy. Back in 2016 ( when Rogue One came out ) I still didn't quite give up the Wrong Hate project and what he showed was the stuff that I was aiming for.

It's interesting sometimes what different artists do with the same material when this material is not bound by copyright. Good filmmakers like Kenneth Branagh can make wonderful adaptation of things like plays by Shakespeare into insane epics. Bad filmmakers like Rhys Frake-Waterfield can make awful twists on beloved characters, like the horror film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.

Good film directors tend to take upon themselves projects that risk being misunderstood sometimes. An artist can't just draw the same drawing over and over. He wants to experiment. Director Michael Mann is famous with his films about crime. And the realistic depiction of what crime and police work actually looks like. But if you are doing this over and over, you tend to become interested in something else. Which is terrible for a director who has fans with certain expectations.

It is very sad when a movie barely scratches to earn back the money that it was cost to make. Sometimes the movie sucks and that explains everything. But sometimes we get films like Tenet, Blade Runner 2049 and Hugo. Wonderful amazing movies that failed to be the sensations they deserve to be. You know, the kind of feeling today's kids have when they type "This should have got more views" in the comments on YouTube.

If you expect Baby Driver to be anything like Hot Fuzz. Don't! If you expect Baby Driver to be anything like Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. Don't! If you expect Baby Driver to be anything like Last Night In Soho. Don't! The director of Baby Driver, Edgar Wright set for himself a challenge to make every next movie he does in a different genre. Therefor you get absolutely different effects from his movies. Even though there are obvious Edgar Wright tropes in every one of his movies.

I guess today is my Edgar Wright day. Earlier today I watched and reviewed Baby Driver and now I just wiped my tears from watching Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

I did not expect Spy Kids Armageddon to be any good. It is written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. A guy who doesn't care about quality that much. His view on film-making was shaped by his first filming experience in 1992 when he made El Mariachi. A movie so cheap that it was weird to a lot of people that it was an action film. Rodriguez has this idea that he can cheat his way into making anything at all. Using as he says "creativity instead of money". So most of his movies tend to look like the Star Wars prequels. A lot of pretty noticeable green screen. Tons of CGI where most other people would use practical props. And strange camera work which is probably more dictated by the limitations of his methods, and not by actual directorial decisions.

Fuck! What a great ending of a great director's filmography. Eyes Wide Shut 1999 was the last film directed by Stanley Kubrick, who died towards the end of post-production of this movie. There are rumors that Stanley Kubrick's death is related to the content of this film. And that somebody wasn't very happy with what he did. At that time Stanley Kubrick had the final cut rights at Warner Bros. Meaning that he would be the person that approves the movie that will be shown to the audience. There was a story of somebody overhearing yells at Stanley Kubrick that he can't show that stuff from one of the executives on the movie. And 6 days later Kubrick was dead. Perhaps just a conspiracy theory. But considering what the movie is about, there might be something to those theories.

Sir Kenneth Branagh! That's the end of the review. Just kidding. A Haunting In Venice is the new picture directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Kenneth Branagh which is a kind of a sub-genre of films of it's own. Branagh started his directorial career by directing a movie where he played the main role. And continued directing movies where he played the main roles ever since. Of course sometimes he might make a movie where he plays not the main character, like the 1992's Peter's Friends where Peter is played by Stephen Fry. And Branagh just has a very big role in it. And sometimes he plays in movies where he is not the director. Like in Dunkirk, Tenet and Oppenheimer all directed by Christopher Nolan. Of course lately he got himself directing jobs where he didn't cast himself what so ever. Like in Marvel's Thor ( where the actor was cast by Marvel ) or Disney's Cinderella where for obvious reasons a middle aged man cannot play the main character. But most of the time he plays the main character in the films he directs. It kind of became a meme at this point that if Branagh directs a film, most likely he plays the main character.

During the making of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Steven Spielberg was already kind of a big man in Hollywood. But from the other side he was still young. Technically speaking this was his third theatrical film. He did work for television from the late 60s. At that time he already directed a number of feature length TV movies. One of them was the famous Duel. And then he did only 2 theatrical pictures: the 1972's The Sugarland Express and the 1974's Jaws. And now there is this movie.

When I started doing movie reviews I told myself that I will make reviews right after I saw the movie. But there is an exception to this rule. The first and the last time I saw The House That Jack Built was in Jerusalem Cinemateque in the end of 2018. Roughly 5 years ago. And this review will be made from the memory I have of the movie. I have no problem with the existence of this movie. Freedom of Speech is important. But I am not willing to watch it again. Even though I am kind of a fan of the director Lars Von Trier and the movie is arguably very good. It's just I'm not brave enough to sit through it again.

There is a sub-genre of Horror films categorized by surrealism. It could range between totally insane films like anything directed by David Lynch all the way to something like Mandy by Panos Cosmatos, where it is kind of surreal, but also doesn't actually ask from the audience too much in terms of figuring out what is going on. "Beau Is Afraid" is more toward the David Lynch category of surreal horror.