jnbonicar

Don't Worry Darling (2022)

Has good and bad in it, so

It just could have been better. Like this type of film, it changes from other usual films. Florence Pugh shines in a sophisticated, visually beautiful film, with an original horrific soundtrack. The rest of the cast is also great, Chris Pine is terrific, Olivia Wilde is nice, and Harry Styles is ok, he naturally fits the role, and could have been better. The biggest issue here is that there's nothing horrific in the film (well, except, its nature, its concept, but nothing per se). Instead, it's even slow at points, and uninteresting and others... The film begins indeed very badly, there is no direction, it's not focused, the story could have been much better built, and the final twist can be predictable. Still, the visuals, the sound, the music and Florence Pugh make it fresh despite all the issues and the film is above than average.

Blonde (2022)

Nightmarish and haunting

The film focuses on Marilyn Monroe's private/intimate nightmarish life (well, this was not even a life!). The result is beautiful, very haunting. Ana de Armas gives a phenomenal performance, wow !! Directing is very original and fresh, the camera, haunting music and editing become more and more crazy as Marilyn loses her head and sinks... Some scenes will make a lot of ink flow... The film is long but you don't feel length, I could have stayed in the theater watching one more hour. It's a subjective cinematic experience and that's the movie achievement. One can regret the film focuses only on Marilyn's torments and agony, and avoids key passages of her life, or strong decisions from her. But, with this film, you'll definitely be in Marilyn mind for two hours and a half.

At the Gates (2022)

Ridiculously ridiculous

Seriously, how was it possible to get this movie produced or made? It's student level like, in the way it's filmed, and written. The script is laughable, and UNBELIEVABLE from beginning to end. I can't remember all the unbelievable points, but here's a list (without spoiler):

• The decision the couple makes at the beginning of the film is unbelievable, such a multi millionaire couple (especially a lawyer) living in a Beverly Hills mansion would never take such risks. I would buy if it was rather the big boss of a small business, or a factory, to avoid paying employer's charges or to underpay the employees. But such a couple, nah, that's impossible.

• The "paper" the police gives to the couple. SO laughable, such a thing cannot happen in real life, nah !

• The husband orders to not approach the windows, to not be seen from the street. SO LAUGHABLE ! In a Beverly Hills mansion, seriously? Has the screenwriter or the filmmaker already been in a real Beverly Hills mansion? FYI, this type of mansion is at least 150 inches from the street, they have huge alleys, yards, with very tall hedges and trees, you can't see anything at all in the house from the street, so it's not believable at all. In addition, this house DOES have a long alley with hedges, so, that's impossible to be seen from the outside. And Beverly Hills's mansions do not have transparent windows ! I first thought the husband had a hidden agenda in his mind, just to find out that the character is silly, and not realistic.

• Here comes the couple, just unbelievable how they behave. They don't look at all like multi millionaires and the house is pretty cold inside. They rather look or feel like upper middle class but not multi millionaires living in a 20 M$ mansion ! Taking care of your face with a cleaning mask doesn't make you a Beverly Hills multi millionaire ! Such a cliché. And having a security alarm program is far from being enough. Marianne (and Peter) doesn't behave at all like a wealthy lady, and doesn't do anything which makes her belong to this social class. The script completely fails this.

• The husband, can't buy it's hard for him to find a new job, and all the stress that he feels. Again, this can be a middle or upper middle class fear but not a multi millionaire lawyer living in Beverly. Such a character would not even need to work or, would find a new job in half a day. One solution would have been that they inherited the house, or the money.

I could go on like this... nothing that happens in this movie is believable. The suspense is fake, with a few fake useless jump scares. Using a knife only to use it doesn't make a film suspenseful. The film is indeed full of accessories and tools like a knife or syringes to make it oppressive, but it just doesn't work, for nothing happens throughout.

The idea of two different groups who must live together and who are afraid of each other was a nice one, and has potential. But, all the good ideas (there were not many, though) were ruined by a poor devastating storyline and silly lines. A girl sitting next to me in the theater felt uncomfortable and almost laughed at these stupid dialogs, instinctively shout "seriously?!". People behind me whispered throughout the whole film, bored, stunned at such lines. Even Miranda Otto herself feels uncomfortable at times with these lines written by a 14-year-old. She and Noah Wyle try their best they can't save this. Still, the actors are the only one here who are true professionals, doing their job despite the script.

And, to cap it all off, this love story... unbelievable. It comes straight from a high school script. And, of course, in this film, police are the vilains, and very bad, using a gun. All this in a Beverly Hills mansion, are they investigating a terrorist threat ?!

Blood (2022)

Michelle Monaghan in one the most disturbing film ever

I loved THE MACHINIST but was mixed by BLOOD. The film has great elements, first Michelle Monaghan is phenomenal and her performance is really great, engaging as a mother who is ready to literally everything to support and heal his child. Also the two children are every great. The script is far from being flawless, but is full of suspense, tension and strong relationships between the characters.

BLOOD is also one of the most disturbing film you'll ever see. It can be disgusting at moments, though there is no gore (but lots of, well, blood, in this film. What's unhealthy, and really disturbing is the character's decisions and actions, and Monaghan's character, just like us, knows from the very beginning that what she's doing is wrong. She can be seen as a mother who loves and cherishes her child, and also, as someone says in the movie, "a monster". That's really disturbing. And her actions become unbelievable at some points. Of course, the supernatural element here is only a pretext to think about: "how far would you fo for your child?".

Still, there is a feeling that something is unfinished here, probably due due to some unanswered questions, but we feel it goes beyond these.

BLOOD is a film you'll love or hate. What's sure is that you'll probably feel very uncomfortable, and be shocked watching this film. Whatever you'll like or hate it, you won't forget it, and you'll probably need to walk 20/30 minutes to absorb the experience.

Stay Awake (2022)

I pretty liked this !!

This is a great indie film about addiction. As the filmmaker himself said, it doesn't focus on the addict, but, instead, the people around. Here, our two heroes suffer their mom's drug addiction. The script is great, well paced and most important, the characters are very engaging, it's easy to identify with them and we're engaged from the beginning to the end. The story seems simple, basic but is never boring and finally is complex, the relations are much more complex than what they seem to be. The cast is flawless, Wyatt Oleff, Fin Argus and Chrissy Metz give all three solid, perfect performances. STAY AWAKE is not a film that you'll forget soon after watching it.

War Pony (2022)

It could have been MUCH better

Slow, long, and boring film ! I was expecting a lot as I'm passionate about the realities of contemporary life on Native American reservations, and I love when a film is shot in a reservation with Native actors, so that's great. The biggest issue in this film is the script, as there is almost no script, this is more a documentary than a film, and that's a shame. The characters could have been more engaging, and they're not involved in a clear story with goals and conflicts, the film lacks conflicts and built, deep relationships between the different characters. The result is that it's not easy to follow what's going on, for we don't and can't know where it's going on. The film is so slow, and long, I watched it at the DEAUVILLE FILM FESTIVAL and several people went out of the theater, the filmmaker herself didn't stay to watch it and left at the beginning to come back at the end, maybe she had something more interesting to do in town. Again, I'm passionate about Native Americans but this film is a missed opportunity.

Aftersun (2022)

Dull, dull, dull

I really don't understand the unanimity of the reviews for this film. Yes, the film is about memories, holidays and nostalgia... but are these feelings enough to make a great film, or a a great script? Unfortunately, the script is empty. The first reason is that the characters are not engaging, we don't know them, nothing is done to know them better, so it's not easy to identify with them or understand their journey and what they went through. Frankie Cario makes a great job, but her character is ordinary, there's nothing extraordinary on the paper. Paul Mescal is OK, probably too young for the role, and suffers an unclear character who lacks writing.

For instance, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED (Susanne Bier) kind of deal with these topics, and the characters are very subtle, deep and engaging. This is not the case here.

You can't see what's the direction of this film, what these characters have been through and what they're looking for, which is frustrating. There's never a revelation, or at least subtle indications to give a direction to the film or influence our thinking. Even the present day is unclear, we know nothing about the woman's present situation.

The script is inspired by the filmmaker's own journey or memory, which is, of course, respectful. But the only (major !) problem is that filmmakers tend to think that their own life is worth to tell a story and make a movie. Well, we all went through things and we all lived dramatic, or traumatic events, and have memories of these events and of our past. There's nothing extraordinary in this script, what the filmmaker probably thought was extraordinary is, actually, ordinary. There's nothing fresh, original nor modern, nor even in the way it's filmed. It's dull.

An ordinary, slow, boring film in which nothing happens. One would have preferred watching personal footage from his own DV camera.

La tour (2022)

An unequal horror film about human nature

Guillaume Nicloux is definitely one of the most known French filmmakers and has made beautiful movies. Nicloux knows how to deal with the same topics while making very different films. Human nature, claustrophobia and the idea of trap were already present, for instance, in his poetic and beautiful VALLEY OF LOVE, with the giants Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert.

His new film takes a clearly different path, with a very different cast and atmosphere. It poses itself as a "horror film" about a post-apocalyptic world in a tower. Well, THE TOWER is not really horror, or at least, we can say it's not as bloody nor gore than horror movies such as SAW or similar films.

This is first a film about society and social relationship. What's at the center of the story is the behavior of 150 people (or, more precisely, of 3 clans) who are forced to live together inside a tower, for years. So, the supernatural fog element here is only a pretext and doesn't represent the horror of the film. The fog is stil a nice concept, and being only a pretext works, for the movie (and its horror) is about human nature... which is really ugly, and devastating.

Still, one can regret that the concept is not used at its maximum potential. We would have loved to know better the characters, and the film to deal with psychological relations between the different characters, ie., how everyone reacts differently to the event. This is what we could have expected, as the film's promise, but it won't happen. Unfortunately, we can't really identify with the characters, and we don't care if one dies or doesn't: they're two dimensional, and not engaging (despite a great cast!), for we know nothing about them. Instead, they form different clans, and the whole film deals with the battle of these clans. Again, there are certainly lots of Nicloux's fears in this, as he mentioned THE TOWER was probably his most personal film. So, having different clans tells a lot about human nature, according to him, and is not an issue. The issue is that we, STILL, would have loved to know better the main protagonists.

The film is full of suspense and tension (camera work, lightings, costumes, settings are all great work), but again, suspense would have been much increased if we knew the characters better. The claustrophobic mood adds a lot, while the organization of the food in the pic is really disturbing. A disturbing experience with a feeling that something is unfinished.

Watcher (2022)

Disappointing !

The film definitely lacks a solid, interesting, entertaining script ! It's slow and contains many holes, secondary characters are not engaging, not interesting and they don't change throughout the film, which is boring, they have always the same idea and behavior from beginning to end. The boyfriend's behavior is not natural, he doesn't support his girlfriend, he doesn't care of her safety, which is laughable. In real life, he would rather have been so anxious that he might lose his job, or mad at the police. In addition, he doesn't change throughout the film, all this is a classic thriller/horror trope that doesn't work here and is unbelievable.

The suspense is not great, and mainly artificial. The main character's behavior is not believable at some points, and there are many "fake" jump scares, like the sound of a train which wakes up the whole sleepy audience. All these issues make the film very boring, when it's supposed to be a thriller.

The concept to be in a foreign country with dialogs in a foreign langage without subtitles is a cool and fresh idea, but it's not used at its maximum potential. It doesn't really make the character's environment oppressive, when it should have. The audience should have been better introduced to the neighbors, to doubt who of them might be the killer and/or so they can have a true role in the story. Instead, the neighbors don' add anything and we know from the very beginning who's the killer...

Maika Monroe makes a great job, while Karl Glusman is boring, but it's also due to his boring two dimensional character.

1-800-Hot-Nite (2022)

Low budget is not the problem, script is

Watched at the Deauville Film Festival. A coming-of-age stay about 3 LA teens, CONGRATS to Dallas, Garrison and Mylen, their performances are awesome. Loved their acting especially Garrison and Dallas, and Mylen was great too. But the biggest problem here is that the movie lacks a solid script, the films is an addition of scenes and situations in LA where our 3 heroes are lost, but there's no really involvement, so no emotion, identification and there is not a clear objective for the kids (for instance, there's one very strong in "Stand by me"). This makes the film slow and unclear, about its intentions.

In addition, there are holes, unrealistic, unnatural situations and character's behaviors, especially the phone operator's behavior is not realistic. The dark/orange cinematography and lighting is great in some scenes, and full of mistakes in others. For instance, at some point the kid is sitting in a very dark room with no light, and talking to a woman, who is lit as if the room was full of lights, it could have been better. There are similar light problems throughout the film.

It just could have been better, the movie could have deserved a 6-8/10, we can feel how passionate the crew is, but it definitely a much better script.

The Accessible Outdoors (2021)

Very disappointing !

Poor useless documentary despite an interesting promise. The film suffers a cheap production, and is clearly not well filmed.

In addition, there are some ridiculous moments, I truly started laughing how they dealt with this (so so so so !!!) important subject and honestly felt bad, these people deserve a so much better documentary. Well, I was disappointed, I expected so much more with such a topic !

I think it just deserved a better treatment. This documentary was probably made by amateurs, but I don't mind this if we feel and see how passion there can be in an amateur film (and sometimes there are masterpieces), but the problem here is that the filmmaker lacks passion and interest in the topic and the movie, that's the huge problem.