hello-81002 Reviews

Invasion (2021–2024)

Invasion of banality

[3/10 · 6 December 2021]

I'm not here to complain about the slow pace of this sort of soap opera. I'm here to complain about everything else: the cinematography screams 2010s, the acting and the writing scream afternoon movie. I'm done after the school-bus-drama ridiculous epilogue. Even at 16 I would have watched this content like a joke and like an insult to my spectatorial identity.

Arkansas (2020)

If you like clever and well written stories, do not miss this movie.

[8/10 · 11 August 2020]

That's it. An intelligently written, well directed and well produced, greatly acted and tastefully photographed movie. Stylish and clear headed. Arkansas deserves at least a 7 on IMDB, like a lot of quite slow and clever little gems stuck around the 6. If you love cinema, do not miss this little jewel. Characters are graciously sketched in their lovely, human weirdness. You do not know a lot about them, but you can sense their past in their words, faces and actions. Liam Hemsworth is a little affected in a couple of scenes, but everyone else is credible even when exaggeratedly over the top, like Malkovich. Watch this movie if you want to watch a good, well-narrated and entertaining story. Cinema really needs this kind of productions, even if the ratings tell us that people need less quality.

Too Old to Die Young (2019)

IT WORTHS EVERY PANNING

[9/10 · 10 July 2019]

Movie theaters became luna parks. Movies became long, shallow, schizophrenic trailers. Series became a new narrative space, where experimentation and deepening found shelter. Art cinema was dead, at least in terms of exposure. Amazon, through the TOTDY operation, succeeds in reuniting art cinema and visibility. Thank you Amazon. Thank you Refn. Thank you defamers. We finally got a great, different and enjoyable product, the product got a lot of exposure, so we'll probably get more of this kind of product. I'm good. I'm ok even with the negative comments, 'cause they are part of a wonderful consequence: right now, there is a debate around TOTDY. The credit for this debate goes to the medium: a mass market, mass diffused streaming platform that just brought art cinema to its masses in the most fashionable way, the serial show. I bet a lot of young men and women will be blown away by Refn visual mastery (with all its cinematic flaws). I bet a lot of these young men and women would not have met this kind of narrativity outside of a streaming platform. Amazon won, Refn won, art cinema won, viewer won, customer won, streaming services (and content incubators) won. That said, TOTDY worths every panning.

A Prayer Before Dawn (2017)

Too much prison, too little Billy Moore

[5/10 · 23 September 2018]

Great photography, very good direction, good editing. If you were to watch this movie without knowing it is inspired to a portion of life of someone, you could think it is a sort of visually satisfying mockumentary about Thailandese prisons. Joe Cole does a great job, but it is not enough to save the movie from itself: too tight, too monotonous, too didactic. Just like the prison it portrays. Cole is left alone, in isolation, trying to portray Billy Moore. But the writing keeps everything two-dimensional: a lot of things happen during the movie, but somehow they pass Billy and us by.

Ocean's Eight (2018)

One of the worst sitcoms of the year

[3/10 · 23 September 2018]

I've been waiting to see a decent idea for the whole time. Just a tiny, little idea. Nothing. Not in the editing, not in the writing, not in the direction. This movie is a waste of women's talent and an insult to the viewer's intellect. Even if the viewer is a child.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Boring, empty, childish.

[4/10 · 23 September 2018]

Cut this movie in three pieces, film the sequel, cut the sequel in three pieces, expand the story and show some background of the young Mexican gangster scenester we get to know during the film, and you got quite an interesting TV show. As a movie, well, this Day of the Soldado is really disappointing. Del Toro and Brolin can't save a scholastic and shallow writing and a trivial, monotone direction. I'm Italian like Sollima, and Italians must do it better.

Hereditary (2018)

Entertaining, visually satisfying and perfectly acted. But...

[7/10 · 15 September 2018]

Aster deserves an eleven out of ten: I'm so proud to see such a debut from a director of my generation. Thirty-somethings are coming, Hollywood. This new wave will bring back some euro-style deepness without fear of the audience, and the audience will reward them with warmth.

In Hereditary, there's a house above a house full of houses. There are puppets, masters of puppets and puppets that are masters of the masters of puppets. There are bonds, links, ugliness, motherhood, madness, gendericity, love, adolescence, pain, Satan. And Jesus? No, God never comes into play even if in the end Jesus is somehow mocked and, as a consequence, invoked. Actually, God and God's ministers and symbols are removed/replaced from the beginning of the movie: there is no hope, there is no way out of the hell for the characters.

Unfortunately, the viewer is constantly kept safe in his chair, far from the painful mess he witnesses. Why? Because of the gondry-esque, faerie production design and because of a little naïveté in the plot: for example, a couple of Wolff/Peter and Byrne/Steve reactions really break the suspension of disbelief, and you know who Dowd/Joan really is the exact second she appears. Furthermore, Dowd always phagocytize her characters in the name of an impeccable but tangible acting. Shapiro/Charlie is a pleasant surprise, and Collette/Annie is just perfect: a more jonze-esque than gondry-esque production design, a little more writing malice and a Kathy Bates in the role of Joan would have condemned the viewer to vulnerability, turning this fantastic effort into a masterpiece.

Heredity is entertaining, visually satisfying and perfectly acted. But... But I was not disturbed, I was not threatened, I was not surprised. Hereditary is a perfect exercise: I'm sure Aster will soon give us a great movie.