Movies
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Licorice Pizza is a movie about finding and exploring love in 1970s California.
The music is great, the story the same, the acting is very good and the chemistry between characters is magnetic. I’ve watched like 40 minutes of the movie without feeling the time pass.
This movie also marks the cinematographic debut of Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. The resemblance is amazing and he has a bit of his father charm.
Also making her debut, Alana Haim of band HAIM has a very good performance, showing she’s got a lot of potential. Also her sisters’ cameo was cute, along with their parents.
View Trailer and 18 images in the gallery
2022-02-20
The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021)
The Mitchells vs the Machines is a great animation from Disney. The Mitchells are having their normal family problems … until the machine apocalypse happens. It’s an extremely funny apocalyptic road-comedy, filled with a ton of funny moments.
From a technical standpoint it ticks all the typical Disney movie checboxes: good music, good voice acting, a ton of humour, a comic-relief pet, but best of all, a good written story, including the “sad” part before everything turns out fine.
Regarding the Oscar nomination? It’s a great movie, totally deserving the credit. The competition is fierce.
View Trailer and 33 images in the gallery
2022-02-19
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
A good movie about the life of televangelists Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, which created a media empire over the course of a few decades.
Based on a true story, the movie is well written, the music is great, and Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield gave awesome performances. Also a big shoutout to Vincent D’Onofrio’s acting as televangelist Jerry Falwell (this, Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in MCU, guess he always gets to play the mobster roles). The make-up, cinematography, music departments did their work flawlessly.
As a sidenote, I also saw Andrew Garfield in tick, tick … BOOM!, where he also gave a great performance, but this one tops them all.
View Trailer and 24 images in the gallery
2022-02-19
Luca (2021)
Another good movie by Pixar, as expected. It’s a nice story about life and friendship, but with a twist: Luca is a sea “monster”.
The characters are nicely written, the voices are acted very well, the animation is just as you’d expect from Pixar. The music used in the movie is well-suited and the pacing is just fine, not too fast, not too slow (which is weird, considering it’s a movie about Italians). The story is well told, sprinkled with a ton of jokes, and the runtime is short enough for it not to become annoying. Good adventure movie for kids between 1 and 111 years.
Definitely a strong contender for the Oscar for Best Animated Motion Picture in 2022.
View Trailer and 30 images in the gallery
2022-02-19
Being the Ricardos (2021)
The movie starts with a display of force, alternating documentary-like interviews with reading room shots, with episode snippets. While it seems like it’s all over the place, it is very entertaining and catchy. You meet the most important characters right away, you get struck by some very well-positioned jokes (OMGJKSimmons!) and without blinking you realized you’ve seen 20 minutes of the movie without breathing. The story, the acting, the music, the jokes, the close-ups, the cinematography, everything is stellar. Nicole is brilliant, Javier is great, I feel insulted that this movie hasn’t got a nomination for Best Picture, because in my opinion, it’s above most of the others I’ve seen, and one of the best comedies of the last few years. Six popcorns.
View Trailer and 9 images in the gallery
2022-02-18
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
The black and white picture and the 4:3 format, make this movie feel old, classic, a piece of art, reminding me a lot of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal”. It also reminded me a bit of that episode from The Twilight Zone. From a technical point of view, the movie is a masterpiece, being almost entirely filmed inside.
Regarding the Oscar nominations, Denzel’s acting is stellar, the production design is absolutely brilliant, and the cinematography is great, all of these being strong contenders for the statue. However, I’m not a huge theater fan, so the movie didn’t click particularly for me, but I wasn’t disappointed in seeing it, as it’s pretty well-paced.
View Trailer and 6 images in the gallery
2022-02-17
Belfast (2021)
Excellent drama set in the Belfast in the late 60s, during the riots and their aftermath. It’s the story of a family just like any other and its struggles during that period.
The black and white usage helps a lot with setting a dark atmosphere, the use of colour in various spots is superb, the acting is excellent, with a very good performance by ten-year-old Jude Hill, as Buddy. Jamie Dornan shows that he can be way more than a playboy-gazillionnaire and has a good act. The pair Dame Judi Dench (as Granny) and Ciarรกn Hinds (as Pop) is fantastic.
This movie has it all: some new actors, some well-established names, a great story, very well told, acted and directed. Excellent job by Kenneth Brannagh, who directed and wrote it, hope the movie gets as many statues as possible from their 7 well-deserved nominations, including best movie. So far, I think it’s my favourite. Six blinking popcorns.
View Trailer and 6 images in the gallery
2022-02-17
tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)
The directorial debut of song-mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda doesn’t catch you very fast, but it soon starts to grow on you. Andrew Garfield is having a great time playing Jonathan Larson. The songs are very very good (proof that Larson was a genius) and the movie is perfectly-paced, the support performances are good as well. Excellent musical, balanced, combining funny and sad moments perfectly.
Not sure if Andrew is going to receive a statue for his performance, but it’s definitely one of his best acting I’ve seen so far, and to be honest, I found the movie altogether more worthy of a Best Picture nomination than some others that were nominated.
2022-02-17
The Lost Daughter (2021)
I remember why I don’t like the Oscars period. Because most of the nominated films are slow burning dramas.
Regardless, shooting the movie in Greece was probably one of the best choices director Maggie Gyyllandendonhall could have made, as some places look fine. The story is also nice, but sometimes there’s an excess of filler conversation, seeming it tries to stretch every encounter and dialogue, going from being realistic to the point of boring.
The flashbacks are very nice, though, showing the back-story of the main character, making you empathize with her. I kind of liked more those than the film itself. The Academy critics must have thought the same, as Jessie Buckley got a well deserved nomination for her role as Young Leda.
The movie is not bad, but I didn’t consider it to be something to write home about. Maybe the performances given by Ed Harris and Dakota Johnson made it a bit more bearable, but it still is an average movie, to watch on a rainy Sunday. It’s funny how they try to objectify Dakota Johnson in pretty much every movie she appears in, but I still find her as cute as a work day.
In the end, the movie redeems itself, and while it doesn’t have a plot twist or whatever, it closes on an optimist note.
This movie has got some Oscar Nominations, but it will face fierce competition.
2022-02-16
The Power of the Dog (2021)
The Power of the Dog is a slow burn drama about life, love, loneliness, covering also themes like grief, resentment, jealousy, and sexuality.
The visuals on this movie are very well done, from locations, to angles, to close-ups, you name it, the cinematographer did it flawlessly. The acting is great, Benadryl Cucumbersnitch plays a great role (as he usually does). In other news, Kirsten Dunst got so old she could play again in Spider-Man, playing Aunt May, Kodi Smit-McPhee grew up (yep, he’s the little kid in The Road), discount Matt Damon got fat, but at least got his first Oscar nomination. Jokes aside, all of them gave excellent performances and really deserve their nominations
This movie has got TWELVE Oscar Nominations, including for best picture, and it seems it’s favourite to win most of them, and well-deserved, I might add. It would have been six popcorns, but because of the slow burn, it gets only five.
View Trailer and 6 images in the gallery
2022-02-16
Drive My Car (2021)
Drive My Car is a weird movie (duh, it’s Japanese). It’s a loooong, slow burning drama about a renowned artist, haunted by the mysteries of his wife’s life, based on a story by Murakami. It’s long. It’s slow. Did I already say that? It takes 45 minutes for the movie to end its introduction. If you’re into it, then it’s a treat.
It’s that kind of movie where you need to empathize with the characters, where the movie is about how they feel, not about what they do. And it’s doing it with a lot of style, just as any other movie does.
Some people say that the car is like a character, and I totally get it, being witness to the entire story as it unfolds. Good drama, good story, great cinematography. Definitely worth watching.
This movie has got an Oscar Nomination for best picture. It’s a good foreign language movie, some others have won in time, but this doesn’t have a strong chance of winning.
2022-02-16
The Loft (2014)
Such a good mind fuck. Filled with tension, unexpected situations and turns, good mystery, very nice set designs, nice music, this movie is one of the best thrillers out there. Plus, all the actors are beautiful AF. Also some nudity there.
You might want to also look at the original Belgian movie this one is based on, Loft (2008).