Claude d'Anna is an obscure (pardon my French;) arthouse French director. I have not seen any film of his until this one. I guess this is also a curio in his filmography, it is obvious this is not a thriller / genre director at work here.
Youtube just put this film in front of me (scroll down), with a cover still of Dennis Hopper. So, obviously I took a look...it's dubbed in French. Some small passages though, his real voice can be heard...(he does not talk much ;)
A very ecclectic cast: Marie-France Bonin (as Laure Dechansel, also co-writer, her real job) , she is the lead and the weakest element of the ensemble, Bruno Cremer (picked probably after Friedkin's Sorcerer). Gabriele Ferzetti, Dennis Hopper, Donald Pleasence (his part is barely a cameo), Joseph Cotten (petty cool as the big boss), Michel Bouquet (mosltyl on the phone), Pierre Santini and Vernon Dobtcheff as the Receptionist ! The names of the characters are cool too, Richter, Herzog, Rothko, Medford, Lehman, Muller, Kauffer and Foster Johnson (Cotten), serious names if you ask me, but you don't ;)
Cool pre-credits intro, also interesting title sequence, after which you would expect more to come, but...
A time capsule, some of it very tiring, heavy verbally plotted- An African nation, American companies, banking, capitalism, industrial espionage, colonialism, natural resources, . Mostly talking heads, people on telephones, train trips, based on a premise of mistaken identity -pasports swap- and a McGuffin of a secret dossier.
The train goes Zurich -Belfort-Paris. There's a chase between Cremer and Hopper, pretty well done. That's about all the action you get. And a downbeat ending, very much a la maison in the French, Italian films of that time.
Most interesting of course today to see for Hopper, who is at his most menacing as Medford, the mercenary in pursuit of the dossier. He sits many scenes on the train, in the back, a silhouette, chain-smoking.
He looks like a psycho, black leather jacket, cool haircut, and nasal spray. He's a like a younger version of Frank Booth. Hopper did some European fares at the time (The American Friend), then he went to do Apocalypse Now in the Philippines.
#Music by Claude Nougaro and Maurice Vander, with a cool (but sad) song on the end credits (Nous n'avons pas de passeport).
Plot: A widow (Shirley MacLaine) discusses her past four marriages with her shrink. All of her four husbands got incredibly rich and died abruptly because of their money driven goals.
What a Way to Go! is a zanny 1964 comedy, ahead of its time. A combo of genres, parodies, witty script and great cast, plus Edith Head's costumes and gowns. Glorious CinemaScope (2.35.1), a very expensive film at the time.
You can say it was a leftie film, the idea of money can't bring you happiness, really , right? ;).
Screenwriters: Legendary Broadway duo Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
The director is Brit J. Lee Thompson, that is mostly known for thrillers (the original Cape Fear), war movies (The Guns of Navarone), Planet of the Apes sequels (he was supposed to direct the original), westerns (Mackenna's Gold), a weird reincarnation film (The Reincarnation of Peter Proud) and many Charles Bronson vehicles. But in the 60's Thompson did a couple of off-beat comedies, next on John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! written by William Peter Blatty, also with Shirley MacLaine.
Coincidentally I finished the new Cape Fear series, after much wanting to see again the original, on J. Lee Thompson's birthday, August 1st (he was born in 1914!).
Shirley MacLaine was hot after Billy Wilder's Irma la Douce (1963) but this was originally Marilyn Monroe's film. After Monroe died Elisabeth Taylor was supposed to be in th lead. That's why you have all kind of Cleopatra puns.
Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (color) and Best costume design.
Gene Kelly won an award in Locarno !
Seconds: Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, and Dick Van Dyke.
psychiatrist: Robert Cummings.
Best bit imo: the Lush Budgett film parody. In 1966 an LA band took the name of Lush Budgett !
Oh, I forgot, you can see the film on youtube here. It's a very good copy. By Lush Budgett.;)
Romanian version here. I was aked to to piece for the TIFF 25 retrospective in AperiTIFF and here it is.
"They're Filming Midgets..."
Heaven, hell or purgatory? It's Bruges!
An extraordinary debut by Irish filmmaker Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopats,Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri), In Bruges is one of the very best films of 2008—and much more than that. A cult film par excellence, it becomes more valuable every time I revisit it. I am still astonished that, after premiering at Sundance, it failed to win any major awards there. It did go on to win Colin Farrell a Golden Globe and earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, a category it won at the BAFTAs.
I like to think, however, that it did for tourism in Bruges what Roman Holiday did for Rome!
I, for one, spent a day there in 2014, and my impressions matched Ray's point of view exactly, as opposed to Ken's.
The Colin Farrell/Ray – Brendan Gleeson/Ken pairing is fabulous, and McDonagh reunited them fourteen years later in another extraordinary film, The Banshees of Inisherin(2022).
And Ralph Fiennes as Harry is impeccable, ferocious—an irresistible character.
You can tell that McDonagh is also a playwright, and that his literary influences stem from the Theatre of the Absurd, yet the film remains intensely cinematic.
First and foremost, it owes a great deal to Harold Pinter's 1959 play The Dumb Waiter. In turn, Pinter's play was inspired by Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953). Add a touch of British gangster cinema—Irish, in this case—a hint of Bruegel landscapes in Bruges, nihilism, a fatal trauma, an improbable love story, and black, absurd humour turned up to eleven.
Other clues: Touch of Evil, Don't Look Now, Carlito's Way, the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.
Carter Burwell's score most likely came into McDonagh's world via the Coen Brothers (see Fargoin the same TIFF retrospective of black comedies), with whom McDonagh began a wonderful collaboration that continued throughout all of his subsequent films.
LikeFargo, In Bruges was never released theatrically in Romania at the time.
Beware !!! (literally stay away from this Fake Fear)
Max Cady is Back ! And this time he is Javier Bardem with a goat-e and Udo Kier type of Blue Eyes -actually Green lenses!)
The new Cape Fear is here...on Apple Tv + (premiered June 5th)
Episodes 1 and 2 were cool and atmospheric, but will it have enough breath to do Ten ?
we'll see...
well, now it's over and what was originally published on June 8th overstayed its welcome -as expected !!! here are the August 1st conclusions of this bloated overbearing season !
Bardem, best thing about him, his Panama hat (which he took from Mitchum's Cady, but Mitchum had a cooler one-and in black and white)- does not get even close to his Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men or even the blonde eyed psycho Silva from Skyfall. No my faved, his best psycho and most fun is the one from Perdita Durango, Romeo !. Basically Bardem is ripping off De Niro's Max Cady at a nec plus ultra grand guignol style. Efficient but pastiche...
Very little from the original book John D. MacDonald's The Executioners (1957) stays on.
Also not much of the 1962 J. Lee Thompson original adaptation as Cape Fear in glorious Black and White.
cool tittle lettering, cool ideas from the Scorsese 1991 remake and homage (the shots on the negative, camera moves), and most of all the music stays the same. Bernard Herrmann's score, now redone by Jeff Russo. This is the only asset imo, I think I watched it for the score alone, this being one of the best I ever heard, and tops some of Herrmann's work with Hitchcock.
Exec prod by Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and showrunner Nick Antosca.
Wasted Ted Levine and Ron Perlman in the obvious baddie daddy roles.
***
1st episode, 'Fingers and Toes' directed by Norwegian Morten Tyldum (Headhunters, Passengers).
Ep. 2 'Why Would I Want to Hurt You?' directed by S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones, Madame Web), features a cameo by screenwiter Wesley Strick (who wrote the 1991 remake of CF).
Ep. no. 3 on June 12th: Phantom Sensations
already feeling the nausea
Ep. 4 Pierced. June 19th.
some lgbtq happens before the two daughters.
ep.5 Faith -June 26.
loss of breath, mambojambo and a sinister Juliette Lewis.
Ep. 6 Possum -July 3rd.
that's when I feel like quiting, don't really wanna see how they're gonna mangle this beyond belief.
Ep. 7: Mongrel -July 10th
by episode seven it's becoming such a grand guignol caricature with storytelling of a bad telenovela, I switched it of. They take a road trip and ouch, and the soundtracks goes from BOC's Don't Fear the Reaper to Alice Cooper's Eighteen.
Ep. 8 ∙ Los tiempos de Dios son Perfectos -July 17. Telenovellas quickens.
Ep. 9- The Scar -July 24. More mambojambo, rednecks and swamps. We don't need a bigger boat ;)
Ep. 10: The Executioners. July 31th. Hurricane arrives. Leaving open season two ? C'mon !!!
Chuck Russell, the cult director of The Blob, A nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Mask and Ahnuld's Eraser, or if you will The Rock's The Scopion King is gone at 74.
He worked his way up in the LA film industry, from assistant directing and production managing independent films while writing screenplays (Dreamscape). Russell made his directorial debut in 1987 with A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, which relaunched the franchise.
Casualties of War (1989) is one of the best war (anti-war) films and still does not have the recognition it deserves. I wrote the dvd review in 2006, twenty years ago, updated it now and in English...
1966. An incident in Vietnam... the story of a repeated rape and a murder that could have been prevented, but which no one even wishes to punish—only to ignore. Casualties of War, a war regarded in America as synonymous with the loss of innocence, in which the heroes of the two World Wars became the villains and the executioners.
1987. After his first incredible mainstream success with The Untouchables, Brian De Palma, propelled onto the list of directors most coveted by the studios, could make whatever film he wanted. And he chose a controversial, repugnant, revolting subject, one that was later vehemently denied by almost everyone, especially Vietnam veterans. A real, infamous case that he had dreamed of bringing to the screen since 1969, when he saw at the Berlin Film Festival a film on the same subject, inspired by Daniel Lang's New York Times article. At the same time, one of his favourite films is The Bridge on the River Kwai, and De Palma decides to become David Lean for a little while (hence the key sequence on the bridge).
Filmed in Thailand under extremely harsh conditions, with an A-list cast of young actors on the rise (Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn, John Leguizamo, John C. Reilly), Casualties of War was released in 1989, only to be torn apart by critics, who found it exploitative and visceral, and almost completely ignored by audiences who had grown weary of Vietnam. Constructed as one vast flashback (and nightmare at the same time), it contains De Palma's overwhelming visual style and his recurring obsessions: guilt, the betrayal of comradeship, impossible love, impotence, passive voyeurism. But this time, instead of Brian De Palma's much-discussed Hitchcockian thriller fantasies, the events unfolding on screen are based on a true story. The viewer becomes complicit in the carnage, and the unsettling feeling of guilt gradually, methodically, almost paroxysmally takes hold. Ennio Morricone's score (following his previous collaboration on The Untouchables), punctuated by Gheorghe Zamfir's pan flute, is the film's principal source of emotion—elegiac, mournful, evocative of ghosts from the past and shattered dreams.
2006. The film America could not bear to watch, one of the most anti-war films ever made, is today being reassessed and regarded as equal to, or even greater than, its predecessors: The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket. And the victim of the war behind the screen continued to develop his recurring themes, concealed within his much-discussed Hitchcockian thriller fantasies, without ever again disturbing his fellow citizens' civic conscience with stories based on real events.
Extra: the extended edition (also the first one to reach Romania) includes six additional minutes of footage (material previously available only as deleted scenes—Eriksson's interrogation, an additional scene with Dale Dye, and an unexpected Greg Henry cameo), an emotional interview with Michael J. Fox, and a half-hour Making Of in which De Palma is far warmer and more talkative than usual—and if you're wondering why, it simply means you haven't seen the film.
Victime de război / Casualties of War (1989) e unul din cele mai bine filme de război (anti-război), rămas pînă azi nedescoperit de publicul larg. Nicio nominalizare la Oscar, eșe cde public și considerat anti-american (!) la vreame premierei. Ăn 2006 am scris o cronică la apariția Dvd ului pe piața românească. 20 de ani ami tîrziu o veți aici. Cine nu l-a văzut, să îl vadă, și cine l-a văzut să îl re-vadă !
Un incident în Vietnam... povestea unui viol repetat și al unei crime care putea fi împiedicată, dar care nici măcar nu se dorește a fi pedepsită, ci doar ignorată. Pierderi în vreme de război, un război considerat în America sinonimul pierderii inocenței, în care eroii din cele două războaie mondiale au devenit personajul negativ și torționar.
După primul său incredibil succes mainstream cu Incoruptibilii, Brian De Palma, propulsat pe lista de regizori preferați de studiouri, putea să facă ce film vroia. Și a ales un subiect controversat, repugnant, revoltător, ulterior negat cu vehemență de către toată lumea, mai ales de veteranii din Vietnam. Un caz real, infam, pe care visa să-l pună pe ecran din 1969, atunci când a văzut la Festivalul de la Berlin un film cu același subiect, inspirat din articolul din New York Times al lui Daniel Lang. Totodată, unul din filmele preferate ale sale este Podul de pe râul Kwai și De Palma se hotărăște să devină pentru puțin timp David Lean (de unde și secvența-cheie de pe pod).
Filmat în Thailanda în condiții extrem de dure, cu o echipă de actori de A, tineri și în ascensiune (Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn, John Leguizamo, John C. Reilly), Casualties of War a ieșit pe ecrane în 1989, fiind desființat de criticii care l-au găsit exploatativ și visceral și ignorat total de spectatorii care se săturaseră de Vietnam. Construit ca un imens flashback (și coșmar deopotrivă), conține stilul vizual copleșitor al lui De Palma și temele sale fetiș: vinovăția, trădarea camaraderiei, idila imposibilă, impotența, voyerismul pasiv. Dar de data asta, în loc de mult comentatele fantasme de tip thriller hitchcockian ale lui BDP, evenimentele de pe ecran sunt bazate pe o poveste reală. Spectatorul are cotă de participare la carnagiu și sentimentul de neplăcut, de culpabilitate se instaurează treptat, gradat, paroxistic. Muzica lui Ennio Morricone (după colaborarea anterioară la Incoruptibilii), punctată de naiul lui Gheorghe Zamfir, este sursa principală a emoției, elegiacă, tristă, evocatoare de prezențe de fantome trecute și vise năruite.
Filmul pe care America n-a suportat să-l vadă, unul din cele mai anti-războinice din câte s-au făcut, e reconsiderat astăzi și considerat mai bun sau egal cu predecesoarele sale, Vânătorul de cerbi, Apocalypse Now, Plutonul, Full Metal Jacket. Iar victima războiului din spatele ecranului a continuat să-și dezvolte temele recurente, disimulate în mult comentatele fantasme de tip thriller hitchcockian, fără a mai deranja conștiința civică a conaționalilor cu povești bazate pe fapte reale.
Extras: ediția extinsă (și prima, de altfel, care ajunge la noi) are incluse 6 minute în plus de film (ceea ce anterior apăruse ca scene tăiate – anchetarea lui Eriksson, o scenă în plus cu Dale Dye și un cameo inedit Greg Henry), un interviu emoționant cu Michael J. Fox și un Making Of de jumătate de oră în care De Palma e mult mai cald și volubil decât de obicei și, dacă vă întrebați de ce, înseamnă că nu ați văzut filmul.
Sleeping Dogs is Sam Neill's 1st leading part and the first New Zeeland film (!), even though it was directed by an Australian, Roger Donaldson. Both went to Hollywood and had great careers-Donaldson still works. These might be reasons why this film is known today, and it shalll get even more attention because it's maybe more relevant today than it was 39 years ago. It was a huge hit in new Zeeland ehen it came out, thier first film shot on 35 mm. Donaldson also produced and edited, and Ian Mune who plays Bullen also co-wrote it. It's based on the book, Smith's Dream by Karl Stead, a dystopian thriller that mixes 1984 with a sort of First Blood like man on the run.
The finale improves the film much, it has a slow development, weird pace, sheer brutality and violence, constructed not like a regular action drama, with that weird style of all Australian New Wave films.
Sam Neill is great a Smith, a cluless man that just wants to be left alone and it's mistaken for a guerilla leader.
Warren Oates shows up for a brief subplot, playing the American soldier, it his classic Warren Oates way.
The Boys from Brazil was first a book by Ira Levin (The Stepford Wives, Rosemary's Baby), published in 1976. Great page-turner thriller, very risque, mixing real characters with preposterous fiction !
1978, ITC-producer Sir Lew Grade makes the movie adaptation.
The great Franklin J. Schaffner directs. And he gets an 11 Mill. $ budget and a Grade (sic) A cast.
Gregory Peck is Joseph Mengele, playing totally against type, his only Villain in his filmography. His take on Mengele is fierce, mean spirited and dead serious. He man is evil, the Doctor is mad. But Peck plays it straight and dresses sharply, in white suits, with a stilleto moustache. It's definitely one of the top performances of his amazing career.
Peck said afterwards, "I felt, Laurence Olivier felt, friends of mine like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon felt, that I was good in this part. Some critics seem unwilling to accept actors when they break what they think is the mold or the image.”
A frail Laurence Olivier (who just had his kidney stones removed!) is Ezra Liberman, the nazi hunter modelled after Simon Wiesenthal. Olivier's physicality helps him tremendously fot the part, you can feel his pain and suffering. Both Peck and Olivier deliver really copious accents. Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for best actor, one of the film's three Oscar nods (editing and music too).
James Mason supports as colonel Seibert, as do a bunch of great actors known from war and spy films,
Walter Gottel (general Gogol in the Moore Bond films), Wolfgang Preiss, Michael Gough, Bruno Ganz, Denholm Elliott, most interesting is young Steve Guttenberg playing a Jewish young journalist who discovers the Praguayan Nazi plot. Lily Palmer, Uta Hagen and Anne Meara have small but important parts and the young boy, Jeremy Black as the uncanny blue-eyed adolescent with multiple incarnations.
The plot itself it's so far out, it's great. And it's played so serious and grave, also it's very avant garde re Cloning, the Macguffin of the film.
Jerry Goldsmith delivers another great score for Schaffner, they colllaborated on seven films. This one is based half on an Austrian waltz, half on Martial menacing music.
Cinematography in 1.85.1 by Henri Decae, legendary & over versatile French DOP (Bob le flammbeur, Les 400 coups, Le Clan des siciliens, Le Cercle Rouge, Day for Night, Le Professionel), in one of the few English language films he ever did (together with The Light at the Edge of the World, Bobby Deerfield, Two People, Operation Daybreak, The Island and Exposed).
Locations are Brazil, Paraguay, London, Austria (Vienna), Germany, Sweden and the US. The production went to Portugal instead and the principal unit never set foot in the USA.
The opening is great, mysterious, after the majestic music turns into menacing sounds, and the opening credits are on black, there is no dialogue for the first 16 minutes.
I must've seen this film every decade of my life, 1st time in 1981-82 on Communist Romanian television when I was in the 6th or &th grade, impromptu and incognito, on a Sunday night, presented as "film artistic", on the the QT. We were so impressed the next day in school, the ones who saw it, by a sheer mistake, as the film was totally smuggled that night, one of those -push it in films-mainly when comrade Ceausescu was visiting abroad. Thanks again whoever put that on that night. A few years later, in high school I got upon the book, in French ! Started to clumsily translate it, I think I got done the 1st chapter, then of course gave up. The book might've been transalted in Romanian after 1990, I don't know.
One big find was the ITC DVD I got in the early 2000's, wasn't a great copy but still...And last time I watched it in 2020, in the pandemic, catching up with Schaffner's Lionheart and Sphynx.
There were many different versions, the film was cut over 20 minutes for TV from the original 2h05 running time and many cuts didn't have the original ending with Jeremy Black in the photo dark room, which adds value to the concept. It also empathies the role of the braclet of animal claws that Mengele brought with him from Brazil, a small detail and metaphor addes to the subtext.
Now they are reamaking the book (and film) into a 5 episodes miniseries for Netflix that will probably stream next year. Peter Morgan is the showrunenr and Jeremy Strong is the nazi hunter. August Diehl plays Mengele but it shall be no longer Mengele, they renamed him, after his exceptional turn of the charcter in thw recent The Dissapaerence of Joseph Mengele, in which the Ira Levin novel and the film are mentioned !
4 out of 5 / 8 out of 10 !
Maligned on his opening time, criticised and satirised as the "nazi revival" genre was tiring (The Odessa Filre, Marathon Man, later on The Formula) the film stands tall the test of time, anchored in the two key performances, the clash between two old men, obsessed, a lot of psychology that was brought by Peck and Olivier, happy to work together for one time only, the markings of the a great director, the music and atmosphere.
****
Best review I found about the making of and the motivations of Scahaffner, Peck taking part in it, the choice of the filming format and locations here.
as stated on Sept. 23, 2025 when the trailer premiered.
Movie or at least Curio of next year ?
The Bride, Maggie Gyllenhaal's second film after The Lost Daughter (2021) is a revisonist retelling of Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale), with Jessie Buckley (Fargo sez, IV) as The Bride, Christian Bale as Frankenstein's Monster, and Jake Gyllenhaal, Penelope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening.
Just fyi, there was another The Bride, starring Sting, Clancy Brown as the Monster aka Viktor and Jennifer Beals as "Eve", directed by Franc Roddam, in 1985.
-Update-saw the film in cinema March 9th 2026 and posted my "review" on Letterboxed here.
It says:
All over the place big budget mess of a personal (I'd say Vanity) star project (Maggie Gyllenhal's 2nd film) with an incoherent agenda: meta-cinema, pretentious literary references (Mary Shelley, Herman Melville, Shakespeare), grand feminist message, cult genre films homage, from Bonnie and Clyde to Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, over-the-top performances -Bale can go for a Razzie, gratuitous violence, #metoo engagement, anachronisms galore, chaotic choregraphy and revisionist musical score. I didn't feel involved at all, Zlatko Buric as Italian capo Lupino ! (another Ida Lupino reference !) is the weirdest casting choice.
Folie a Deux meets (Un) Natural Born Killers, It surely deserves the exclamation sign from the title !!!
The first time I saw Fargowas on VHS at Nae Caranfil's home. It was a memorable evening for all of us who were there. Some time had already passed since the premiere, the film had become famous (we're talking about the pre-download era, when films were still hard to get hold of), we were all devoted Coen Brothers fans, and we passionately debated the story and the mise-en-scène in a way that nowadays only happens in the excitement surrounding premieres or film festivals.
Oddly enough, Fargo was never released theatrically in Romania, so the TIFF.25 screening was a royal treat, giving you the chance to see it the way it should be seen.
Its premiere was at Cannes, in the Official Competition, where Joel Coen won the Best Director Award. Then came the Oscars (2 awards from 7 nominations). It was the Coens' Academy Award (everyone knows they direct together, although Ethan is officially credited as producer), the Best Picture of the year, and Frances McDormand's first Oscar (Best Actress—she has three now!). Who had ever seen a pregnant police heroine wearing a Siberian-style earflap hat?
Fargo- thirty years later: an absolute cult film and an ultra-influential one (#185 on the IMDb Top 250). Its biggest admirer: Noah Hawley, who in 2014 created the TV seriesFargo, whose first season is directly connected to the original while also retelling it. Five seasons inspired by the Fargo universe have been produced—an anthology unlike anything television had ever seen.
The poster is brilliant, embroided on a hoop, with the words "A homespun murder story" stitched in red. The title comes from the town of Fargo, North Dakota, on the border with Minnesota, where the events are supposed to take place, marketed as a true story—but of course that's another Coen Brothers gimmick, and everything is invented. It's winter, there's a blizzard, there's snow, and the South Dakota/Minnesota accents are absolutely wonderful. All the characters have Nordic names, just like the origins of the area's inhabitants (Gustafson, Gunderson, Lundegaard). William H. Macy is a sad and utterly pathetic figure, the car salesman who sets an absurd domino effect in motion.
Two of the Coens' longtime collaborators make a major contribution to this unique universe. Roger Deakins' cinematography condenses this immense white landscape, while Carter Burwell's score adds a sense of space and drama; it was later used as the theme for the television series.
But without the Steve Buscemi/Peter Stormare tandem, the film would be in vain...
"I'm going crazy down there at the lake." Ja.
Alin Ludu Dumbravă
This article was published in Aperitiff | June 12, 2026
Prima oară am
văzut Fargo pe casetă video la Nae Caranfil acasă, a fost o seară-eveniment
pentru noi toți cei prezenți. Trecuse deja ceva timp de la premieră, filmul era
celebru (vorbim de pre era download, cînd încă era greu să ai acces la filme),
eram cu toții fani dedicații ai fraților Coen, am dezbătut aprins povestea și
mizanscena așa cum azi nu mai faci decît în febra unor premiere sau
festivaluri.
În mod ciudat Fargo
n-a rulat niciodată la noi în cinema, deci proiecția de la TIFF.25 a fost un
Regal 😊 și a fost prilejul să-l vedeți așa cum trebuie.
Premiera a fost
la Cannes, în Competiția Oficială, unde Joel Coen a primit premiul pentru cel
mai bun regizor. Au urmat Oscarurile (2 premii din 7 nominalizări). A fost și
Oscarul Coen-ilor (se știe că ei regizează împreună, desi Ethan e trecut ca
producător), cel mai bun film al anului, și primul premiu Oscar pentru Frances
McDormand (cea mai bună actriță, acum are trei!), cine a mai văzut o eroină
polițistă gravidă cu căciulă cu urechiușe tip siberian?
Fargo după treizeci de ani: un film-cult
absolut și ultra influent (locul # 185 în topul 250 IMDb). Cel mai mare fan: Noah
Hawley, care în 2014 a creat serialul Fargo, al cărui prim sezon are legătură
directă cu originalul, dar este și e o repovestire. S-au produs 5 sezoane
inspirate de Universul Fargo, o antologie cum nu s-a mai văzut în TV.
Afișul/posterul e
genial, țesut pe gherghef, pe care scrie cusut cu roșu, ”A homespun murder
story”. Titlul vine de la orășelul Fargo din Dakota de nord/ la graniță cu Minnesota,acolo
unde se întîmplă evenimentele, marketate ca o poveste adevărată, dar normal, e
un gimmick al fraților Coen, și totul este inventat. E iarnă, e viscol, e
zăpadă și accentele de South Dakota/Minnesota sunt absolut superbe. Toate
personajele au nume nordice, la fel ca originea locuitorilor zonei (Gustafson,
Gunderson, Lundegaard). William H. Macy este o figură tristă și absolut
patetică, vînzătorul de mașini care pune în mișcare un absurd domino.
Doi colaboratori
fideli ai Coen-ilor contribuie major la acest univers unic. Imaginea lui Roger
Deakins condensează această imensitate albă, și muzica lui Carter Burwell
adăugă spațialitate, dramatism, ea a fost folosită și ca temă a serialului
ulterior.
Dar filmul fără
tandemul Steve Buscemi/ Peter Stormere e pustiu…”I’m going crazy down there
at the lake”. Ja.
New Zeelander hero (but born in Northen Ireland) Sam Neill has gome away at 78.
Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park series for most, but great in Possession (1981), his 1st major European part, his 1st American important part in 1990's The Hunt for the Red October. That came after his intense performance in Oz director's Phillip Noyce's excellent triangle thriller, Dead Calm (1989).
He could've been James Bond but he skipped it...
One of his carrers best: John Trent in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994).
Also great villain for another John Carpenter flick, Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992).
Great villainy also in Event Horizon, The Piano.
TV best: season 2 of Peaky Blinders.
Also great parts in Oz and NZ films as Taika Waikiki's Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) and The Hunter (2011).
"I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world."
Maiorul si moartea (The Major and Death, 1967) is a forgotten gem, and a one of a kind / one-off UFO Romanian thiller written by the great Ion Baiesu (Balanta/The Oak), based on his eponymous 1965 short story. It was made later on into a radio play with Enil Hossu as the major.
Directed by the Documentarian Alexandru Boiangiu in his feature film debut, it's a Black and white black and bleak comedy, film noir -policier, shot by maestro DOP Nicu Stan (Rascoala, Diminetile unui baiat cuminte -see references below, Toate Pinzele sus !). The film made a BO of 1.352.078 in Romanian cinemas in 1967.
It is also Gheorghe Dinica's 1st major leading part. (as the major, sic!) Great part too.
The other jewel of the cast is veteran theatre actor Ion Stanescu as retired safe cracker Solomonica, his only part on the big screen except a bit in O noapte furtunoasa (1943).
Supporting: Vasilica Tastaman, Marin Moraru, Mircea Crisan, Jean Constantin, Stefan Mihailescu-Braila (artist emerit;), Peter Paulhoffer, Constantin Rautchi, Ion Anghel, Florin Scarlatescu, Draga Olteanu (before she was Matei ;) and a very young Carmen Galin in her second film part after Diminetile unui baiat cuminte (see last paragraph).
Atmospheric music by Mircea Istrate (Strainul, Haiducii series), played by the Symphonic Cinema Orchestra (Orchestra simfonica a cinematografie- oh, what dayz, when musicians were employed just to score Romanian films...) and conducted by Silviu Panțiru and a cool and absolutely weird song, sung onscreen by Marina Voica, Criminal Tango, by P. Trombetta (actually Kriminal Tango by Piero Trombetta, originally released in 1959 and the title song of a German film of 1960). Another song sang by Voica, is an uncanyAve Maria Lola in bossanova rhythm (min. 66 in the film, just before Crimanl Tango -a request ;). Maria Voica, a superstar of Romanian Pop music of the Communist age, might be the only one left alive from this film. She is 89 now.
Another gem are the opening credits, Saul Bass 60's funky style. Very cool, have no idea who did them, it's not credited (sic).
They include a caption of the Militia consultant (MAI/Ministerul Afecerilor Interne) of the film, as all films of the time needed one. This one is a Lt. Col. (Lieutenat Colonel) called Alexandru Manuși, meaning Gloves !
The film starts surreally with a pre-credits scene in which an Insurance salesman trying to sell a Life policy to the Major. I won't spoil more about the plot, suffice to say it deals with a hidden treasure, a murder and surreal threats signed Death !
There's a scene where Major Tache plays Checkers with ¬Death¬, it can be interpreted as a Pun to Bergman's chess with death in The Seventh Seal. Or not, one can only fabulise ;)
I's say it's sort of Romanian Ladykillers maybe ? Style-wise and humour. It's a bit of a satire of the system too. Scenes in achurch, at a Religious procession, not likely to be seen in the Regime directory.
Great poster above ! Love also this Czech poster with a nod to Vertigo, saying Major & DEATH / Major A Smrt !
Napinave meaning suspensful !!
It seems M & M travelled a bit in the Socialist haven cinema distribution .)
Deutsche version:
The film can be seen in its entirety in multiple youtube versions, mostly taken from a TVR2HD broadcast.
As a fun note, a 'sopirla' / polticial subversive innunedo, one of the characters (Peter Paulhoffer, a German Romanian actor, nicknamed 'the Romanian Paul Newman', that left for BDR- West Germany-later in the '70's), is reading a newspaper in Gara de Nord/ Bucharest railway station. The paper says: The modern profile of a Director's calification !!! On the left is seen a review of another Romanian film from that year: Diminetile unui baiat cuminte/The mornings of a nice boy, by Andrei Blaier, a sort of New Wave manifesto, not a very socialist film as intended to be. The film can be found on youtube from Cinepub.ro here. I am not sure the newspaper existed or if it waas made up for the film as an inside joke.
Premiered at Venice film Festival, in Competition and was awared in many International Film fests, including Socchi, but neve released in its own country, Russia.
see it and you'll get why !!!
The film is written and directed by Natalya Merkulova and Alexey Chupov.
Volkonovov is played brilliantly by Yura Borisov who was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar in Sean Baker's Anora and was the lead in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Cannes entry “Petrov’s Flu.” He is an NKVD captain in Stalin's USSR of 1938, when the Great Purge emerged. Timofey Tribuntsev is also great as his pursuer and former boss, major Golovnya.
The title is soehow ironic, don't expect a traditional escape. The film has surreal qualities, non-linear narrative, great colors, widescreeen cinematography (2.35.1), great production design (shot in St. Petersburg), and black humor galore. It's a sort of thriller, dark comedy, historical drama, fable, and it shows a side of Russia's history at its most darkest (that is, until Today :( Ok, not only that but all Totalitarian Poli cde Ste.
The musical theme, recurrent and also sometimes ironical, is the legendary Soviet song Polyushko-pole (Song of the Pains), see the interpretation by the avant-garde St. Petersburg band Shortparis below:
4 out of 5 / 8 out of 10 !!!
-a bit too long and confusing, or switches hard to follow...
Mel is one of the few EGOTs, an acronym for the few who won the big Four: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony
Now, Mel is still working, he's releasing Spaceballs 2 soon...it's called Spaceballs: The New One, ;)
and it shall be released after 40 years after the original, in 2027 !
May the Schwarz be with you, Mel !!!
As a tribute we just saw (re-saw) his 1976's Silent Movie, the first Mel Brooks film I ever saw, in cinemas, weirdly called Comedie Mută 1977, as it played in Romania in 1977 !!!
Unexpected or more so after abysymal BO performace and Reviews. Definetly not a film for 2026. A combo of Flash Gordon and Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 1), overlong (2h20 !!!; really?), some good humor and sexual innueundos in a PG fare, a dumbo Skeletor (unrecognizable Jared Lato with weird accent and Dr. Evil laughter does his bet job in many years here).
Camila Mendes as Teela is hot, Idris Elba supports bravely, Roboto is voiced by Kristen Wiig, James Purefoy is the King Randor, Morena Maccarin (the) sorceress in white and the lead Adam/He-Man- Nicholas Galitzine is funny and charismatic, also Alison Brie is fun as witchy Evil-Lyn.
Coming from a line of legendary toys (that I was never fammilar with), cartoons and comics which I never saw my only reference was the 1987 very B and B budget cult film of the same name and franchise (it was a Golan-Globus Cannon production). More so than then, this film doesn't take itself seriosusly for an even odd moment, it knows it's silly and plays it straight on.
Added value: the score is Fabulous, Power Rock pounding heroic symphonica metallic, another great one from Daniel Pemberton, one chord to rule'm all, Queen style, even features a Highlander song and puns, plus a clone Queen song by The Darkness and surely the sound was familliar because yes, the guitarist it's Brian May !!! That in itself raises the bar (and the volume) one notch (and a star of my review here). A Dolph Lundgren cameo (hero of the 1987 version) makes it even more tongue in cheeck. For the grown-up children ;)
I saw this when it came out in Romania, in 1980, obviously opened here in cinemas with a certain delay. It was called Mica romanta, a fair translation of the original A Little Romance. Why they bought it beacuse it criticises the Capitalistic American family )sort of),same as Kramer Vs. Kramer or Champ, hits in the cinema of that era. Or and the American tourists in Europe? who knows. It was a treat, and one of the best films to run in cinemas then.
I was Ten so a lot of the film meaninngs eluded me. I loved and identified with the kid, Daniel, doing l'École buissonnière like me, watching films al the time, instead of going to school. Didn't fell in love yet but I loved the character of the old man, played with French aplombe a la Charles Boyer or Maurice Cheavlier by the great Laurence Olivier, whose reputation I knew already, so I respected him tremendously.
None would have a clue then who Diane Lane would become, though Sir Larry told people she will be the next Grace Kelly !!! It was her 1st film and George Roy Hill discovered her and the other kids, Thelonious Bertrand. Him unfortunately acted in only another film, today he is a hapilly married dentist living in a small French town.
cut to:
Saw it again in the 90's and absolutely loved it. Was in my late twenties, enjoyed the meta references of George Roy Hill showing his own films, mangled in dubbing in French (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and Italian (La Stangata aka The Sting). It has plenty of film refernces for a film buff, which was not a la mode back then.
Bonus films: The Three Days of the Condor (Redford pun again), The Big Sleep, True Grit, Hustle (why?) and the invented copiously titled Spasmes Frenetiques !!!
Arthur Hill is excellent as the foster dad, and Sally Kellerman tries to be as annoying as it gets as the distracted mom. Plus, a cool cameo by Broderick Crawford and a schlock director named George de Marco (De Palma, De Toth ?), played with sleeze approach by David Dukes- that looks a bit like Bogdanovich meets Friedkin , and the author of the crap movie, Lips / Levres !
Now, as a banale recommendation for a child's friend, a girl of eleven, felt the terrible urge of rewatching this. And of course it was an absolute pleasure, a marvelous gateau, from a moment lost in time, elegant, romantic, funny, smart and cinephilic.
Composer Georges Delerue received his only Oscar for this film. Great music, a tipically Delerue sound.
A Little Romance was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay by Allan Burns. His script was based on the novel E=MC2, mon amour by Patrick Cauvin.
A timelss gem. and a predecesor of Richard Linklater's "Sunrise/Sunset" films. Brilliance by a very underrated master-director, George Roy Hill. Another time, another space, lost innocence and beauty...
Psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, therapists. Group therapy or one-on-one. Mentalist, alienist, psychoanalyst, shrink.
Speaking of the original HBO series In Treatment, which itself comes from the Israeli BeTipul, I thought of no better way to wrap up this series of rankings, especially since I had my share of shrinks in my time. :-)
The number one “psychiatric” film would be One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975, Milos Forman), but the psychiatrist there is merely window dressing; Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) is the one who embodies the oppressive system. And then there’s virtually any Woody Allen film, especially the Gene Wilder episode from *Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), featuring the doctor who falls in love with Daisy the sheep, which I previously discussed in my ranking of performances in Woody Allen films.
K-PAX (2001, Iain Softley), in which Jeff Bridges plays Dr. Mark Powell, treating an alien—or merely a psychotic patient? (Kevin Spacey)—and the Argentine counterpart Hombre mirando al sudeste (1986, Eliseo Subiela), are really about the patients, much like Nash (Russell Crowe) in A Beautiful Mind (2001, Ron Howard).
There’s also Dr. Marc Chabot (Yves Montand) in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970, Vincente Minnelli), who hypnotizes Barbra Streisand and discovers she has lived previous lives. Barbra herself tried being a doctor in The Prince of Tides (1991), attempting to cure Nick Nolte.
But my personal favorite is Klaus Kinski as Dr. Hugo Zuckerbrot in Buddy Buddy (1981), Billy Wilder’s remake (and final film) of L’Emmerdeur (1973, Édouard Molinaro), unfortunately only a supporting role, complete with a fondness for nudist therapy.
And then there’s Dr. Elliot (Michael Caine) from Brian De Palma’s thriller Dressed to Kill (1980), whom I would call the “cross-dressing” variation.
Still, I decided to give the place to the illustrious Dr. Caligari. To paraphrase Siegfried Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler, this ranking goes from Caligari to Freud...
10. Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Robert Wiene)
Variation: creepy
Dr. Caligari runs an asylum and uses the somnambulist Cesare for various dirty jobs. Similar to Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether and its idea that the inmates have taken over the asylum.
Its descendants include Asylum (1972, Roy Ward Baker), as well as the opening and cover art of In the Mouth of Madness (1995, John Carpenter).
Successors: Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse, Dr. M, the mega-villains of the James Bond franchise beginning with Dr. No, etc.
Caligari controls Cesare, in a scene set to music by Lacrimosa.
(The full film can be found on YouTube.)
9. Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) in Spellbound (1945, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)
Variation: mysterious
A thriller populated by psychiatrists, fascinated with psychoanalysis—a fairly new concept in Hollywood at the time—partly inspired by producer David O. Selznick’s own experiences in therapy.
Psychiatrist Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) treats the amnesiac John Ballantine (Gregory Peck), accused of murder.
Based on the novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Francis Beeding, the pseudonym of John Palmer and Hilary St. George Sanders, screenplay by Ben Hecht.
Memorable above all for its dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí, and for a recurring skiing sequence.
Successor:Gothika (2003, Mathieu Kassovitz), with Halle Berry as an amnesiac psychiatrist committed to an asylum for a murder she cannot remember committing.
Trailer! (The full film can be found on YouTube.)
8. Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) in Anger Management (2003, directed by Peter Segal)
Variation: out-of-control!
Jack Nicholson, usually the patient :-) (with the exception of “The Specialist” in the musical Tommy (1975), Ken Russell’s adaptation of The Who), plays an anger-management therapist—or whatever the proper term may be; the closest translation I found was “treatment for controlling one’s temper”—in a mediocre film that deserved a much better director.
A vehicle for Adam Sandler, who, when placed face to face with Jack’s explosive personality, is completely eclipsed.
Best scene: Adam, backed up by Jack, singing I Feel Pretty from West Side Story on the bridge!
7. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) in the Halloween series
Created by John Carpenter for the landmark 1978 film.
The name was borrowed from Psycho, from the character played by John Gavin, Sam Loomis.
Dr. Loomis is Michael Myers’ nemesis. He treated him at the institution from which Myers escaped. He is also the commentator, the voice of reason, and the only character besides Michael Myers himself to appear throughout the series: five films, including Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, released shortly before Pleasence’s death in 1995.
Played by Malcolm McDowell in Rob Zombie’s remake.
On the nature of evil!
6. Dr. Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) in Analyze This (1999, directed by Harold Ramis)
Variation: sleeps with the fishes!
Mob boss Vitti (Robert De Niro) has problems and decides to see a psychiatrist. But nobody must find out. Otherwise Vitti might end up sleeping with the fishes too, Luca Brasi style.
Nemesis: Chazz Palminteri, to whom the meaning of the word “closure” has to be explained.
The dramatic TV version:The Sopranos, released the very same year. Which came first? Only they know who inspired whom, but Analyze This is the parody version, a kind of sitcom blown up to feature-film proportions.
Sequel:Analyze That (2002), also directed by Harold Ramis.
Explaining the Oedipus complex! “Fuckin’ Greeks!”
5. Dr. Bill Capa (Bruce Willis) in Color of Night (1994, directed by Richard Rush)
Variation: it’s so bad, it’s good!
The most improbable psychiatrist ever.
Color-blind, traumatized by the color red, trapped in a Hitchcockian thriller inspired in part by Vertigo. Someone starts killing off his patients.
The patient roster is practically a compendium of cult actors: Lance Henriksen, Brad Dourif, Lesley Ann Warren, Kevin J. O'Connor.
Steamy sex scenes with the then-young Jane March (The Lover).
Bruce also played a psychiatrist, Dr. Crowe, in The Sixth Sense (1999, M. Night Shyamalan), but I left him off the list for objective reasons: he belongs to the spirit world. :-)
A fan-made video clip for the title song (super-cheesy), performed by Lauren Christy!
4. Dr. Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) in Equus (1977, directed by Sidney Lumet)
Variation: equestrian
A drama written by Peter Shaffer, adapted from his own play, in which Harry Potter himself (a.k.a. Daniel Radcliffe) is currently appearing nude on Broadway.
Burton delivers a magnificent performance as a doctor determined to cure an extremely disturbed young man obsessed with horses (Peter Firth).
Nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay) and winner of two Golden Globes, for Best Dramatic Actor (Burton) and Best Supporting Actor (Firth).
In the original Broadway production (1974–75), Anthony Hopkins played Dysart.
Trailer!
3. Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) in What About Bob? (1991, directed by Frank Oz)
Variation: funny
Bill Murray is Bob, the patient who relentlessly torments Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss).
The Romanian title used on television (since it never received a theatrical release) was The Psychiatrist on Vacation.
Similar: the Burt Reynolds / Dom DeLuise pairing in The End (1978, directed by Burt Reynolds).
The “Gimme Gimme, I Need I Need...” scene. (The full film can be found on YouTube.)
2. Col. Vincent Kane (Stacy Keach) in The Ninth Configuration (1980, directed by William Peter Blatty)
Variation: red herrings!
Based on William Peter Blatty’s novel Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane (The Exorcist).
How Do You Fight A War Called Madness?
A new commander arrives at a castle where he applies shock therapy to former soldiers suffering from mental illness.
An entirely male cast: Jason Miller, Stuart Wilson, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia, Joe Spinell.
A film about post-war trauma—in this case Vietnam—one of the greatest unknown films ever made, although it enjoys a loyal cult following. Now available in its longer director’s cut.
Packed with references to The Exorcist, also written and produced by Blatty.
Filmed in Hungary. The castle is Burg Eltz in Germany.
Successor:Shutter Island (2010, Martin Scorsese).
Part One: the opening sequence set to “St. Antone” by Denny Brooks. (The full film can be found on YouTube.)
1. Dr. Freud (Alan Arkin) in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976, directed by Herbert Ross)
Variation: Freudian :-)
The film in which Dr. Freud (Alan Arkin) treats Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson), brought to him by Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) for cocaine addiction—hence the film’s title.
Based on the novel by Nicholas Meyer.
Laurence Olivier plays Professor Moriarty and Vanessa Redgrave is the romantic interest, Lola Deveraux.
A special, one-of-a-kind film that clearly influenced Alan Moore’s graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Predecessor: Freud had appeared on screen before, from John Huston’s 1962 biopic Freud, starring Montgomery Clift, to the less likely incarnation played by Jamie Elman (his co-star from California Dreaming!) in the film where Armand Assante portrays Nietzsche, When Nietzsche Wept (2007, Pinchas Perry).
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