RIP Mark Margolis

I know Mark Margolis from Scarface (1983, which I saw in 1984 or so, first time in black and white pan and scan video), where he was the Bolivian psychotic killer who doesn't speak English, "cienta metros"...His character is billed as "The Shadow".  Once you saw him there you never forgot him.

Character actor of Jewish Polish descent, he was born in Philadelphia in 1939. He studied acting under Stella Adler at the Actor's Studio. He was in a lot of films and TV (over 150!), including many Darren Aronofsky films, from Pi to Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Noah and Black Swan.

But his late fame came from the Breaking Bad series, where he was the evil "Tio" Hector Salamanca, even more evil on a wheelchair ! He got nominated by a singular Emmy for "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series". He was a big part the spin-off too, in Better Call Saul. Last part he played was in the Your Honor series (also with Bryan Cranston), as the mob boss Carmine Conti.

Mark Margolis died August 3 2023 in New York. He was 83. RIP...

Obituary here

"You don't play villains like they are villains. You play them like you know exactly where they are coming from. Which hopefully you do."

                                                                                       Mark Margolis 

RIP Paul Reubens

Paul "Pee-wee" Reubens is gone! Really 70 years already ? 

Oppenheimer (2023)

”How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?”

Sting -Russians (1985)

Oppenheimer rocks I said, after seeing it last night...

(My Romanian chronicle here.)

Christopher Nolan's first film for Universal after the debacle with Warner Bros. over TENET,  it's a very ambitious one. Based on the American Prometheus book it's written for the screen by Nolan in sole credit. Biopic, thriller, political film, historical, meta-phorical, all in one person POV, tough ride clocking at 3 hours and a career best for Cillian Murphy as Robert J. Oppenheimer. I guarantee Oscars next year for Murphy, supporting Robert Downey Jr. and Nolan might win as well. It has a brilliant cast with so many great actors, I'm not gonna mention them here, but it's been the best ensemble cast in a looong time. Still, Tom Conti, man....

Interesting score by Swede Ludwig Goransson (second film for Nolan after Tenet), wall to wall music and a grand sound design and editing, shot in IMAX by Dutch Hoyte Van Hoytema, his fourth flick for Nolan after Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet) and a last year great photography on Nope.

No, I haven't seen it in IMAX  as I didn't go to Bucharest for this but I strongly advice anyone who has that opportunity to do it, it's worthy as he shot it on 70 mm film and IMAX even printed a black and white stock for the 1st time ever!

Anyway you take it, in these hard times at the Movies (the year of (klaus)-Barbie ;() it's a brave film and I am amazed the audiences are rooting for it, full houses no less, in Romania and all over the world, and on imdb it went straight to #3 in theirs Top 25, where Nolan has three films in Top 25 positions now. Metascore of 89, I guess it will also be a good commercial success as opposed to Tenet or this summer's Indy V and M:I 7 (Part One) which failed to connect with moviegoers :(

4 out of FIVE, 8 out of TEN (I'll go for a 9 but I gotta see the film again and then conclude:)

I tried to watch again Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), about the same subject, with Paul Newman as general Groves and Dwight Schultz as Oppenheimer, but it's almost unwatchable now, after this new and definitive endeavor on the Manhattan project and R.J. Oppenheimer's life. Even with music by Ennio Morricone, photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond and directed by Roland Joffe (who right now directs a mini-series in Romania!!!)

*Paul Schrader described the film as the "best, most important film of this century" after he attended the New York premiere of the film.

Mission:Impossible 7 Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

 a 2hr 47 mins part one new Mission: Impossible, don't you guys overdo it?

Every new Mission film (as every new film) gets a longer running time as opposed to Hitchcock's rule about length of the film according to human bladder...

I didn't like the MacGuffin at all, you don't really have great bad guy here and it seems like a cut  together melange of action pieces trying to top those before -as those M:I movies are. This one tries to quote/rip-off the original one with Brian De Palma style red herrings, shot compositions, the train and the return of Kittridge (Henry Czerny). New femme fatale is introduced, Venice party rave style reminds of John Wicks, etc. The plot is mumbojumbo (mambojambo?) and we all know it. It's just pretext so why so serious? Well, Ethan Hunt  (Le Cruise) is, 'cos he needs saving the world (Again) on its own. And to top himself with another world record stunt, or I should say the much too much publicised stunt that sells these M:I films since Burj Khalifa in the fourth one. 

And Tom Cruise it's not getting any younger...he's gonna be 61 one by the time this one comes out. It's his and his only, his sole production and presenting credit, his director attiree, mr. Christopher McQuarrie who only directed a film of his own (The Way of the Gun), before becoming Cruise's main man...(Jack Reacher, 3 M;I and one coming up), scripts for Valkyrie (where they met), Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy (!!!), Top Gun deux: Maverick. Maybe you remember, this is the guy who wrote The Usual Suspects back in 1995......Well I guess if he's happy with it, why should we be envious;)? As he works in such problematic enterprises (Covid shutdowns, reshoots, rewrites, studio madness over budgets, you know, the usual drill), this is the true Mission: Impossible, behind-the-scenes.

A 291 mill. $ budget for half of a movie...studios (Paramount) can't say no to the Cruiser especially after he saved the world B.O. with Top Gun 2. I'm afraid Part Two will fare even worst...

Odd coincidences: the train chase like the opening scene of Indy V and a Rome central a car chase like in Spectre and stunts on the Spanish Steps like in Fast X or XI, anyway the one from this summer.

Score by Lorne Balfe, the Scott's second film in the franchise after M:I 6-Fallout in 2018. Liked that movie much better. And the score (see here on my top 2018 soundtracks). See ya next summer for Part Deux! No more reshoots I hope;)

3 out of 5, 6 out 10!