Billy Joel - Turn the Lights Back On (2024, SOTD)

 Turn the Lights Back On marks Billy Joel's first original song in 17 years !!!

more info here

and an explanation with Billy J. on Howard Stern's show here. He brings up Edith Piaf's "Je ne regrette Rien", well...i agrre with Howard on this...

Lyrics: 

Please open the door
Nothing is different, we've been here before
Pacing these halls
Trying to talk over the silence
And pride sticks out its tongue
Laughs at the portrait that we've become
Stuck in a frame, unable to change
I was wrong

I'm late, but I'm here right now
Though I used to be romantic
I forgot somehow
Time can make you blind
But I see you now
As we're laying in the darkness
Did I wait too long
To turn the lights back on?

Here, stuck on a hill
Outsiders inside the home that we built
The cold settles in
It's been a long winter of indifference
And maybe you love me, maybe you don't
Maybe you'll learn to, and maybe you won't
You've had enough, but I won't give up
On you

I'm late, but I'm here right now
And I'm tryin' to find the magic
That we lost somehow
Maybe I was blind
But I see you now
As we're laying in the darkness
Did I wait too long
To turn the lights back on?

I'm late, but I'm here right now
Is there still time for forgiveness?
Won't you tell me how?
I can't read your mind
But I see you now
As we're layin' in the darkness
Did I wait too long
To turn the lights back on?

I'm here right now
Yes, I'm here right now
Looking for forgiveness
I can see as we're laying in the darkness
Yeah, as we're laying in the darkness
Did I wait too long
To turn the lights back on?

Poor Things (2023)

Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos won the Golden Lion in Venice, all top awards around (just now Five BAFTA's) and is nominated for 11 Oscars. It's amazing for a film like this, a one-of-a kind extravaganza with no limits. Gun blazing sort of cinema, risque acting from the top three actors, Emma Stone (she will win an Oscar, her second  for this, no doubt), an epic makeup-ed Scottish accented Willem Dafoe and an incredibly funny offbeat Marc Ruffalo (an uncanny Nae Girimea impersonation ;), career best of going against type.

Mixed feelings, and would've been even better if I didn't find out about the book, by Scottish writer Alasdair Grey. The book was published in 1992 and the author died in 2019. He sold the rights to the book to Yorgos Lanthimos in 2009. There are huge huge differences from the book in the film and Tony McNamara script relocated it from  Glasgow to London, and got rid of on the recent different timeline hooks. The book is told by different characters, through letters and it's supposed to be a found true story. Also at a running time of 2h21, it's at least a half-an-hour too indulgent longeur. Things begin to be too repetitive, esp. in the Paris episode.  There is a fish, aquatic-like theme that runs along the whole film, a dark humour surreal atmosphere and a manifesto of Shock & Panic cinema. 

Impecable tech credits, brilliant cinematography (by Robbie Ryan who did The Favourite too, in Technicolor, black and white, with grand angular, fisheyed lenses, 16 mm, etc), gorgeous set and production design, costumes and great music (pop musician Jerskin Fendrix' debut score), with a very original sound, also because its his first and Lanthimos' first film with an original film score.

Shot in Budapest at the Korda Studios for  a mere 35 million $. I mean, really, it looks alike a much more expensive picture.

Great title lettering inspired by Pablo Ferro. Via Kubrick maybe (dr. Strangelove), he is Lanthimos most revered mentor. Early Tim Burton, Elephant Man, Young Frankenstein, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, Fellini's E la Nave Va. I saw some Jodorowski in the Belle du Jour chapter, some Quay Bros. on the fisheye and iris black and whites. The fillmakers acknowledge Roy Andresson also as an inspiration and the primary Technicolors of Powell & Pressburger's Black Narcissus. I'll add some Hammer color too.

Il sol dell'avvenire/A Brighter Tomorrow (2023)

Il sol dell'avvenire/A Brighter Tomorrow, in Romanian Un viitor luminos (cum numai Partidul stie sa prezica ;), the title is of course Ironic. I mean, Nanni Moretti (now 70!!!) is a leftie and a socialist but this is his Nuit Americaine, or 8 1/2, a Meta film, with most of the fun from him in many years. Reminded my of his earlier films, Palombella Rossa (1989) and Caro Diario (1993). It was much funnier and warmer than his big Cannes fares (he has a Directing award for Caro diario and a Palme D'or for La Stanza di Figlio-2001). Habemus Papam (2011) was also funny, but here's there's a lot of more things Cinema to be enjoyed. Of course his new film was part of the official competition in 2023's Cannes Fest.

It's about a director in a very long mislife and creative crisis, making a film no one would like to see, about the events in Hungary 1956 seen through the eyes of the Italian Communist party. The title comes from a resistance song from WW2, "Fischia il vento". Add to that the circus of Federico F., plus the songs and musical fantasies, and some woodyallenesque soliloquies plus psychotherapy, life lamentations and narcissism to the max. The soundtrack is great, features belli canzoni, from Joe Dassin to Franco Battiato (Voglio vederdi danzare), Aretha Franklin  with "Think" from The Blues Brothers, Faure & Beethoven, and Fabrizio de Andre (La canzone dell'amore perduta). Featuring classic Moretti collaborators, Margherita Buy, Polish director and actor Jerzy Stuhr and a premiere, Mathieu Amalric as the fou producer. And surely Moretti as Giovanni, the tormented director. 

It's Moretti meets Fellini with bits of Demy (Lola and la Dolce Vita are even on the screen).

It's almost a miracle this film is in cinemas, very limited release. The scene with Netflix must be seen to be believed. It's like that, really, the WTF...

American Star (2024)

Ian Mc Shane. Impeccable Actor. Unbelievable, the man is 81. And he looks at least 20 years younger in American Star, an existential hitman thriller drama about aging and solitude. And nostalgia. And loyalty, maybe most of all.

Takes a movie for me to find about about the real crash of the luxury ocean liner, American Star (SS America), on Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. And it's metaphor on top of the title of the film.

The director. Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego I know from El Rey de la Montana (2007), film that I liked and was about to present when we did he little experiment called Bohemian Mondays/ aldmovielight at The Light cinema (then), in 2010, in Rahova, Bucharest. I think I translated the whole film, luckily there were very few lines of dialogue on that one.

Anyway, Gallego went on to the US to do Apollo 18 (a horror spoof/mockumentary), Open Grave and The Hollow Point. And now this, American Star, which I really liked. Mostly because McShane is mesmerizing. And the island. And it has a slow pace, a dreamlike quality. Arthouse European thriller. Would've loved to see it in a cinema.

7 of out 10/ 3 1/2 out of 5