Asteroid City (2023)

 the new Wes Anderson , trailer out today!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GTA4PLAkbg

Coming soon...probably opening in Cannes 

Released June 16 2023, probably not on Romanian theaters

OSCARS 2023-who will win (and who won)

OSCARS 2023 -95^th Academy Awards Edition

Here's not who should win, anything from TheBanshees of Inisherin (my faved, see here my top films of 2022) to Elvis (both with 9 nods), not the puzzling Everything Everywhere All At Once (EEAAO), a very OK film but not so overhyped- 11 nominations??? !!! 

And it will win at least 6 awards for sure...(in th end it won Seven!!!)

No Fabelmans, no Triangle of Sadness, no Tar, no Top Gun; Maverick...

of course there can be surprises, as this is the Oscars, and there always are, I hope to be wrong ;)

Now this year I opened a VOYO account to watch live as they announced they will show them in original and dubbed separately. We'll see how this works...AND how did it work was it didn't. The show started at 2 am Ro time and half an hour later their broadcast didn't start. So I closed the account, shameful...luckily I got a link from a friend who faithfully watches them live, Thanks BM :)

BEST FILM: Everything Everywhere All At Once

DIRECTING: The Daniels (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheiner) -Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST ACTOR: Brendan Fraser -The Whale

BEST ACTRESS: Michelle Yeoh -EEAAO

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ke Huy Huan-Everything Everywhere All At Once

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jamie Lee Curtis -EEAAO

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Martin McDonagh-The Banshees of Inisherin should've won but Everything Everywhere All At Once won WGA so it's EEAAO

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Women Talking -Sarah Polley (also won WGA)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mandy Walker -Elvis (will be the 1st woman DOP winning for a feature film!!!), also won ASC award. (N.A. they gave it to newcomer James Friend for All Quiet...like there was something new that escaped (sir) Roger Deakins when he did 1917 and won his 2nd Oscar there)

EDITING: Elvis, and well Elvis has left the building...EEAAO won this one too...

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Elvis (N.A. All Quiet on the Western Front won)

COSTUME DESIGN: Elvis (Babylon should've won) and it went to Wakanda Forever...

So Black Panther was worthy for the second time???? Same costumes, same designer, another blank they pulled...

SOUND: Elvis vs. Top Gun: Maverick, and Top Gun it is!!!

VISUAL EFFECTS: Top Gun: Maverick (c'mon, wasn't an Avatar enough? can't believe they went with it...)

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: The Whale

ORIGINAL SCORE: Carter Burwell -Banshees-could win, Justin Hurwitz -Babylon should win'

and ze Germans won...Volker Bertelman for All Quiet on the Western Front (really? :(, and you had John Williams there at 90 years of age and 53 nominations...

ORIGINAL SONG: they all spoke of “Naatu Naatu”  from RRR (which is on Netflix btw), seconded by Rihanna  with “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

RRR makes history as the first Bollywood song to win!!! Namaste!!!

DOCUMENTARY: Navalny

ANIMATION: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio  

FOREIGN (INTERNATIONAL) FILM: All Quiet on the Western Front

--------------------------------------------------------Im Westen nichts Neues----------------------------------------

HOST: Jimmy Kimmel (third time's a charm!)

nice entry on a par with Daniel Craig's London Olympics ;)

here's his entrance and opening monologue (see how long it stays on you tube...that Robert Blake joke was mean...:()

Honorary Oscars:

Euzhan Palcy (producer, director)

Diane Warren (muzician)

Peter Weir (director)

Michael J. Fox -humanitary award „Jean Hersholt”.

RIP Tom Sizemore

 Tom Sizemore was 61...he has a stroke in February so he was in a coma and his brother decide to switch off the life support :(,  a tough way to end a very tumultuous life...

my favorite part of his must be in Heat (1995)

he was in both Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down playing tough soldiers

and Natural Born Killers and True Romance...

but he did over 250 films, mostly B and Z fare after 2004, after his conviction and scandal with Heidi Fleiss, a downward spiral with drugs and more drugs. His small comeback was in the new Twin Peaks series...

RIP Wayne Shorter

 Another One of the greatest jazz players & composers is gone, mr. Wayne Shorter...he was 89...

he played in the Miles David Quintet 

and a lot with Herbie Hancock...

he co-founded Weather Report in 1970 with Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitous and Airto Moreira.

In the movies he collaborated with James Newton Howard on the soundtracks of Glengarry Glen Ross and The Fugitive. Also was one of musicians in the Philippe Sarde scored L'homme aux yeux d'argent (1985), together with Herbie Hancock,  Ron Carter and others.

This may be his best song...Speak No Evil, from the album with the same name...

Wayne Shoter on sax, Elvin Jones on drums, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on Bass, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet.

and here's a program from Jazz Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) with Wayne Shorter from 2017..,

The Nightingale (2018)

Due to her episode The Murmuring in Guillermo del Toro's anthology The Cabinet of Curiosities for Netflix, I checked Jennifer Kent's filmography. And saw her follow-up to The Babadook (my review here), her debut feature in 2014 (and horror movie of that year) is The Nightingale (2018), a gritty but also poetical feminine revenge period thriller set in Tasmania in 1825 which she wrote as well. A very intense but slow moving (especially the first half hour) film, it runs 2h 16 min.  Irish actress Aisling Franciosi (Clare) holds the film in a very powerful performance.  Brit Sam Clafin is the good looking but mega evil baddie lieutenant Hawkins.

Shades of recent  mini-series The English came to my mind, but this was way before that. 

Special Price of the Jury in Venice 2018.  And Marcello Mastroianni award for best actor to aboriginal Baykali Ganambarr (Billy). Plus a ton of awards, at home in Australia and ww. 

Supporting rogue, Damon Herriman as Ruse, he is Charles Manson in Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood and Mindhunter series, also at home in Oz in the series Mr. Inbetween and the mini-series The Tourist.

Clare is the Nightingale because she sings with a golden voice. The end credits feature 1988 The Chieftains song, The Strayaway Child, featuring a performing didgeridoo. 

3 1/2 out if 5 / 7 out of 10 

RIP Raquel Welch

Also this day has come...(15 Feb. 2023) one of the most beautiful women that walked the planet into the screen is gone. A real Goddess! Unbelievable, Raquel Welch was 82 now...She as born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago on September 5th 1940, her father Bolivian, her mother Irish-American. Her first job was on TV as a weatherwoman! She had four husbands and two daughters. 

During the "pandemic" in 2020 I caught up with some of her films, the excellent Hannie Caulder (1971), a revenge western that has a touch s feminism in in. Then saw again the whodunnit The Last of Sheila (1973, a model for the new Glass Onion mystery). About her his co-star James Mason said infamously, that she was "the most selfish, ill-mannered, inconsiderate actress that I have ever had the displeasure of working with."..)  Why he said that, beats me. It's the only bad thing I heard about her really.

Then saw the spaghetti interracial western 100 Rifles (1969), where she made love with/to Jim Brown. Also I saw a lot of documentary stuff and interviews on youtube. I was still mesmerized by mrs. Welch.

And I still am. She is immortal, you know? 

But the first time I saw her on the big screen as a child was not as Luana in One Million Years B.C. (1966), that ran in Romania under her name title-Luana and that I caught up at Cinema Popular in the early Eighties. No, it was as Constance de Bonacieux in Richard Lester's Three Musketeers (part one & two 1973/74). She won a Golden Globe for that part. The film played around 1976/77 in Cluj, where I was in primary school. 

And she was in the posters of Romanian Cinema magazine, the Cinemas postcard and a lot of photos in the mag. The film I mostly wanted to see with her those days was Fantastic Voyage (1966), her breakthrough role, which I finally saw on TV only in the early 90's and I taped it on VHS...til the DVD...

Also in Romanian theaters was L'animal, the Claude Zidi comedy from 1977 with her and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Which was kinda her last important part. In 1982 she was fired from the set of Cannery Row (that was meant to be her comeback and her first nudity role!) and successfully sued the studio earning a reported 15 million $!!! She went on TV movies, Fitness and yoga programs, and playing herself (in Seinfeld in 1997).  Wrote her biography, "Beyond the Cleavage" in 2000. She was on Broadway, the lead on Victor/Victoria. She even danced with a fluffy spider in The Muppets Show!

Running the Cinemateca Patria in Brasov (2014-2020) I always showed her films on her anniversary (5 September ), Fantastic Voyage, Bedazzled and 100 Rifles. One of my favorites was Fathom (1967). Great cameo in The Magic Christian (1969) as "The Princess of the whip", and the title role in Myra Breckinridge (1970, based on a novel by Gore Vidal), where she plays a transsexual and she clashed with legendary Mae West on the set. Her bit in the far-out Bluebeard (1972) as a sexy nympho nun is also a cool one.

Well, here she is to be remembered singing the aptly titled "I am a Woman", with Cher in 1975, in a very tongue-in-cheek appearance. We'll miss you all, Raquel...

RIP Hugh Hudson

Found out after  a few days, that Hugh Hudson, the director of Chariots of Fire and Greystoke had passed away at 86. Oh, and Revolution (1985), which was a flop as big as they got those days.  It was David Puttnam, the golden British producer who put Hudson on the map. He's kind of the only debuting director (at 50 years of age!!!) to have a a film with SEVEN Oscar nods (and four wins), took home the BEST film of the year (1981 that is), well, Hudson didn't win an Oscar (Warren Beatty won for Reds!), but the movie is legendary and immortal! It was one of my father's favorite films, as he did get to meet the original Harold Abrahams -played by Ben Cross in the film-in London in 1967 part of the first Romanian Olympic delegation there).  He was super impressed by that meet and I grew up with that story, then later when I had a film show at the local television station P+ I went with my dad on a show in which he told that story live. Well, the film is famous for the Vangelis score (Vangelis won an Oscar in absentia) and the slow-motion montage, all imitated and parodied, but very original then. All the other projects Hudson was involved afterwards went astray, though I loved Greystoke -The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes-then (1984) it was a mixed bag, but Revolution was the one that iced the cake.        

His debut feature was at the age of 50, but Hudson was a well known and respected director, top of the advertising world. He is part of the so-called "rennaissance gang", the Brits that made Hollywood look cool, Alan Parker, Ridley and Tony Scott, and Adrian Lyne.  All had their background in Advertising, in the late 60's and the '70's. Here's a TV profile on Hudson, entitled King of Ads, which features one of the legendary Guinness commercials with Rutger Hauer ('Pure Genius'). 

He directed also Lost Angels (1989), which was in the Cannes official competition, and I Dreamed of Africa (2000, in competition in Un Certain Regard in Cannes). His last film was Finding Altamira (2016), with Antonio Banderas. 

In his personal life Hudson was blessed with a special encounter, Maryam d'Abo, the beautiful Bond cellist Kara Milovy from The Living Daylights (1987), became his second wife in 1993. Interestingly enough, he met d'Abo 20 years before, while casting Greystoke for the part of Jane. 

“His passing, coming on the heels of the loss of Vangelis and the film’s screenwriter, Colin Welland, offer a moment to reflect on how incredibly fortunate I was, maybe we all were, to work together at a very particular point in our careers.”              David Puttnam

RIP Burt Bacharach

 Raindrops Keep Falling...Burt Bacharach is no more, he was 94... Three-times Oscar winner, six-times Grammy winner and One-time Emmy winner, he is considered the most perfect Pop composer of the XXth Century.

What's New Pussycat (Tom Jones)?, The Look of Love (Dusty Springfield) from Casino Royale, and his cameo in Austin Powers, together with Elvis Costello...

Top Soundtracks 2022

new composers (Michael Abels, Colin Stetson), as the old Usual Suspects :)-Burwell, Zimmer, Pemberton, Desplat, Holkenborg, Elfman, Reznor/ the order is not ascending or descending...

The Top of the 2022 Films is here.

The Top of the 2022 music albums is here.

Babylon-Justin Horwitz

Elvis -VA

Nope-Michael Abels

Top Gun: Maverick -Va incl. Harold Faltemeyer, Hans Zimmer 

The Banshees of Inisherin-Carter Burwell

Bones and All-Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness -Danny Elfman 

The Menu-Colin Stetson

See How They Run-Daniel Pemberton (sounding like Desplat for Wes Anderson's GBH)

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio-Alexandre Desplat

3000 years of Longing-Tom Holkenborg (very unusual and elegiac underscore for TH)

&

Slow Horses(TV)  w Mick Jagger/Daniel Pemberton's song Strange Game

*****

no Nick Cave & Warren Ellis for Blonde- too hard to digest score and film...I wouldn't have recognised ever it's Cave... 

Au hasard Balthasar (1966)

One of cinema's top masterpieces is on HBO Max (wtf, together with Romanian Netflix these must be the most Arthouse streaming services in the world!!!). Au hasard Balthasar (1966) is Robert Bresson tragic story of a donkey and the girl who befriends him (Anne Wiazemsky in her film debut, she later encountered -and married- Godard and that story is told in in Le Redoutable, she also wrote a book about her experience on this film, 'Petite fille')

It's Dostoievski's The Idiot put on Schubert's music (Piano Sonata no. 20 in A Major, II Andantino) , in pure black and white. One of the saddest films ever made but also one of the most beautiful. And if you don't love a donkey... (Colin Farrell knows, see The Banshees of Inisherin and weep...) 

And I can't wait to see Jerzy Skolimowski take on the donkey tale in EO (2022) !!!

Also on Romanian HBO Max there are other 3 films by Bresson (courtesy of Argos Films), all classics and voted masterpieces by the film lovers of the world 60 years ago....so, do yourself a service if you are true film buff and watch them.

Pickpocket (1959)

The Trial of Jeanne D'Arc/Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962)

Mouchette (1967)

I remember (and will never forget) the days (& nights) we were hunting those from Criterion Collection....The world was purer when everything was not at a touch of a button on your remote, when you had to walk for miles to catch on a good film, book or album...I know, I'm just old ;)                      ...but trust me on what Bresson pointed with this film, 'We are all Balthasars'...sooner or later, you're IT...

Babylon (2022)

Hollywood, Cal. The year is 1926, the world was cool and the movies were silent...well, they also shot Horses, didn't they? ;)

Welcome to Babylon, a film abut excess, ambition, dreams and nightmares together, the fourth feature of Damian Chazelle (now 38) after the succeses of Whiplash, La La Land and (so/so) First Man. 

A self-indulgent epic especially in the end montage of 'joie du cinema', which I could've done without (and most of us think about the same!!!), 3 hours long (and 9 minutes) but for me could've been longer ;). 

It's also rough and vulgar and decadent and loud, just like those times were supposed to be. Or so thinks Chazelle. Here's an interview with him explaining the sources and history of Babylon. 

Brad Pitt is silent movie star, Jack Conrad, modelled especially after John Gilbert...He's mostly Brad Pitt and that suffices plenty. 

Margot Robbie is the 'It' girl, Nellie LaRoy, made upon Clara Bow. She also has a scene that's sooo reminiscent of her playing Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood.. She's gorgeous and uber sexy, but she's kinda too modern and too sexy... 

The Mexican dude, Manny Torres (Diego Calva), I guess it's a composite.

The afro-american trumpet player Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) too. These may seem like 'Woke' characters, but actually they were there then.

Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) is inspired by Anna Mae Wong, the first Asian star of Hollywood (she later went to Europe). 

The film makes the transition from the silent age to the talkies, borrowing plenty from 1952's Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen masterwork, Singin' in the Rain.

Other inspirations: the infamous classic book Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger, Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon, John Schlesinger's Day of the Locust (two Paramount productions as this one is, even starting with the old black and white logo, but using Kinescope as a substitute of the studio). 

There's a comparison of Hollywood with a jungle, an Animal Kingdom, from the elephant at the beginning to a lizard, a rattlesnake, an alligator. Where's the Monkey? Well, plenty on the screen, from the extras to the actors themselves.

There's cameos of the era VIP's, from Irving Thalberg (Max Minghella) To Marion Davies and WR Hearst, to even Patty Arbuckle. I guess the German director should be Erich Von Stroheim. Also nice to see Eric Roberts in an A picture again, he plays Margot's father, Robert Roy. 

*****

If I would've seen the film in 2022 (it opened for Xmas in the US but only beg. Jan. WW) it would've made made my Top Movies of the year list, even flawed as it is...It got mixed reviews,  loved the SF Gate calling it 'the worst movie of the year' and quote:

`It is like “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” if Quentin Tarantino directed it as a teenager.'

Got 5 noms and a Golden Globe for best music (Justin Horwitz, Chazelle's collaborator on all his fares) and only 3 Oscar nominations tho (music, which might win, set design and costumes). More generous with the Brits at BAFTA -8 noms (including cinematography and editing, which I think were shunned :(). Horwitz's score has some cues from La La Land, mixed with Fellini's Nino Rota circus music and Mussorgsky's Night on a Bald Mountain. And a song about a certain pussy...

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

“Careers come and go, and movie stars come and go. That, on some level, is very scary, and it can even be depressing. But on another level, and hopefully this is where Manny kind of reaches a place of peace at the end, it's comforting, because you can’t help but be aware of how much bigger it is than you, and how you’re a part of something bigger. Just to be a small part of that is, in its own way, really special and eternal.”

Damien Chazelle in EW 

And here's Chazelle's screenplay for the film, in it's entirety.

Top albums 2022

well, mostly The Usual suspects, I have no urge to re-invent my taste....

here's my Top Ten from 2021....

 Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp -18 (the most special album of the year, especially now with Jeff Beck gone :(...)

Ozzy Osbourne-Patient Nr. 9  (title track with Jeff  Beck, many other guests incl. Tony Iommi, Eric Clapton)

Jack White-Fear of the Dawn  (one of the two albums he put out in 2022)

Rammstein-Zeit  (8th album from Till & co.)

Kirk Hammett-Portals (EP)

Neil Young With Crazy Horse -Toast (one of the two albums he put out in 2022)

Jethro Tull-The Zealot Gene (1st JT album in 19 years and their 22nd)

Joe Satriani-Elephants from Mars

Megadeth-The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!

Pixies-Doggerel

Billy Idol-The Cage (EP)

The Black Keys-Dropout Boogie

Todd Rundgren-Space Force (with special guests, Sparks, etc)

Bruce Springsteen-Only the Strong Survive (the covers album)

Udo Dirkschenider-My Way (Udo covers whatever he lkes.., and those songs I know better than the Boss`)

The Smile-A Light for Attracting Attention (the band is formed by Radiohead members Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood with drummer Tom Skinner). 

Elvis Costello & the Imposters-The Boy Named If

Blues albums:

Edgar Winter--Brother Johnny (featuring Joe Bonamassa, Steve Luckater, Bobby Rush, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, etc)

Ry Cooder &Taj Mahal-Get on Board

Boney Fields-Bump City

Van Morrison-What's It Gonna Take? 

Music video of the year:

Cannons-Hurricane 

(from their album, Fever Dream)

next on: Top Soundtracks 2022...

RIP David Crosby

David Crosby, co-founder of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young is now gone (Jan. 18, 2023). He was 81...

DEja Vu :(

Here's one of his top albums (and highly psychedelic), If I Could Remember My Name, from 1971. 

Well, thy name shall be remembered...

Lisa-Marie...

Gone at 54, two days after Ausgin Butler won the Golden Globe for best actor and she and her mom Priscilla were in the (ball)room 

RIP Jeff Beck

 This is too close to home...:(((((((((

I saw Jeff last time in south of France in July 2022, he was great, in great shape, touring with Johnny Depp, which he supported in his ugly trial days...everyone was an awe...most of the audience came to see the pirate of Carrrab...what? no worries

...we had a lot of wonderful Pastis before...it was such a Pefect Day (Mishu? Lou?,Marseilles;)

Jeff was in super shape, playing his greatest, his Bolero included, Stratus too...all those french sweet girls came to se Jack Sparrow tho...but we knew the drill...and the roze... (accent on e;)

Jeff Beck is my favourite (and emphasise this, never WAS) guitarist (I guess / on a tie with Eddie Van Halen -and he was one of Eddie's faved  too:)

but at least I got to see him (JB) twice... (in Bratislava about ten or 11 years ago, remember Mircea, Relu, Ursu?)

-maan,mind typos, i'm shattered and half-drunk watching Jeff on Ronnie Scott's on youtube  now...few years back it was only the rare DVD...andigotthat concert as aXmas gift from a dear friend (Cristi Exo), wirt Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and Tal Wikenfeld on bass... Stratus at 5.50¬ (Billy Cobham, how I saw him playing this, I gotta write that story someday too;, Vlad ?) As u know my dream for Transilvania Blues was to bring Jeff Beck to Romania:(((( Too far, gone.....

I loved Jeff from The Faces on (can't say Yardbirds),  and one of my faved clip of the 80's with Rod Stewart, black and white/sepia cover of  People Get Ready, an anthem for friendship, if ever was one (or none;),  the train et all...yep, that train is gone for sure:(((( (mr.T.)

I loved him for all the refusals/ denials of greatness in super-bands  and his love of vintage cars, and gone mad in  fusion, Jazz, Jams  and yes, the Jan Hammer records..

.first record by Jeff Beck Group is entitled TRUTH ! which he BEHOLD !!!!

JB was an honest guy in a crooked business...He stood tall, or better said, he didn't give (a) shit about fame and brands...he cared about his custom cars...

I wish'd I had a drink with him...(but I did, and somehow I'm having one as I type this...)

I feel very sorry for Johnny (Depp) and Ronnie (Wood) and Rod (Stewart), whom I feel are carrying this load more than the rest...

**********It was an honor, sir !!!  And what a pleasure! I lived years of my life with theee...

You surely made this a better word !!!(and rock world, and jazz, and music whatsoever)..

Kudos! Love forever..(i can't get the emoticons, fuck off haters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us8NH7AEvMg&t=641s

This is Jeff Beck's inducer's Jimmy Page in HALL OF FAMEin 1999 (and playing with Metallica)... bonus: Jimmy Page ( I knew him since we were 13).

...check out Ronnie Wood being happy !!!

Copenhagen Cowboy (2022-2023)

 “Four hundred years ago, they would have burned you at the stake” 

Let's start the year with a blast!!! 

A #NWR (Nicolas Winding Refn) UFO comissioned by Norsk Netflix ! Streaming from Jan. 5 2023!

For film lovers (and fans of the polarizing NWR) a must-see, for others proceed with caution!

Neo(n)-noir, surrealism, synth electronic score, sexual deviance, existentialism, nihilism, violence & pigs, all in Copenhagen Cowboy, a six-part mini-series (well, more like a pilot) from the Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn. It's also a comeback of sorts to motherland Danmark, where Refn hasn't made a film since Pusher III back in 2005.

Plot? Who cares? Or, what plot? This is a NWR trip, a visual, audio feast, existential, experimental mind f*uck.  Neon Punk again.

Miu (Angela Bundalovic) is a spirit, or a lucky charm, or what? She looks androgynous, short hair and a blue jumpsuit that she wears in every scene. She is bought by the Serbian/Albanian Danish mob dealing in sex traffic and other evil deeds. Very Evil, very dark, strong accents (I think the Dansk and Serbain and Mandarin are the forte of the show). Later on we get to the Chinese mob -or Danish Yakuza? and the bigger deal Serbian mob. A gang war ensures. Plus a degenerate ubermench (but not somench)serial killer (Nikolas) living in a castle. Some Hannibal (Thomas Harris)inspired plot? Should we mention his sister  (sister?) Rakel (played by Refn's daughter Lola Corfixen) ?  And what about those pigs? 

We get some answers in episode 4 from Miroslav- Zladko Burik (best European actor in Triangle of Sadness), a regular of Refn's Danish films,  The Pusher trilogy and Bleeder. 

And what's that cameo in the end (ep.6) from Hideo Kojima, world's most famous video game designer? Suffice to say NWR and HK are good buddies but he's a prelude for something more. ALSO Refn cameos in the series, as a shady businessman (or?pig?) in a suit. 

I am very curious if this will be renowed for season 2, I kinda guess not but who knows? There's nothing even remotely similar to this produced by Netflix or any other streamer!

But it happened before. Too Old To Die Young, NWR's first fare into streaming game in 2019, with the 10 episodes/13 hours of cinematic mayhem left comissioner Amazon Prime jawless, and that was a show slower than CC and more violent, decadent and sexually deviant. And well, it was better than CC out of which I liked best the first two episodes, for ambiguity, elipse and setting. 

The best assets of CopenhagenCowboy are the neon noir cinematography by Magnus Nordenhof Jonk, on his first fare with Refn, the editing (where I gotta congratulate an old schoolmate, Olivier Bugge Coutteon his 1st NWR  flick), and of course the score, pulsating synthpop 80's electronica by old collaborators Peter Peter, Peter Kyed, of course Cliff Martinez and Julian Winding, Refn's nephew whose Neon Dance he used in The Neon Demon. IMO Winding's piece "Pigs- A Slight Return" takes its cue from Krzysztof Pendercki/Wendy Carlos' piece, used in opening titles for The Shining. One of the best cues of CC is also Winding's trance dance Undead is the New Red. Indeed;)

CC premiered in Venice (bits) and here's a review:

https://theplaylist.net/copenhagen-cowboy-review-nicolas-winding-refns-take-on-the-superhero-genre-is-drenched-in-neon-lit-despair-venice-20220914/

”I looked at Copenhagen Cowboy more like a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, with Denmark as a multiethnic, multi-language place that, to certain people, is supposed to be heaven because it’s the country of Bernie Sanders.” (#NWR)

from his interview in Vulture here

one of my favorite shots,reminescent of The Keep!