Fjord -Palme d'or !!!

 all winers here

Palme d'or

FJORD  Cristian MUNGIU  Kudos !!!  next on I guess the Oscars !

Second Palme d')r for Mungiu after 19 years from 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 days, making him the Tenth director in the history of Cannes to win twice. Here's the other nine. 

Fjord also won in Cannes 4 other awards:

-the François Chalais Prize

-Prix de la Citoyenneté (Citizenship Award) 

-Ecumenical Jury Prize

 -FIPRESCI award (International Critics' Prize)

***At the official screening the film was received with a 12 mins. standing ovation, a huge timing for the festival and a good barometer of the success of the projection, much more than the reviews and the trades star ratings. 

The Plague (2025)

Remarkable debut by Charlie Polinger (w/d). It premiered in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. Worthy of the DGA Award. Amazingly it was shot in Romania (by Abis studios, art director Vlad Vieru just won a Gopo for the Yellow Tie) !!! Great widescreen compositions. in 2.39 : 1. Also shot on film,35mm by Steven Breckon, another name to follow. 

Joel Edgerton  (also a producer) is the only adult name in the film, the rest is a bunch of kids, real talent.  Everett Blunck as Ben is a stand-out. They won best actors in Sitges, also together with Kayo Martin.

Lord of the Flies in a summer waterpolo camp with shades of masculin Carrie. It's set in 2003, no clue why. It's gross sometimes like teenagers are, it's unpleasant and it feels real. Tough to direct all these kids, and as a first picture, kudos !

 Also great, I mean GREAT sound design and a great score by Johan Lenox, reminiscent also of Pino Donnagio's cues.

Corsa Notturna (see, it's in Italian;) will give you goosebumps. It looks like it's Lenox' first real score too. Bravo !

Also Moby's song Feeling So Real will never feel the same again ! 4 real ;)

7 out of 10 / 3 1/2 out of 5 ! Deserves even more but my empathy was with the filmmaking, not the characters. 

Caveat (2020)

I caught up with Damian McCarthy 1st feature film Caveat after seeeing Hokum in a cinema last week and Oddity in 2024. 

Caveat in Latin means Warning/ Beware. 

Creepy, claustrophobic, atmospheric very low key and extremly well done low budget debut feature shot in Cork, Ireland.

Loses some steam in the third act but it's paced at 1h30 so it's all good. It's basically  for the viewer a one person drama and experiences and emotions -through Issac (Jonathan French's amnesic character).

The harness is a gimmick worthy of Edgar Allan Poe's stories. 

The film's dialogue is minimal, and the sound design/ soundtrack is keeping the ternsion up, as with the camera movements and the set design of the creepy house with falling walls, the basement, floors creaking and those distant cries of the foxes...

The most interesting thing in the film is the drumming toy rabbit that beats Stephen King/ Osgood Perkins' Moneky for creepiness and weirdness.

***The toy rabbit featured in the film was acquired via eBay by McCarthy, who "always had an interest in wind-up toys". It was stripped of its fur and sent to costume and prop builder Lisa Zagone, who finalised its design.

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

Sight and Sound: The uncannily claustrophobic design of the setting matches the tightness of the irrationally unfolding narrative in this slice of ghostly surrealism, so beautifully styled that you can practically smell the mildew-stained walls.

Hokum (2026)

Hokum is No Hokum. 

maybe the best, most intense horror of the year yet.

To be seen on the big screen. It's widescreen -  2.39 : 1, -by Colm Hogan, kudos! - but it's claustrophobic and the sound design is Great !!! And the music too-atmospheric, as a tool of building more sound ! 

From the director od Oddity and Caveat, Irishman Damian McCarthy, a name to follow...

McCarthy provides some genuine good scares 

and gets a restrained performance from Adam Scott (Severance series), at his most serious and downbeat. His character is the obnoxious and depressed writer Ohm Bauman (reminiscences to Richard Bachman, The Shining -Kubrick's- and other Stephen King characters, Jack Torrance, Mort Rainey, George Stark included). 

Hokum is psychological horror mixed with folk supernatural lore, but also a bit more,

Opening and ending bookends raise the quality of the film a lot. 

Liked it better than Weapons and felt the kind of vibe Hereditary gave me back when I saw it in a cinema. 

7 1/2 out of 10 !

In the Stars-The Rolling Stones (SOTD)

The 1st video from the new album, Speaking Tongues (out July 10th) is out.

In the Stars. With 'em stars. 

“Some people seek their fortune on the turn of a card 

Or throwing some bones in a whiskey glass 

‘Cause if you wanna seek your fortune, need a lot of luck 

I was standing there when the lightning struck"

Indeed ;)

It's a slick, big budget, high concept video for a cool song reminiscenting the 70's. 

AI de-aging, etc.

Directed by Francois Rousselet, who directed also the most recent clip of RS, Angry from Hackney Diamonds in 2023, as well as  Ride 'Em on Down from Blue and Lonesome (2016). 

my buddy Ticke aka Attila Brushvox wrote about it here !

Deep Purple-Arrogant Boy (SOTD)

 Great new song from some ol' boyz

Lyrics here 

video here, premiered 2nite.

Produced by Bob Ezrin. Written by Don Airey, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Simon McBride & Ian Paice.

From their upcoming 24th studio album SPLAT !, out on July 3d.

see ya in Cluj on Oct. 1st !!!

https://btarena.info/event/concert-deep-purple/

tickets here

Iron Maiden -Burning Ambition (2026)

 hell yeah, and yes a film about the Maidens

8.05.2026. watch your cinema screens !!!

now the London premiere was on 

See ya Friday at Coresi -Cinema One in Brasov, it runs there Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 19.00

(also it runs next weekend)

https://www.cinemaone.ro/movie/3292/1/253179#/

Up the Irons !!!! 

Update after the screening (as noted on Letterbox):

Gotta say I expected this for a while so my expctations were Aces High. Seeing all the docs about the Irons, it makes for a nice completion, and great to see it in a cinema theater (*although mostly empty :( but it is more or less a promotional tool for the ongoing tour, more than the coda on the story of the Iron Maiden legend. 

3 1/2 -half star beacuse it ws on the big screen tho-

International BO here.

Romanian box office:

Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition

distributor: Ro Image 2000 1 86 2.285 73.232,46 2.285 73.232,46 2.285 73.232,46 lei

16.459,32 USD

2.285 tickets / 86 screens....

The Lodger (1927)

The Lodger -from Aperitiff 2009 on a a special live music projection 

În The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), Londra e terorizată de un misterios

asasin în serie, numit Răzbunătorul (The Avenger), care ucide blonde în plină şi perpetuă

ceaţă. În acelaşi timp un individ misterios se cazeză în pensiunea familiei Bunting, care

începe să-l suspecteze pe chiriaş că este asasinul mult temut. Protagonistul titular este

Ivor Novello, renumit compozitor, actor şi cîntăreţ în epocă, care şi-a reluat rolul din

acest film mut într-un remake sonor, din 1932 (regia Maurice Elvey). Temele

caracteristice lui Alfred Hitchcock, suspiciune şi vionovăţie, care vor reveni obsedant,

sunt prezente în primul său thriller, cu tuşe expresioniste, care se inspiră din povestea lui

Jack Spintecătorul. Este şi primul film de Hitchcock care se păstrează integral (copia

nouă are 105 minute) şi în care regizorul are un cameo, apariţie devenită apoi trademark.

Versiunea clujeană are 75 de minute şi e acompaniată live de muzica DJ Dubase &

Leizaboy.

Alin Ludu Dumbravă