The Dog Stars (2026)

Ridley's newest pic, The Dog Stars, is as close to a western as he ever did get to. A post-apocalyptic story, it's a very intimist film, 1 character, a dog, two characters, three characters, that's it. Oh, and a Cessna 1956 plane. Major character. 

Greatness, no zombies or super powered mutants or carnivorous plants. 

Now if you already read the reviews which I can't understand...? Worst ever for a Scott film??

The film is very slow and it builds atmosphere gradually. The three acts are separated smoothly. The landscape, the nature is another silent character, the green, the mountains vs. The Wasteland.

Incredibly the whole film was shot in Italy, with the Grand Junction sets built at Cinecitta. DOP is Erik Mesermschmit, David Fincher's later collaborator, here in his 1st cinema fare with Scott (he worked before with RS on TV's Raised by Wolves and The Dope Thief).

Comparisons with The Last of Us or The Walking Dead are wrong, closer is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. 

The Dog Stars is based on the 2012 book by Peter Heller and the script is by Mark L  Smith who wrote The Revenant.

Harry Gregon-Williams composed the score, which is part elegiac, part menacing, it's his 7th for a Scott film.

The soundtrack has also value, from opening credits in Hosier, to Van Morrison (Tupelo Honey), to the end in The Chieftains and Mick Jagger.

There is a most poetic scene at the end with the "mormons"countryfair that transcends Ridley Scott's cinema, an optimic message in a post-apocalyptic world.

To be seen on the Big Screen.

The IMAX thing is a gimmick tho.

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

The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024)

The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024) id the 2nd film of New Zeelander James Ashcroft. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: meets Bubbahotep (without the mummy ;) and Misery. Rush and especillay Lihgow are a blast, one of Lithgow's best. Stellar acting. Not for the faint of heart ;)

TBC 

RIP Tim Curry

Tim Curry aka Dr Frank-N-furter, on stage since 1973 !

Curry was 80, he had a stroke in 2012 and sice then did mostly voiceover work.

Quintessential as Dr. Frank-N-Furter the Transexual Vampyre from Transylvania in the cult movie that invented the Midnight Movie Madness, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), also featuring Meat Loaf. 

also:

The Dark Lord in Ridley Scott's superb Legend (1985), under heavy prosthetics make-up (over 6 hours if work).

Long John Silver in The Muppet Trasure Island

Wadsworth in Clue )1985)

The clown from It (1990), the original Pennywise

Dr Petrov in The Hunt for the Red October opposite Sir Sean Connery...

And the infamous Romanian con Herkemer Homolka, 'at last freed from Ceausescu's chains' from the very bad guilty pleasure movie Congo (1995, Frank Marshall).  I guess the neme came from Oskar Homolka ?

"While filming Congo, I sat on top of a Volcano talking to Tim Curry..." - Bruce Campbell said about sitting on top of a volcano talking with Tim Curry.

Curry earned three Tony nominations and a Daytime Emmy and released three musical albums in his career.

RIP Dolly Parton

 The great and unique Dolly Parton is gone...The 'Queen of Country" was 80 ! 

She did 9 to 5 and beyond....

Her last album was also her first Rock album, at 77 in 2023. entitled of course, Rockstar, with many famed collaborators and evergreen Rock songs . It made my Top Albums of 2023 list.

RockStar. as a true one she was...

All album listening party here.

found out this:

and now this:

She had a huge hit with Kenny Rogers in 1982, composed by the Bee Gees, called Islands on the Stream. 

On Rockstar there is the Bygones song, sung together with Rob Halford from Judas Priest.

Coming Home in the Dark (2021)

 Coming Home in the Dark

another New Zeeland bleak vision of a world gone f888d...

debut

 A Gem 

one of the best i've seen recently...

TBC

RIP Nick Glennie-Smith

 RIP Nick Glennie-Smith 

The Rock with Hnas Zimmer & Harry Gregson-Williams

point of no return -American Nikita 

etc....

RIP Frank Beard

Frank Beard, the ZZ Top drummer for 57 years (!) has died at 77. The Texas power-blues band was formed in 1969 and stayed together until Bass player Dusty Hill died in 2021. It's still the longest running band in history with the original line-up (51 years!!!). 

Then Billy Gibbons and Beard continued with a new bass player. 

Frank Beard was the only ZZ Top member to not have a beard, well he wore one on his name... RIP...

more here.

                                                                   I Thank You...

Last In, First Out / L'ordre et la sécurité du monde (1978)

Last In, First Out / L'ordre et la sécurité du monde (1978)   

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).

                                                           All the film here !

3 out of 5 / 6 out of 10 !

What a Way to Go! (1964)

 What A Cast!... What A Past!... What A Show!...

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.;)

4 out of 5 ! 8 out of 10 !!!

RIP Vincent Pastore

Pussy is no more...Vincent Pastore played most famously Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero on the HBO drama series The Sopranos, for which he got a Screen Actors Guild Award. 

He was also in Scorsese's Goodfellas and the HBO film Gotti. He was 80...

In Bruges (2008)

 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 Fargo in the same TIFF retrospective of black comedies), with whom McDonagh began a wonderful collaboration that continued throughout all of his subsequent films.

Like Fargo, In Bruges was never released theatrically in Romania at the time.

Alin Ludu Dumbravă

Cape Fear (2026)

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 !!!

2 out of 5, 4 out of 10 !

Her Private Hell (2026)

NWR originals -Refn 's comeback ? more like Refn's goodbye...or His Private Hell instead of Her Private Hell !

10 years ago he divided the cinema world last time with The Neon Demon, then he antagonised execs with his streaming fares, Copenhagen Cowboy for Netflix, which of course never got renewed..

Now he was in Cannes (out of competition with the worst reviews of his career) and is in Romanian theaters (very Limited, brave Bad Unicorn release), even with his new UFO, Her Private Hell.

Now, I wished I liked this, but no... fell asleep almost. 

Well the film is a dream, a dream within a dream, with dream logic and nightmares. It's supposedly concieved after Refn had a clinical death of 25 minutes in 2023...

Mist, The Letherman, Metropolis and crystals, models who can't act, yakuza and choreographed empty fights, disco inferno, lesbianism, incest. A Refn original ;) 

mixing giallo, B Sf & japanese action/yakuza films (Seijun Suzuki?).

Again the Hans Christian Andersen trauma, the girl with the matches...

visuals of Barbarella, Diabolik and Flash Gordon ?  Terrore nello spazio / aka Planet of the Vampires ?Tron meets Suspiria and other Argento fares (defenestration) ? Technicolor by Bava ?

He's trying Lynch's tricks, from Lost Highway and Mullholand Drive, but he's getting zilch. 

acting level is subzero...Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, gorgeously photographed but used as cardboard models. 

the letragic pacing goes lethal, the film comes alive on the neon visuals only when there's music.

So, the only redeeeming quality of the film is the score by Pino Donnagio, an eerie, elegiac beautiful (Herrmannesque, there is some Vertigo in it) score that stands out and it's one of his best, together with the ones for De Palma. It would be ironic if Donaggio reworked some of his rejected score for De Palma's Snake Eyes (1999).

The disco synth pop is not by Donnagio but by Refn's collaborator Julian Winding (Dolce mio).

https://fictionhorizon.com/her-private-hell-budget-breakdown-how-nicolas-winding-refns-costly-gamble-struggled-at-the-box-office/

2 out of 5 / 4 out of 10 !

Buddy Guy @90 !!! LMA !!!

Buddy Guy is 90 today !!!! Most Legendary bluesman alive and recently with a great part in the film Sinners !!!

his most recent NPR concert: featuring Miles Caton from the film Sinners

                                                     Damn Right I've Got the Blues !!!

Dolce Far Niente (1998) now in cinemas !

After Nae Caranfil completed his second film, Asphalt Tango, in 1996, he received an invitation to make a production in Italy: an ambitious period biopic about a supposed meeting between Stendhal and Rossini. Dolce Far Niente, in 1998. Based on Frédéric Vitoux's novel La Comédie de Terracina, winner of the French Academy Prize, the film is a blend of comedy and drama about the condition of the artist confronted with worldly frivolity and the unconscious enthusiasm of revolution and conspiracy.

The film, which came out at the time with spectacularly bad timing, following Beaumarchais (1996), was not a great success in France or Italy, so it never had a theatrical release in Romania, going straight to pay TV, on HBO, where I had the honour of producing its on-air promotion in 1999. :) In the meantime, I've learned that it has also been broadcast on Cinemaraton TV.

                                                                — original poster —

A superb cast: François Cluzet is Stendhal, Isabella Ferrari is Joséphine, Margherita Buy is Countess Gabriella Nencini, Giancarlo Giannini is Count Nencini, Pierfrancesco Favino is Rossini. Caranfil had a lucky hand with the casting; the careers of the film's actors are still shining today.

The cinematography is by another Romanian, Cristian Comeagă, Nae Caranfil's collaborator on his first four films, up to Philanthropy, while the score is wonderful, composed by the renowned Nicola Piovani.

The 4K restored print premiered at TIFF in 2024, when I, too, saw it on the big screen for the first time. Now, however, it is in cinemas, remastered, like a brand-new film. And it has held up even better than it did at the time of its original release!

Do yourselves a favour and see it in the cinema now! It's worth it!

In Brașov, it is playing at Cinema One until Thursday inclusive, at 1:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.

Alin Ludu Dumbravă

Dolce Far Niente (1998) acum în cinema !

După ce Nae Caranfil a terminat al doilea lui film, Asfalt Tango, în 1996, a urmat o invitaţie, pentru a face o producție în Italia, un biopic de epocă ambiţios, despre o presupusă întîlnire între Stendhal şi Rossini. Dolce far Niente, în 1998. Bazat pe romanul Comedia de la Terracina de Frédéric Vitoux, premiat de Academia Franceză, filmul este un melanj de comedie şi dramă, despre condiţia artistului faţă de frivolitatea mondenă şi entuziasmul inconştient al revoluţiei şi conspiraţiei.

Filmul, care a ieșit în epocă într-un bad timing copios, după Beaumarcahis (1996), nu  avut mare succes în Franța și Italia așa că nu a avut premiera în cinama în România ci direct pe pay tv, la HBO, unde am avut onoarea de a-i face promo-ul în 1999 :). Între timp am înțeles că s-a mai dat pe Cinemaraton TV.

                                                         - afișul original -

O distribuție superbă, François Cluzet e Stendhal, Isabella Ferrari e Josephine, Margherita Buy e contesa Gabriella Nencini, Giancarlo Giannini Contele Nencini, Pierfrancesco Favino e Rossini, Caranfil a avut mînă bună, carierele actorilor din film stralucesc și azi.

Imaginea e semnată de alt român, Cristian Comeagă, colaboratorul lui Nae Caranfil la primele 4 filme, pînă la Filantropica, iar muzică e minunată, compusă de renumitul Nicola Piovani.

Copia restaurată în 4K , premiera nouă la TIFF în 2024, atunci cînd l-am văzut și eu pentru prima dată pe marele ecran. Acum însă e în săli, remasterat, ca un film nou-nouț. Și se ține mai bine ca la vremea premierei !

Faceți-vă un serviciu și vedeți-l acum în cinema ! Merită ! 

La Brașov rulează la Cinema One până joi inclusiv, de la 13.15 și 18.15.

RIP Chuck Russell

 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)

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...

the Romanian version is here !

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.

4 Stars out of 5 - 8 out of 10 !

Alin Ludu Dumbravă

Victime de război / Casualties of War (1989)

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 !

cronica în engleză aici

1966. 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.
1967. 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.

2006. 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.

Alin Ludu Dumbravă

4 stele din 5, 8 din 10 !!!

Sleeping Dogs (1977)

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. 

 3 1/2 out of 5, 7 out of 10 !