versiunea 1.3. redux (incl. ROCKLAND & alinland)
all winers here
Palme d'or |
FJORD Kudos !!! next on I guess the Oscars ! |
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 ;)
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...
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 !
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 !
Great new song from some ol' boyz
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
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 !!!!
The Lodger -from Aperitiff 2009 on a a special live music projection
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
The Fortune was then back in 1975 at the time not so fortunate...a good time to revisit now on Jack's 89th BB (Birthday Bash-I hope so...)
For Jack and Warren one of their most obscure films and the only one they did together except Beatty's own REDS...This was Beatty's film trying to greenlit Shampoo (1975) and the studio, Columbia Pictures, made that film in order to get this made and guess which film flopped bigtime...
Directed by Mike Nichols, (shot in summer 1974), it was a huge flop at the time of the relase, the guyz had a lot of fun tho but not also Nichols (!) and the film has way more fun values today !
Plot synopsis: Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder.
via my post from 2007, `You Don't know Jack! on DVD/ updated and in English now:
In The Fortune /Averea in Romanian/1975, Jack joins his buddiest friend Warren Beatty. What they thought they would reissue Some Like it Hot, became Beavis and Butt-head avant la lettre. Or Stan and Bran dadaists. Abbot and Costello meet the Stooges. Without Iggy. With Stockard Channing (nominated for a Golden Globe as a newcomer), who did not become the new Marilyn Monroe. Compared to something like Wedding Crashers, B & B (i.e. Nicholson and Beatty), are rocket scientists. Jack as Oscar plays as madcap as it gets, Beatty as Nicky keeps it dandy,. It's an all-mus-go cynical farce, tango featured, bonus the moustaches. Plus the sexiest movie star chick since Chicken Little the cartoon. Director Mike Nichols had previously made, in 1970, with Jack and Art Garfunkel, Carnal Knowledge and would direct Jack again in Heartburn and Wolf. Nichols had such a bad experience that he didn't make another film for 8 years...:(
Maybe Billy Wilder would've made it better and less chaotic ? Or Blake Edwards' more succesful ?
Written by Carole Eastman, Jack's buddy (wrote 4 films for him and Jerry Schatzberg's Puzzle of a Downfall Child), under the pen name Adrien Joyce.
Shot by master John A. Alonzo (working with Jack after Chinatown, Black Sunday, Scarface). Widescreen 2.35.1, ANAMORPHIC.
Exceptional production design by Richard Sylbert in his last film with Nichols, and with Jack via Chinatown. The villa apartment is the same as in Day of the Locust , 'cos it's the same set, Schlesinger's film is also 1975).
Merry period music and adaptations by David Shire. I Must Be Dreaming is sung by Stockard Channing.
Jack's buddy, Scatman Crothers has a cameo as a fisherman, one of his many in Jack's films (The King of Marvin Gardens, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining).
Another Nicholson great buddy, Harry Dean Stanton has a silent and uncredited cameo at 1h21.
More trivia from wikipedia:
Because the start of principal photography on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was delayed, Jack Nicholson, who had worked with Nichols on Carnal Knowledge, was available for the role of Oscar Sullivan. During filming, the actor was forced to deal with two events that impacted his personal life. First, a fact checker working on a biographical piece for Time discovered that the woman Nicholson believed was his sister was actually his mother, and the woman who raised him was his grandmother. Then his close friend Cass Elliot (mama Cass!) died in her sleep, and rumors about the cause of her death circulated in the media. These two events, linked with the film's eventual failure, made The Fortune a subject that Nicholson never discussed in interviews and biographies.
3 1/2 stars out of 5 / 7 out of 10 !!! (raised it a half-star after that viewing in 2007).
The one and only Jack Nicholson is Today 89 !!!
my Blog series on him here
Retired from acting in 2013 though his Last Film was How Do You Know (2010), where he played a supporting role.
Sae him last on the big screen in the special screening of The Shining in IMAX in Porto. Planning for a long time a screening of Chinatown, now it might be the best time ;)
Happy Birthday Jack !!! Stay Healthy !!!
Tagline: Man is the king of beasts
Uncanny but I watched this because of Kristoffer Borgli's The Drama that features the poster for this specific film. Was curious to see any influences and realised I haven't actully seen this Bergman famous piece from 1969. It's actually better titled originally, as A Passion / En passion.
His first 'real' film in color, brilliantly shot by Sven Nykvist (did I say Brilliantly? ;), masterfully restored in 2016 by the Sweedish Film Institute and thus issued on the Criterion collection, the copy I saw. Third part of "the island trilogy" (Fårö island that is), following Hour of the Wolf and Shamem and shots in the same sets, in only 45 days.
Tough, dark, cruel, bitter to the core, includes these postmodern interviews of actors -Von Sydow, Andersson, Ullmann and Josephson, all four brilliant, all four Bergman ensemble troopers to the core-, that cut into the narrative, no music score, an aloof narrator voiceover (Bergman himself), and I see even an influence on Tarkovski's The Sacrifice.
As character Elis Vergérus (erland Jospehson) observes: ’I don’t imagine that I reach into the soul with this photography. I can only register an interplay of forces, large and small. You look at this picture and imagine things. All is nonsense All play, all poetry. You can’t read another person being with any claim of certainty. Not even pain gives a reaction.’
it can be exactly what the Auteur direktor says.
"This time he was Andreas Winkelman."
Bergman's own notes on the film and more on Bergman's site here.
Mario Adorf, the Swiss cult actor that died on April 8th 2026 was 95. His father was an Italian surgeon, his mother a German nurse.
He acted in over 200 films, played grand theatre, wrote bestsellers. La Piovra's Acidduzzu (for the Romanians), spaghetti westerns (Gli Specialisti/The Specialists), giallos (L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo), polizioteschi (Milano Calibro 9), but also Alfred Matzerath in Die Blechtrommel for the arthouse and posterity. Winner of the Leopard Career Award in 2016.
Cultiest movie: Deadlock (1970)
met him briefly in Cannes in 2013 after the screening of Billy Wilder's Fedora.
https://aldmovieland.blogspot.com/2013/05/c66-mario.html
Cannes 2026 official selection includes the new Cristian Mungiu film, FJORD, his 1st International film, shot in Norway, starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve ! The two Osccar nominated actors were together before in A Different Man (2024). I'm getting Oscar buzz already on this one...
The whole Official Selection, Un Certain Regard, Out of Competition here
It also includes Nicholas Winding Refn's new film, the revenge thriller HER PRIVATE HELL, out of competition.
Also Out of Competition is Andy Garcia's noir DIAMOND, starring Brendan Fraser, Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman.
The Drama (loved the title) has Bergmanesque, Woody Allenesque-through his Bergman love), Nouvelle Vague vibes too- and i must confess I enjoyed it more than the whole Sentimental Value thing. Or overbloated Baumbach's Marriage Story, all due to Bergman's tropes (ther is even a poster for The Passion of Anna, which the writer/director showed his actors in preparation for the shoot). Don't foreget Borgli is a Swede too.
Liked the energy, the humor, the storytelling, the editing, Daniel Pemberton's score, the acting of the two leads-Robert Pattison and Zendaya in her best part yet- imo-they had chemistry.
Dram Scenario was ok, Sick of You was intense, looking forward for more Kristoffer Borgli.
Eagles of the Republic is a terrific political thriller by Tarik Saleh (third part of his Cairo trilogy), about Egypt's political and military machinations involving a film star (Fares Fares, the lead in all three Saleh films and a film star in his own right), caught in the middle of the manipulative crossfire.
Would've been worth more attention in the actual climate, premiered in Cannes last year in competition, and it was Sweden's entry for best foreign film -did not make the short list. Shades of early Costa-Gavras. Also of Das Leben der Anderen. Gave me goosebumps in parallel with what happened in communist Romania and all dictatorships alike.
Great score by Alexandre Desplat on his 1st collaboration with Saleh and great widescreen cinematography by Pierre Aïm (shot on 65 mm, 2.39.1). Pierre Aïm shot also the other two Saleh films in his Trilogy -The Nile Hilton Incident (2017, which I saw at TIFF) and Cairo Conspiracy, aka Boy From Heaven (2022, seen briefly on Romanian screens). Of course this film could not be shot in Egypt, so it is all dressed up in Turkey -great job by Saleh's production design Roger Rosenberg. The director is a very persona non grata in Egypt...
Fun fact: Saleh and Rosenberg shot the action thriller The Contractor (2022) in Bucharest for Berlin !!!
Now in Romanian cinemas -very limited-see it on the big screen !
4 out of 5 / 8 out of 10 !!!
****
the press confrence in Cannes here
and an interview in Variety with the director here
Angine de Poitrine ... this name is showing up all over, today I studied them more and I agree...
Microtonal duo from Quebec. Fantastic. Plus a gimmick they have, playing incognito under weird carnival masks and pointilist costumes ! It seems they are brothers and they play:
"un répertoire d'anti-aréna-rock instrumental cartonneux qui, à la manière de la musique techno, s'articule autour d'un jeu dynamique d'ajout et de retrait de motifs sonores en constante métamorphose."
Khn de Poitrine - Microtonal Guitars
Klek de Poitrine - Drums
check out the whole KEXP concert here.
They describe their music as: "Dada Pythago-Cubist Mantra-Rock".
Here's Rick Beato take on them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO8bt94-ybg
...Missing in Action....
Chuck Norris became legendary through the jokes about him, that he is invincible and imortal. He was Not. But gone now at 86, he was an inspiration to many, especially in the 80's Romania.
I first saw him in the cinema in Breaker ! Breaker !, translated as Orasul fantoma -Ghost town (1977), which I tremember cleartly they had a print in Black and white. Re-saw that on video later on. The battle with the broken bottle stayed vividly in my mind. He had no moustache at the time. Then on video fisrt films I saw was The Way of the Dragon, his first part in the 1972 Bruce Lee film (also directed by Lee), where he battles Lee in the Colosseum. The Colosseum would never be the same again. Oh, yes, for a bit, in Double Team where JCVD, a huge Norris and Lee fan, battles Mickey Rourke again in the Rome Arena.
He was a Karate champion and he became Steve Mc Queen's instructor and McQueen adviced him to go into acting.
Here's some Chuck Norris jokes:
Chuck Norris didn't die, God called him for backup!
Chuck actually died about 15 years ago. Death was too afraid to tell him
Chuck Norris went to Heaven to Judge God for his sins
RIP to the man who can put out a fire with a gallon of gasoline
The man who can beat the sun in a staring contest
The man whose diary is called the Guinness Book of World Records
Phil Campbell was Motorhead's last guitarist, on a series of greats (Larry Wallis, Wurzel, "Fast" Eddie Clarke), survived by only Brian Robertson (70 now).
Official Motorhead announcement:
How to Make a Killing is in cinemas now. This is John Patton Ford's second film. Loved his first effort, Emily the Criminal back in 2022, it made my Top Films list.
This is Film Noir, dark comedy, thriller, and most of all an homage of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1959), the classic Ealing comedy with Alce Guiness es ;), based on the novel , it says on the credits. "Insiperd by" those two.
Also has an 80's air, it's cynical and politically incorrect, stylish and crisp.
Finally a good part for Glen Powell as Becket Redfellow (cool names in this family !), after the huge misfire of new Running Man-Liked the guy in his SNL episode, I think he has more comedic potential than action chops, definetly romantic too.
Margaret Qualley is the bad femme fatale in the story, another good part in her resume after Honey Don't, Drive-Away Dolls, Kinds of Kindness, Poor Things, The Substance. I first liked her in Once Upon A Time in...Hollywood.
Jessica Henwick is the romantic interest, Ruth. Bill Camp has a nice part as Warren Redfellow, also Topher Grace as one of the Redfellows (Steven) and Zach Woods (from Sillicon Valley) another one (Noah). Also Ed Harris' part as the patriarch Whitelaw Redfellow is more like a cameo, but he's effective as ever.
Amazingly enough this was shot in South Africa instead of New York and New Jersey !!!
Great score by Emile Mosserri and effective soundtrack-The Clapping Song (Shirley Ellis) , the Brazilian classic Take Me Back to Piaui by Juca Chaves, No Fear by Inflo, etc.
