The Drama (2026)

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 (2025)

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 

Project Hail Mary (2026)

`Fist my bump.`

Project Hail Mary is the Feel Good science fiction film of the year, decade, and more, a hopeful unlikely buddy film well done, with winks to 2001, Intersellar, ET, Close Encounters of 3d kind and of course Rocky ;).
Ryan Gosling is at his most charismatic and Rocky is a hoot ! 
Import Deutch Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall, Zone of Interest), does a good job, and also karaoke ;)
Nice songs on the soundtrack (Kris Kristofferson, The Beatles, Dennis Wilson, Ike and Tina Turner) and effective score by Daniel Pemberton. It does what Mission 2 Mars and The Martian (also based on an Andy Weir book) did not manage to do, meanwhile touching the Grace ;)

See it on IMAX if you can, all the space sequences are shot in the format.


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

How to Make a Killing (2026)

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. 

7 out of 10 / 3 1/2 out of 5 ! 

The Secret Agent wins at Spirit Awards !

O Agente Secreto wins at best International Film at Spirit-the Independent Film Awards !!! Good luck at the Oscars !

See it in a Cinema !!! In Romania from 27.02.2026 ! 

Featuring the last role of the great late Udo Kier !!!

Full winners list here  / Train Dreams scored big !

Later Edit: Unfortunately the film was snubbed bigtime at the Oscars....

Crime 101 (2026)

Crime 101 is a little LA neo-noir gem directed by the Brit Bart Layton (American Animals).  Heist, angst, existentialism, it's based on a novella by Don Winslow (Savages).  The title refers to the 101 Freeway in Southern California, entering Los Angeles, and the faved heist location of the blue-eyed Thief Davis  (Chris Hemsworth, reminiscent of another Michael Mann pic, Blackhat). 

The ensemble casting is cool:  Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro,  Jennifer Jason Leigh (more like a cameo cos she has only one scene, surely cut for time), and Nick Nolte in a part sim lliar with Jon Voight's in Heat.

Produced by Working Title Films, Crime 101 was bought by Amazon MGM, outbidding Netflix,. which is great cos they also distributed in Theaters (through Sony).

Mostly a Heat homage, plus elements from Mann's Thief, Walter Hill's The Driver, even a scene fromTrue Romance ;)

A nice conversation on Steve McQueen and the iconic Mustang from Bullit add on. 

See in in the cinema, it's great widescreen and sound and score-  Blanck Mass. 

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

Islands (2025)

 Islands is an odd piece, film noir under the sun, actually much at dusk. Shot all in location in Corralejo, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain, it premiered at Berlinale 2025 as a Special Presentation.

The director is German,  Jan-Ole Gerster (also co-writer), the actors are Brits, Sam Riley, Stacy Martin and Jack Farthing.  Shades of Ripley  (Highsmith's) and Hitchcock. Well acted, existential slowburn anti noir ;). Atmospheric score and sound design. 

see it in a cinema, if you still catch it !

 3 1/2 out of 5, 7 out of 10 !

Top films of 2025

Tough cookie, lost count of how many films I've seen. Less than probably any year. Over 200, less than 300 ? More ? I started to put them on Letterboxed starting late October but still didn't catch up with the rest.

***

Top of the series is here and films from 2024 are again a problem, The Brutalist and The Substance should've make the 2025 list, as there still are some of 2025 which I haven't seen yet (Hamnet,-saw it,. did not like at all- Resurrection, Sound of Falling ?). Marty Supreme would make Top 5 but I've seen it in Januaray 2026. 

Top Ten  soundtracks here. 

Just caught up with Park Chan-Wook's No Other Choice that makes the list. It's limited in Romanian Cinemas now, so try to see it on the big screen, it's worthy.

Kinda disappointed with Romanian Cinema this year too. I liked Kontinental '25 and that's it. Could 've been also Jude's Dracula but he made it such an intentional mess and duration wise a whole calvary...

But disappointments of the year: the new Running Man by Edgar Wright. And the last Mission: Impossible. Hopefully...Oy...

Top 5 -alphabetically:

all that's clickable as links are my "reviews"

Eddington -Ari Aster

O agente secreto-Kleber Mendonça Filho

One Battle After Another -Paul Thomas Anderson

Sinners -Ryan Cooglar

Sirat -Oliver Laxe

new entry on Jan. 2th 2026:   No Other Choice

Marty Supreme -also in Jan. 2026

Almost Famous ;) -also alphabetically:

Ballad of a Small Player -Edward Berger

Bugonia -Yorgos Lanthimos

Caught Stealing -Darren Aronofsky

Father Mother Sister Brother -Jim Jarmusch

Frankenstein -Guillermo del Toro

In the Hand of Dante -Julian Schnabel 

Nouvelle Vague -Richard Linklater

Nuremberg -James Vanderbilt

The Materialist -Kelly Reichardt

The Phoenician Scheme-Wes Anderson

Tornado - John McLean

Train Dreams- Clint Bentley

Warfare -Alex Garland & Ray Mendoza

Nicolas Cage Award of the Year:  The Surfer  (d. by Lorcan Finnegan) 2024 !

Horror:

28 years Later-Danny Boyle 

Together -Michael Shanks

Weapons -Zach Cregger

Good Boy- Ben Leonberg

The Monkey-Osgood Perkins

Dangerous Animals -Sean Byrne

The Gorge -Scott Derrickson

The Long Walk -Francis Lawrence

The Substance -2024, Coralie Fargeat

Keeper -Osgood Perkins

Comedy:

even weaker as it is, still good fun !!!

This is Spinal Tap 2:  The End Continues by the late Rob Reiner....

Bunny -Ben Jacobsen 

an indie, punkish NY film in the best way, kinetic, quirky, funny, dark comedy, punkimprovised, irreverent. Cool punk songs too.

Documentary:

Soundtrack for a coup d'etat -2024-Johan Grimonprez

the doors -When You're Strange- - Tom DiCillo, from 2009 but remastered in Cinema limited

pink floyd at pompei -1972. Adrian Mabel, remastered in Cinema limited

Devo -2024, Chris Smith   -netflix

Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) 2025/ Questlove   -netflix

Catch-Up -Four Aces:

Pale Flower- Masashiro Shinoda-1964 

La Traque -1975 Serge Leroy

The Childhood of a Leader -2015 Brady Corbet

Finalmente l'alba - Saverio Costanzo -2023, on which I wrote: 

Rome and Cinecitta 1953. More like a drreamlike story, a false thriller, homage to Fellini and La Dolce Vita, Notti di Cabiria, and linked to a real muder cold case known as the Italian Black Dahlia. Interesting slow film, in the Venice Competition in 2023. Modern beat score, strange and eerie. Song Last Nite by The Stokes (2011) on the end credits. 

3 1/2 out of 5

No Other Choice (2025)

1st film I saw on 2026 it's one of the best of 2025 and one of Park Chan-wook's best. No Other Choice aka Eojjeolsuga eobsda.  It's also the offical Korean Submission for Best International film at the Oscars and it's nominated for 3 Golden Globes Awards. No Other Choice premiered in the 2025 Venice Film Fest Competition. It won Best Director in Sitges FF. 

It's limited in Romanian Cinemas now, so try to see it on the big screen, it's worthy. Just peropeare for slower development, the film has 2h19 mins.

I follow the Korean director for 25 years, ever since he came to Bucharest with his 1st feature, JSA (Joint Security Area) at the 1st Festasia fest edition.  That was before Oldboy, Mr. and Mrs. Vengeance, Thirst, Handmaiden and Stoker. Saw most of his oeuvre, also the HBO series The Sympathiser, so I can say that this one it's one of his best. 

Lee Byung-hun who is South Korean leading man is here a Paper Man, formerly "Pulp Man of the Year 2019." He was also in PCWook's JSA, in A Bittersweet Life, Squid Game series, even in G.I. Joe. He gets back at working with PCW after 25 years. Here he is a plain family man, with a desperate will to get back to his job that was downsized.  Son Ye-jin is great too as his wife Miri, and so is the son Si-one and the daughter Ri-One- playing cello. And the two dogs (Si-Two and Ri-Two). And all the supporting characters. Great supporting characters !

It's a Korean Le Coupert / The Axe, based on Donald  E.Westlake 1997 novel. It was made before by Costa-Gavras in 2005 as The Ax, a great black comedy, merciless, starring José Garcia. But Wook-Chan goes even further in absurdity and satire. He co-wrote this with Don McKellar, they worked together before on The Sympathiser. The film is produced by Costa-Gavras family and it's dedicated to the Greek director, who kept the rights of the novel and gave them to Park Chan. The film was supposed to be in English first (starting 2009) but kept developing.

Via IMDB: During a live discussion with Costa-Gavras at the 2019 Busan International Film Festival, Park told audiences that he was still working on his adaptation of Westlake's novel. The film was described by Park as a "lifetime project" and that while he hadn't begun filming it yet, he wished "to make this film as my masterpiece." Gavras, who still held the rights to the book, had helped Park to develop the project. The film was set to be an English-language picture, with Don McKellar co-writing the script alongside Park.

The design is fabulous too, from the bonsai and the greenhouse to the seasons change, going from summer to winter (it was shot in a period of five months, from August 2024 to January 2025). The colors are very important for the transitions and the story. Impeccable widescreen (2.35 : 1) cinematography  (by Kim Woo-hyung who worked before with the director on The Little Drummer Girl series) and editing (Kim Sang-bum, Park's editor since JSA), adding to the plot points and directing. 

Great score too, and great idea of a cello subplot, by Chan-wook Park's collaborator, Cho Young-Wuk.  The score includes incidental classical music, Mozart piano concerto (no. 23!), Marin Marais and pop hits, Korean and American (Hold On I'm Coming by Sam and Dave -1966), edited and directed on camera (one set-piece might as well be the best Cinema scene of 2025!-and the funniest -with subtitles too ;).

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

“I've always been trying to follow the footsteps of the great masters of cinema, most of whom have passed away today. I've tried very hard to reach their level. And I think in certain scenes or certain films, I might have reached a similar level, but there's still a very long way to go. So, when I think about how many more films I can make for the rest of my life, I feel very rushed.”

Park Chan-wook 

*the screenplay of the film in English can be found here !!! 

Nuremberg (2025)

 Nuremberg, to be seen in theaters. 

My favorite actor for the next Oscars would be Russell Crowe in an all-time high career role as Hermann Göring in this WW2 courtroom drama based on the real events pd the Trial at Nuremberg. His opponent in the film is Rami Malek as the shrink Hermann Göring in a weird casting choice. Screenwriter James Vanderbilt's 2nd feature has great production values (shot in Hungary for 7.5 mill. $ !!!), sets, costumes, supporting cast (John Slattery, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, Colin Hanks,   Andreas Pietschmann as Rudolf Hess), dramatic music by Brian Tyler and great widescreen cinematography by Dariusz Wolski. Bsed on  Jack El-Hai's book,  "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist".

For many too academic, long (2h30 -I'd say Epic), ut a worthwhile dramatic story with a new take, worthy to be told TODAY.

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

The Running Man (2025)

The new Running Man, is not a remake pre se of the Ahnuld 1987 vehicle, but a more faithful adaptation of Stephen King as Richard Bachman novel, written in 1973, published in 1982. That novel happened in the year 2025 and actually today it happens, with the Squid Game series and a Korean Reality show named exactly Running Man. So Ben Richards is in a banal world, becoming more real every day. I mean, it's like Y-day news after the Hunger Games series and all the Tv/straming fare of this kind. 

Running man is of course influenced by Rollerball, which still stands up as one of the best film of its era (not the shitty unnecesaary reamke) it's even worse tha n its remake.

Everyone's commenting, oh, it's an Edgar Wright film. Ok, that is like a certified value for a big budget blockbuster Sf action  (110 mill. $). surely not. I was also very dispointed by Lst Night in Soho, his take in gialllos, very pretentios and shallow. The most action Wright directed was in Baby Driver, which I enjoyed most of his all films, and he's better in making quirky, funny, heartfelt little films, not Hollywood fodder.

Also Glen Powell, which I've just seen in the lastest SNL edition, can't carry the film., at all. Not a problem with the guy and he tries hard but neh.

This would've worked as a Snake Plissken adventure, like Escape fromn the Dome. I guess Wright gave a few nods to John Carpenter. 

There's also a problem with the duration which is overlong, 2h13 min, oi, the film doesn't start until we get to the show and no matter how good Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo are, they can't help much.

Also this world, used and dirty, used to cost less to produce on the screen. Here they went to Bulgaria for exteriors and day shots. Somehow doesn't look like America. The rest of it was hot at Warner Bros' studios in England.

Now for the music, unimpressive loud score by Steven Price. And as Edgar Wright ia great fan of songs to use on the soundtrack (yeah, great in Baby Driver), here most of them are wasted. Rolling Stones'  Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), Sly and the Family Stone (Underdog)-on the main credits, Iggy and the Stooges (Search and Destroy), The Allman Brothers (Revival) , Miles Davis (Red China Blues) and Tom Jones (Keep on Running) on the end credits. Including a riff of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (last heard appropiately in One Battle After Another). And Jamie XX, far from my desk ;)

It's been Stephen King's year all over, from Life of Chuck to Welcome to Derry, the IT prequel that runs now on HBO MAX, MGM's The Institute series, passing through The Monkey and another Bachman opus, The Long Walk (which I liked best of these all, my review here). 

Wright's film is full of King references /Easter eggs for the eyes of King's fans and King himself, credited as an executive producer. Of course King was happy with the film, as I know his tastes in film (ex: how much he hated Kubrick's The Shining and managed to to a sequel just to get rid of that Kubrick hangover, I don't care so much about what he likes or does not cinematically...hey, what about that Maximum Overdrive? 

2 1/2 out of 5 

*I opened recently a Letterboxed account in order to write down the films I see which I hardly can here, and my "reARviews" will be isssued there. Same ratings apply. 

One Battle After Another (2025)

"Snap Crackle Pop"

French 75 resurges for one last call...Do you remeber the code ? "What time is it?" / It's Time for REVOlution (again ?)

One Battle After Another is Paul Thomas Anderson's biggest film to date (you dpon't wanna know the budget, out of which a quarter is Leo's salary..). Most expected and already lauded as film of the year. Sean Penn is in for an Oscar nod surely-best supposting. Di Caprio does a OUIH bit imo. He's like Rick Dalton playing the fried brains revolutionary recluse Bob Ferguson aka Ghetto" Pat. Benicio Del Toro is also superfunny as the Sensei, shades of him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...but Sean Penn's performance as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw is surreal. One for the books !

Chase Infiniti's big screen debut as Bob and Perfidia's daughter Willa is intense. Special mention to Eric Schweig as Avanti. 

Plus the Christmas Adventurers Club, man, kudos for this one off ;)

I'd call this No Country For Any One...

It's a relentless ride, shot beautifully on 35 mm film in VistaVision (second film in this format in this century, after The Brutlalist), by Michael Bauman (his second film with PTA after Licorice Pizza), his first feature credit ! 

The film should be read through his soundtrack -I mean the overall score, again by Jonny Greenwood, his faithfull composer, this time a psychotronic overpulsating paroxistic one. I expect his Oscar next March.

The soundtrack includes great songs, from Steely Dan (Dirty Work), to Jackson Five (Ready Or Not Here I Come), Tom Petty's American Girl on the end credits (you will know why, "she was raised with Promises"), Ella Fitzgerald and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, thge classic and still subversive Gil Scott-Heron proto-rap from 1970, which plays a role also in the plot. 

Thomas Pynchon's book Vineland (1990) was the inspiration of PTA, who did a crazy looney tones political bonanza. Reminde me a lot of Eddington. It's somehow PTA's funniest film to date. Some bits reminiscent of the weed haze of Inherent Vice, his adaptation of Pynchon's other counterculture book.

There is also a big connection (and inspiration) with Gillo Pontecorvo's revolutionary classic Batle of Algiers (1966). 

Epic duration, 2h41, but it goes fast, on this one I would've liked to be even longer, more Christmas Adventureres,  Billy Goat, Beegee, Comrade Josh and Talleyrand.

The film is dedicated to Adam Somner, the legendary second unit director (Gladiator, Phantom Thread) and producer of 5 of PTA's films from There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice, Licorice Piza to this last, OBATA. Somner died last year in November after completing this film...

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

*Defintely it's a film that you can revisit, plus very TODAY in the actual political climate. 

The Long Walk (2025)

"Walk or Die"

Francis Lawrence never struck me as an auteur director. The Long Walk is his closest to a a personal filmmaking effort.

Constantine was probably his best flick, the man directed tons and tons of music videos, a sh***y version of I Am Legend, Red Sparrow, four Hunger Games, those probably qualifying him for this film. 

Stephen King's novel The Long Walk was published in 1979 under the name Richard Bachman, same as The Running Man, Rage, etc. 

It is set in a dystopic America, as in Hunger Games or recently in Civil War, in which young men participate in a race, without stops, until one remains. Same principle as Turkey Shoot or The Running Man (which was remade this year).  You have to keep walking at 3mph, steadily. You get only three warnings, one erased per hour if you march on.

The camera moves and moves and moves all along with the protagonist. The whole film is in movement. Belgian cinematographer Jo Willems, who worked with Lawrence on his Hunger Games films and Red Sparrow shot the film anamorpically on 2.39.1. The whole thing was shot in Manitoa, Canada, for 20 mill. $. 

The ensemble young actors are convincing, it helps they are not known. They are all called by their numbers. Cooper Hoffman (#47 / Licorice Pizza), David Jonsson (#23, Alien: Romulus), Garrett Wareing (# 38/ God is a Bullet), Charlie Plummer (#5 / All the Money in the World). Mark Hammil does a career best villain as The Major. Judy Greer is the only woman in the cast, as Cooper Hoffman's mother. The racial aspect, white, black, white, white, Asian, Indian. Let's say that is not the "woke" or globalism problem, welll, no Mexicanos, hispanics. 

Problem is the language, they all swear non stop, I guess they said, oh, it's Rated R so we can swear all the time we want. But f**k every three words is gratuitous to say the least, and they all talk the same swearing game, the boys as well as the major.

Script by J.T. Mollner (Strange Darling), the lastest on a series of aborted adpatations, from George A. Romero to Frank Darabont. 

Pulsing and dramatic score by Jeremiah Fraites, end titles have a country/Americana song composed for the film by   Shaboozey & Stephen Wilson Jr.- Took a Walk (not on the soundtrack). A rendition of Oh My Darling Clementine is sung by the boys at Mile 260 !!!

Reminded me of the WW2 war films, Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965) in particular. And as they were running, of the final run of Black Hawk Down. 

7 out of 10 / 3.5 out of 5 !!!

*would've been more but I'd cut 15 min from the 108 min. running time, it loses its rhythm and has repetitions, most of the 50 "walkers" are just extras (in King's original there were 100 participants). 

The premise is as absurd as it gets and you got to believe it, also the lenght of the march is beyond belief... 

Weapons (2025)

2.17.

From Zach Cregger,  the author of Barbarian comes one of the most interesting horror films of the year. 

Magnolia  (as mentioned as an influence by the director- I'll go with Robert Altman ;) meets Suspiria meets Village/ Children of the Damned. Maybe also some Twin Peaks ;)

Weapons is a gimmicky horror black comedy told in 6 chapters.

It starts with a rendition of George Harrison's 1970 song Beware of Darkness. 

The keyword is WITCH. 

loved the lettering of the title in the night sky.

Amy Madigan is a standout but the pic is an acting ensemble gem. My faved tho is Austin Abrams as James, a wink to characters like Silent Bob.

Cregger also co-wrote the music, atmospheric and effective, together with Ryan and Hays Holladay (who did also songs for Barbarian).

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

*for me the seventh chapter (left out) would've been a plus, I guess...(the back story of the witch)

LE: check comment below ;)

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

 The Phoenician Scheme (2025) is Wes Anderson's 12th feature (out of 12, 2 films are animations), presented at the 78th Cannes film festival in the Official Competition. 

The New Yorker review here

It's supposed to be a film dedicated by the writer-director to his daughter, a more emotional relationship of characters and less parodic as in his other films.

A lot of in-house references and cyphres, even more and obscure than before. From the name of the character, Zsa Zsa (Gabor), Korda (the famous filmmaking brothers), to Casablanca, Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin, Max Ophuls shots, Igor Stravinski & Mussorsky-Ravel, Pierre-August Renoir's painting (that was owned by Greta Garbo). Black Narcissus nurse included ;) The score is again by the great Alexandre Desplat, on his seventh collaboration with WA, in a synchopatic sound and beat very similar to the music from The Grand Hotel Budapest (the best Wes Anderson film for my money).  What is new is the cinematographer, Bruno Dellbonnel's first film with WA. Top set & production design (done again at Babelsberg studios, where the Grand Budapest Hotel was shot) by Adam Stockhausen and cool costumes by the legendary Milena Canonero.

Za-Zsa Korda (genius name !) Benicio Del Toro chews scenery, actually he machetes it, in a part half inspired by Howard Hughes, part Groucho Marx. Matthieu Amalric (Marseille Bob !!! -Bob le flambeur ?) plays Peter Lorre and Jeffrey Wright (Marty- "man") is the epitomy f cool !

IMO Benedict Cumberbatch (uncle Nubar) looks like from Feulliade's Fantomas or any silnet films villains, with a fake beard and diabolic eyes (Jack Lemmon in Blake Edwards' The Great Race too?). Also Michael Cera's Bjorn accent is far far out. The Monty Python affiliation is automatic.

If you know Wes Anderson's favorite films and directors, you know there is not much Americanism in him. He might be the most European Art-house American director. Also he is starting to live completely in his own MU (movie universe), like latter Fellini, Roy Andersson, etc. Is that a good thing, or a Phoenician scheme ;) ?

All in all, 7 out of 10 /3 1/2 out of 5 (could've been 10 mins. shorter) and the Black and white Bunuelian mocking Bergman (or Pasollini ?) sequences (except the Bill Murray cameo as God). Too much of mannerism, tends to deja-vu/veja-du ?. 

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

When you have a 400 mill. $ budget you can make the best and bigger film ever made. 

But instead you make a bloated overbearing part 2 to an enuff bloated Mission: Impossible 7: Dead Reckoning (my review here), film that came out in 2023 and disappointed bigtime performing. Keep in mind that movie cost 300 Mill. $ to make. That film was 2h43, this one is 2h49. Add the running times, 'cos basically it's the same film, and it's an almost 6 hours film which could've easily be told in 2hrs. 

so, part 8 it is. No more Dead Reckoning part 2 but A grand finale, as they promised to spare us to do more. The Final Reckoning.  hopefully last.

It's all Tom Cruise. Tom cruise on a plane, TC running (doing what he does best!), TC underwater, TC fighting, TC, TC, TC. 1st Mission was a masterpiece, done by Brian De Palma with the help of 4 screenwriters working their heads off. Then John Woo made TC the coolest there is. Then the next two films, meh. When Chirstopher McQuarrie, screenwriter of The Usual Suspects and attached director to Tom Cruise, took the Mission on its fifth installament it was a cool update. Hitchcock, opera set-up, more paranoia and a lot more running. Rogue Nation was good, Fallout (the 6th) was even better. Plus they were linked. But M:I 8 wants to link all Missions, especially to the original. So, Kitteridge is now the chief of CIA and you get to see that Shea Wigham is the son of Jon Voight (c'mon) and Rolf Saxon shows up 29 years later as William Donloe, from M:I 1996. Actually that was cool, cos it takes a funny line which is a Brian De Plama trademark wink and puts it into the film's reality. In act 3 the film looks like a poor pastiche of Indiana Jones, all geared up in a cave looking to kill The Entity (worst villain of 'em all if you ask me). The plot is ludicrous and it's repeated every ten minutes, every person speaking one at the time, no ever overlapping, like you're in grade A in school. Also an over-the-top pounding soundtrack which replaces Lorne Balfe with his disciples, two eager newcomers (Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey), and they fill the space completely, no scene should not have music and booming sound effects. Plus ADHD editing and curved camera shots. And TC running , oh yeah, did I mention that again? 

Well the world's fate depends on him more than it ever did of James Bond, Indy or Jack Ryan. He's the JC figure, the only one that can saves it. "It is written" (in the script I guess in Italics...)

Also a film made with the support of Department of Defense that gave these people airplane carriers so they can quote from Tom Gun, doesn't impresses me. The dooming feel these days it's not from AI but from the top of the White House and his omonim in Moscow. 

3 out of 5, 6 out of 10 !

*the rating would be even lower if it wouldn't be for the impressive underwater sequence and the plane stunt. Remember, a movie star acts and entertains, we don't go to the movies to see them doing superhuman stunts we don't care about. It's called Moviemagic and movie tricks are doing that, you don't have to sell every film you're in piloting your own, driving fast motorcycles. You're no Steve Mc Queen...

a good review writing what I think also in The Detroit News: Mission Failed. 

Sinners (2025)

"Dance with the Devil"

Sinners is an unexpected mix of black Americana, Southern Gothic horror, vampire fare, legends and racial tale told on Blues rhythms and chords. With a twist of folk-lore, religion and superstition. And Blues. Did I say Blues ?

It's also an epic western (epic on scope and duration, 2hr. 17 min.), the deal with the devil, Robert Johnson's style, KKK and moonshine in 1932's Louisiana.

Shades of Walter Hill (stylistically lots of his films, his style -think Last Man Standing, and major plot point: Crossroads), Tarantino & Rodriguez (From Dusk' Til Dawn and Coogler says The Faculty was an inspiration), John Carpenter (The Thing, Vampires), Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark), 

Beautfully shot in Super 70 Panavision by Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Wakanda Forever) and presented in IMAX (shot on a ratio of 2.76 : 1), Sinners is acted with intensity and seriousness (Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim,  Hailee Steinfeld as the white hottie, brit Jack O'Connell as Remmick) and scored magnificently by  Ludwig Göransson in his 4th collaboration with Ryan Coogler (after Black Panther, BP: Wakanda Forever and Creed).

Miles Caton mesmerizes as Sammie Moore, the made-up kid musician played in his old age by none other than Mr. Legend, Buddy Guy. Reason enuff for any blues aficionado to see the film !!! On the BIG Screen, brother, and if you live close to an IMAX environment, pls. go there !

Add to this a grand soundtrack companion.

And a pulsating original score by  Ludwig Göransson-who admires the blues since a kid in Sweden, did his homework seriously and this represents a tribute to his father. His credits are on banjo / music / musician: banjo / musician: resonator guitar / resonator guitar / score producer.

The Sinners Band:

Cedric Burnside -drums

Lester Snell-piano

Lars Ulrich-drums

Eric Gales-guitar

Alvin Youngblood Hart-guitar

Christophe "Kingfish" Ingram -guitar

Bobby Rush-harmonica

Buddy Guy-resonator guitar

Miles Caton-resonator guitar

Rave reviews, powerful BO, makes this a rare bird. Act one is slow, so give it time to warm up, it'll stay with ya afterwards. 

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

Mickey 17 (2025)

Our entire life is a punishment. 

(Mickey Barnes)

The highly expected (and most postponed release) new film of Bong Joon Ho, Mickey 17, with Robert Pattison in Multiple roles, is so-so. Frankly I don't get the enthusiastic positive reviews. The humor is lame at best with Pattison taking his ques from Jim Carrey's performance in Dumb and Dumber ! It's the Multiplicity Effect all over, clones (or how they're called here, "expendables" ), are getting dumb and dumber...duh. The film finally premiered at the Berlinale Film Fest in February with a worldwide release of March 7th. 

Budgeted at 118 mill. $ (!!!), this is surely a flop for Warner Bros. whom imo did not put a lot of faith in the finished project. The whole thing feels uninspired, the jokes are and you don't care much for Mickey or the Mickeys. Bong's humour is very personal and it worked in all his films prior to this, from The Host to Mother, also the social commentary, class commentary, leftism, was much better in Snowpiercer, which was his 1st external project out of Korea, then a flop, now a cult film and a s***ty cash-in neverending TV (streaming) series. That is why I am gonna go gloves off on Bong here. Wasting four years on this film when you were on top of the world, able to do any film you'd like, totally free of charge (he had final cut on this!). 

The source book is entitled Mickey 7 !!!, not to be confused with the 60's Mickey One ;), the material was customized by Bong for a more personal film for him, his 1st in the USA (shot in the UK Warner Leavesden studios), a follow-up to his all winning Parasite (2019). 

Shot impeccably by Darius Khondji. Dark as his TM and white -ice (the planet Nifleheim) and claustrophobic industrial corridors and chambers. Music, some of it uninspired, some good, by Bong's collaborator  Jung Jae-il (Okja, Parasite/ and the Squid Game series). 

Mark Ruffalo plays over-the-top, same Grand Guignol style as in Poor Things but here he is more like an impression of an Vincent D'Onofrio but she surely channels Trump. Toni Colette too, operatic hysteric evil lady. The aliens/monsters "creepers" are cool, but I pretty doubt they'll make a merch out of them. Starship Troopers "bugs" came to mind, but with the cuteness required. The Korean designer did work before for Bong on The Host.  

2 1/2 out of 5 / 5 out of 10 

I'm Still Here/ Ainda Estou Aqui (2024)

I've seen I'm Still Here/ Ainda Estou Aqui in the cinema, now after the Oscar win. A well deserved award ! Have forgoten all about Walter Salles (his last film was in 2012, On the Road, saw that in Cannes then), and I got that this was a very personal project for him. 

Ainda Estou Aqui was nominated for best picture and Fernanda Torres for best actress (she got the Golden Globe tho).  "I'm Still Here" (not to be confused with the Joaquin Phoenix/Cassey Affleck mockumentary with the same name ;) won also best screenplay in last year's Venice Film Festival. It's a powerful film, about family and predestination, and surviving against all odds in adverse situation. It's also a true story that in Brazil it's well known and publicized, now up to be seen and heard by the whole world. These events that happened in all the other dictatorrships, being right or left wing, it's told through the eyes of Eunice Paiva (Torres), the wife of Rubens Paiva, arrested and vanished during the Brazilian dictatorship of 1970's. Mother of 4, later on a strong advocate for Human rights. 

A bit overlong (2h17!-could've been at least 15 mins. shorter), but act 3 redeems the film and uppers its value. On imdb it went straight to "Top rated movie #133"! Ola for Brasil !

Stay for the end credits !

music by Warren Ellis (!), great soundtrack with Brazilian artists, Tom Ze, Caetano Veloso, etc. 

L'amour Ouf (2024)

L'amour Ouf / Beating Hearts in English, Iubire fara limite in Romanian. In competition (!) at last years' Cannes film festival, French star Gilles Lellouche adaptation of a Neville Thompson novel is in Romanian Cinemas now. 

Great on the big screen (widescreen!), operatic, with a superb score and soundtrack, great cinematography, this is the most American French film in a long time, and that's a good thing imo. In Cannes they kinda hated the film -of course, oh la la), way too commercial for them to enjoy it if it's not made by Tarantino or James Grey...

Epic running time: 2h46. 1st cut was 4 hours though.

It's based (loosely) on the 1997 best-selling Irish novel "Jackie Loves Johnser OK?" by Neville Thompson, whose French title is "L'Amour Ouf" ( a pun on the expression "L'Amour Fou", also a film by Jacques Rivette from 1968).

Uneven, pastiche, but highly energetic and frenetic this is not a prefect film, far from it, but I loved the energy, the musical rhythm (greta songs, from The Cure to Billy Idol, to Sirius by Alan Parsons project, cuts from John Carpenter's from Escape rom New York score, closing on Foreigner-Urgent!!!), from the opening lettering and the pulsing dramatic score by Jon Brion (with whom Lellouche worked on his second film as director, Le grand bain/Sink or swim). 

Shades of Tarantino and Wild at Heart. And of course West Side Story. And Scorsese's touch. And maybe Lelouch too ;)

original poster with announcement of coming out in 2023. 

*Alain Chabat won best suppoting actor at 2025's Cesar awards.