The Brutalist (2024)

"The American myth is something that is not frequently undressed, especially in this 'coming to America' fable that we have seen rehashed again and again"

 Brady Corbet

(best director Venice Film Festival 2024 for The Brutalist)

film nominated for 10 Oscars

Vulture: The Brutalist spans 33 years on screen and over three and a half hours of runtime, including a 15-minute intermission at its midpoint. It’s the first film in decades 9NN 61 years to be precise!) to be fully shot in VistaVision, and at the Venice Film Festival, where it had its premiere, it was projected on 70mm.

Real vs. fiction:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250206-the-brutalist-brady-corbet-and-adrien-brody-on-ww2-jewish-experience-in-the-us

TBC

a great talk between Brady Corbet and Sean Baker (Anora), about cinema, budgets, choices, passion and compromises.

The Brutalist just won 4 BAFTA awards, best director, best actor, best cinematography and best score (Daniel Blumberg), which I think deserve also the Oscar for that category.

RIP Marianne Faithfull

...so Long Marianne...

that song is not about her, but Stones' are. She cowrote Sister Morphine with Mick and Keef and had her own version recorded in 1969 with Ry Cooder and Jack Nietzsche.

It has also been claimed that Marianne Faithfull inspired Stones songs including You Can't Always Get What You Want and Dear Doctor, while it has also been reported that The Beatles' And Your Bird Can Sing was inspired by her and Mick' Jaggers relationship.

pic from Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) by Jack Cardiff, where Marianne was at her most sexual peak, together with Alain Delon who kinda stole her briefly from her boyfriend Mick Jagger. 

I got a record of her, Before the Poison, and surely Broken English. She has two songs in Alan Rudolph's Trouble in Mind (1985). Her last album was in 2012 with Warren Ellis & Nick Cave & Brian Eno, She Walks In Beauty. Tru ;)

last time saw her in Irina Palm (2007) at TIFF, a risque role of a grandmother forced to work on a peephole. She was also in Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola. 

La traque (1975)

La Traque / The track (1975) is an excellent french thriller with psychological and social touches, it can be included in the pre-survival horror genre. A riff on the Most Dangerous Game meets La regle du jeu with a bit of Straw Dogs..

The social / class commentary  (la bourgeoisie de la campagne/province), and the solid acting by some of the best French actors of that time (Jean Paul Marielle, Michel Lonsdale, Philippe Leotard, Jean-Luc Bideau, Michel Constantin), the presence of American Mimsy Farmer (in lots of giallos in Italy at that period) , the atmosphere (no music except the opening and end credits), the time unity (all almost in real time, one day) and the great photography by Claude Renoir ! make this one of the most interesting films of this kind of the seventies. An unknown gem ! Considered to be the best Serge Leroy film. 

Marcello Mio (2024)

 First good film I've seen in a cinema this year. Also from last year, in the Cannes 77 film fest official selection. A very personal film, una affare di famiglia with everyone playing their own parts. 

Marcello Mio is of course about Marcello Mastroianni, and Chiara Mastroianni, and her mom, Catherine Deneuve. And the buddies, from Fabrice Luchini to Nicole Garcia, Benjamin Biolay (Chira's ex), Melvin Poupaud (un autre Chira's ex ;), all playing themselves. Also Stefania Sandrelli and Marcello MM himself in an excerpt from Pietro Germi's 1961 Divorzio all'italiana/Divorce Italian Style. And Francesca Fialdini, a hot TV host from Rai.  

written and directed by Christophe Honoré (les Chansons d'amour), 

super self referential (meta-meta) and for true cinephiles, including plot points from MM's films, a dog, a soldier, a bridge, a white kitten, and family memoires, this film is not for everyone. But maybe those who see it (of course I was alone in the theater, Monday at 16.45 !!!) should dig further. from the easy clues, 8 1/2  & La Dolce Vita, to the more obscure family references (including Maria Callas, a specific restaurant in Paris, Ginger & Fred, a song about how Marcello makes you laugh, etc.)

Beautiful soundtrack, including Isao Tomita's version of Clair de Lune.