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