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Ronaldo (2015): Competent. Inauthentic. Fascinating.
Having watched de la Iglesia’s Messi documentary, I thought of going all in and looking at Ronaldo’s as well. And although this one tries so hard that it frequently seems inauthentic, at least it provides direct feedback from the horse’s mouth: there are no doubts about what Ronaldo feels and believes – but only concerning… Read more
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Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceausescu (2010): The Spectacular Reality of Nicolae Ceausescu
It is unfathomable to think that this is a part of our human heritage, and the film leaves the impression of being a document of society, culture and politics that’s out of this world. Read more
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Amy (2015): Discovering Anew
The 2015 documentary about Amy Winehouse, a strong follow-up piece from Senna’s (2010) Asif Kapadia, is a grueling, yet riveting portrayal of assassination by fame. Read more
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Bacalaureat (2016): Defying Compromise
Films rarely put forward leading characters that they then choose to vehemently punish throughout. But this is Mungiu, who has already proved more than adept at creating authentic and ruthless portrayals of society and in Bacalaureat (English title: Graduation) he scrapes at the edges of our souls. His tale of generational change is predicated on… Read more
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The Family Fang (2015): Sibling Togetherness
After ‘Bad Words’, Bateman the director appears to be heading in the right direction and takes on a more ambitious, layered project. This film deals not only with a dysfunctional family, a concept that has fascinated American cinema ever since American Beauty (1999), but also with the relation between art and life. Thematically, the family… Read more
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Cinema Pathé Tuschinski, Amsterdam
The naive film lover in me proved, as it so frequently does, an ignoramus. Having stayed away from French speaking countries in the last decade and remembering so little of previous visits, I knew nothing of Pathé’s vertical integration. Hell, that’s an ugly word – Pathé’s heritage. Sure, it took me a trip to a non-French… Read more
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Freakonomics (2010): Lukewarm at Best
I’ll admit from the off that I was skeptical regarding this documentary ever since I first heard it was in production. Having read the book, I felt that what made it enjoyable could not really be transposed onto film. Economics, being such a science of numbers, even in its freakonomic form, does not really lend… Read more
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Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015): A Nostalgia Soufflé
In spite of being born towards the end of the 80s, I recall several “Margareta Nistor movies”, her trademark dubbing scarring my youth alongside the zombies of Return of the Living Dead. It’s funny, particularly because her often inflection-less voice made the humor of the movie much harder to understand at the time. Then again,… Read more
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An Honest Liar (2014): The Skeptic Inside
There truly is something mystical about An Honest Liar, that allows it to transcend its flawed structure and be relevant in spite of it. At its core, the ambition of the film is to establish and walk the line between what constitutes an illusion and what rises to the rank of deception. To achieve this,… Read more
Movie micro-reviews and other stuff. A tributary to the big screen.
Because watching movies is cheaper than therapy.
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