strong message
Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kevin Costner, Aldis Hodge, Kirsten Dunst, Glen Powell, Mahershala Ali, Jim Parsons, Olek Krupa
Director: Theodore Melfi
Writer: Margot Lee Shetterly (book by), Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi
Cinematographer: Mandy Walker
Editor: Peter Teschner
Composer: Benjamin Wallfisch, Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer
strong images and silences punctuated by sparse dialogues
The total absence of explanation allows the viewer to create his/her own story, a magnificent present, but difficult to carry out. See mine below.
Beware: spoilers ahead!
My story. An island serves as a prison for a group of women. They are all the same age and do not grow old. Each woman has a boy to fulfill her maternal desires. The boys are all the same age, but are human, thus growing old. For that reason, they must be constantly medicated and operated to prevent them from reaching puberty. The nurse who takes care of the young Nicolas bonds with him and helps him to escape.
The sea – the magnificent images sharply contrast with the colorless and lifeless prison-island – represents the living world to which Nicolas belongs.
Cast: Max Brebant, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Roxane Duran, Mathieu Goldfeld, Nissim Renard
Director: Lucile Hadžihalilovic
Writers: Lucile Hadžihalilovic, Alante Kavaite
Cinematographer: Manuel Dacosse
Editor: Nassim Gordji Tehrani
Composer: Jesús Díaz
strong message
weak montage
Cast: María Valverde, Burn Gorman, James D’Arcy, Jack Davenport
Director: Koldo Serra
Writers: José Alba (story), Carlos Clavijo Cobos
Music: Fernando Velázquez
Cinematography: Unax Mendia
Editing: José Manuel Jiménez
excellent music
weak script
No good movie can be made on a bad script!
Beloved reader, please DO NOT READ further! If you have seen the movie and enjoyed it – like everyone else seems to have – don’t read further, I might spoil your pleasure.
If you haven’t seen the movie, do like everybody else: enjoy it.
SPOILERS ahead!
Excellent script, personages, direction.
A top as far as minorities and message are concerned.
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman
Director: Guy Green
Writers: Elizabeth Kata (novel), Guy Green
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography: Robert Burks
Editing: Rita Roland, Hal G. Davis
excellent direction and personages
weakest: message
A divorced lawyer mother of two tries to put some order in her chaotic life..
Cast: Virginie Efira, Vincent Lacoste, Melvil Poupaud
Director: Justine Triet
Writers: Thomas Lévy-Lasne, Justine Triet
Cinematography: Simon Beaufils
Editing: Laurent Sénéchal
excellent dialogues + music
weakest: message + humor
Cleverly orchestrated four-generational love relationship, in which a woman in her sixties who is still looking for her true (lesbian) love falls for a young married mother of two who has an affair with a teenage boy. The emotional stability of the two male characters (the 15-year old boy and the older husband) contrasts with the vulnerability of the two female leads.
Director: Richard Eyre
Writers: Patrick Marber, Zoe Heller (novel)
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Andrew Simpson, Bill Nighy
Music: Philip Glass
Cinematography: Chris Menges
Editing: John Bloom, Antonia Van Drimmelen
Cast: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Micaela Ramazzotti, Valentina Carnelutti
Director: Paolo Virzì
Writers: Paolo Virzì
Music: Carlo Virzì
Cinematography: Vladan Radovic
Editing: Cecilia Zanuso
Cast: Betsy Brandt, Zev Haworth, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Chris Beetem
Director: Lisa Robinson & Annie J. Howell
Writer: Lisa Robinson & Annie J. Howell
Cinematographer: Andreas Burgess
Editor: Jim Isler
Composer: Xander Duell
strongest: montage
weakest: message, humor
A story set inside a story and related to it, to which flashbacks are added
Cast: Amy Adams, Armie Hammer, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ellie Bamber, Isla Fisher, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Shannon, Karl Glusman
Director: Tom Ford
Writer: Tom Ford, Austin Wright (novel)
Cinematographer: Seamus McGarvey
Composer: Abel Korzeniowski
Editor: Joan Sobel