Tag Archives: guilt

8,0-8,9, drama,, male director

“Manchester By The Sea” (Kenneth Lonergan, USA 2016)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

manchester-by-the-sea

strong script and direction

A movie essentially focused on male characters, in which women play a subdued role.
An uncommon and powerful representation of how a father experiences the loss of his children somewhat compensates the gender unbalance of the movie.

Interestingly, the music is not intended to fit a particular scene but does include several ones, creating an overarching level of expression that transcends that of the scene itself. In some of the critical passages, the personages talk but the dialogue is not heard, being replaced by the music that links the scene to the previous one.

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol, C.J. Wilson
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Writer: Kenneth Lonergan
Cinematographer: Jody Lee Lipes
Editor: Jennifer Lame
Composer: Lesley Barber

7,0-7,9, crime, drama,, female director

“Every Secret Thing” by Amy Berg (USA, 2014)

Every Secret Thing

Good acting, good drama / “The interrogation scenes, between Alice and a detective played by Elizabeth Banks, explore the social disadvantages of a fat woman with a stark bluntness that’s unheard of in a popular cinema” writes Chuck Bowen.

Cast: Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, Danielle Macdonald
Director: Amy Berg
Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener
Novel: Laura Lippman
Director of Photography: Rob Hardy
Editor: Ron Patane, Billy McMillin

7,0-7,9, drama,, male director, romance,

“The Beautiful Risk” (Mark Penney, Canada 2013)

The Beautiful Risk

Dying to love, loving to death
Interesting use of landscapes; different sorts of music are superimposed; the screen stays black for quite a while; dialogues are sometimes ‘de-synchronized’…

Director: Mark Penney
Writer: Mark Penney
Actors: Shaun Benson, Eliane Gagnon, Michel Perron
Cinematography: Robert Smith
Editing: Mark Penney

7,0-7,9, drama,, male director

“A Monster Calls” (Juan Antonio Bayona, USA 2016)

A Monster Calls

Excellent direction, weak on minorities

Cast: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Liam Neeson, Geraldine Chaplin
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Writer: Patrick Ness, based upon the novel written by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd
Cinematographer: Oscar Faura
Editor: Jaume Marti, Bernat Vilaplana
Composer: Fernando Velázquez

8,0-8,9, drama,, female director

“Hounddog” (Deborah Kampmeier, USA 2007)

Hounddog

“Rape and repressions are the two sides of the same coin. When you rape a girl, the problem is not that you’re taking away her purity, which gets everyone all up in arms. It’s that you’re taking away her wholeness. Trying to keep her pure, repressing her sexuality also takes her wholeness. I don’t want my daughter to grow up pure. I want her to grow whole.”  says Anja in Split.
The idea of sexual violence taking a woman’s or a girl’s wholeness is the leading theme in Deborah Kampmeier’s three movies (Split, Virgin, and Hounddog).

Cast: Dakota Fanning, David Morse, Piper Laurie, Afemo Omilami, Robin Wright Penn, Cody Hanford, Jill Scott
Written and directed by Deborah Kampmeier
Music: Gisburg
Cinematography: Jim Denault
Photography: Edward Lachman
Editing: Sabine Hoffman

 

8,0-8,9, drama,, male director

“Manchester By The Sea” (Kenneth Lonergan, USA 2016)

manchester-by-the-sea

strong script and direction

A movie essentially focused on male characters, in which women play a subdued role.
An uncommon and powerful representation of how a father experiences the loss of his children somewhat compensates the gender unbalance of the movie.

Interestingly, the music is not intended to fit a particular scene but does include several ones, creating an overarching level of expression that transcends that of the scene itself. In some of the critical passages, the personages talk but the dialogue is not heard, being replaced by the music that links the scene to the previous one.

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol, C.J. Wilson
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Writer: Kenneth Lonergan
Cinematographer: Jody Lee Lipes
Editor: Jennifer Lame
Composer: Lesley Barber