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Reviews
Tár (2022)
Tarrific!
Where to begin?
Cate B's acting...jeepers, tougher than running a marathon in the rain but she got to the finish line, which is what it's all about. What a tour de force! Has to have been thoroughly exhausting too...
The photography ....a dizzying array of unusual angles...yet of so many banal objects and places which we may think we see but not truly see in real life. No small feat to turn the imagery of the banale into the beautiful.
The characters...many are introduced without an introduction; and so the viewer has to figure out who is who, how, when and why. A wonderful tease, instead of the normal dishing out of characters for all to see...on a platter.
The story ...so many layers of a chocolate cake interspersed with bitter and salty mouthfuls. The internal dynamics of the orchestra and the many dashed ambitions bring alive the all-too- real emotions that link the instrumentalists to their sensitive egos.
Rare to see a movie that even begins to explore this hidden silent dimension that lives in every musician's persona.
Too bad the naysayers failed dismally to give this carefully crafted movie the unique recognition it deserves.
All the Old Knives (2022)
Earnest Gone Wrong
Quite apart from a muffled dialog which at times is barely audible, and camera work in such dark places that even a mouse could not navigate - these earnest, mirthless 'spies' have zero character developed and the yarn around them is borderline incomprehensible.
The inevitable graphic bedroom scenes, a staple of far too many Hollywood movies these days, do not make up for a fuzzy film with marginal content.
If it's entertaining insights you seek, look elsewhere.
Manhattan Nocturne (2016)
A forgettable disaster
Barely audible script, a plot sequence that only the producers appear to grasp, and, saddest of all, seeing Adrian Brody, a talented actor, in a role that merely helps to pay his bills. A 2 rating is generous.
Despite the Falling Snow (2016)
A potential sizzler that became a fizzler
Rebecca Ferguson, the Ingrid Bergman kindalookalike, is easy on the eye and offers a low key performance as a spy seducer in 'Snow'.
Funny thing is that the lack of on screen chemistry between her Russian beau in the Foreign Ministry is palpable from the moment they set eyes in each other, and quite possibly in the very first take.
I gave it 30 minutes but the hoped-for sizzle became a fizzle, and so, alas, I switched 'Snow' off.