MOVIES Archivi - Page 6 of 8 - Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

IN GOOD COMPANY

Dec 5, 2020 | A COFFEE WITH, CHRONICLE, MOVIES, WOMEN, WORLD

It’s the title of one of Scarlett Johansson’s many movies, but I’d say it’s a great caption for this image too.

Natalie Portman is indeed a good company to share a coffee with.

With her Scarlett also shared the sisterhood on the set of the film in which they played Anna and Maria Bolena which unfortunately I have not yet seen. You?

On the other hand, I have seen many others, starting with The Horse Whisperer, although she had already worked in other films: in fact she started very young and her career was a varied crescendo of characters and genres in which she always ranged with success.

In recent days, however, I was struck by her image rigorously without superstructures, as if to underline even more the accuracy of the appeal for the release of four people detained in Egypt, among whom we know in particular the case of Patrick Zaki.

Before being arrested during a visit to his family, Patrick Zaki attended the University of Bologna which in recent months has undertaken many initiatives in his favor, also by the rector himself who mentioned him in the opening address of the University.

But it is Scarlett’s words that hit the mark: “Speaking out loud has become dangerous today in Egypt” and for me they sound particularly terrible even in the light of what happened to Giulio Regeni.

After this message three people were released, but not Patrick Zaki, even if surprisingly, today there will be the hearing that after the renewal of the pre-trial detention was scheduled for January.

We therefore join the hopes that Zaki will soon find himself in good company.

And above all, we all continue to defend a fundamental and very important value: freedom of thought and speech.

I had already mentioned Evelyn Beatrice Hall:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

And since I recently talked about George Orwell I would also mention

If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

ENOLA HOLMES

Nov 9, 2020 | BOOKS, MOVIES, BOOKS, MOVIES

I must admit that I was very intrigued by this idea: the sister of the mythical investigator Sherlock Holmes which of course I love.

I have already talked about Agatha Christie and how she made me fall in love with detective stories through her books, after which I obviously passed on to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well.

The character of Enola, however, was created by Nancy Springer after the rights expired, and on her books the production of Netflix was based which I would say is aimed in particular at the younger audience.

The main character is in fact played by Millie Bobby Brown, born in 2004: perhaps the most famous teenager ever after the success of her role in the Stranger Things series.

Unfortunately, I did not know her, and when in the credits I saw that she is also the executive producer, I realized that it was appropriate to deepen.

Some even call it the new Meryl Streep … who highlights her resemblance to Winona Ryder, who considers her as the most influential character of her generation after she became the youngest UNICEF ambassador in 2018.

But let’s get back to the movie

Also this time, as for Murder on the Nile I focus on choice of background song, albeit with less enthusiasm: unfortunately I have a problem with Courtney Love, although The Hole’s Celebrity skin track has been a huge success. What do you think about it?

I suppose this choice falls within the context of the message of female empowerment that characterizes the whole film.

Theoretically an important and necessary move, which however loses the potential of communicative innovation, ending up limiting itself to clichés that are not exactly avant-garde. Too bad indeed.

As you saw in the trailer, Enola also addresses the camera directly, breaking through the famous fourth wall. I find that Millie Bobby Brown can be very empathetic, nevertheless it feels like a sort of interruption of the pathos to me, but it’s probably me who am ancient

On the other hand, I really liked puns like the one that reveals the anagram of the name, and I found the added value of Helena Bonham Carter but also of Henry Cavill important.

In this regard, I would take the opportunity to launch another poll: after your favorite Poirot, who is the best Sherlock Holmes in your opinion?

Henry Cavill, Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr.?

In this case I’m too biased …

ACADEMY AWARD OF MERIT?

Sep 11, 2020 | MOVIES, WOMEN, WORLD

New rules for the Oscar: news that occupies many titles and newspapers.

I think it is useless to explain further, it is now known to anyone that starting from 2024 in order to aspire to the victory of the prestigious award of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science, the cast, as well as the production staff, will have to INCLUDE people belonging to certain “categories”.

Wanting to stay on an ironic tone, one would wonder if Academy President Rubin’s past as casting director could have influenced, but the smile immediately fades and I don’t know about you, but I feel more on the wavelength of Kirstie Alley who called this “Orwellian” decision.

Personally, this concept of categories does not belong to me starting from the infamous “pink quotas”.

For me, inclusion does not have to take place by regulation, and in any case there is a distinction between deserving a certain position or obtaining it by decree, which is even more discriminating in my opinion.

It is the common thought that must evolve, the very concept of diversity not as extraneousness but as an added value, as freedom.

Understanding in the sense of containing in oneself, embracing, enclosing, receiving spiritually, rather than including in a number, in a series, in a list.

Inserting as a clause the presence of people defining them as BELONGING TO A CATEGORY is not itself a discrimination?

When you define a person according to their origins, according to their nature or according to their orientation, does it not create a subdivision that shouldn’t exist instead?

Shouldn’t we all be thinking of someone just SUITABLE FOR THE ROLE OR DUTY, and nothing more?

I would not like to be a pink share, better yellow like light, or something green, like hope.

COFFEE IN ENGLAND ALWAYS TASTES LIKE A CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENT Agatha Christie

Aug 27, 2020 | BOOKS, MOVIES, BOOKS, MOVIES

An entire blog should be dedicated to the one who is the absolute Queen, just to express that minimum of admiration and esteem She deserves.

But to remain in our space-time measure of coffee in the meantime, I would start from the bottom: that is, from the trailer for the next Death on the Nile. Have you already seen it?

Needless to say, I am very curious, not to mention that as soon as I heard the first notes of Policy of Truth a standing ovation was triggered.

Unfortunately I haven’t been to many concerts but Depeche Mode in Milan in the 80s was a big yes.

But let’s go back to Death on the Nile: we can consider this one as the third version after the film with Peter Ustinov in 1978 and Poirot on the Nile in 2004 with David Suchet.

I’d say Kenneth Branagh feels comfortable playing the detective born from the pen of Agatha Christie if he’s decided to replicate after Murder on the Orient Express.

Yet Hercule Poirot is a very particular character, apparently uncomfortable I would say, and in general I would never have associated him with Branagh even if I consider him very good. Maybe because I have always perceived him as very English and as a Shakespearean actor par excellence.

Moreover, in Murder on the Orient Express, in my opinion Kenneth Branagh’s proof became even more complicated with the presence of Johnny Depp: since he is possessed by the spirit of Jack Sparrow he has accustomed us to caricature roles such as Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows, not to mention Mortdecai, who, as far as I’m concerned, caused the question “why is Depp Ratchett and not Poirot?”

To tell the truth, however, Branagh’s mustache, for how exaggerated it may seem, is more faithful to the mustache described by Agatha Christie, isn’t it?

So, leaving aside interpretations that have not left their mark such as those of Albert Finney, Tony Randall, Austin Trevor and Alfred Molina, who is your favorite Poirot?

Peter Ustinov, David Suchet or Kenneth Branagh?

THREE FILMS A DAY, THREE BOOKS A WEEK AND RECORDS OF GREAT MUSIC WOULD BE ENOUGH TO MAKE ME HAPPY TO THE DAY I DIE François Truffaut

Aug 20, 2020 | BOOKS, MOVIES, BOOKS, MOVIES

Needless to say, this sentence would suit me perfectly, except for that small detail of not being able to live on income …

But what happens when films and books overlap?
I mean: in the case of movie transpositions, what do you think?
Generally disappointment, or not?

Of all the cases we can talk about, Doctor Sleep is perhaps the most curious.
The film attempts to mend a notable tear: an important difference of opinion that dates back to the 80s, when Stephen King attends the screening of The Shining and is indignant because the meaning of his novel has been betrayed. In fact, Stanley Kubrick with his management emphasizes some aspects that we have all come to know: the hotel, the madness.
The director has an optimistic view of ghosts “because it means surviving death” while he doesn’t believe in hell.

King obviously disagrees, as you can hear directly from his words and defines the film “a beautiful car with no engine.”

The writer cares about the psychological depth of the characters he has created and which is distorted: the film version in fact omits the tragicity with which Jack Torrance tries to resist his own demons, not to mention that Jack Nicholson is perfect in the crazy role par excellence, but viewers are already predisposed to see it as such.

In a word Stephen King finds The Shining cold and reiterates that the Overlook Hotel burns in the book.

Mike Flanagan, the director of Doctor Sleep is committed to the work of reconciliation by dedicating half of the film to a reconstruction rather faithful to the book, and at the same time setting the ending, although filled with quotes and Easter Eggs, so that the circle of shining somehow can be closed again.

For this reason the film ends differently than the book and resumes the epilogue of the novel The Shining. Flanagan makes the Overlook Hotel the meeting point of a sort of triangulation according to which, to an adult Daniel Torrance, in a certain sense happens what Stephen King had intended for his father Jack Torrance and which we have not seen in Kubrick’s version.

What do you think of the result?

Remaining on my basic level, I was very curious to see the character of Rose Cilindro, and if on the one hand I find the choice of Ewan Mc Gregor for the role of Daniel apt, I was very disappointed for the cut of the whole part of the great-grandmother by Abra: Concetta Abruzzi.

The elderly poet with the Italian given name and the absolutely American surname (Reynolds) sat with her sleeping great-granddaughter in her lap and watched the video her granddaughter’s husband had shot in the delivery room three weeks before. It began with a title card: ABRA ENTERS THE WORLD!

Of course beyond that, hers turns out to be a key role and since Mike Flanagan has stated that he finds the character of Abra Stone fantastic, I find Momma‘s omission even more incomprehensible.

Or maybe it’s the way to leave a door open: it seems that the director asked Stephen King if there is “more” about Abra… a bit of the same idea that gave birth to Doctor Sleep from Dan child in The Shining.

Other circles to close then?

RED THREAD. IN LOOP

Aug 3, 2020 | MOVIES, MUSIC, VIDEO

These summer days for two completely different reasons brought me a red thread.

The first is musical: Fil Rouge to be precise.
Fil Rouge is the song of Curcuma, but it is also the important step in a journey made of pure passion, commitment, perseverance and skill.
Fil Rouge is re-starting, reuniting, it is part of a big dream and it is a great result.

Personally, I found myself immediately adopting the no matter if “NON IMPORTA SE”… that Dennis and Samuel sing, and I find it perfect.
In general, taking inspiration from the passage written by Samuel, I believe that we all need various NO MATTER IF to repeat ourselves with emphasis and cheerfulness.

The second red thread instead is not in the sunlight.
The second red thread, on the other hand, is DARK.
It is “underground”, occult, and leads to completely different reflections.

Claudia spoke to me about this series: for me a guarantee. During the time I have learned that if she likes something, I will certainly like it too.

What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.
Isaac Newton

At the end of each episode, I was left with a quantity of questions, or alternatively with topics of discussion that only multiplied, so that at the final conclusion my son gave me a definitive explanation which I will obviously omit in order not to spoil.

I would like to make a reflection in a broad sense: it is often said, and absolutely not wrongly, that the lever that moves everything is money.
So it’s nice when instead you find yourself considering a FORCE that starting from a metaphysical engine and a four-dimensional vision is reconverted and can move with equal determination proving to be the generator of events: love.

Love for the family.
However ramshackle, improbable, unstable and imperfect it may be, still Family.