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Monday 16 March 2015

Two separate score cards

It's been a hard two years for our daughter, Occasional Speeder.
But which is 47-year-old OS, which her 24-year-old daughter, Bella?

My personal ratings for Borderlines Film Festival, just finished.

FIVE STARS
Winter Sleep (Turkey). Masterfully deconstructed ego in wild Anatolia
Birdman (USA) Frenzy behind scenes on Broadway. Ambitious, witty
Ida (Poland). Jewish nun explores her Holocaust history. Austere, eloquent.
Phoenix (Germany). Established actress/director partnership; concentration-camp survivor competes with pre-war self.

FOUR STARS

Wild Tales (Argentina). Dark vengeance played out in six hilarious mini-films.
Mr Turner (UK). Three-dimensional, vivid later-years biog of Britain’s greatest painter.
Still Life (UK). Bureaucracy saves souls in SE London. Touching but very English.

THREE STARS
La Maison de la Radio (France). Day in life of French radio channel
Whiplash (USA). Frankenstein gets to teach jazz drumming. Often a bit too OTT.
Foxcatcher (USA), Wealthy madman manipulates wrestling world. True but unreal.
Cycling with Molière (France). Actors become their parts in classic play, Le Misanthrope.
Lourdes (France). Is it or isn’t it a medical miracle?  Fascinating authentic background.
Black Coal, Thin Ice (China). Cops and murderers in hideously ugly but persuasive modern China
Effie Gray (UK). Why art-critic John Ruskin preferred writing.
Inherent Vice (USA). Early druggy/PI Pynchon novel becomes astonishingly coherent movie. Funny.

TWO STARS
Amour Fou (Austria/Germany). Could Jane Austen accommodate a suicide pact? Perhaps not.
The Duke of Burgundy (UK). Excessive lesbian sado-humiliation among lepidopterists. But beautiful.
A Most Wanted Man
(UK/USA). Disappointingly flat end to  Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s career in treacherous spy fest.
Before I Go to Sleep (UK). Promising start explores amnesia; distintegrates into blood-boltered whodunnit.

ONE STAR
Enemy (Canada). Much praised, characterless alter-ego tale. Good camera.
Boyhood (USA). Texan rite of passage: sentimental, setbacks mysteriously overcome.
The Clouds of Cils Maria (France/Switzerland). Out-of-control, shapeless, inferior version of Hollywood classic, All About Eve.
Ex Machina (USA). Inarticulate nerd tests robots for signs of AI. The irony is unacknowledged.

4 comments:

  1. OS on the right, but 47 is a typo.

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  2. Both beautiful women.

    I like Bella's scarf, and OS's hat.

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  3. Do I see a young VR in Bella?
    Where they on the way out to trip a prince?

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  4. All: Thanks for your acknowledgements. I must admit, I was kinda stunned.

    "A young VR in Bella"? I'll check; I'm not good on comparing faces.

    'Twas the week of the Cheltenham Gold cup (ie, over the sticks) and they were off to the races.

    ReplyDelete