Languid romantic film that more than anything serves as a travelogue for Cairo with beautiful scenes of the Pyramids and street life.
Juliette (the luminous Patricia Clarkson) is stuck alone in Cairo when her husband can’t get away from Gaza.
He sends his former security officer Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to chaperone her and very slowly the relationship grows into something more romantic.
Superb photography but the story and script while engaging enough never lift this movie sufficiently. A pleasant almost Mills and Boon type of film with Clarkson an expert in small touches.
★★+
is one of these, a reformed alcoholic and drug addict. He has returned from penance opening oysters in New Orleans to take London by storm and get his Michelin 3 stars. The obsession behind these stars and the unreal appearance of the food shows us just how far we have taken all this.
He has to put together a team which includes former colleagues from Paris where he cut his teeth. One is still in jail, etc. The dining room is run by another colleague Tony (Daniel Bruhl) in the film’s most interesting role, a repressed gay who would do anything for the spoilt brat.
There are tantrums a la Gordon Ramsey, a spirited young sous-chef (Sienna Miller) who stands up to him
and with whom he starts falling in love and a shrink (Emma Thompson) to remind him that he can’t do all this alone. The acting line up is there, the photography and music are good but what lets the film down is the very clichéd screenplay largely about redemption and vengeance in the culinary world and the rather sloppy direction which uses food to fill the narrative gap but showing no real love for it. And yet despite this, it is not so bad to watch – a lively enough look at this side of London today, Just don’t expect to care for the film that much.
and a secret that comes to light and shakes the relationship to its foundation is one of the most honest I have seen in ages.
Andrew Haigh, of Weekend fame, knows what to do to make small gestures into big ones 
and create a story that is believable and terribly sad in all its humanity. Excellent perfomances from Charlotte Rampling 
and Tom Courtenay with the former so able to convey conflicting emotions at the same time. A great script, sensitive photography in the Norfolk area and many mall moments we can identify with especially when talking of long relationships- A gem.
Apart from gridlock on the trails up the mountain, poor communication, selfishness and less than well-prepared climbers coupled with stormy conditions led to disaster.
Baltasar Kormakur and his crew do a pretty good job at recreating conditions and Jason Clarke as the tour leader, Kiwi Rob Hall and Emily Watson as his base camp chief are strong central characters. Kormatur gets good work out of other well-known actors like Josh Brolin, Keira Knightley and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Naturally, the cinematography is superb, Salvatore Totino responsible for that.
I liked this movie as it achieved a balance between excitement and human triumph and the great risks and sadness that can accompany this. The courage and craziness of people with dreams!
footage from the early 1940’s in occupied Paris (very interesting), a dramatization of the meetings between the curator of the museum and the German official sent to supervise him
, the appearance in dramatic form of key figures like Napoleon and Marianne inside the museum
, works of art from the Louvre and the voiceover of Sokurov which continues throughout the film.
. Nevertheless, it covers an interesting topic that scholars of history and art will find perhaps more rewarding than the general public.
decide to play a trick on the frumpy Johanna and concoct a burgeoning friendship between her and Sabitha’s dad, Ken (Guy Pearce)
, who is an addict and ex-crim washed out in an empty motel he owns
. Thanks to Johanna’s naivete, she takes the bait and ends up going to see Ken and sorting out his life in a simple no-nonsense old values way.
and is ably supported by the rest of the cast which includes Nick Nolte
, Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Christine Lahti. While some of the storyline defies belief in this day and age, Wiig, the original story by Munro and Liza Johnson’s quiet direction turn it into a perfectly acceptable movie, rather similar in mood to a short story.
and a pronounced lesbian who decides to have an affair with him. From there on, our hero Simon faces all sorts of weird challenges from the request of a woman he was in therapy with to help her kill her husband, to the recriminations of various ex´s of Pegeen and of her parents.
Simon is obliged to face up to these and to decide whether to return to the stage to play King Lear. All this plays out with frequent Skype sessions with his shrink.
He draws us to him magnetically and allows us to ignore that much of the film is rather vacuous and hysterical. Greta Gerwig is also in cracking form in her role as Pegeen, rather cast to type as the highly intelligent, rather loopy and slightly unscrupulous girlfriend. And it is good to see Kyra Sedgwick 
and Dianne Wiest back in action in smaller roles. My feeling is that it is not such a great film by Barry Levinson but Pacino and Gerwig compensate with their commitment and craft.
an actress who started her career playing the role of Sigrid a young woman in a play by a Swiss playwright who has recently died. Now she is being asked to play the other part, that of Helena, a middle aged woman who is infatuated by Sigrid and throws her life away. She is reluctant to take on the role given her love of the part of the younger woman which launched her career and with which she identifies. But age is creeping up on her and she can no longer play the Sigrid role. She works through all of this in the Swiss Alps, accompanied by her PA, a young American, Valentine,
of quite strong opinions. They read and rehearse lines together
but at times life seems to mirror the script and we are no longer sure whether it is the play speaking or the two women. Along comes the actress to play Sigrid, this time…a sort of Hollywood brat with a brain (played by Chloe Grace Moretz)
and this also upsets the apple cart. Much is also made of the change of eras and the modern quest for publicity at all costs, different from when Maria started.
The whole setting also has an effect, whether it be the high mountains, the gorgeous views or the strange mist – the Snake of Maloja, which envelops the valley they are in and is in fact, the name of the play. Kristen Stewart confirms her talents as Valentine in a strong performance
for which she won a Cesar.
and all under the influence of alcohol and drugs they hang out for a while. She gets kind of close to one of them Sonne.
His mate Boxer remembers that he has to see a man about a “job” in return for protection he was given in jail. The job is a robbery and Victoria gets roped in when one of the friends is in no state to do the work. We may wonder at her choices but in a way like so many Gen Ys she is looking for excitement. With this act, the film takes off and becomes a gripping heist gone wrong 
which keeps the audience well entertained until the end. The fact that there has been only one take is of great merit to director Sebastian Schipper and cameraman Sturla Brandth Grevien.
And the actors have to live up to the story and show their versalility in the two hours or so, especially since much of the dialogue is improvised. Laia Costa surprises with a superb performance as Victoria 
and is well accompanied by Frederick Lau. Although it was slow to begin with and would in another form have been edited to tighten the tension, there is much to recommend in this twist on the heist genre.
it is typical of so many comedies today that have their sombre side. That said, it is bereft of any great novelty and the stories pan out in a conventional way for the most part.
There are some good lines here and there but in the end the film serves more as an excuse for some dumb relaxation than anything more serious. Its main merit would seem to be as a defender of women’s rights to have a good time single as much as men. Dakota Johnson as Alice
, is the lead and is quite personable and she and Leslie Mann as her elder sister
trying to get pregnant by a sperm donor are the ones who most light up the screen. Rebel Wilson has another of her wacky side-kick roles with a lot of physical humour 
but after a while the exaggeration wears thin like the whole film.
passionfilm 