Richard Linklater is back! After Boyhood, he gives us a sort of sequel to Dazed and Confused set in a Texas college. We follow the fortunes of a freshman who has a baseball scholarship 
and is lodged in a house full of other members of his team from first years up.
It is the end of the seventies and it is one all time party. The focus is less on sport than on getting drunk, high and picking up girls.
Linklater handles this with considerable levity and humour and rather than being a boorish version of Porky’s this film comes off as much more charming. Blake Jenner is an excellent good guy anchor for the film
and the largely unknown cast includes Glenn Powell
as Flynn who has some great insights into life and Zoey Deutsch as the theatre major girlfriend.
One critic said that Linklater creates the scenes and allows the actors to each have their moment and it is true, he was always a generous director for actors. To the audience he gives us a slice of life from these times, perhaps a little exaggerated in parts but lots of fun. The theatre major party and the country and western bar are two examples of this. Very much a trip back into nostalgic times for the US, the soundtrack is fabulous and the audience will go home sated and entertained.
★★★★
documentary on Edward Snowden and his revelations. Set in the Hong Kong hotel room from where the Guardian 
and other papers released the information, we meet a remarkably decent and composed Snowden
daring to do what no one else had, blow the whistle on what the US government in particular is doing in terms of espionage and vigilance. This film won Best documentary at the Oscars in 2016 and countless other prizes not perhaps because of any great film qualities but because of its subject matter and the importance of this topic to our freedom as individuals.
I found it far more satisfying than the movie by Oliver Stone and well worth the watch.
The majority of the film is about observations of life and culture in the kingdom 
and is a wry commentary on the misfit of old and new and of the importance of show in modern buildings etc.
A subplot involving a cyst that Alan discovers and is operated on by a lady doctor with whom he falls in love.
Luckily the actress Sarita Choudhury isn’t Arabic or she would be whpped and stoned by now for her behaviour on film. All a little idealistic but Hanks is in pretty good form and Alexander Black as his chauffeur Yusuf adds plenty to his scenes.
Tom tykwer directs adequately.
etc, etc.
widow of a young loved President forced to make decisions that no one would like to take, with two young children to protect and the world’s eyes on her.
Natalie Portman may irritate with her breathy accent but apparently it is authentic and much of what we see comes from memoirs and other material not available at thirty or forty years ago. So, there is an interest in that and I think in the scenes where Jackie has a sort of confessional with an Irish priest (ably played by the late John Hurt).
This gives us an idea of how Jackie changed in that week and how she found resources inside her to handle the immense pressure. Portman’s portrayal may not be to everyone’s tastes but it is deep and moving. Peter Sarsgaard gives us a stressed and grieving Bobby which is interesting and Greta Gerwig is very low key as Jackie’s aide, Nancy. Mica Levi gives us some strong music for the soundtrack but it works too.
Psychological and full of Larrain’s favourite washed out colours.
Basically the film is about the way the relationship shifts in balance as they experiment in their roles. The film was shot in Hungary in a leafy bucolic village-like area, peopled only by women.
Their main activity seemed to be reading about and delivering lectures about moths and butterflies.
Hence the title, it is a type of butterfly. All very weird and consequently the script can end up sounding quite odd in the mouths of the non-British cast. Sidse Babett Knudsen 
plays Cynthia, one half of the couple and has some good scenes but also seems to be wondering what she is doing in the movie. Chiara D’Anna as her partner, the passive but in fact dominant partner is strangely more effective.
Nice music. Definitely for the connoisseur.
and a Catholic man in his early forties who has just lost his father. Martin Dubreuil 
plays Felix who is a bit of a lost soul and having never quite reconciliated with his father is now facing his future with little planned. He meets Meira, (Hadas Yaron) who is out walking with her daughter and over the course of some days, they find that they have enough in common to talk. Meanwhile, the Jewish family put increased pressure on Meira to toe the line. 
But the friendship starts to grow 
and some of the most interesting scenes are when her husband Shulem (Luzer Twersky)
realises he is going to lose her and that she will be ostracised from the faith. A gentle respectful and poignant film that grows on you as you accompany the growing process of the characters. Maxime Giroux directs with tact and confidence.
and the next nine years are a roller coaster ride for Eric. He keeps giving Paul another chance and another. Meanwhile he makes and releases his documentary on gay film makers from a certain era in NY and hangs out with his best female friend (Julianne Nicholson)
or with his sister (Paprika Steen).
But no one seems to be able to change the course of events. The film by Ira Sachs shows how sometimes being the supportive partner we can lose ourselves in a relationship and how it can harm us. Lindhart 
does a good job in the lead role but I found Booth rather vague. Neither are very attractive personalities. But somewhere in all this is the sad story of so many relationships where egos get in the way or the partners are unable to give each other enough respect and space.
and yet totally credible as Dad (Peter Simonischek) invents an alter ego, Toni Erdmann with a false wig and false buck teeth and starts intervening in daughter Ines’s life and work ostensibly claiming to be her boss’s life coach. The father –daughter relationship seesaws throughout the movie but becomes undeniably closer even despite the provocations of the father.
Sandra Hüller is excellent as Ines, the control freak.
Who sees all her carefully laid career plans in jeopardy. Then we have some very sage commentaries about the cutthroat business world and the double talk involved, the business social functions
and also the contrast between first world ideas and practice in countries like Romania. Maren Ade takes a lot of risks with this film 
but they come off and give us something way different to the norm. Not a masterpiece but definitely a film to make you keenly await her next offering.
Now Matias returns with a girlfriend, Rochi in tow 
and has a good job in bioagriculture in Brazil. He is a serious cautious type. When he meets up again with Jero, impossible to avoid in a small city, there is a spark. Jero still lives there doing odd jobs and saying he wants to study film. He is out and confident but admits that he does not have much of a love life in the city. Over the next couple of days they spend time together and go out alone to Jero’s family farm in the wetlands 
where they spent so many good moments as boys.
And still, Matias is scared and confused.
do a good job in the lead roles.
who also take in another Indian boy. Saroo adapts and becomes a successful and grateful young man. But as he gets older the thought of his family missing him keeps nagging and with the help of Google Earth and quite a lot of emotional upheaval, he gets to track down his village and become reunited with his mother and sister.
and accompanying him in his journey as he is lost is incredible. Dev Patel also does a fine job
as Saroo grown up with a sensitivity and presence that captivates the screen. I didn’t care much for Rooney Mara as the girlfriend
but Nicole Kidman does some of her best work in years as the adoptive mother.
Priyanka Bose as the real mother is also fine.
The whole issue of adoption is handled very well as is this burning need to become reunited with one’s people, source or roots. The overall effect is of a very sound film, perhaps not that innovative but a story that will last in our minds.
passionfilm 