Distinctly conservative treatment of a not so conservative subject, that of Saúl Armendariz, aka Cassandro an exotic wrestler based in El Paso and famous in Mexico.
In ‘lucha libre’ exotic wrestlers are those who are more flamboyant and perhaps feminine in their approach to the sport and the costumes they wear. Roger Ross Williams gives us a straightforward look at how Saúl changed from being a runt-like loser in the lucha libre circuit to creating the character of Cassandro, who attracted the hitherto conservative and homophobic crowds with his Liberace styled outfits and a certain Juan Gabriel ability to reach the public.
We get to see the close relationship with his mother Yocasta (Perla de la Rosa) who brings him up as a solo mother, and his secret relationship with another wrestler called El Comandante (Raúl Castillo) who is closeted.
His coach, Lady Anarquia (Roberta Colindrez) is instrumental in helping him take the step up into the big league
Gael Garcia Bernal takes on the brave job of bringing this character to the screen and does so effectively adding another important performance to his cv. It is his caliber that adds to the overall film that didn’t uplift me or set me alight but was of some interest to see.
And lucha libre has zero appeal to me. The screenplay is standard and the overall mood rather sober for the topic.
A throwback to the era of disaster movies in many ways, this is a film about storm chasers in Texas and neighbouring states trying to get as close as possible to the centre of supercells, thunderstorms which have rotating wind uplifts and can produce tornadoes. This 2022 film is made on a cheaper scale than the old blockbusters like Twister or the tsunami films but even with the CGI it is quite exciting in the four parts of the movie where the protagonists get stuck in the middle of the supercell.
Quite why you would pay to go a tour to get close to one I can’t understand but there you are. Canadian Herbert James Winterstern in his first full-length feature gives us the story of William Brody (Daniel Diemer), a teenager whose father Bill was killed ten years before by such a storm.
William is secretly fascinated by the storms too despite mother Quinn’s abandonment of the practice after her husband’s death. Roy (Skeet Ulrich) Bill’s partner at the time sends William a copybook used by Bill and this motivates the boy into leaving his Florida home and heading to Texas to hunt Roy down and join in the fun.
Besides which, he has some sort of tracking machine to test out that his parents had been working on before Bill died. Roy now runs tours for Zane, but using the Brody name.
Zane, played with delicious cynicism and smarm by Alec Baldwin rips both his employees and tourists off but William manages to get in on a tour and experiences the worst a storm can bring.
Meanwhile jittery Quinn (Anne Heche) sets off in pursuit of her son in the company of William’s possible girlfriend (Jordan Kristine Seamon).
Most of the dialogue parts are either a) follow your dream talks. b) don’t do anything stupid talks or c) technical explanations regarding Supercells.
Neither the screenplay nor the acting is up to much. Diemer has presence but is no great actor, Ulrich and Heche are adequate and Seamon has little to do with pretty dire lines.
Baldwin hits the right notes as a meany with the actor clearly seeing the funny side.
Decidedly it is the storm, the action and photography by Andrew Jeric and Corey Wallace that rule the day in a modest but watchable movie.
A French film co-written and directed by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and set in the mid 80’s when she was a student at Les Amandiers theatre school in Nanterre, France. The principal teacher at the time was Patrice Chereau, a famous film and theatre director and in Bruni-Tedeschi’s class were a number of later to be famous French actors including Agnes Jaoui.
Basically, this film is a (? partly) fictitious memory of the director’s time there. She is personified by a character called Stella (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), a young blonde girl from a well-off family.
We see the original auditions and then spend most of the 2 hours with the 12 which were selected. The plot is the time passing and the various events both on stage and in the private lives of the actors. A sort of selective slice of life set against the background of Chernobyl and the AIDS crisis.
Interestingly critic reviews of this are pretty damning, accusing the director of indulging in a memory of spoilt navel gazing young people whose lives have little to offer the world.
I find this repeated view a little hard to fathom. Of course, Bruni-Tedeschi has the right to tell the story she wants and to remember events as she wishes and I’m not sure she needs to defend this and be obliged to have a film with a clear message.
Having once worked in an arts centre and seen young actors at work and play I’m easily convinced that Les Amandiers is not untypical of similar groups, even now and especially nearly 40 years ago. There are drugs, sex and youthful antics and while you may judge them, that’s not the point – its more about young people discovering the world, having fun and testing limits. I think we are meant to take a way a vision of a year in the life of an aspiring actor in Paris 1986 rather than draw wider conclusions. Typically, that age group can be indulgent, self-centred and vexing but there is also a lot of enjoyment and lessons to learn. Whether characters are faithfully represented or not (as in the case of Chereau or theatre director Pierre Romans) is for those present at the time to decide.
Another gripe was that the film focuses too much on the leading pair and not enough on some of their companions. That may be so, but to delve into the lives of 12 actors plus teachers would require a series not one film and again part of the point is that in any one play not everyone can have a lead role as these actors discover when Chereau does the casting for the Chekhov play Platonov.
It is a pity we cannot see more of Clara Bretheau as Adele for instance but that is life. Tereszkiewicz is strong in the lead and you can see why she won the César for Best female hope.
Her heavy relationship with bad boy Etienne (Sofiane Bennacer) may seem predictable but is not any less real for that. Bennacer has abuse issues in real life and was removed from César nominations. Perhaps this has also had an effect on critical reception of the film. I found him convincing and with loads of presence. He has parts of Brando, Depardieu and others.
Louis Garrel is excellent as Chereau as well and commands his scenes. Julien Poupard’s grainy photography is apt for memory work but I’m not sure I wouldn’t have preferred something different.
No masterpiece but a perfectly decent piece of film making in my opinion and given the large young cast, a chance to see some of the future big names in French cinema.
Hadn’t expected to see a second series of this but a nice surprise especially given the 22 minute episodes.
Set in a small dairy farming town in New Zealand, it features Caz (Elz Carrad), a trans man who has returned home to help his ailing father and discovers what small town life is really like. In this series several storylines develop.
One is the quest by his father Gerald to get the council to ban pesticides and develop more organic methods. In this he is opposed by local tycoon Sir Keith Murphy (Peter Hayden) who despite speaking some Maori is upsetting locals by honouring colonisers and initiating new real estate projects on once Maori land.
Caz’s bff Anahera (Awhina-Rose Ashby) is learning about her Maori heritage from the aunties and is being pressganged into offering her shop as a venue for teen LGBTQ meetings which raises the ire of locals. His friend Ellie from Auckland comes down with a group to help promote the organic farming and she and Anahera have feelings for each other.
Meanwhile Caz is both getting close to newly out Jem and trying to deal with the suicide of his secret lover, a rugby star. Like a shroud over the top of all this are strange climatic events like earthquakes, an Aurora Australis and other magic realist elements.
Not all the stories are resolved by the end of 5 episodes and more are clearly planned.
While it is no masterpiece, Rurangi gives the impression of a fresh authentic look at Aotearoa with a large number of non-cis people in both the cast and crew.
It can only be praised for that and for reaching a decent level of quality. I enjoyed the view of farmland NZ in a process of change and the short sharp episodes with a reasonable dose of humour.
Ramon Te Wake as Ellie was underused in series 1 and is an asset here as are some of the aunties like Vanessa Rare and singer Anika Moa. A couple of actors have changed since the last series, notably Gerald (Cohen Holloway) and Jem (Liam Coleman) and are perhaps still finding their way. Carrad and Ashby continue to hold the centre effectively. Max Currie directs.
Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki films in a world of his own which at the same time reflect the real world. His films include anachronistic elements and this one, set in Helsinki has modern aspects and machinery, references to the conflict in Ukraine and then settings from the 60’s or 70’s, film references from even before that and a mix of mobile phone use and the notes on paper we used to use.
Ansa (Alma Poysti) works in a supermarket, Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) on a construction site and both are lost souls with little to lessen their dreary existence. Ansa gets fired from her zero-hour contract for giving expired food to a beggar and Holappa loses his job for being drunk and involved in an accident, caused more by lack of upkeep of machinery.
They muddle on and get other menial jobs. The police close a bar Ansa works in because of illegal drug sales. In the middle of all this they meet in a karaoke bar, go on a date to a zombie film and have a second dinner date at Ansa’s flat.
All very mundane with little dialogue and the typical Scandinavian coolness or lack of emotion. More obstacles occur before by the end of the film it finally looks like their relationship might get back on the rails, with a small adopted dog called Chaplin also taking part.
That’s it and in many ways it is a minor minimalist film. However, there is always plenty to look at with camerawork by Timo Salinen, the old-fashioned eye on Helsinki and the way Kaurismäki manages to subtly add in observations on life: the treatment of the proletariat, the effect of a war that is not so far from Finland, the alienation of many individuals within society and the effect of alcoholism in Finland.
I enjoyed the film without getting too excited and while I don’t think it is a fun comedy, it does have some nice ironic touches. Good acting and a well rounded shortish film.
With ten minutes less and a bit more dramatic tension, this Argentine film by debut director Felipe Gomez Aparicio could have been really something. Best described as a mood piece, it is shot in extremely sombre colours with often blurred focus reflecting the somewhat dark subject matter of the film. There is not much dialogue and yet much of the content is transmitted through what we see in the film.
David (Mauricio di Yorio) is a young bodybuilder, still at school. He is completely under the thumb of his mother Juana (Umbra Colombo) who is almost more obsessed with his growth than he is, an obsession bordering on the incestuous.
She wants him to be prefect by a particular date that is revealed later in the film. When progress is slow they resort to more chemical methods of gaining muscle. At the same time, David is under pressure at school to be more present in his group of friends who are an especially tiresome group of braggards and jokers wanting to bed girls from the hockey team. While he is a loner, David gets upset when he can’t get it up for one girl (is it the steroids or the fact that he is possibly gay – evidenced by his use of gay porn?). Mostly, the consequences of these events go unremarked verbally and/or unresolved on screen. David just has to stick to the programme.
Overall, Gomez Aparicio gives us a sad, moody piece that has artistic qualities. I felt rather too much time was spent on gym scenes and training and not enough on dialogue. Sometimes less is not always more. Di Yorio is rather a blank slate but that is deliberate.
Colombo does well as the relentless mother and Diego Staroska is a suitably focused coach. Wouldn’t watch it again but might look out for the director.
I tend to avoid spy/action films for the same reason as westerns, the struggle to find a work with something new to say. This appealed because of its cast and the trailer which turns out to be almost nothing to do with the film.
Critics slated it while the box office was more benign but whether this is enough to continue the series is questionable. They probably will but my support stops here.
In short, it is a messy film with a confusing and often pointless plot that even given poetic licence is so unbelievable that the film itself exudes that vibe. Moreover, the huge amount of CGI and digital enhancement just makes it look false and cheap despite the 200 million price tag.
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Matthew Vaughan of the Kingman series, husband to Claudia Schiffer and friend to Madonna’s ex, directs this with plenty of the self-consciousness that is more concerned with what the product looks like than anything else. Writer Jason Fuchs does little to help. The film veers between fiction (the lead character is the writer who invented Argylle – a James Bond copy – and who is now on her 5th book), imagination (Argylle (Henry Cavill) comes to her mind everytime she thinks of her spy or is in a situation similar to him) and reality, as it is unveiled that neither she, Elly Conway nor her parents and others are really who they are. Maybe her cat is the only authentic character through and through. Conclusion re plot and storyline: it is very contrived and at times downright puzzling or pointless.
Bryce Dallas Howard gives an uneven performance in the lead and I suspect she doesn’t have the spark and humour to pull this difficult role off. Sam Rockwell is much more effective as Aidan, the spy trying to save Elly. (There is even a far-fetched hint of romance towards the end). Bryan Cranston does what he can in a rather one-note role as the main baddy and Catherine O’Hara shadows him.
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Almost all the rest are virtual cameos and get little chance to show off their skills. It is more like a platter with some tiny entrees to attract the audience. This applies to Cavill, Dua Lipa, Samuel L. Jackson, Ariana de Bose, John Cena and Richard E.Grant.
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Some action scenes such as one in an oil-filled boiler room are worth the watch but others tend to drag and you just want things to be wrapped up.
George Richmond’s photography also gets a pass mark in a film that otherwise tries to be too clever by half.
A Spanish-Bulgarian co-production, somewhat autobiographical as written and directed by Venci Kostov, a Bulgarian brought up in Spain.
The appeal of this movie is to see something of rural Bulgaria today and to explore the cross-cultural themes. Indeed, Fran Garcia Vera’s photography of the rustic villages and countryside is one of the best features here. Set in summer, it looks all rather idyllic on the surface contrasting with the reality of the story.
Victor (Dimitar Nikolov) is a 27-year-old living in Madrid. We understand he was brought up in Bulgaria until his early teens and when his parents separated he went to Spain with his mother (Antonia San Juan – playing Romanian). He is gay and lives with an older man in Madrid. Returning to Bulgaria for the funeral of his grandfather, he stays on to reconnect with his heritage. His father (Dimitar Banenkin) has hopes that his son will return and has built a second storey on the house just for his son. Dad is lonely and somewhat depressed and spends his time having long liquid barbecues with other men complaining about the corruption and laziness of Bulgarians. They are part of it too, of course and local cop Mitko (Ivan Matev), one of the group, has his finger in every pie.
Victor visits his now abandoned school and remembers his time there, bullied even as a 6-year-old and hangs out with Petya (Daria Simeonova), a friend from back then.
Most importantly he meets Liuben (Bojidar Iankov Asenov), a young gypsy and they become close friends.
Liuben is virtually illiterate, makes a small income from selling watermelons and has a baby on the way with a gypsy girl, whose brothers keep making his life hell. Liuben is curious and resilient and dreams of being a hairdresser in Germany but given the discrimination in Bulgaria his life is pretty hard. Victor compares life in cosmopolitan Madrid with the respect people give each other, even strangers to the snooping, judgmental life in rural Bulgaria. Although Liuben seems to be straight, the relationship develops until a tragic ending.
I found the film pleasant enough although somewhat simplistic and negative. We do get to see the corruption (bribery, human trafficking) and discrimination and violence towards gypsies and probably other outsiders in full swing.
The lead actors hold the film together reasonably well but it is not a film for virtuoso acting turns. Editing also seems abrupt at times and there are the usual beautiful photographic time fillers.
Sergio de la Puente has composed good music for the film.
The main plus here is to see a film with an LGBTQ theme set in Bulgaria and to see something of contemporary country life there.
Definitely one of the fresher, more unusual efforts of the year, a film that I’m still unsure how much I liked even if I admired many things about it.
Radha Blank is a playwright and artist in New York, largely on stage. Nearing 40, we see her in this semi-autobiographic movie having a crisis about her life. She misses her dead mother and her brother wants to tidy up the remaining property – largely paintings. She hasn’t had a decent stage show in years and is teaching scriptwriting at a college to a bunch of young and difficult students. Above all, she is feeling her age and a loss of authenticity in her voice.
The FYOV letters of the title pop up later in the film as referring to finding your own voice and other definitions of the acronym. It is also a spoof on the 40-year-old Virgin film by Judd Apatow.
A run-in with one of her students Elaine (Imani Lewis) leads Radha to explore rap as an outlet for her frustrations and creativity and she visits a DJ called D (Oswin Benjamin). Despite coming out with an excellent piece called Poverty Porn she is still shy about her ability and unsure that this is her path. She is trying to get her agent Archie (Peter Kim) to find a producer for her new play Harlem Ave. The play brings its own doubts. About gentrification in Harlem it has ended up seeming not very authentic and as it finally gets a producer, a slimy Josh Whitman (Excellent Reed Birney),
and goes to rehearsal with a white director, the compromises become too much for her. Whether it be stage fright, uncertainty or disgust, moving forward is tough for Radha who also has to live and eat.
Much as she is apprehensive at becoming a 40-year-old black mama rapper, this is where she seems most herself and best placed both artistically and romantically. A scene where she watches young women rappers at a sort of contest in a boxing ring is one of the most powerful in the film.
Eventually all of this comes together in the opening night of the play and we get a hint of her future.
So, there is a plot but it is a rather meandering movie which is very personal as well as saying something about life in NY today and the issue of black artists recently seen in American Fiction.
Radha is a compelling and sometimes irritating figure but after this film I will be keen to see more of her.
The film is shot in black and white by Eric Branco (white in Portuguese) and is one of the most attractive features here. It could have been edited more tightly but it is chockful of scenes of NY life.
2016 Italian film that didn’t get much recognition at the time. It’s basically a YA story with interest for older viewers and addresses the topic of bullying in High School. The context here is a school in Udine, Italy.
Newcomer Lorenzo (Rimau Grillo Ritzberger) is 16 and has moved here because he has been fostered by locals following the death of his parents. He is gay, out and proud and generally very positive and confident.
His benchmate in class is Blu (Valentina Romani) who has been dubbed slut of the school as she was involved with various hunks in the previous year. The two quickly get on well, feeling out of place in the rather conservative school (Lorenzo wears black nail polish to class and the teacher reports him).
Soon, they add Antonio (Leonardo Pazzagli) to their number. He is on the school basketball team but is going through a rough patch after the death of his talented older brother Massimo (Alessandro Sperduti ) who appears as a ghost from time to time. Antonio’s parents are over-protective understandably and he is struggling to process what has been happening.
Our heroic trio become fast friends and seem very happy but underneath there are typical teenage sexual tensions. Lorenzo has the hots for Antonio, who is straight and who, in turn, is keen on Blu. She is still supposedly going out with Gio, her boyfriend from the previous year who is now out of town at university.
One kiss at the wrong moment unleashes a series of reactions and to our surprise, what seemed to be an optimistic film about young people finding like-minded souls turns into aggression and tragedy. The film covers many of the typical adolescent issues and this battle between acceptance and rebellion.
I liked the movie. Director Ivan Cotroneo keeps things moving and films it in a modern poppy style with visual add-ons like butterflies exploding on the screen just like Heartstopper some years later. I’m not so sure about some choreographed songs by Lady Gaga, etc.
Grillo Ritzberger proves to be a natural on screen and leads the acting honours.
Nothing totally original and yet the film is entertaining and meaningful at the same time.
passionfilm 