Lele Reviews

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Cryin' Out Loud

[8/10 · 16 April 2018]

After 5 minutes I gave up and turned the movie off. I thought it was all about this teen parties things, womanizers and so on. But after reading more about, I gave it a second chance and... wow... I cried all the time!

I am 60 and I knew exactly what they were talking about: as a teacher, as a father as a former teenager everything is fine in this movie and Shailene does not die... Isn't it wonderful?

Monsieur Lazhar (2011)

Deep and soft movie about existence

[9/10 · 14 April 2018]

As a teacher I was deeply impressed by this movie. It says in a delicate but clear way sometruths about our profession. In particular I was stunned by the profound true paranoia about physical contact with children. And I was very annoyed by the interference of families in teaching. I quote: "We prefer that you teach our daughter, not try to raise her."

This happens daily in real life: family think that children are their intouchable property. Here in Italy almost daily we get news about relatives who go to school and threaten and even beat teachers!

Furthermore this movie deals with doing the right thing. Some parents hate the new teacher and when they discover that he has not the right papers they get him fired. This is legally "right" but it is unfair from the point of view of the children who suffer two losses.

I loved this movie for the fine acting, the right pace, the freedom it gives to the viewers to make an opinion by themselves. And my conclusion is that the main character had no titles to teach and he had to be fired even if he was fine and he was the right person for the class. But this is sad, really sad.

In Her Shoes (2005)

Much better than we thought

[8/10 · 31 March 2018]

I confess that I bought this DVD because its price was just 4.99 euros. I expected the typical comedy where two people swap, fantasy hilarious situations and so on. But I was wrong. I watched this with my wife (we are near sixty) and we laughed and cried and discussed and then discussed again. This movie is great! The script was brilliant. Acting was more than adequate and directing and cinematography were correct.

I suggest it to everybody, young and old people.

8/10

The Shining (1980)

Most overrated movie by IMDb users

[6/10 · 26 March 2018]

OK! It's Kubrick and I could not give it less than 6/10 I watched it in once 1980 and never rewatched it again It has some iconic scenes and a great photography (it's Kubrick) But it is 2h26' long, people, come on! It is more than boring: it is exhausting. It is everything but scary and/or thrilling. Metacritic is by my side, by the way, with 63/100, the lowest metacritic score for a Kubrick movie, as far as I know

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Escalated too quickly

[3/10 · 24 March 2018]

Looking forward to find and watch this movie. 7.2/10 by public 63/100 by metacritic on IMDb. 3.6/5 by public and 68/100 on Rottentomatoes

Once a wise man said: "None went bankrupted for understimating US viewers stupidity" (to say nothing of US voters...) I live in old/rotten Italy (Europe). I must admit that as we Italians DO know how to make pizza, you US-of-Americans know how to make movies. But I cannot understand how this lousy stupid script have had green light by producers, unless I suppose that investors are just like other people: stupid.

This movie has grossed 90 mln over a budget of 26. During the first WE it covered the costs! I just can't believe it. I like Will Ferrel. i loved Land of the Lost (2009) and Stranger Than Fiction (2006) but in THIS movie sincerely he looks stupid and not funny. There is a thin line, you know, between demential and dement. This movie is by far in the dement, idiot, dummy cathegory. I don't know any teenager who can laugh at its gags. I don't know any adult either.

People who gave this movie more than 5/10 can be dangerous, but people who gave it a 10/10 (13.1% of IMDb voters) is a phylosophical riddle: what the he** did they see? Is there a hidden version they watched instead of mine?

It is not a matter of different tastes: this movie is really BAD. Just stay away from it.

Hope this can help

A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)

Not easy movie, but I liked it

[8/10 · 16 March 2018]

I have to premise that I am strongly convinced that animals are just animals. I feel annoyed by people who say "Animals are better than humans: they don't betray you " and bulls**t like this.

Thus I hated people who ignored James without the cat and are kind and generous with the cat. Just like I hate cat and/or dog videos on social media. In my country, in Italy, there are more pets than babies, and I'll be happy with our extintion as a species because we deserve it.

On the other side there is the story of redemption of James who finds an aim through the cat who becomes his project. I am happy with this, but is it not a kind of sad to think that no human being, not even his own father, has helped him to recover?

One moment: a decent person in this movie does exist and is Val, the social worker. She is the actual heroine (no pun intended).

Social workers are at very high risk of burning out because they usually cannot see very much good results of their (hard) work. I sincerely admired the character of Val. She believed in James and gave him a home and advices and after all James success was also her success.

I did not find the movie so embroidered as other reviewers have said before me. The story is quite harsh and it is harshly told. Think at the sequence when he suffers for the methadone suspension! It was like Hell on Earth, and it was great that James succeded in healing. Not easy, and it was finely descripted.

Acting was fine as Luke Treadaway did not push too strongly on the pleased compassion key. Directing was also fine and tones were not unbalanced even in the most dramatic moments, like the death of his mate.

To me one of the toughest scene was when the lady wanted to BUY the cat and James told her if she wanted to sell her child. The lady was convinced that the cat had the right to have a home, her home, giving for granted that James was not a decent owner.

Also when James says he was called "sir" for the first time AFTER he got the cat. The portrait of human misery in my opinion. If one gives a s**t about junkies, then he should care even less about a man with a cat!

Halloween (1978)

The only thing I am afraid of...

[2/10 · 13 March 2018]

...is to hurt people's sensibility. When it comes to a movie so iconic, celebrated not only by the box office but even by critics, I am afraid i'll be not nice. This movie is crap: it's quite like the Emperor's dress of the fairy tale.

Premise. I am sixty. Same age of Jamie Lee Curtis. I didn't watch this movie when it came out. I was 20, but I am sure that I had walked out after 15 minutes.

It is not scary. Positively NONE of the scene scared me. No jump. Nothing. The plot is crappy idiot. It's not a question of budget! Even with ten times the budget and best actors the movie cannot be saved.

I wanted to see it till the very end, but there is no way. It is a very bad movie. Frankly I don't understand the cult around it. Carpenter wrote Dark Star and and Assault on Precinct 13, before and Escape from New York, after.

But this movie... come on! Horror? This is horror?

Tell No One (2006)

Benigni was right...

[5/10 · 10 March 2018]

...Italians can do pizza, French can do wine and American can do movies.

French movies can be outstanding, but this is not one of them. Intouchables (2011) was delightful and deeply French: I cannot imagine US fim makers producing a movie like that.

This mistery movie is dated, to say the least. Huge use of flashbacks, culprit who in the last two minutes explains everything to the public. All of this is obsolete way of film making, at least 50 years old. Mistery movies nowadays are way different and smarter. In this movie I lost my interest after ten minutes. The only reason I kept going was my wife, who anyway lost its interest in the middle of the movie. We were waiting for some interesting twist because of IMDb high rating, but it didn't happen. The movie is boring, shallow and useless. I gave 5/10 because of decent acting and cinematography, but as regards the plot it is 1/10

Good Kill (2014)

We are living in the future

[8/10 · 5 March 2018]

This movie looks like a sci fi movie, but it isn't. It looks like a Bourne franchise movie, but it is not that, either. This movie is what the war looks like today. No more US soldiers back in coffins covered by Star'n'stripes flag, they say. OK, folks, I have bad news. Drones can be driven by your enemies, too. Not only the Good Guys from Pentagon and CIA have drones, but Russian and Chinese, too. And these weapons can be bought and sold, just like nuclear weapons.

War leads nowhere. It is just a lot of money in weapon Corporations pockets, in the US, just like here in Italy and everywhere. War to terrorism leads nations like US and Israel to be terrorist themselves. This is history not my opinion.

This movie tries to show how human can be a drone based war. Maybe even worse PTSD effects. Alcoholic and psychotic disorders instead of physical injures.

We can see Major Tom going down a spiral of madness through alcohol, impotence, seclusion and anger which raises its acme when he shoots the 7,000 miles away raper, like an almighty vigilante.

It is not strange that this movie got mild average ratings (as Jarhead (2005)) Most people simply don't get it. They probably think like M.I.C. Joseph Zimmer (the one who talked about how green is Virginia to new women soldiers) they kill us, we kill them. No time for stopping and reflecting about military mistakes. It remember an interview a few decades ago, in which Buzz Aldrin (1930), the astronaut who was with Armstrong first mission on the Moon, said he wanted to nuke terrorists. This explains a lot about Trump victory and making US great again!

Caché (2005)

Of critics and movie goers

[2/10 · 26 February 2018]

This movie is boring. Very boring. A pre-teen make a prank to his parents with the help of an older friend. 113 minutes of slide show (without music) to tell a story nobody cares about. The main character is obnoxius and you hope he is killed, but this never happens.

Don't watch this movie unless you are a wannabe movie critic and want to boast going around and lie telling how arty is this film, French film, Austrian or whatever doesn't matter.

Simply don't

Jarhead (2005)

An outstanding underrated anti-war movie

[10/10 · 25 February 2018]

*** spoilers alert***

War is totally useless, and is boring, too. As a pacifist, antimilitarist, conscientious objector in 1976 I loved this movie much more than Full Metal Jacket (spoofed during the first minutes). Boredom, heat, blinding light, friendly fire (23% of US casualties during the First Iraqi war), heavy jokes between brothers in Arms, civil casualties, oil well burning ("Earth is crying"), war finished without a shot.

This movie delivers a very clever portrait of the absurdity of (all) war. Beautiful photography, very fine acting (loved Foxx, as usual), etc so why the less than 6/10 Metacritic score?

IMO the critics were heavily biased in 2005 because of the SECOND Gulf War. US invaded Iraq just a two years before this movie was released and people didn't want to see how useless can be going to a war that nobody (but G.W.Bush and friends) wanted.

Iraqi casualties were 100,000-150,000 if we count only violent deaths. Over one million if we count also embargo aftermath. With Great Power Comes Great responsiblities... and a very huge amount of money. Very huge.

Americans dead on September 11 are widely revenged. US won. Game Over.

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Obnoxious characters

[4/10 · 24 February 2018]

I have hated each and every character of this movie from the beginning until the end. I was 18 in 1976, but I was in an actual school not in the "Marylin Monroe High School" which we are told in this movie. If actual schools, students and teachers in US are exactly like those shown in this movie, then I start understanding better the killing sprees before and after Columbine massacre! I am a pacifist, no-violent, coscience objecter, refused military service in 1976, but I had strangled the "..., man!" character with my bare hands I swear. When I was 18 I was strictly away from this kind of people and not because of their sex drugs and rock and roll, but because they are empty as halloween pumpkins! Sorry for Mr.Linklater (who made excellent movies after this one), but maybe this movie makes laugh halloween pumpkins not people who loved Breakfast Club (1985) or Almost famous (2000)

Ten Thousand Saints (2015)

Hated the characters

[4/10 · 17 February 2018]

I watched this movie because I love Ethan Hawke (Predestination, Tape), Asa Butterfield (Hugo Cabret, The Ender's Game), Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of Seventeen, True Grit). Nevertheless I have hated the characters since the very first lines. They look like the grotesque caricatures of themselves and I never succeded to make a real contact with any of them. The father (Ethan Hawke) is a moron, the kid is a jerk who almost died to sniff some lethal gas during 1988 New Year Eve and his friend is even more obnoxious and he deserves to die. By the way I do hate movies where the main character dies after 15 minutes. If he is a kid I hate the movie more. As an adult I felt ashamed for the character played by Ethan Hawke: how the he** can someone say to a 10 years old kid that he is adopted in the way he does?! Come on! And Johnny the Hare Krisna? I could not bare ANY of the characyers included Les' ex-wife. I mean, do you REALLY need to have one-night-stand sex with that di**head? Are you that 'hungry'? Is he that appealing? I'm not a bigot: I just have appreciated if Les' ex-wife had sent him to fu** himself! Nobody saves and the movie is like a false parade of stereotypical losers. You can survive without this movie, believe me

Spider (2002)

A trip in through madness

[8/10 · 12 February 2018]

Much more disturbing than Videodrome (1983), showing almost nothing else than the desperate face of the brilliant Fiennes, this movie is a shocking portrait of mental illness. Namely the Capgras delusion syndrome, a real rare mental disorder. Main symptoms are the misidentification of people, places and even time. This movie depicts in a extrahordinary effective way the paranoid schizophrenia of the main character. One of the best movie I've seen about psychiatric conditions. A must see. My favorite Cronenberg movie came shortly after: A History of Violence (2005)

Miracle Mile (1988)

A Millennium ago

[4/10 · 7 February 2018]

This movie has is 30 years old, but it looks like it has 130. Acting is poor, direction is poorer and script is bad. It starts as a romance, goes on as a farce and ends as a tragedy. A huge tragedy. Script writers should not fool their audience. If I am watching The Day After, I am prepared to what's going on. The screenplay is clever. You feel compassion for people in their generality. You feel sorry for Humanity. In this movie you should feel sympathy for single characters who will die in a small cloud of vapor. That is not fair to me. I did not like it. My wife was right when she said that old movies are at risk, unless they are masterpieces

It Comes at Night (2017)

IT comes never for somebody

[7/10 · 5 February 2018]

8% of IMDb users gave it 1/10; 30% or more of the 1000 top IMDb users gave it 4/10 or less These data are much more depressing than the movie itself, IMHO.

I am in my 60s (born 1958) and I totally understood the desperation of this movie. A teacher (a colleague of mine, BTW) and his wife try to keep safe their family, their son, from the dangers outside, only to lose him after a useless struggle with a younger poor couple of common people like them who lose everything, including their lives.

What comes at night? FEAR comes at night.

I barely understand the reason why this movie has the tag "horror". Hey you there: it's the drama of being alive in this world each day of our life. In another great post-apocalyptic movie "The Road" (2009) the Woman kills herself because she doesn't bear the situation. That's the miracle, folks: why do we keep going on living? Why does the couple in the movie go on? In the painful last scene we see them without their son, their hope. Having children is like throwing a message in a bottle to our future selves. Life is totally meaningless to people with the bottle broken. I'd kill myself immediately if something happened to my 15-years-old daughter.

In "The Road" last sequence the Man dies and the Boy is adopted by another family which is a "happy" ending compared with It Comes at Night tragic conclusion.

Hope this may be useful

Ugetsu (1953)

Don't watch this movie...

[1/10 · 3 February 2018]

...unless you are a film-maker.

You know, i will be 60 this year and I have seen thousands movies, literally.

I love Kurosawa, Ozu, Kubrick, Bergmann, Herzog, Fellini, Wenders, Altman, Jarmush, Kaurismaki, Bunuel and dozens of other art movie makers. Even Lynch.

A friend of mine is a movie collector: he owns thousands of VHS, DVD, Super 8 and he insisted to borrow me a copy of Ugetsu.

I wanted to stop it after 10 minutes but I didn't and I made a mistake: it was a pain. I didn't get almost anything of the (allegedly wonderful) tales that were goin on. I repeat myself: I love movies. Ozu's Sanma No Aji (1962) was delightful. I strongly recommend it even if Fast and Furious fans would find more similar to a slide show than to a movie. But it is 113 minutes of amazing cinema.

In Ugetsu I could not relate to any of the characters and things going on. And I started hating it. I felt frauded and frustrated.

And that's why I gave it 1/10 Just like I did with other movies I hated for different reasons, like The Green Mile, The Usual Sospects, Tron - Legacy and La Vita È Bella.

I did not even give 1/10 to Sharknado because it made me laugh, so it deserved a 3/10.

So please stay away from this movie.

Hope it cvan be useful.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

Unbelievable!

[5/10 · 3 February 2018]

This is a sci fi movie for the following reasons: 1. At 34.35 when Maj.Huglin runs after Dr.Marvin, Mrs.Marvin was ready to jump into the car, dressed with her overcoat on, while a few seconds before she was in bed in her pijama. I wish my wife could do that! In 33 years of marriage I have to wait at least half an hour to get her ready.

2. Dr. Marvin is always perfectly shaved even when he and his wife are stuck in the soundproofed room in the bunker. The other character are perfectly shaved, and even General Hanley zombified by aliens, too. Female character's make up is always perfect, when she just woke up and even when she is sleeping!

3. Eyewitnesses are never not believed by military. Not just any Mr.Smith, but the director of the Sky Hook project!

4. Military shoot their pathetic bullets against energy shields flying saucers also after they have seen with their eyes that UFOs have disintegrator rays.

5. Revolutionary deadly weapon against invaders from outer space is ready in a couple of weeks and it works perfectly from tracks in Washington. Even if alien invaders have threated all the superpowers in the world (and we suppose that hundreds of UFOs are attacking the main cities of the world), half a dozen flying saucers down in US capital are enough to save the world.

Please notice the amazing Independence Day quotes 40 years in advance! Actually I gave Independence Day even less score because you CAN'T program a virus for an alien operating system and need to shoot it physically into the alien starship causing their defeat. Just you CAN'T. Sci fi has some rules you know...

Special effects are the best thing in the movie. The script looks like they wrote it in a lazy afternoon. Still it has some improvement with respect to the War Of The Worlds (1953): you can actually see and hear the aliens. Aliens are vulnerable. A rifle does kill them. We know why they are here.

Anyway nothing to do with the great The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), (Italian "Ultimatum To The Earth" is a better title, I think)

Is deserves a watch, but remember that The Forbidden Planet (same year, 1956) is far beyond this average, forgettable movie.

Hope this can be useful.

The Shape of Water (2017)

13 oscars? Come on!

[6/10 · 1 February 2018]

I LIKED Acting, directing, photography, set design

I DISLIKED (Almost everything in) the script. First. Why did they want just to vivisect the creature? Why? Second. What did Soviet spy want? Why they wanted to kill the creature? Why did they shoot Dimitri? Third. If the creature could heal himself, why was he dying at Lisa's home?

Furthermore I almost hate musicals (expecially Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) so I was about to leave the theater when they quoted the 30s musicals in the dance of Lisa and the creature sequence.

Leave alone the silly idea to fill the bathroom with 2,50 meters of water just using a towel to plug the door slit. Water is heavy, almost 5-8 tons, and it would have broken the floor.

Another thing was annoying: a 70-years-old man should not try and flirt with people 50 years youger than him, no matter if male or female.

The oscar that the movie does not deserve IMO are: Best Motion Picture Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Best Achievement in Music Best Original Screenplay Best Achievement in Costume Design

In the Company of Men (1997)

Mental Horror

[8/10 · 30 January 2018]

That's not "comedy-drama". That's a kind of movie like Little Murders (1971), Being There (1979), The Bothersome Man (2006). Mental Horror, indeed. You watch them, you giggle from time to time, but when the film is over you feel cold inside and wonder why there exist people like that, situations like that. Hell on Earth. Machiavellan, Mephistophelean creatures that ruin other people lives. Definitely not a comedy.

The director-writer is great! i can't believe how did he manage to make such a movie for 25,000 dollars! Did the actors work for free? Did they get dividends on the movie gross? If so they did a great deal, because the movie got a lot of money, and it deserved it.

With less than the money that Hollywood spent for photocopies when they did that crappy Tron-Legacy (2010) mister Labute did this masterpiece. I advice to watch this film to all the movie goers who are tired of Tron-Legacy-like stuff.

With the budget of Tron-Legacy smart film-makers could do hundreds of intelligent movies like this. After all Following (1998) Nolan's debut film budget was 6,000 dollars, Clerks (1994) was made with 27,575$. "To acquire the funds for the film, Kevin Smith sold a large portion of his extensive comic book collection" (wikipedia)

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Why 10/10?

[10/10 · 30 January 2018]

This is exactly the kind of story I would write if I was a screenwriter! Just like Ruby Sparks (2012) by Zoe Kazan (yes, she's the granddaughter of great Elia Kazan). Actually when I was younger I loved try and write something and one of the story, never finished to say the truth, was about a character who realizes he is fictional. This movie is perfect. I love Emma Thompson, since I first saw her acting in 1989 Tall Guy (higly recommended): she his one of my favorite actress.

And I love Will Ferrel, too. One of my favorites is Land of the Lost (2009), a movie that look like the plot was written by sci fi writers Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams together!

I love this movie so much that I want to watch it again in the original version, you know: here in Italy they distribute just dubbed movies. Fortunately DVD prices have had a vertical collapse from 30 to 4.99 euros and less!

Long life to Internet streaming if this is the reason for prices reduction:)

20th Century Women (2016)

That'n not junk cinema!

[9/10 · 28 January 2018]

I understand the rage of many other US reviewers because this movie is so far from usual Hollywood clichés that it does not even look like an US movie! It seems an European movie. Bergman, Fellini and stuff... It is NOT boring. It has its pace and it is exacly what it has to be. I identified myself at different levels. I was born in 1958, just like the main actress (great performance). And like Dorothea I had a daugther when I was in my 40s (she now is 15, like Jamie, Dorothea's son) and I don't know how to talk to her, I don't like much of the music she likes and so on. I was a teenager in the 70s, so I identified with Jamie, great character: I wish I had one thousandth of his self-consciousness when I was his age!

This movie was oxygen for suffocating US major's movies, after sequels and remakes and CGI shows finally something to think about.

Fail Safe (1964)

Who believe this can happen...

[1/10 · 8 January 2018]

...well, is pretty naive, to say the least!

I didn't assign the lowest score for acting or cinematography: they are fine. I watched this movie during my childhood, here in Italy in the late 60's We were really scared by a nuclear war, and my city is an important NATO base...

Anyway even if I was just a preteen, I did not buy that Henry Fonda had ordered to nuke US cities as an American self-punishment for the Moscow bombing mistake.

And to a greater extent I don't buy it now

The Gift (VI) (2015)

Nobody told a story like this before

[8/10 · 31 December 2017]

I will not repeat other reviewers' praises about the fine acting of the three main artists, or the good script and directing.

This is the first story I know about the "aftermath" of bullying, while almost any movie or novel about bullying shows kids bullying other kids. I'd like to remark that it's still doable a movie which deals with horrible topics without showing almost anything actually horrible or violent or bloody. I mean that this is a movie in a Hitchcock-style. And I liked it.

It Follows (2014)

Not so scary

[5/10 · 21 December 2017]

I watched this movie for the high rating, mainly as metascore.

An horror movie MUST be scary, just like comedies MUST make you laugh. If they don't achieve this goal they failed. And "It Follows" failed. Acting and cinematography are OK, but the scary thing behaves in a horrorly correct way only when the "monster" transforms in Greg's mother and kills it.

Otherwise the behavior of the 'creature' is not understandable. Why does it go on materializing itself so far from the victim, namely Jay, if it is so slow?

I mean, I don't usually love paranormal horror movies, but once I have accepted the supernatural premise everything must be coherent, like in Carrie (1976).

Anyway, all in all, it is quite amusing and I don't regret to have seen it