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claude-molosiu
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The Hateful Eight (2015)
I can't believe this is the same guy who did Pulp Fiction
Tarantino looks like a Hall of Famer who stuck around the game too long. I just turned off this mess of a movie after wasting two hours watching it. It pains me to see one of my favorite directors of all time reduced to just nonsense narratives culminated by another head blown off. Mr. Tarantino, it's time to call it a day. I surely need to wash this garbage down with another round of Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.
Lulekuqet mbi mure (1976)
Probably the best Albanian movie ever made
"Lulekuqet mbi mure" (literally "Red poppies on the walls") a movie about life in a Tirana orphanage during the Italian fascist occupation of Albania (early 1940s), was indeed produced at the height of the communist era in Albania (1976). Therefore, the movie's plot and storyline could not escape the veil of politicization and communist propaganda that was the strong, common undertone of any Albanian movie during that era.
However, this movie, thanks to a unique, powerful plot, and especially superb acting from some of the finest Albanian actors of the time, was so masterfully delivered that in retrospect the main storyline (the drama unfolding inside the orphanage) manages to eclipse the propagandistic facade the ending of the movie is ultimately forced to convey (the communists are the good guys and the fascists are the bad ones).
While the movie owes much of its success to performances of one of the finest Albanian actors - Timo Flloko - starring as a history teacher, and the always charismatic, the late Agim Qiriaqi, superbly starring as the fascist school principal, one man's performance towers above all: the movie's main villain, the orphanage's manipulative, sadistic caretaker. Such pure evilness was delivered by the immortal Kadri Roshi, a legend of Albanian cinema, in perhaps the greatest role of his life. Such extraordinary is Roshi's performance that not only the villain is the most distinguished character in this movie (something highly unusual for Albanian movies of that time) but the Caretaker is also one of the best known, most quoted characters in the history of the Albanian cinema.
Gone Girl (2014)
I don't buy this story
If a movie doesn't have a story, it's not a good movie. I thought Fincher tried to shove the movie's ending down my throat. I have not read the book so I can't tell if this is Fincher butchering it or not having much to work with. The movie started out great, very promising. However, after that Amy phone call from the gas station to Desi, the movie deflated quickly. From there to the end the story is a bunch of hooey.
*How does Desi, an apparently successful LOCAL person, harbor a missing person appearing on a cover story nationwide and subject to a manhunt? Is just his college fling with Amy that would make me believe that he would take that crazy amount of risk? He appears also too naive or stupid for someone to be taking that risk, which is in stark contrast with his successful image and obsessive/paranoid character (security cameras everywhere). I have never seen a paranoid/rich person who is also that gullible. That character is as fake as a three dollar bill. And Neil Patrick Harris is a bad choice for that character as he strikes me as neither stupid/gullible nor psycho/paranoid.
*Amy's return home storyline has way too many holes to pass as remotely credible. Was she able to access Desi's state of the art security system so as to delete all incriminating evidence? Her staging of the rape was enough to make police buy her story? Was she an advanced computer programmer to erase Desi's hard drives from those security camera downloads? Or should we take that for granted? It's just not believable.
*Pike's performance is absolutely outstanding, probably the only thing of the entire movie worth watching.