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raphael1836
Reviews
The New Look (2024)
Malkovich?
OMG, him pretending to be French is as bad as him pretending to be Russian in Billions and French in Dangerous Liaisons. He always sounds like himself, purely American and like some kind of lowlife. But that's not the worst part: the often hand-held camera work is terrible and oftentimes dizzying, as when there's a fashion show at the Sorbonne and you see the models turning from above, which means you don't get a full sense of how they look in their fashions. But more than that, there's such a bizarre mixture of accents throughout it's really annoying. I kept feeling like this was sewn together from other, better movies and TV series about Paris under the Occupation and French haute couture designers. The clothes are pretty, I guess, and so are some of the interiors, but this feels second-hand.
The Swimmer (2021)
Disappointing and incomplete
So we have swimmers competing for one spot at the Olympics, driven by a hard-as-nails coach and all that seems pretty run-of-the-mill. What promised to be different was the story of the closeted swimmer attracted to a rival, but it fell apart. I wonder if scenes were cut that would have added texture and depth because I wondered why the coach suddenly turned against the swimmer he said was going all the way, and why being gay in Israel would disqualify anyone from being on an international team. Someone says the coach has never done anything in his life, but we don't know that or what his story really is. Likewise, we have very little understanding of the main character's life or why he's suddenly "kicked out of" the locker room. What happened? And then the ridiculous disco ending just made no sense. If you make it to the end you'll wonder why Erez seems to do what he does...anything else would be a spoiler. Better yet, don't waste your time. There are echoes here of a brilliant movie, Chariots of Fire, and invoking that film was a mistake because it makes this one seem puny.
Glass Onion (2022)
A lousy mystery
I don't know why professional movie critics love this movie. Are they that bored after the worst of the pandemic? Or are they trying to drive audiences to theaters? As a mystery, it failed completely: The killer was obvious almost immediately, so when the "solution" was revealed, it was a stone cold dud. The acting and script felt cartoonish and at times the whole thing felt like some coked-up improvisation. Too much shouting, not enough depth to any of the characters. I love mystery movies, series, and novels and all the critics who talk about how the writer/director is re-inventing Agatha Christie don't have a clue to her genius. I did watch every minute, hoping it would get better, but the crashing, explosive finale was worse than everything that came before.
The Lady Vanishes (2013)
Has Nobody Read the Book?
Hitchcock's movie is wildly over-rated and people are far too snowed by the mumbling, bumbling cricket fans, Michael Redgrave's charm and Lockwood's beauty-in-distress.
The new version may not be perfect but it is most definitely not a remake of the 1938 movies, it's an adaptation of the book and far closer to the novel The Wheel Spins. Does it wrap up too quickly? Well, so does the book, unfortunately.
Hitchcock added way too much farce and a silly gun battle that veer so far from the nature of the novel as to be almost unbelievable.
Despite the ending, I recommend The Wheel Spins unreservedly. Its a dark psychological study of a mind almost sinking into madness. The author does a wonderful job of writing about a socialite who is drawn into a mystery way beyond any trouble she's ever had to deal with, one that makes her for the first time in her life feel alone and helpless.