Flow.

 Absolutely stunning animation with animal anthropomorphism added only to the degree it makes the storyline moving forward. Dogs are not very anthropomorphic, which suggests that the director is a partisan of cats. 

The Conclave.

    

      Tis more a filmed theatrical play than a movie. It seems to be a new specialty. And the storyline is pretty predictable. But what a constellation of talents! Incomparable Ralph Fiennes in the role of a born-again atheist and tough manager of the College of the Cardinals is supported by John Lithgow, fifty years in the field, and still running, as well as Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci.    

The Apprentice.

    

      A totally unconvincing storyline. Namely, that a tender naif Trump becomes seduced by Roy Cohn and becomes a sociopath just like him and his own father. He is shown patiently courting Ivana with flowers and music to her ears. According to the movie, Trump comes to the distant Colorado location to wean her from her fiancée with gentleness and dedication. More likely, he would come with another model and then leave her in high heels and minidress among the snows of Colorado when he gets Ivana.  Trump always was a brutish lot and did not need prodding of Cohn to become who he is. Furthermore, unusual, almost fatherly feelings of Roy to Trump Jr. are not explained, psychologically or through the plot. Who was Cohn: a medieval devil patiently expecting a moment to snatch another human soul? Don't think so; he was a psychopath and that is the end of it. 

Thicket.

 A really good western since a long time. Juliette Lewis is shining in the role of a deranged killer. Peter Dinklage is good as ever. The problems: psychological motivation for the murderess behavior, her unexpected tenderness to her hostage (she wanted to groom her into her heir?) and many other things are either missing or briefly explained in such mix of a local drawl and slang that it is impossible to comprehend. 

Blink Twice by Zoe Kravitz.

     

      The movie continues the narrative started with "The Menu", "Glass Onion" and "The Triangle of Sadness" blacklisted by Hollywood censorship machine, probably for "American Communist-Russian Capitalist" shtick. The narrative is that the filthy rich become vapid and insane.  

    The problem with the movie is that few of the storylines are supported by action. The most important plot moments are garbled like the story of the child abuse of the principal character turning him into a sociopath. 

     The ending is good but borrowed from the ending of "Misery" with James Caan and Kathy Bates. 

                                                     

My choices for 2024 "bugger" (Oscar)

 

This is how I would award 2024 Oscars. The real winners are in pink. 

1. Best picture -- Barbie (second or third best grossing movie in history deserves this once) 

2. Best director -- Bradley Cooper

3. Best actress in a leading role -- Emma Stone or Hellen Mirren

4. Best actor in a leading role -- Bradley Cooper ? 

5. Best actress in a supporting role -- Carey Mulligan 

6. Best actor in a supporting role -- Robert Downey Jr. 

7. Best animation feature -- Heron by Miyazaki 

8. Best animation short -- Letter to a Pig 

Yorgos Lanthimos. Kind of kindness.

     

     If there are method actors, there must be method directors. Lanthimos' method is obviously throwing everything on the wall and see what sticks. Sometime, he succeeds. Mostly, he misses. 

The dead don't hurt.

    

     The movie is inept collection of poorly motivated episodes and even the superb acting of Vicky Krieps -- the only non-cutout character of the entire movie -- does not save it. As an example: Viggo Mortensen's departure to the American Civil War is not explained in any believable psychological or plot terms. Viggo M. could at least invent some unexpected indebtedness, which would compel his character to participate in the war waged by foreign people for an obscure (for him) political cause. 

Alex Garland. Civil War.

   

      An excellent and timely idea spoiled by cursory execution, partly to make a movie palatable--without De Sade-Cormac McCarthy-style scenes of unbridled sadism, partly to satisfy Hollywood political correctness censorship. 

    Good execution, and, probably an original idea was to remove any political hues in the contest of the warring parties. But Hollywood censorship bureau imposed the necessity to make the US Government side look like Trumpians -- third presidential term, disbanding the FBI ("intelligence community" is the darling of Hollywood neocons) and the only mass murder scene was obviously led by the MAGA men against immigrants and the people of color. 

    Henceforth, the movie incorporates an impossible "Western alliance" of Texas and California. The civil war situation strangely allows a practical exterritoriality to the war correspondents, even female. A realistic "Game of Throne" adage that "soldiers will f-[assault] anything with tits" of the Queen Cersei will be too hard to swallow by the sissy US audiences. 

    A turning of a naive girl (Cailee Spaeny) into a fearless psychopath and a violence groupie is sublimely acted upon by Cailee and the cast but it is not psychologically supported by other plotlines. Some psychopaths, like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Samantha Power or Joseph Stalin enjoyed mass murder but were largely averse to watching it and were quite cowardly. But there are also people, like Jungers -- whether Ernst or Sebastian, or Otto Skorzeny -- who were attracted to the gore and killing as to a drug, and got an additional kick from risking their own lives. 

      The war scenes are so XXth century -- as war in Ukraine demonstrates, an infantry movement without close air support by drones and even with it, over the enemy territory is almost impossible. So, a significant share of combatants have to stubbornly look into their phones and laptops. 

        Summary execution of the political elite is stupid. Wars must end with some form of the legitimation of the winning side. That's why, the Soviets did not execute Reich's military and political elite after the siege of Berlin and, moreover, offered them full protection against reprisals by Red Army soldiers, most of whom, in view of Nazi atrocities had ample reasons to do so. And, indeed, orderly capitulation procedures by the Allies precluded guerilla war and other manifestations of the failed state. On the contrary, unconditional elimination of the Iraqi and Libyan governing structures by the Americans paved the way towards a protracted civil war, lawlessness and partition of the respective countries. 

Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation.

     

            The subjects for this year are all elevating: uniformization of girls by Islamic society (Our Uniform), child molesting (Pachyderm), Holocaust (Letter to a Pig), death penalty (Ninety-Five Senses) and war (The War is Over). The best, visually, is the Letter to a Pig where most kids, listening to a Holocaust survival story are themselves animal-like brutes. 

Teacher's Lounge

     

      Teacher's Lounge is a nice movie. Nobody is raped, kidnapped or murdered. Only the six-grader hits and bruises his female teacher by a laptop. But it shows the degree to what fascism under the guise of "liberalism" and "democracy" proliferated in modern Germany. All human relations and even emotions are transgressions. All work relationships are regulated by administrative procedures or by laws, which do not always agree. 

    School is ruffled because of theft (happy are the Germans--no school shootings or rapes). Social workers -- a fixture of the Northern European movies -- possess undue power, even allowed to frisk six-graders, "voluntarily" [1]. Furthermore, the absurd rules of "democratic" representation presume that the confidential school meetings are attended by class "representatives" who are intermittently serve as the spies for teachers' and students' body. 

    But if the suspect belongs to minority, they are accused of racism even if a social worker is himself mixed-race. This is done by ubiquitous and self-righteous school newspaper, whose high-schooler editors take after British tabloids, with their prurience and demagoguery. And teachers are silent and cowed. 

    A robbed teacher videotapes a real thief -- a straight-laced administrative assistant and a single mother of the class nerd beloved by his teacher but ostracized by the class. But, instead the teacher and the school principal are threatened by a thief with a criminal lawsuit for violation of her privacy and parents of the students support her on social networks and not the besieged teacher. 

    The rest of the movie is a love-hate duet by the teacher and her student. 

[1] Juvenile justice system in the Nordic countries and Holland is obviously staffed by the types, which could be suitable for the Gestapo in olden times. In Germany, the situation, according to the movies, is slightly more benign. 

    

Poor Things.

       

     In Hollywood, it happens that an artists receive Oscar but not for the work they deserved it. For instance, Guillermo del Toro received "the bugger" (P. O'Toole's word) for the "Shape of Water" but did not -- for much more coherent and innovative "Pan's Labyrinth". 

    Equally, Emma Stone got it for pathetic "La La Land". But she is unlikely to get it for her brilliant performance in "Poor Things" if anything for absurd dozen or so sexual acts during the movie (obviously Yorgos Latimos loves filming E. S. naked). 

    The movie itself is a happy-end Frankenstein meeting Pygmalion by the way of the "Island of Dr. Moreau" further garnished by steampunk and even Fado. 

    Latimos tried to inject some verity in the sordid Belle Epoque prostitution with the question by the jilted fiancée: "Did you get checked for the disease?" and oddly repulsive characters of clients. Yet the model-looking hookers -- compare with the depictions by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec -- in designer costumes remain. Also remains a caring brothel madam. In all-cash society brothels had to be guarded by burly characters despising and abusing working girls. Alcoholism and drug addiction ran rampant and otherwise powerless girls had to vent their abuse on each other.