Heart of the Beast.

   

     It is interesting whether Odin (Uber) can earn an Oscar. If so, Brad can only get a nomination for a man in the supporting role. There are many oddities in the movie. A pilot reported to the airport that he is flying, is absent for a week and nobody is looking for him. The character of the J. K. Simmons is interesting but undeveloped. Who is he: a pagan god, a ghost of a deceased trapper or someone else? His connection with the underworld is obvious -- a bison head figure on his boat -- but never explained in the movie. Wolves are not known to attack people, and would not follow human as prey. In general, since the introduction of firearms, the predators who prey on people are quickly eliminated from the gene pool. It is one of a few movies, in which I would prefer a happy ending. 

Samurai and the prisoner.

 A beautiful yarn combining whodunit and history epic about historical lord Araki Murashige and equally historical samurai, and later lord Kuroda Yoshitaka figuring in the film under his nickname Kanbei. Excellent in execution and acting of the main characters it presents three mythical charades, which turn out a part of elaborate power play by the scheming lord Yoshitaka whence in gaol. A real Yoshitaka seems to be less noble and self-effacing than the character in the movie being Talleyrand of his age -- betraying his overlords as soon as opportunity had arisen. 

Odysseus by Nolan

   

      The most criticisms of Nolan I observed dealt with his modernizations, "wokeness"-- the use of colored actors as Greeks -- and unfaithfulness to Homer. Indeed, Bronze Age Greeks were marauding bands of looters and rapists lacking any sophistication and culture. How, for instance, modern viewer would digest sadistic murder of palace maidens by Odysseus who had thus "cleansed" his household from their pollution. Of course, slave girls cavorting with Penelope's bridegrooms was about as voluntary as co-habitation of the Trojan women with their Greek conquerors. Even the classical Greeks understood the tension, heretofore "The Trojan Women" by Euripides. 

    On the contrary, I found putting Homeric epic in the context of the Bronze Age collapse, the distant echo of which were the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", as the only interesting part of the movie. These were Odysseus wanderings and monsters, which I found unconvincing. Also Matt Damon was miscast.  

Olivia Wilde. Invite.

    

      My old impression of Olivia Wilde: why this beautiful descendant of barronites and bankers would not land a job somewhere at CNN or Wall Street, or even Obama's State Department instead of toiling in Hollywood?

My new impression: she has done it. The movie is brilliant except for a predictable sweet family-friendly ending, which completely contradicts a ribald subject matter of the movie. In a similar spirit, "Sideways" ends in nothing, and O.W. could have invented a more suitable non-finale. 

P.S. I was disabused when I read that this is a remake of some Spanish movie. 

Steven Spielberg. Day of disclosure.

     

      A pastiche of the past Spielberg movies: E.T., Close encounters of the third kind and his personal recollections where childhood memories play a pivotal role. Fast-paced and interesting thriller in its first half it loses its attraction through predictability and poorly planned episodes. 

Colors of Time.

    

    A French melodrama simultaneously played in two epochs: Paris' belle-epoch of the 19 century and the modern situation very much borrowed from Clooney's "The descendants". Namely, four grand-grand-grandkids of a long-dead village woman have to decide whether to sell her farm to the developers when it turns out that she may have left a multi-million dollar Impressionist painting in her possession. In the 19th century scenes one meets  Sarah Bernhardt, Felix Nadar, Victor Hugo and a score of other celebrities befriended by abandoned daughter of a society prostitute. Protagonists in the 21 century communicate with their ancestors with the help of hallucinogenic drug (ayahuasca). Lovely, but short on depth of characters. Lindon is luscious. 

A poet.

    

       Americans encounter foreign movies mostly during transoceanic flights. So was "A Poet", absolutely depressing saga of personal defeat and degradation spitefully called a "comedy" coming from Columbia. The movie is a series of unfortunate events in the tropics. The problem with its protagonist, the poet who published two thin books of poetry getting some critical approval in his younger years, was fired from the university for alcoholism and working in a second-rate school as a teacher of literature is that absolutely everything he attempts, usually with the best of intent, ends in disaster for him and the people who surround the misfit. When he finally decides to quit drinking and get a job, he is accused of molesting his student, the only one in class with whom he has any rapport. Only his mother who probably dies at the end of the movie unconditionally supports her ne'er-do-well son, honest and well-intentioned despite all his misfortunes. The movie shows a bleak picture of Columbia, where kids in most ordinary families do not have a father or live with a random boyfriend of the nearest female relative.