Official Secrets

Not so much of a movie but a theatrical play shot on film with the excellent duo of Keira and Ralph Fiennes. Their understated, matter of fact, performance is sublime. Supporting cast is also great. While one can duly expect it of Ralph, Keira Knightly with years turned from another pretty face with an English accent of "Pirates of the Caribbean" into a formidable performer.

But the movie, similarly to much weaker and formulaic "Post" with Meryl Streep demonstrates not the real image of the British media, judiciary and even intelligence--where everybody knows that Blair Administration is an assorted collection of liars and psychopaths--but rather how they want to see themselves. In that vein, the final scene of split of Fiennes, and his antagonist, the Crown Prosecutor is mundane. Much better ending would be they giving "high fives" to each other and going fishing together.

Where'd you go, Bernadette?

Linklater forever engraved his name into the cinema history with technical innovation of a feature animation by the live actors in his "Waking Life". He is also stands apart from other American directors that his movies frequently do not tell story of violence and murder. But his overtly "sunny", polyannish outlook in the current film clouds the conclusion of Bernadette. It is always better to survive personality issues with deep pockets. Cate Blanchett is great as always.

Once upon a time... in Hollywood

Solid performance by Leonardo Di Caprio and brilliant--by Brad Pitt glosses over weariness and unsure gait of Quentin Tarantino. Rick Dalton must be his alter ego--washed up auteur compelled to repeat wonderful but aging tricks indefinitely. Whether the choice of his real life wife as a new wife of his protagonist is a Freudian slip or a conscious choice is not material. Australian bimbo in the role of British bimbo is amusing. But again, Scarlett and Keira appeared as another pretty faces and slowly but surely learned how to act.

At Eternity's Gate

If we equalize scripts with novels, Julian Schnabel is similar to Cocteau--who also dabbled as a painter--but his most lasting contribution turned out to be the movies. While Shanbel's paintings were commercial exploitation of the Post-Pop Art scene, allowing him to buy New York properties and date models, his "Diving Bell and the Butterfly" announced the arrival of a major new director. Willem Dafoe masterly plays Van Gogh but if we ignore color palette of the movie painstakingly reconstructing color palette of his masterpieces, otherwise it is flat and listless.

The movie bears some resemblance to the brilliant Polish-Canadian animation "Love, Vincent" featuring Van Gogh in the last weeks of his life whose inimitable pattern is woven by his letters to the beloved brother Teo. So I guess, Schnabel is again out of his creative ideas.

Midsommar.

Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish tourism boards must sue Ari Aster because of this arthouse monstrosity, which connects "120 days of Sodom" by Pasolini and "Wicker Man" by the way of the "Heart of Darkness". Even if there was little reason to visit Scandinavia before--snooty people (except for Finns who are not really Scandinavians), bad weather and culture mostly represented by the neo-Nazi biker gangs--there will be even less now. At least, Pasolini's masterpiece, or so I heard--I could not watch both movies--is exculpated by his crafty wordplay between "Salo" in the De Sade's title and the fascist Republic of Salo in the final months of Nazi occupation of Italy, when all evil glossed over by the Mussolini's reign exploded in earnest. The Wicker Man reportedly adds dark English humor to the mixture of cruel and absurd, but this movie is absolutely serious.

Saying that, the movie is not bad but Aster's humorless playing on a single chord of uncanny and disturbing--made me uncomfortable more than widely advertised but modestly presented gore and cruelty. 

The dead don't die by Jim Jarmusch

Proper name of this movie should be "F**k ya all". In course of Jarmusch  director's career, his misanthropy slowly consumed all other emotions until none remained. Obviously, the cult status of Jarmusch assured participation of big stars like John Waits, Iggy Pop and Selena Gomez in totally non-expressive roles, the last just flashing her nice ass to the camera several times. There are several freely hanging plotlines: the facility for wayward children with strangely tender and literate-talking inhabitants, the return of Tilda Swinton to heavens, unless it is a belated tribute to the ending of underrated 80s cult movie "Repo Man" and other episodes, which probably mean something to the auteur but which were never adequately explained.

Late Night.

Not so much of a movie but a filmed two-person play starring inimitable Emma Thompson and its writer Mindy Kaling in a credible performance in supporting role.