Les Quatre Cents Coups seems to presage the cultural revolution of 1968. In fact, its secondary school protagonists will be in their twenties a decade later so the time scale is about right. ‘Elle va être un peu belle, la France dans 10 ans!’ says prophetically the teacher.
The film revolves around the idea of centrifugal versus centripetal forces, sometimes in the most literal sense. Antoine’s rebellious attraction to the outside and the feeling of being chased, trapped, cornered—again, not just figuratively—is given shape by a series of near metaphorical images. The Tour Eiffel in the opening sequence, imposing totem of daring, fights to be seen behind obstructing curtains of buildings. At the fair, in the spinning cylinder thing—whatever that is, I’d love to try it— he is pushed away and yet almost squashed on the curved wall of the exotic contraption. The epic final scene—that long run on the shore toward the sea he’s never seen—is so full of an exhilarating sense of freedom, air, future. But then again, is the long dreamt open horizon the answer, or another boundary in itself?

I have seen the MGM lion roar uncountable times but there’s something particularly exciting when it performs for a Paul Thomas Anderson film. It feels like being pushed back to an age where monumental films were made, except there’s no need to go that far from where I am sitting right now because I know something worthy of that allure is about to start.
It has been called a coming-of-age affair but the whimsically titled Licorice Pizza is more than that, and it doesn’t take longer than the opening to get it. If I ever considered walk-and-talk scenes a bit stagy or mannered, PTA proves me wrong by choreographing actors and sprinklers in a masterfully written sequence that while casting golden shades on the incredible talent of the two leads, frames at once the characters, their wants, and the world they live in.
There begins a picaresque SoCal romantic journey that is also, and rather quintessentially, about the pivotal American Seventies, those of a country trying to come to terms with Watergate, Vietnam, Charlie Manson, and desperately hustle the lost optimism of the previous decade into a new form of energy—the same, incidentally, that will irreversibly affect the entire Western culture.
The only thing that didn’t quite convince me is the parade of celebrities cameos (Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn and Tom Waits in particular, but also Harriet Sansom Harris’ vague caricatured homage to her own role in Phantom Thread). However hilarious, they seem to unnecessarily downgrade the otherwise brilliant comedic side of the film to a slightly cliched level. Minor flaw, if one at all, because Licorice Pizza is nonetheless quite as dazing as cinema can be.

Four people and two generations in front of a telly, the remote not in my hands. I couldn’t cope with another film like Disney’s nauseating Encanto. None of us could really, so I blindly play a trump card.
Aaron Sorkin writes for the stage making it look like cinema—or he writes screenplays as if they were plays. I have always found his idiosyncratic virtuoso dialogues more fun to read than to watch. His characters’ wittier-than-life eloquence often feels a little too impeccable even for a representation of life like cinema is, no matter how realistic it might appear.

BOB: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to pitch.
MADELYN: But I pitched it faster.
BOB: By interrupting me.
MADELYN: How do you think I got to be a woman in a comedy room?

Then again, ‘what you gotta understand’ is that this is Aaron Sorkin—one of the few working writers to really have a distinctive style, and also one of the best at picking a moment out of somebody’s lifetime making that fraction of history into a beautifully structured, rewardingly intelligent story.
To all the above, for better or worse, Being the Ricardos is no exception—it is in fact his most convincing work among those he both wrote and directed.

Even though the spider-verse thing does bring some kind of a positive mix of spice, surprise and nostalgia to it, the only redeeming features of the experience were the wonderful end title sequence designed by Karin Fong, the excitement of my two little associates before the film started (or, say, before it admittedly faded about an hour in), and Jon Favreau. Generally speaking, the real limitation of superhero movies is live-action. However well written the script—which isn’t necessarily the case of the flamboyant No Way Home—anyone in a tight garish onesie would look like a loser or a cosplay at best, whatever the difference. Superheroes live, and are such, only in comics and animation. Convincing exceptions are very few and none of this Marvel generation is on track to be one.

The Woman Who Ran hides a clever, profound complexity behind stunning minimalistic appearances. To the irony of the title, the protagonist is temporarily on the run from a seemingly perfect relationship that doesn’t feel enough like life. A candid, attentive listener, she indirectly experiences joys and troubles of some old friends, who also lead apparently ideal lives, as they naturally surface during lengthy conversations. I wonder if solace is what she is unconsciously after as she discovers imperfections in unexpected places. Even the music, strangely hinting at vague diegetic qualities, seems to come from some abstracted vintage device. And so is the ending, which soothing images are actually those of another film. Stroke of genius.
On a different level, the theme of menace looms all over the story. That of men, often depicted as inept creepy figures. That of nature, somehow referred to through feral vignettes of fluffy ravenous felines and abusive chickens. And that of the environment—silent mountains, misty landscapes, technologically efficient architectures hiding mysterious inaccessible floors.

I take my seat less than forty minutes after waking up. I am still chewing breakfast as the coffee I had no time to take at home lands on the side table just in time for the lights to dim. Just a few more souls scattered in the cinema, I casually notice. It’s a Monday morning after all, quite a treat to be here legs crossed in front of a screen.
Joel Coen’s take on Macbeth is paced by the leaden thumping of dense drops of water, wine, blood. Veering away from easy expectations, maybe the cliché, his elegant vision replaces the gore, the filth, the murk, with mist, clouds, and crows. The Tragedy of Macbeth exists in a surreal space between stage and set, and within the harsh lines of a near brutalist architecture somewhat reminiscent of Ken Russell’s The Devils or Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Although at first sight I thought Denzel Washington too naturally charismatic for the role, my scepticism partly crumbled at his bravura slowly surfacing in Shakespearean waters. But it’s the two main female performances to have literally blown me away—Kathryn Hunter creepily contorting into the three witches, and of course Frances McDormand, a phenomenal Lady Macbeth carved in stone.

Here is another I would have probably skipped and I’m glad some obscure pre-festive mood made me not.
On the one hand The House of Gucci is not just a house of impressions but one of caricatures. In fact, it’s not even just a house but a tent, a proper big top with clowns in it. On the other hand, and right because of all the above, Ridley Scott’s detour into bourgeois family hell is also a greatly entertaining film. And if Al Pacino and the masterfully disguised Jared Leto bring the ironic element to the extent of farse, I must admit I couldn’t wait for them to be on screen. Overall the portrait of the Gucci family might be unflattering and certainly not quite tactful considering the sad unfolding of the events, but it’s hilarious and nicely cinematically rendered.
Passing over a few cheesily catchy dialogues (did I really hear Lady Gaga and Adam Driver exchange the lines, ‘I didn’t realise I married a monster.’ / ‘No, you married a Gucci.’?) The House of Gucci’s main flaw is a common one of biopics to pursue more facts, however juicy, than characters. The result is a story told by a relatively one-dimensional and unloved ensemble of misfits in which the most likeable seem to be marginal figures such as that of a greedy Iraqi financier and a rising star designer. But Tom Ford, no surprise, is shining in any incarnation.

Yes, it’s bad and utterly unoriginal in all sorts of ways. And yet, the candid simplicity of the scooby-doo-esque Ghostbusters: Afterlife somehow unfolds a completely unexpected charm. Children screamed at every jump-scare treat, however many, predictable, and all but scary. They laughed at the jokes, although most are terribly cliched and silly—no offence—even for their age. As to the adults, they might not have done any of the above, but even the more snobbishly sceptical like myslef will admit they were touched by the atmosphere and—why not—by the film’s nostalgic Eighties flavour.
Finding my way out in the dim light of the running credits, I am slowed down by a final double cameo and right then, on the crackling sound of the abandoned popcorns under my feet, I wonder what cinema really is about and realise how many incredible hats it can wear.

Just when I am about to lose faith in Western feature animation, here comes a masterwork. Le Sommet des Dieux made me feel the height and the bites of the arctic conditions more than any live-action film I have ever seen.
Based on a graphic novel, which is based on a book, which is based on real events, which are also probably based on something else, it manages to handle fiction with the stern grip of a documentary—a particularly remarkable achievement for an animated piece.
Le Sommet des Dieux is about obsessions, the myth of Sisyphus, and the scale of man compared to that of dreams—in this case rendered in the form of monuments of rock and snow and ice.