Even though this movie didn’t get some great reviews after all, since I was a big fan of ‘The Social Network’, I was still eager to check it out. Well, obviously, it never got near the greatness of ‘The Social Network’, that’s for sure, but I thought it was still a decent watch. Indeed, it was quite fascinating to get back to Facebook to see how things had developed for this company and its founder 16 years later. Focusing on the Facebook Files was also a great idea and basically a no-brainer. I have to admit that I was also impressed by Mikey Madison who gave such a completely different performance than in ‘Anora’ and she was so convincing here. Concerning Jeremy Allen White, in the contrary to Mikey Madison, he didn’t really impress me. Sure, he was charismatic but it felt as if he switched a kitchen for a newspaper and played the character more or less the same way as Carmen Berzatto with slightly less neurotic shenanigans. He wasn’t helped by the fact that, even though his work was really important, Jeff Horwitz was actually not really interesting as a character, just like Frances Haugen. Seriously, they gave us some bits about the fact that he was still living from a hotel and that she had to wear some gloves because she had some kind of illness. Seriously, who cares? Eventually, I believe it was a mistake to focus the story on this whistleblower. Sure, it might seem logical but, in my opinion, they should have told the story from Mark Zuckerberg’s point of view. Indeed, he was the central point in ‘The Social Network’ for a good reason and I wish they followed a similar approach in this sequel. Instead, they gave us Jeremy Strong who went full method-acting and the end-result was some kind of Zuckerberg clone which, once again, might seem logical but, somehow, the end-result was so much less interesting. I didn’t want some clone, I wanted the Zuckerberg from ‘The Social Network’, 16 years later down the road leading one of the most powerful companies in the world and preferably played by Jesse Eisenberg, that would have been awesome if he came back for this role. Instead, they gave us some back and forth during which Zuckerberg was training to prepare to testify before the United States Senate but these scenes never really worked. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was still intereting to see the nefarious evolution of Facebook and its founder and it was worth a look. Still, this movie displayed that, making a fascinating movie about something so boring like Facebook was not so easy as it seemed and David Fincher was definitely missed here. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but, since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Seriously, couldn’t they come up with an even more generic title? I guess the idea was to tell the viewers what they should expect while watching this movie. Anyway, at least, it was neat to see Idris Elba playing some unhinged psycho and he was actually fairly convincing. The random aspect of his actions did contradict the fact that he was supposed to be super smart. On the other hand, he did remind me of Ted Bundy when he managed to escape as he did act really erratically as well. Taraji P. Henson was also a solid choice and she was not bad either. It wasn’t too far-fetched that she would let the guy come inside, of course, it was ill-advised but it wasn’t such an idiotic choice. However, it was a major plot-hole that neither Terry, her husband or her friend would be aware that a dangerous convict was on the loose. Concerning Leslie Bibb, even though she did look lovely, you wonder what was the added value of her character (she seriously had maybe 10 mins of screen time) and I think she could/should have been removed. Eventually, the end-result was too generic to really interest me, but I have to admit that there were a few elements which did slightly trigger my attention. Indeed, the minimalistic and random aspects were not bad. On top of that, the set-up was quite stressful as I was wondering how this woman would manage to handle this situation since she didn’t have to only save herself but also her two very young children. It was also intriguing because, for a very long time, Colin’s actions seemed to be so random and I kept wondering what was going on in his head. However, during the final act, they gave us such a completely random twist which was so lame and really ruined the damned thing for me. Basically, the whole car crash thing was some miserable curve ball to confuse the viewers, in fact, Colin was going to their house from the very beginning. Sure, this way, it explained more or less what he was doing (going after your ex-girlfriend lover was not exactly the sanest action though) but it completely weakened this character whose sole interesting attribute was the randomness of his actions. Anyway, to conclude, even it wasn’t a complete waste of time, the damned thing was still pretty weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in the ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ list, I thought I might as well check it out. Concerning Alan Clarke, he seemed to have a decent reputation, it was actually the first movie from this director that I saw and I will definitely check his other work if I have the opportunity. It’s also interesting that it was produced by Danny Boyle a few years before he made ‘Shallow Grave’, his really cool directorial debut. To be honest, I have to admit that I had no idea what this movie was about before watching it but I think it was more powerful this way. I wonder if I would have been able to figure out what it was all about without the sentence mentioning ‘The Troubles’ at the beginning (probably not). Anyway, since I didn’t know what was going to happen, the very first scene had such an impact, it was really effective. Indeed, even though it might seem very basic but I think there was something quite elaborate about these long tracking shots, completely silent (except for 3 lines of dialogues which really shocked because they were so unexpected) and no music or comments. However, another tricky thing with this movie was that they repeated this 18 times. As a result, it became quite repetitive and I was wondering if this approach was actually really effective after all. However, because of its repetitive aspect, because all these murders/executions started to look the same at some point, I started to feel like some kind of numbness which was appropriate and it was probably the effect that the makers wanted to achieve. What was also so intriguing was that they didn’t give us any information about the perpetrators or the victims, in fact, when each segment started, you didn’t actually know which one they were following. They also didn’t give any reason or motivations for these killings giving such a bleak and random feeling and it was again so effective this way. Sure, for the Unionists and Irish republicans, it was all justified but, after killing each other for decades, the end-result didn’t feel much different than what was displayed in this movie. Anyway, it turned out to be an experimental movie, something quite unique and I really enjoyed it, that’s for sure. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, it turned out to be one of the most bewildering documentaries I have ever seen. I have to admit that I didn’t know anything about this movie or its topic before watching it and, at first, I was wondering if it might be all fake. Obviously, it wasn’t and I can imagine how shocking it must have been for the audience who first saw it back in the 50’s. Of course, as a Westerner, our first reaction would be to reject the whole thing as some kind of hysterical nonsense during which they even killed a dog, drunk his blood and ate the poor animal. However, most religious rituals are actually fairly ridiculous, even Christian rituals. Indeed, eating the sacramental bread as if it was the body of Christ and drinking wine as if it was his blood is also pretty weird when you think about it. Furthermore, in the Old Testament, it was fairly common to sacrifice animals to atone for your misdeeds. While watching this movie, I was thinking that, in any religion, whatever if it was the Hauka or some more established religion, the rituals pretty much boil down to a group of grown-ups playing dress-up. Of course, from the outside, it might all seem either ridiculous or hysterical but, on the other sense, how are we supposed to make any sense from this life we were given (completely randomly if you don’t believe in God)? The whole point of any ritual ceremony, and it includes the Hauka, is to have this moment you share with your community and, intrinsically, it is actually not a bad thing, in the contrary. In this specific case, it was dealing with some immigrants coming from small villages mostly from Niger, suddenly living in a big chaotic city like Accra who had to cope somehow with this new life with some dead-end jobs with very little future prospects. However, the more I thought about it, the more I believed that the explanation might be even more complex than that after all. In spite of what was said in this documentary, there was already a ‘possession cult’ tradition in Niger and this Hauka movement originated from that so it seemed it might be linked to something quite profound for this folk and completely alien to us Westerners. Still, there was something so strange about all these men supposedly in trance mimicking British colonial occupiers performing the same elaborate military ceremonies. I wish it would have been longer and that they gave us more background on this Hauka thing and on these men involved in this movement but the damned thing was so unsettling but also quite fascinating to behold, that’s for sure.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in the ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ list, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, I’m usually not a huge fan of such vintage Westerns but I have to admit that this one was actually pretty good. On the other hand, with someone like John Ford at the helm, I guessed it was to be expected. Sure, like many other Westerns of the time period, it did romanticize this part of the American mythology but, as far as I was concerned, it turned out to be actually fairly subtle, at least, more than usually with this genre. Indeed, when these Mormon settlers finally encountered some Indians (which was obviously bound to happen at some point), I was worried that the Native Americans would be portrayed as some mindless savages but, fortunately, it wasn’t the case at all. Indeed, they were actually handled as equals which was surprising. Of course, this vision of Cowboys and Indians living in peace and harmony was too good to be true as the Indians were never handled as equals and were massively slaughtered. But, still, I preferred this rose-coloured take than having them portrayed as the usual hysterical bloodthirsty killers. I also liked the fact that the Wagon Master was not some tough gunslinger but a seasoned thoughtful man who would rather not engage in some hazardous gunfight with a gang making him stand-out from the usual main characters in such Westerns. Of course, this conflict was still concluded with some big shootout but I’m afraid there was no other way to resolve their predicament with the Cleggs. Concerning the rest of the movie, to be honest, I still think it was too generic and too predictable to become truly remarkable. The characters were also all barely developed and, even though Joanne Dru was really lovely, she was barely given anything to do at all. Still, I have to admit that the directing was really solid here and I especially loved this big horse chase with the Indians going after Travis Blue which was quite thrilling. Anyway, to conclude, even though it might not be one of John Ford’s most famous movies, I fully understand why it was one of his personal favorites and I actually really enjoyed it. 

Since I have always been a big fan of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s work, of course, I was really eager to check his last directorial effort. On top of that, this time, he was working with Tom Cruise, a huge star who had been working mostly on big action blockbusters for a while now. Unfortunately for Iñárritu and Cruise, it seemed that their ambitious movie would become a huge flop and, well, it was hardly surprising. Indeed, it was such a dark comedy with some fairly complex meta elements, there was no way that the mainstream audience would embrace it. The reactions had been rather lukewarm at best but I actually enjoyed the damned thing. In my opinion, Iñárritu and Cruise managed to do here something that ‘Don't Look Up’ tried but ultimately failed to do a couple of years ago. Not everything did work though. The first thing that really bothered me was the fact that, even though this movie was dealing with decadence and excess, yet, they used up such a huge budget (+$150 millions) which was just bewildering. Just for comparison, ‘Birdman’, another post-modern dark satire (Iñárritu should really drop this genre now) also by the same director did cost 10 times less and was therefore a hit. The whole meta aspect was also rather half-baked. It didn’t help that Iñárritu already did something fairly similar with ‘Birdman’ (which was just amazing) but, in this case, it took me a while to really warm up for this gimmicky device. Eventually, I did understand that it allowed us to take even more distance from Digger Rockwell who was played by Curtis Markson who was played by Tom Cruise. It was quite some impressive acting from Cruise but, ultimately we never got the opportunity to connect with Curtis Markson. For some reason, there was also a sub-plot about Curtis Markson’s daughter who was missing during his rehearsal but it was barely developed at all. There were also too many amazing actors who ended up doing pretty much nothing (Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Emma D'Arcy). It was actually pretty impressive though how Jesse Plemons, who also had maybe 2-3 scenes only, still managed to steal the show. And yet, I really enjoyed the damned thing though. I was basically sold when Digger Rockwell made his speech to the European Parliament. Indeed, what the guy said was basically exactly what I think about our current capitalist way of life. Basically, I was completely in the same wavelength of this movie so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ultimately, it could be seen as a horror movie, as a prophetic prescient tale but, even as a comedy, it was probably the most depressing one ever made (the ending was pretty bleak and chilling). No wonder it didn’t find an audience. So, I did like it, I thought it was really bold but it was obvious that Iñárritu should drop his post-modern shtick and, for Cruise, I’m afraid he will now return to make blockbusters even when he is 80 years old which is too bad because he was actually really good here. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was directed by Scott Cooper and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I’m afraid it turned out to be Cooper’s most disappointing movie so far after all. I do think it definitely had some potential but, unfortunately, this movie never managed to grab me. It’s difficult to exactly point out what went wrong here. Indeed, the dark and bleak mood was actually pretty good and there was something intriguing about this mythological Indian creature. I did like the fact that they didn’t explain much about this legend, this way, it remained pretty mysterious. However, it was rather weird that even though it was based on an Algonquian legend (which was an Indian tribe located in the Northeast, mostly in Canada), this movie was actually taking place in Oregon which is like at the complete side of the USA. However, a bigger issue was the characters were so poorly fleshed out, especially this sister and brother. It was actually quite incredible how much Jesse Plemons managed to do with such a half-baked character. I mean, everything he said or did was actually pretty boring or not interesting at all but Plemons was still completely convincing, even while the wildest things were going on. I wish I could say the same about Keri Russell. Sure, she is still really lovely but I think she is actually a rather boring actress (I have to admit that I have never seen any of her TV-shows like ‘The Diplomat’, ‘The Americans’ or ‘Felicity’). Here, the best she could do was looking constipated through the whole duration. On the other hand, they were both not really helped by how poorly developed their characters were. I mean, they started to talk about the various tragedies that took place in their family but, then, this aspect was completely gone after a while. Seriously, it was never explained why Julia actually came back to live with her brother. This aspect should have been completely dropped or properly developed. It was like the drug pandemic going on in the region, it was not a bad idea either but it was not developed at all. Anyway, my rating might be harsh here but I just didn’t connect with this movie at all. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was starring Gene Hackman and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Apparently, at the beginning of the 80’s, there was some kind of sub action genre involving the rescue of US soldiers held in Vietnam after the war was over. Well, even though this movie might be the best one in this obscure genre, to be honest, I really struggled to take the whole concept really seriously. I mean, if it would have been some black op organized by the US government to save these men, it would have been more plausible and therefore more interesting. However, in this case, it was a civilian initiative set up by some retired Colonel bankrolled by the rich father of another soldier also missing in action but it was just too ridiculous for me. As a result, they also spent a good chunk of the running time during some boot camp taking place in Texas in a mock up of the POWs camp in Laos but I didn’t see how watching these guys training for this mission was supposed to be so interesting or entertaining. It was like the recruitment of this team. The most interesting thing for me with this movie was the timeline. Indeed, it was made 10 years after the end of the Vietnam war and it was dealing with some soldiers who were getting back there 10 years later as well. I mean, was it really a thing back in the 80’s that there were still some US POWs held captive after all this time? And how did these veterans did feel about going back there after such a long time to save one of their buddies? Unfortunately, there was really none of that in this movie after all. They did give us some glimpse of Fred Ward’s character suffering some PTSD but it was barely developed and he was reduced to be another lethal killing machine like the rest of his squad. From the moment they finally got in Thailand to start their mission, it never became more convincing. Seriously, they even ended up being helped by some deposed drug baron who would join their mission with his two daughters. Why on Earth did they take part in this mission? What was their motivation? Again, it didn’t make sense like most of this movie. At the end of the day, it was just a typical silly action flick from the 80’s and I might have enjoyed it more when I was 12 years old but I’m not 12 years old anymore and it just didn’t care at all about the damned thing. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was starring Naomi Watts, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I always had a weak spot for such minimalistic movies involving only 1 or 2 characters, especially when they are dealing with such survivalist tales. However, in this case, with so few characters involved and so little actually going on, the end-result did feel a little bit dry after all though. In fact, even though Pam Bales was described as a ‘climber’, there was actually no climbing but only some hiking. Sure, it was some high-level hiking and the weather conditions were quite extreme but it was definitely a different vibe than seeing someone climbing some impossible mountains. And yet, there was something intriguing about this tale. Indeed, when I got to see this mysterious man at the top of this mountain, in the middle of some storm, in cross-legged position, wearing only some shorts and some sneakers, it was quite a powerful image. Unfortunately, they wasted too much of the (rather short) running time with such stupid questions like ‘What was he actually doing up there?’. The fact that Pam Bales’s own personal tragedy was revealed much later on was also a mistake and I think it would have worked better if it would have been laid out from the very beginning. I get that, by keeping her background mysterious, they tried to compensate the paper-thin premise but, once again, this approach didn’t really work in my opinion. With ‘John’, it really worked really well to reveal as less as possible, the way he just took off with his car at the end of their ordeal was so unexpected but really neat and I would have actually even removed the scene at the end when they get reunited. Eventually, they focused too much on the survival aspect which was well done but ultimately too generic and predictable instead of focusing on how 2 seemingly seriously depressed people might handle such a hazardous situation. Why do we or should we keep going on no matter how dramatic the circumstances are? It would have been actually pretty interesting to dig further into that but this movie only barely flirted with such ideas and focused instead on this one-woman-show from Naomi Watts and she was actually pretty good but, ultimately, the end-result did feel rather forgettable after all. Anyway, it was still a decent watch though.