222 posts categorized "Women Filmmakers"

January 06, 2025

THE SUBSTANCE — CANNES 2024

Jo JoWelcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Punk heart still beating.

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ColeSmithey.comIf you've seen Alain Robak's hilarious 1990 horror blitz "Baby Blood," then you'll have some inkling for the wonderful gnarly extremes that "The Substance" delivers to its well deserving audience.

Writer/director Coralie Fargeat creates the most satisfying horror satire to come along maybe ever.

David Cronenberg must be falling over himself with jealousy.

Fargeat deftly quotes from films by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Darren Aronofsky, David Cronenberg, and Brian DePalma.

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The Easter eggs just keep on coming. The special effects are amazing.

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Taking a cue from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture Of Dorian Gray," Coralie Fargeat crafts a diamond-sharp satire that cuts in all directions at once.

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Elisabeth (Demi Moore) is a wealthy L.A. television personality being pushed out of her job by corporate misogynist in-charge (Dennis Quaid).

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Science comes calling after Elisabeth miraculously survives a car crash that puts her in the dubious medical hands of a shadow pharma company peddling a black market drug kit. The works give the user the ability to create a younger version of themself that they then trade off living between for seven day increments.

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Margaret Qualley blows up the screen as Sue, Elisabeth's cunning younger, more beautiful, incarnation. Force of nature.

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Vanity, jealousy, money, and fame make for a toxic Molotov cocktail of bad decisions.

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Here is a whole lot of movie with some very poignant ideas about culture.

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"The Substance" explodes with wit, heart, soul, and a whole lot of blood and guts.

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What fun!

Rated R. 141 mins. 5 Stars

Cozy Cole

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December 31, 2024

THE NIGHT PORTER — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Jo JoWelcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Punk heart still beating.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cheers!

ColeSmithey.com

 

ColeSmithey.comDirector/co-writer Liliana Cavani's mind-bending reflection on the Nazi era is a pure filmic transmogrification of power, war, sex, personal identity, and soul-searching.

Cavani reduces her complex wartime narrative to a dead-end reunion between Max (Dirk Bogard), an ex-SS officer and Nazi warder to his former prisoner Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), the imprisoned non-Jewish daughter to a Leftist activist at a Nazi concentration camp.

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A chance encounter at the Vienna hotel where Max is employed as a bellman, derails Lucia's post-war life as the concentration camp-survivor wife to a successful American symphony conductor busy on tour in Vienna.

In Cinema, Vienna is the place where people go to die.

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Max and Lucia pick up their leftover BDSM desires from the days of their concentration camp experiences together when he was master to her prisoner/slave.

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It is significant to realize that Liliana Cavani launched her filmmaking career with two historical documentaries ("The History of the Third Reich (1962) and "Women of the Resistance" (1965), for Radiotelevisione Italiana.

Clearly, Cavani's deep insights into the mindsets of the Nazi's prisoners, as well as that of their tormentor goons, adds significant anecdotal historic depth to "The Night Porter."

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The devil is in the details. Even wallpaper sends a message.

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To compare "The Night Porter" to any other World War II film would be folly. Not even Bertolucci's "The Conformist" can compare.

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The necessary mental, physical, and emotional escape hatch that Max and Lucia employ serves as a temporary life raft from the anger, repression, and violence that rages around them, and deeply inside their tortured souls.

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Fearless performances from Dirk Bogard and Charlotte Rampling give "The Night Porter" its humanity. For a film about the lasting effects of genocide, "The Night Porter" gives essential meaning to the madness with a delicate touch of palpable understanding.

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Remembering the very thing that most people want to forget is a promise to oneself and a curse.

We are all damned by history, and all that history leaves out.

Rated R. 118 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

October 03, 2024

APARTMENT 7A — SHOCKTOBER!

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.com

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Punk heart still beating.

ColeSmithey.comGet cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comCo-writer/director Natalie Erika James ("Relic") delivers a fierce pro-abortion horror prequel to "Rosemary's Baby" that twists a cinematic knife into the MAGA conspirators that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Julia Garner is exquisite as Terry Gionoffrio, a Broadway dancer whose career is put on a long hold after an accident while performing.

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An offer to live in the Gothic Bramford building (actually the Dakota), promises a new lease on life for Terry if a date with the Devil doesn't derail everything.

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Digs at the patriarchal practices of cruel Broadway directors who take advantage of their position to demean and humiliate auditioning actors, provides a potent rebuke.

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Beautiful set and costume designs add texture to "Apartment 7A" as a sharp horror movie that will have you squirming in your seat.

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Here is a great excuse to go back and watch Polanski's original film, after seeing "Apartment 7A."

Nightmares may follow. Abortion isn't the worst thing in the world.

Rated R. 104 mins.

5 Stars

ColeSmithey.com ColeSmithey.com ColeSmithey.comCozy Cole

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