A German French Swedish Norwegian Canadian American drama directed by Wim Wenders, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, James Franco, Patrick Bauchau and Peter Stormare.
A man kills 1 of a pair of brothers in a car accident during a snow storm. He is depressed, but eventually becomes a successful writer. He offers to help the mother of the boys and they talk a little bit. When the surviving brother is 16 years old, he meets the writer.
This was worse than Turkish Star Wars (1982) because Wim Wenders is a good director and I was expecting something to happen. At the end of almost 2 hours, the credits rolled and there had been nothing going on since about 14 minutes in. Charlotte Gainsbourg is good at acting and I haven't seen her in any happy or boring roles. When the writer was looking outside, trying to figure out who broke into his house, she should have been there with weapons. At least Turkish Star Wars was known to be bad and had something happening. This had good people on the filmmaking team and nothing happened. I rate this shit because mediocrity should be punished more than lack of quality. I would rather watch a movie that is interesting because it's so bad than be bored by mediocrity.
A French drama directed by and starring Serge Gainsbourg, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.
A failed writer lives with his teenage daughter who blames him for the car accident which killed her mother. The writer hangs out with his 2 friends and they drink whiskey.
I seriously didn't get it and doubt there was anything to get. The best part was the song. It had keyboard parts like Bill Schnoebelen's Interview with an Ex-Vampire (2006) theme and bass like "As the World Falls Down" by David Bowie from Labyrinth (1986). The whole song reminded me a little of Claudio Simonetti's Phenomena (1985) theme. I will have to do some research to see if I can find out how to play it. Camera-work was next. Everything looked good, had high contrasts of light and dark and creative angles and camera positions were used. There was unsimulated vomit and a "booze bottle bowling" game played by 2 girls with bottles as pins and a motorcycle helmet as the ball. Other than that, it was nearly incoherent. I rate this tolerable because it was seriously lacking plot.
A French German British period drama directed by Sylvie Verheyde, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.
A rich young man falls in love with a widow a few years older than him and they have problems.
Whisper acting all the way through. I couldn't hear much dialogue, so it was difficult to know what was going on. For example, therre was a scene in which the 2 main characters were discussing Charlotte's (I never heard her character's name) journal while sitting on a bed. The movement of sheets was so loud that I feared for the safety of my speakers, but the dialogue was not audible. This is a film ruined by bad audio mixing. It could have had a great plot. I have no way of knowing whether it did. What are the characters' names? Couldn't hear that either. The audio was mixed this way with theaters in mind, knowing that the volume would be nearly deafening. I can't imagine what the music would have sounded like in theaters if the volume was up enough to hear dialogue. I have to rate it shit because the only way to watch it and hear anything would have been in the theater.
A Polish American crime drama directed by Alexandros Avranas, starring Jim Carrey, Marton Csokas and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
A police detective is investigating a murder. He thinks that an author did it because he wrote about it in his book and has a girlfriend who used to work in the brothel where the murder took place.
Boring. This was supposed to be a thriller, but staying awake through it without being bored to sleep is difficult. There were no thrills. Seriously, it was about 98% people talking, 1% driving and 1% sex. There were 2 good things about it. 1 was Charlotte Gainsbourg (of Nymphomaniac (2013) fame) and the other was the drab video style. It looked like it was all shot right before a rainstorm or before sunset. There were grey and gritty city scenes and one scene with a foggy road outside the city that I thought were amazing. Camera-work was wonderful, but writing was absolute trash. I rate this poor because that last sentence describes it perfectly. You really should not watch this unless you have more of a thing for Charlotte Gainsbourg than I do.
A British Danish Belgian French German adventure directed by Lars von Trier, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Willlem Dafoe and Udo Kier.
A man finds a woman injured and lying in an alley. He takes her to his apartment where she tells him about her life.
Beyond amazing. Camera-work and editing blew me away. The plot and characters held my attention the whole 5 and a half hours to the point that I wanted to watch it again as soon as it was done. Speaking of time, make sure to watch the longer version/director's cut. It's worthwhile. This film is not for the squeamish. If graphic depictions of sex and violence make you squeam, don't watch it. Also blasphemy, racism and foul language. More genitals crossed the screen than I'm used to, but that's o.k. for a movie this good. I can't think of anything that would improve this besides better audio editing, but that could be improved in most films. I rate this best. it's a keeper. Watch it!
An American Israeli drama directed by Joseph Cedar, starring Richard Gere, Hank Azaria, Steve Buscemi, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Michael Sheen.
Businessmen and politicians schmooze. There is a church that needs money and the main character knows a man with a high position in international politics.
Boring and incoherent drivel. The plot was muddier than an episode of Dirty Jobs and the characters were shallower than a soup spoon. The only part that I liked was the ending when the church people were singing and the main character sat on a park bench. It was better than it sounds. There were some sections of dialogue in Israeli, but they could not possibly have enough significance to define the movie within the 5 minutes they happened in. There were many scenes in which the audio did not match the video intentionally. People would be seen talking with no audio (image) or the audio would have dialogue, but the people speaking would not be on screen. I can't possibly imagine why this needed 8 minutes of credits at the end. I rate this bad for being a pointless waste of 2 hours. Do not watch!
