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Castle Rock (2018)
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The first season is both brilliant and wearisome, insofar as a person can stand only so many trippy head games. I admit I enjoyed the episode when Ruth (played by Sissy Spacek) gets trapped in overlapping time loops, and the especially creepy episode about the murder bed and breakfast, but after a while you feel as trapped as if you were the one locked away for eons in a hidden cage.
Grade: B+Tenet
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High marks for sheer technical achievement — Oscar-worthy in categories of sound recording, sound editing, film editing, cinematography, visual effects, etc. Great stunts and music too! Very exciting, expensive-looking and violent! Although I am always distrustful when films glamorize violence as much as this one does but somehow retain an eternal sunniness and wholesomeness. Not only does the literal-named Protagonist save the world, he also saves Mommy and her son Max from wife-beater Daddy — which is the real (melodramatic) story here. It earns its PG-13 symbol of purity despite the high death-rate that is maintained even through the final scene. I’ve got to say that Tenet is like every other Nolan film for me — a cinematic treat but not likable, let alone lovable, with the exception perhaps of still dreamy Robert Pattinson. Other actors are good too, including Kenneth Branagh who is the Laurence Olivier of our time, which means he can really ham it up so villainously, and John David Washington as the Protagonist.
Grade: Recommended, may require repeat viewing to make sense of it or mind-altering substance to enjoy or just tolerate itPan’s Labyrinth (2006)
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A fairy tale set during the Spanish Civil War, which reminds me that there are so few movies about Nationalists in Spain compared to the number of movies about Nazis in Germany. The lead protagonist is a little girl, which makes you wonder if this film was made for little girls, apparently little girls who can stomach graphic scenes of torture and murder. The movie totters on the edge of sentimentality and religiosity but del Toro is a master and connoisseur of detail and the art direction and special effects are stunning.
Grade: A-The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013)
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Reminiscent of La dolce vita (1960), this Oscar-winning film (Best Foreign Language Film) is an updated portrait of “the sweet life” of the rich and fabulous in today’s Rome, but unlike Fellini’s melancholy masterpiece, which it resembles in its depiction of emptiness and regret, The Great Beauty ends on an upbeat, almost spiritual note. Outstanding music, editing and cinematography.
Grade: A
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