sâmbătă, 30 septembrie 2017
vineri, 29 septembrie 2017
L'arnacoeur aka Heartbreaker with Romain Duris
L'arnacoeur aka
Heartbreaker with Romain Duris
L'arnacoeur is phenomenal.
And that is in large part due to the mesmerizing Romain
Duris.
This film is on my list of best twenty motion pictures and I
have enjoyed it the day before yesterday, seeing it for a second time.
It is as charming as L'auberge Espagnole.
The performances are as fabulous as in De Battre Mon Coeur
C'est Arrete, where we can see the same magnificent Romain Duris in the leading
role.
L'arnacoeur is the Heartbreaker.
Alex is the main character and he has a business, run with
his sister and brother in law.
Melanie, the sister and her husband, Marc are helping Alex
to...break hearts.
Marc is interpreted by the funny, excellent François
Damiens.
We see them at work, from the beginning of the film,
somewhere in the North of Africa, in Morocco.
This man is enticed with a leaflet advertising a wet t shirt
contest and the view of a beautiful young woman at the pool.
When his lover is talking of the trip they have planned, he
is not interested.
The Heartbreaker team has all lined up, with a man in the
market talking about the doctor, Alex in his role for that operation.
The target is taken on ride by this generous, kind and
romantic young man, who helps children.
They stop on the way at this place with many kids that the
doctor supposedly knows by name, for he so generously visits regularly.
He makes a mistake, calling Ahmed, Ali or viceversa, but it
does not matter.
The young woman is thrilled and overwhelmed.
Sister and the other accomplice are waiting in the dunes
with the birds that will contribute to the conquest.
One refuses to fly, but no secret conspiracy can run without
a flaw.
Alex turns a distorted face towards the audience and he
makes an effort to cry, because this is part of the technique and adds to his
appeal.
- Mission accomplished!
We now learn about the values, the credo of this trio.
They only deal with unhappy women.
Alex would never interfere when the woman loves her partner
or/and is happy.
Sex is not involved and we seem to have here the most
responsible, moral, ethical enterprise...
Some hilarious scenes follow, presenting the achievements of
the trio.
A Japanese woman is seduced by the hero disguised as an
Oriental cook, with a pony tail, a police woman is taken off her feet by a fake
prisoner, an office white collar worker is attracted by the same man, now
washing the windows of the skyscraper where she works.
But the substance of the film is only now about to be
revealed.
A new job involves Juliette aka the wondrous Vanessa
Paradis, who is about to get married to Jonathan, a rich, smart, attractive
Prince Charming.
The Heartbreaker team prepares for the attack.
Their homework includes photographs, surveillance, research,
trying to find the weak spots.
Alas, there seems to be none.
Alex is hired as the bodyguard, supposedly, by the father of
the bride to be and the man who will pay, if the separation is successful.
Juliette refuses to play along, even asking the bodyguard
how much would he take to just leave her alone...
- € 50,000 he says
And she writes a check
Both her family and that of Jonathan are very wealthy.
Other tricks have to be used, so Melanie pretends to be a
biker, hurt in the middle on the road and as Juliette tries to help, she jumps,
takes the bag and the car and runs off.
The bodyguard runs after the attacker, who is waiting at the
pre established place, takes the car and the purse back.
Melanie wanted to keep the bag, for it was a Hermes, but
it's impossible, for the plan to work.
However, she has the chance to payback, because in this same
scheme, Alex has to get a punch in the nose, so that Juliette would feel
compassion.
And she does and hires the man who knows everything about
her.
And starts to use that, pretending to like George Michael,
whose songs are broadcast by Marc, who is following in their special Van.
He has in his luggage and let's slip a DVD of Dirty Dancing,
with which he is so familiar...
He danced with Marc to get to know all the moves.
Alex is charming, funny, attractive, fresh, unpredictable,
modest...the perfect man.
True, so is Jonathan, but Alex is more, I don't know,
authentic.
Juliette is ready to forget about the wedding, moving
towards another victory for L'arnacoeur and co.
Counterintuitively, Alex pulls out.
When Juliette comes to him and says that they should just
run away together, he refuses.
He knows he has lied, approached and seduced her on false
pretenses.
This fantastic film does not end here, but this is where I
stop.
luni, 25 septembrie 2017
duminică, 24 septembrie 2017
sâmbătă, 23 septembrie 2017
marți, 19 septembrie 2017
luni, 18 septembrie 2017
Miss Sloane by Jonathan Perera, with Jessica Chastain
Miss Sloane by Jonathan Perera, with Jessica
Chastain
This is a
splendid film.
At least
that is how I saw it.
Jessica Chastain
is phenomenal as the powerful, smart lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane, a complex,
sensational woman.
John Madden
is the man who has directed Shakespeare in Love and is doing an excellent job
at the helm of this film.
Jonathan Perera,
as the author of the script, deals with important themes- corruption, gun
rights and control.
The narrative
is told with mastery, there are flashbacks and we see Elizabeth Sloane in the present,
testifying before Congress.
Lobbyists are
one of the powerful forces in Washington and many think they control too many politicians.
And the presidential
election of 2016 was won in part on the promise to “drain the swamp” and change
politics.
Of course,
that was empty talk, from a man who has no scruples and has demonstrated he is
a con artist.
It is
inconceivable that so many have fallen for such a lousy, the most unworthy of
all American presidents.
People like
me, who used to admire America, its values, democracy, system, accomplishments
are left extremely disappointed.
One of the
main subjects of the film is the right to hold arms as enshrined in the constitution
that is so dated on this subject:
-
"A well regulated Militia,
being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
As Miss
Sloane explains exquisitely, those who have written this down lived in a
different age, with antiquated views
-
They used to resolve their disputes,
at dawn, shooting each other
Of course,
when she uses this argument, with more or less these words, her supporters are
horrified, because they know that attacking the constitution, or just appearing
to be doing it is anathema and works for the adversaries.
The lobbyist,
who used to work for the wrong cause, allowing the planters in Indonesia to extend
their palm oil plantations, presumably by cutting down forests, or, in some
worse cases by burning trees, an operation which has created catastrophes in
the region, has now embraced a worthy, noble cause.
Mark Strong
is marvelous in the role of Rodolfo Schmidt, the man who convinces Miss Sloane
to join his team.
They try to
impose some controls on gun acquisition, which, although sensible, it is met
with fierce opposition.
The National
Rifle Association is a powerful organization that fights any measure to “limit”
the right to bear arms.
Even if the
question is to control the buying of automatic rifles, which would make sense
only in war, or lunatics who want to get and use them.
As shown by
multiple massacres committed in schools, cinemas, involving so many innocents,
children and bystanders, the initiatives to try and prevent mad men from
getting machine guns and deadly weapons is more than reasonable.
And yet,
with its financial wealth and the power to swing elections in favor of the
candidate that favors no controls, the NRA has managed to kill any such bill.
-
“Dildos are illegal in Texas, but
Joe Public can walk into a sports store and walk out with a shotgun”
This is the
line that Rodolfo Schmidt has in the film and it is a brief demonstration of
the paradoxes that we can observe in America.
Elizabeth Sloane
is in many ways a role model, for her bright side shows a strong, intelligent,
dedicated, focused, visionary, hardworking, resilient, brave, tough, unhesitating,
determined woman.
She is also
intriguing, her dark side can antagonize with her ruthlessness, cunning,
readiness to use anything that will make her win, insensitivity, willingness to
abandon personal life for her professional success.
Elizabeth Sloane
appears to use pills to allow her to work more, up to or more than sixteen
hours a day, using male escorts to deal with her desires and showing a lack of
compassion and arrogance in the process.
The fact
that she is so brilliant one moment and then cold and distant the next make the
character ever more interesting and challenging.
This is a
wondrous motion picture.
duminică, 17 septembrie 2017
sâmbătă, 16 septembrie 2017
miercuri, 13 septembrie 2017
marți, 12 septembrie 2017
duminică, 10 septembrie 2017
sâmbătă, 9 septembrie 2017
vineri, 8 septembrie 2017
marți, 5 septembrie 2017
Jerry Maguire, written and directed by Cameron Crowe
Jerry Maguire,
written and directed by Cameron Crowe
Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr. And Renee Zellweger all perform
excellently in this splendid film.
And one must admit to that, even if Tom Cruise, with his
Scientology scheme, can be really unpopular, to say the least.
But this is a motion picture about values.
It is also about love, money, loyalty, grit, resilience,
intrinsic goals and calling.
Jerry Maguire is lucky in that he has found his calling.
Psychologists have proved that in each profession, people
are divided into three groups:
1. Those who come for the paycheck
2. Men and women who want a career
3. But the really blessed are those who have a calling
And Jerry Maguire is not just an agent who wants the money,
he has people skills, dedication, resilience and most importantly...Values
In fact, he can share with his alas, only client the idea
that money is not all there is.
Cuba Gooding Jr. Became famous for his role as Rod Tidwell,
his line:
Show me the money!
And the acceptance speech at the Academy Awards.
It is up to his agent to tell him, as a friend:
You are too obsessed with money...all the time you think
about that, you are wonderful and use your heart off the field, but on the
stadium, you only play with your head...
Use your heart!
And the friend is on to something: referring again to
psychology, tests and research have proved that EQ is much more important than
IQ.
Emotional Intelligence beats IQ hands down
There is a salesman who has some punch lines throughout the
movie.
And he says something like- if you have no heart, the head
is useless.
The other important story in this film is the relationship
between Jerry and Dorothy Boyd aka Renee Zellweger, totally different from the
present one.
When Jerry is forced to go from his old company, nobody
wants to take the risk and join him.
Nobody except Dorothy.
And she becomes attached to him, and then in love.
In a smart script, their love story does not end when they
are married.
Indeed, the Harvard Positive Psychology Professor Tal
Ben-Shahar says that with marriage, most, if not all mainstream motion pictures
end.
And they lived happily ever after...
But this is just the beginning of a long time relationship.
In the case of Jerry and Dorothy, he asked her to marry him
because he felt he had to pay for her loyalty.
But at that point he was not overwhelmed with joy, not even
in love.
And she can see that and she is so Emotionally Intelligent
that she tells him that he is free and it was her mistake:
"I thought I loved you enough for both of us, but it
wasn't "
There is the American football side of this story, with the
gradual increase in performance of Rod Tidwell.
This is a very violent sport and president Barack Obama was
right to say that he would not have allowed his sons to play the sport.
Concussion, with Will Smith is the film that reveals the
dark side of this sport, which too often involves brain damage.
The bond between Rod and his agent is very strong...there is
a funny moment, which is also emotional, when another player looks at the real
connection and friendliness expressed by the player and agent and says to his
own representative:
Why don't we have that kind of relationship?
To which the agent, fakes an embrace, only to be pushed
away.
Jerry was betrayed by another player and his father, who
abandoned him early in the story.
But he turned the stumbling blocks into stepping stones and
became a role model...
luni, 4 septembrie 2017
duminică, 3 septembrie 2017
sâmbătă, 2 septembrie 2017
vineri, 1 septembrie 2017
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