Tag Archives: Hollywood movies

a star has fallen (film: The Barefoot Contessa – Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955)

When he wrote and directed ‘The Barefoot Contessa’ (1954), Joseph L. Mankiewicz was coming off the huge success of one of his previous films – ‘All About Eve’ (1950). That film depicted the twilight of a Broadway star’s career, and … Continue reading

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the Beauty and the Militant (film: The Way We Were – Sydney Pollack, 1973)

The most appropriate way to honor the memory of a filmmaker or actor who is no longer with us is to see or re-watch their films. ‘The Way We Were‘ from 1973 is one of the films that consolidated Robert … Continue reading

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a polarized world (film: One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025)

‘One Battle After Another‘ is the first serious candidate for the next Academy Awards. I couldn’t have expected anything else from Paul Thomas Anderson, a film maker who has already demonstrated his talent for bringing complex stories to the screen … Continue reading

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growing up on the road (film: Almost Famous – Cameron Crowe, 2000)

‘Almost Famous‘ is a phenomenon movie. The screenwriter and director is Cameron Crowe, who between 1996 and 2001 wrote and directed several splendid feature movies (for this one he won an Academy Award for best original screenplay) and then practically … Continue reading

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Aronofsky does Coen … or maybe Tarantino (film: Caught Stealing – Darren Aronofsky, 2025)

Darren Aronofsky is accustomed to surprise us. Starting with his directorial debut with ‘Pi’, going through the exceptional ‘Requiem for a Dream’ and ‘Black Swan’ to ‘The Whale’, including a few failures along the way, always original and uncomfortable. His … Continue reading

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a disappointing second feature film by Celine Song (film: Materialists – Celine Song, 2025)

Born in Korea, raised and educated in Canada where her parents settled when she was a child, Celine Song now lives and works in New York as a theatre and film director. She is, in my opinion, one of the … Continue reading

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words, lies and love in one of the best romantic movies of the 80s (film: Choose Me – Alan Rudolph, 1984)

Why didn’t Alan Rudolph become one of the most appreciated filmmakers of his generation, that of the great American directors born in the 1940s? Born sometime between Scorsese and Spielberg, launched as an assistant to Robert Altman, he is almost … Continue reading

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the ultimate conspiracy thriller (film: Capricorn One – Peter Hyams, 1978)

‘Capricorn One‘ was produced and released in the same years (1978-79) as ‘Superman’, ‘Star Trek’, ‘Alien’, ‘Grease’, ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Deer Hunter’. The estimated budget of around $5 million was modest by the Hollywood standard at the time and probably … Continue reading

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TNGng – (film: The Naked Gun – Akiva Schaffer, 2025)

The producers of the new ‘The Naked Gun‘ insist on calling their film as a ‘reboot’ rather than a ‘remake’ of the original series. I’m not sure that I understood all the subtle differences between the new cinematic category and … Continue reading

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high speed entertainment (film: F1:The Movie – Joseph Kosinski, 2025)

Summer entertainment? Well, it’s summer, isn’t it? I mean it’s the time of the year when I have no problem sitting into an air-conditioned cinema with a bucket of popcorn in my hands and a cold drink by my side, … Continue reading

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