wild-angel-8x

It's a really bad movie. The setup though weirdly convenient and illogical can somewhat be forgivable (it's another generic Christmas movie) but the acting is just unbearable. It's the most cringey and pretentious acting I have ever seen on any screen. Please do yourself a favour and stay away from this one.

4 hours of the excellency of Ewan McGregor really don't seem to be enough. I truly truly love Ewan McGregor but I have to admit that after Moulin Rouge! He just seems to be decent in everything but never really shines in anything. Today, luckily, I saw his luminous ray once again in Halston.

Halston is a new series on Netflix about the legendary fashion designer Roy Halston. It's an average show at best, not to mention, the obsession of Ryan Murphy over drug addicts and HIV is seriously getting tiring. But having Ewan McGregor constantly on screen saved the show. I mean he's amazing, you can't take your eyes off him. Considering how over the top Halston's characters are, it's brilliant how Ewan McGregor anchors the depth of all the emotions and creates such intimate connection with the audience. There's just so much authenticity in Ewan's performance that makes such an uniquely out-of-this-world person like Halston appear to be very humane and relatable.

It's also funny how Halston's story is quite similar to Ewan's story in my eyes. Shine bright very early in his career, then have his name in everything, but only shine again in the end. The moment Halston received the critics, I cried and I couldn't stop. Stunning. Let's borrow one headline in the series to summary all this: Move over, Ryan Murphy. Let Ewan McGregor take a bow.

The moment I started playing this movie, I knew I was getting into deep trouble. It's not that we haven't got great and satisfying gay-themed movies recently, for example, last year there was And Then We Danced which literally boosted my mood up over the nine cloud. But ever since Out In The Dark, I always feel like there's something missing. Today, for the first time in many years, while accompanying along Victoras and Mathias' journey, I didn't feel that way anymore.

While Out in the Darkness served the audience with a complex storyline happening during a complicated situation, and there's no way The Man with the Answers could compete with that. But then, they are totally on pair with each other when it comes to the casts which are the key element that make these two movies sensational and undeniably captivating.

First, Victoras (played by Vasilis Magouliotis) appears quietly in a very definition of a regular guy, with a very regular life. Yet, with great directing, you quickly see through his appearance that this is not gonna be a regular story. Or maybe it is, but it's a story that you'll remember nonetheless. Also, it doesn't sounds like a compliment to a performance in a movie when you say the actor is cute, but in Vasilis Magouliotis case, it really is a compliment. He is super duper cute! By the end of the movie, you realise that Vasilis Magouliotis played the part of quite a multidimensional character, with a wide range of emotions, and he's cute all the way through. That makes you believe in and confidingly support his character.

Then entering Mathias (played by Anton Weil), in the same quiet fashion, but you couldn't help telling yourself "This must be the guy!" The way Anton Weil commands the audience's attention is powerful, and he used that power magnificently in this movie. Throughout the movie, you notice you don't get much of Mathias' story. Yet, Anton Weil made it sure that you feel like you know this character thoroughly. You get to know Mathias very well through his eyes, through his actions, through his manners, through the entirety of his performance, including his bullshitting. And even though his characteristic is rather questionable at times, Mathias comes across to be very sound and grounded. He appears to be the only sanity in the insanity of this world we're living in, the world that has turned too complex that it seems impossible to respond to a question with a simple answer.

And when Victoras and Mathias finally start interacting with each other, something just clicks, like a big bang, the kind that generates all sorts of happiness in you. The ravishing chemistry between the two actors make this road trip not just enjoyable but also awakening. A lost boy meets a wanderer, sounds catastrophic, but it seems to leads them both to a right direction, one seems to find his stop and the other seems to find his answer. Life can be funny that way. Sometimes, a person just comes into your life, stirs it up, and nothing looks to be able to be resolved. Still, that person brings you such peace and joy, so much that a solution is not of a great importance anymore. And if you're willing to fight for that person, maybe that's the solution you need for everything.

Last but not least, I feel like this review wouldn't feel completed if I don't say this out loud, The Man with the Answers is a great movie and it's worth every second. Road trip has suddenly become such a popular theme these days, but I have to hand it over to Stelios Kammitsis for writing and directing this movie. He handled the theme with great care and it quickly comes to your mind that he must be no stranger to a road trip around Italy. You can really spot how experienced Stelios is through the shots along Victoras and Mathias' journey. The way the camera captured random landscapes, buildings or street signs is so masterful, you feel like you're on the road trip with them. I especially love Stelios' choice of shooting a long sequel through a glass window at a gas station, very refreshing and very artful. Also, I admire Stelios Kammitsis' sensibility in presenting European cultures in this movie. It's very signature that you shortly come to believe this can only happen between 2 Europeans, or at least one of them has to be European.

Due to the closing of the cinemas, it has been a long wait for me to see this movie, and I'm, well... Not impressed. It's about an old man who's developing dementia, and a daughter who's struggling with the decision of whether or not she should send him to a nursing home. As a nurse who had worked in nursing home for sometime in the past, I can confirm it's quite a popular case in Europe, and it has also been going on for quite a long time. So since this drama wanted to be many things else, with sci-fi and mystery are among those, it forgot to actually present anything special to the situation, and became not so much worth paying attention to. It looks more like a backstory episode in a TV series than a movie, and the fact that it also leads to the inevitable, to the norm, it makes itself quite unimportant. I have to say I can hardly understand all the praise for this movie. Anthony Hopskins is amazing in it but as the story repeats a common reality, his performance gets old quickly. The only saving grace for it is probably the vibrant and excellent choices of opera soundtrack, but even with that, I was struggling quite much to finish this movie.

Nomadland is one of those movies that look and sound like an Oscars bait, the ones which play on the audience's emotions, and trick them to think that they're deep, but in fact, they're nothing but pretentious, except this one really hits home. I wouldn't say it's mind-blowing, but I can guarantee that you can go into it without being afraid of coming out and not being mesmerized by at least some of the stories that pass you by during 100 minutes of the movie.

What I'm surprised though is, among many nominations Nomadland got this year, it didn't get one for its soundtrack. It definitely has one of the most beautiful and effective soundtracks I've heard from all the movies last year. Many of the sceneries in this movie are extremely marvellous and vastly melancholic. But when they play the scores, the music just shoots that marvel and that melancholy right to my heart. Then with the melodies, my eyes start taking off to a sightseeing trip that they didn't expect to be able to capture or to memorize that much detail.

Nomadland is a slow movie, it's not very exciting, yet it doesn't lack the ability to captivate the audience, and that's usually a sign of a quality movie. Being a nomad is a tough way of life, but it's cerlainly not insuficient of peaceful moments. In fact, there's plenty of it, and this movie did an excellent job of exhibiting that peace. It's a soothing tale of the nomads... Or isn't it?

"You'll break my heart. It'll last forever."

I don't know what to make out of it. I love Colin Firth and I love all the magnificent scenery. In one scene, within just about 3 minutes, Colin dropped the most humourous line and the most heart-breaking line of the whole movie. and that's magical to witness. Then at the same time, I think neither the chemistry between Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci nor the plot's argument is strong enough to justify the outcome of their story.

The movie proposed a very important and interesting conversation, yet it seems they took it quite lightly over the course of it. Stanley Tucci's character surprisingly didn't struggle that much with his decision, especially when he's the one who practiced some of his routines only "because of the other half" (of the times where he could reach the desirable effect). And Colin Firth's character was just so helpless and he gave in too easily. I don't know if it was the intention of the filmmakers to achieve a shocking or a composed ending, but I do feel it's either powerful or convincing.

Interesting plot, but throughout the movie, it gives you that feeling that it's going nowhere. Then the abrupt ending does no favours to the movie. I could watch Kiki's Delivery Service again and again but this one took me 3 tries to finish. Decent to watch but if you get bored somewhere in the middle, don't be afraid to stop, you're not missing much.