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I'm not even going to try to explain what it's about maybe because I'm not sure of it myself. Pain plays a central part in this Zemeckian experiment. And Zemeckis has taken me to the most unexpected worlds through imaginative and sometimes downright revolutionary visual feasts. Just think Return To The Future or Forrest Gump. Here we're not allowed to get close to our hero. Everything seems to be detached emotionally and every attempt to get closer is translated into sentimentality. It just doesn't quite work. My favorite of all Zemeckias films is, without question, Death Becomes Her the one of his films that gets better and better with the passing of time. Special effects age but not if they are intimately connected to the progress of the story and are based on multidimensional characters, Death Becomes Her is a perfect example of that. Welcome to Marwen is an interesting experiment but unfortunately it stands cold and distant.

Sunday was my niece's birthday. 16. I invited her and two of her friends to do whatever they wanted. They chose to stay home, eat cake and watch The Greatest Showman on HBO and I thought Oh no. But, I had cake with them and sat to watch this Michael Gracy, who? Michael Gracy to see the story of PT Barnum with Hugh Jackman. Sentimental and pretty, yes but also, engrossing, moving, beautiful and structured in such a way that doesn't fall into the usual biopic traps. It moves at a breathless pace with smart and unexpected transitions. Hugh Jackman is great and Michelle Williams truthful to a fault. She's never less than that. What a wonderful actress. Zac Effron gives, what it may very well be, his most convincing performance and the Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson was a revelation to me. The script by Jenny Bicks and the remarkable Bill Condon tells a classic tale with contemporary rhythms and contemporary pace. Needless to say, I enjoyed it much more that I could possibly had imagine. So, thank you Lilli, happy 16!

Howard Hughes? Not really. George Peppard sketches a character without ever inhabit him. It's all effect. Carroll Baker, the brilliant Baby Doll, surrenders to the marketing demands and she revisits her aggressively sexual creature with more sparkle but less depth. Alan Ladd is the one that touches personal buttons and he is wonderful. Edward Dmytryck doesn't find a real center to Harold Robbins melodrama. Elizabeth Ashley's character exemplifies what I'm trying to say. Her journey is quite simply, absurd. She loves him and she hates him in a surprisingly unpredictable pattern. Absurd to such point that's not even entertaining but irritating. - As a side note, I had the experience to watch this movie on TCM with 5 twentysomethings - They laughed and laughed as if it was a hysterical comedy - I asked them what was so funny and their replay was, everything.

Beautifully told, it also made me go back to History books to double check or to confirm. That's what good movies also do, they provoke you into wanting to know more. I loved Djimon Hounsou - a sensational film presence and his soulfulness permeates the whole journey. Anthony Hopkins is a remarkable John Quincy Adams. The great Steven Spielberg doesn't shy away from the horrors and some of it is truly harrowing but even then the preciousness of the image protects you from excesses. I don't know if that is a flaw or just a grand commercial concession. I couldn't help trying to imagine, this story even the same script in the hands of an Arthur Penn for instance. After all of that, let me say I enjoyed it, I was moved and I will see it again.

William Friedkin directed not only The French Connection and The Exorcist, he also directed The Boys In The Band then years before Cruising. If there is an evolution in how the straight world saw the gay world in the decade between Boys In The Band and Cruising, the evolution is backwards. The gay scene in Crusing is sheer hell and I have to believe that it reflected the Country's mood of the day. In not such subtle ways Cruising tells us about the depravity of one group threatening the other. If you think I'm wrong, why then the gay sex and enviroment is wrapped in violent rock music in which actual feelings are not even present but the heterosexual sex scenes between - the always wonderful Al Pacino and the beautiful Karen Allen are wrapped in lyrical classical music, all feeling, tenderness and light. As soon as the film ended I had to wash my face and pour myself a double scotch on the rocks. I was kind of angry and definitely disturbed. Oops, maybe I recommending Cruising without meaning to.

The cast was a magnet, imagine, Faye Dunaway, Orson Welles, Malcolm McDowell, James Mason, Oskar Werner, Max Von Sydow, Wendy Hiller, Lee Grant, Maria Schell, Katherine Ross and I could go on. The splendor of the cast can't manage to disguise the poverty of the script. A huge subject tackled in Stanley Kramer's Ship Of Fool and that film also had an extraordinary cast: Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Lee Marvin, Jose Ferrer and even Oskar Werner who, strangely, was in both films. However, Stanley Kramer had a great script by Abby Mann (Judgment At Nuremberg) and some of the scenes are spectacular. Here in this Voyage nothing is piercing or memorable just a succession of cardboard TV style scenes. But, if you're into star gazing this voyage could give you enough stasfictions to feel you haven't wasted a full afternoon.

Outrageous, delightful, astonishing one man show by the phenomenal John Malkovich. They tell us the story is a true-ish tale and they could have fooled me because it feels, the story and the character, like escapees from a Monty Python project. John Malkovich goes further that most people who ventures into a trueish story. Leonardo Di Caprio in "Catch Me If You Can" plays a true life con who gets away with the most incredible things but we buy that people buy it because there is something so believable in Di Caprio's persona. John Malkovich goes the opposite way. He doesn't care whether you believe it or not because he believes it. It is a spectacular performance and that alone makes Color Me Kubrick a must.

God almighty! This Robin Hood is catastrophic, period. On top of that, the lack of humbleness reaches the unthinkable. I've heard Russell Crowe , the new Robin Hood, referring to Errol Flynn's version as crap. Crap? Can you imagine! Errol Flynn made that movie "The Adventures Of Robin Hood" in 1939 and people still watch it today, 77 years later, with utter delight. Russell Crowe's "Robin Hood" was made only 7 years ago and it's already forgotten. I was appalled by his comment and realized that Oscar winner or not, wisdom or knowledge is not part of the equation. I've heard Russell Crowe in a different interview saying he never trained as an actor. He claims he doesn't know anything about Stanislavski and more importantly, he doesn't care to know. What a message to send to the new generations.

To watch Blue Velvet for the first time 31 years after its original release is a treat of unexpected proportions. I'm not going to tell about the story because, I'm sure, each one of us could tell it in very different ways. The blandness of Kyle MacLachland here is a major plus. It's not him that rivet us but his circumstances. And the circumstances are truly riveting, terrifying, unpredictable and gloriously cinematic. Dennis Hopper is superb, disgustingly so and Isabella Rossellini creates a character that was totally new to me. Related to many others but new, disturbingly so. Dean Stockwell has a moment that I know already will stay in my mind for ever. I'm so glad I finally saw it.

19 years after the original shock of seeing one of the great Hitchcock classics massacred by one of the greatest living directors, I sat to watch it again. Surprise, surprise. Gus Van Sant's daring attempt could have been another masterpiece if the casting of Norman Bates, in particular, had been more visionary and less opportunistic. Imagine what a break for an actor to re-invent that iconic character. Imagine what Heath Ledger, Billy Crudup, Ryan Gosling or Guy Pearce could have done with it. I'm sure that if you had been riveted rather than embarrassed by that characterization, if Vince Vaughn was more of a serious actor who understood the responsibility of his endeavor Van Sant's Psycho would have been a triumph.

That's what the local British people thought of the American troops stationed in the North of England during War World II: They are over paid, over sexed and over here. Divided by a common language and a very different view of the world. John Schlesinger is a director I adore - Midnight Cowboy, Darling, Sunday Bloody Sunday, just to mention three titles. The actors in a Schlesinger film, from Alan Bates to Dustin Hoffman to Peter Finch are at their best but never as compellingly than Richard Gere in Yanks. A performance of such beauty that one wonders why we haven't seen more of this Richard Gere. Enthralling, romantic and truthful, profoundly so. Lisa Eichhorn is also a stand out. Her English rose (Lisa Eichhorn is an American) is a throwback to the best English actresses of the 1940's. Vanessa Redgrave and Rachel Roberts also provide a unique glimpse into the Britishness of the story. Loved it, loved it, loved it.