30 August 2019.
By Neptune
CINEPHILES – ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET, READY, GO! This SUNDAY, to the annual Allianz JOURNÉE DU CINÉMA for just 5 CHF. This deal happens once a year in our overpriced cities, so take advantage. Go for a double feature, or even a triple one, to see the films you have missed till now. This SUNDAY, September 1st, for only FIVE francs a séance! Don’t miss out – click here for a list of participation cinemas across Switzerland.
A second bonus – from August 21 – September 10, the Grutli Cinemas are featuring a SPIKE LEE (America’s angry black rebel) retrospective, screening many of his highly entertaining and controversial films of the past decades, such as MALCOLM X; DO THE RIGHT THING and MO’ BETTER BLUES. There will also be multiple screenings of Raoul Peck’s outstanding, searing documentary I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO. Catch one or more of them this Sunday, and the following weeks.
And a third bonus – the NORD-SUD Cinema is back in action, renovated and covering the Right Bank, Servette area, with all the films you may have missed. A member of the arthouse cinemas including the Scala and the City, it will be showing, in 2 halls, quality films which are on their way out. RECENT RELEASES:
THE KITCHEN (Les Baronnes) – (vo English)
Notice the rating – , which denotes sub-mediocrity. Save your time and money (even the 5 francs!), and skip this embarrassingly bad film trying to be a feminist mafia thriller, which makes one feel sullied for having stayed to the end. Its supposedly high-power female cast including (the usually vulgar) Melissa McCarthy and Elizabeth Moss of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, falls flat with a wayward script, terrible photography and amateur direction from first-time director, Andrea Berloff. Sub-mediocrity is no way to advance women’s rights.
FRANKIE *1/2 (vo English and French)
How on earth did this empty, pretentious film get into the Competition lineup in Cannes? The answer of course was the clout of Isabelle Huppert as the star.
And possibly the incredible list of cameo roles including the great Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear and Jérémie Renier. Director Ira Sacks brings them all together in Portugal to say goodbye to Huppert who is supposedly dying. With Huppert leading the cold tone, all these characters have little to do except pass each other with platitudes for dialogue. There is hardly any emotion, all is dull. Even the brilliant Gleeson who plays her husband, just wanders around, looking lost. A complete waste of much talent. Pity.
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
