22 April 2022. By Neptune I was happily writing a very positive review of the excellent English film, THE DUKE, until I learned its released had been postponed to June 1st. Now we must patiently wait for another 2 months for this delightful film starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. Pity, it would have lightened […]
FILM: WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY ***1/2
15 April 2022. By Neptune CONTES DU HASARD ET AUTRES FANTAISIES (Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) ***1/2 (vo Japanese) Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi rose to international fame this year due to his film DRIVE MY CAR, which excited the critics. Due to that snowball effect, it ended up with a number of awards as this […]
FILM: SWAN SONG ***
8 April 2022. By Neptune This week has a strange batch of releases, of which only two will be covered here. I would therefore recommend you hurry to the fine films that have been on the screens already. They will soon disappear, as did WILD MEN, the hilarious “Fargo”-like, Danish/Norwegian gem which probably no one […]
FILM: THE STORY OF MY WIFE
THE STORY OF MY WIFE (Histoire de ma femme) ***1/2 A dashing sea captain, a mysterious beauty, a strange story about daring to “marry the first woman who walks in that door”, magnificently filmed by an award-winning Hungarian director – what more would you want from a turbulent, romantic drama set in 1920s Europe? The […]
FILM: NOBODY HAS TO KNOW – 4 stars
25 March 2022. By Neptune NOBODY HAS TO KNOW (L’Ombre d’un mensonge) **** On the Isle of Lewis and Harris, a windswept island somewhere off Scotland, we find a Belgian man who has come there to work on a farm owned by a taciturn old man and his two sons. It’s not quite clear why […]
FILM: NOTRE DAME BURNS – 4 stars
18 March 2022. By Neptune NOTRE DAME BRULE **** (vo French) As deviously slow-burning and finally ferociously-flaming as the fire that almost destroyed the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris in April 2019 – before the eyes of a horrified world, this reconstructed documentary by veteran director Jean-Jacques Annaud glows with a mixture of reality, […]
FILM: GOLIATH – honest lawyer fights conglomerate
11 March 2022. By Neptune GOLIATH *** (vo French) This French film is a more austere version of “Erin Brockovich” and other such films about the little man, or woman, fighting conglomerate giants in the courts, too often in vain, sometimes in victory. There are three sides to this story – one, an honest […]
FILM: BELFAST – deep, heartwarming and nostalgic
4 March 2022. By Neptune BELFAST **** How did director/actor Kenneth Branagh go from the showy, pop entertainment that was the latest “Death on the Nile” to something as deep, heartwarming and nostalgic as this black and white account of his own childhood in an Ireland torn apart by religious differences in the late 1960s? […]
FILM: THE GODFATHER – the film’s 50th anniversary
25 February 2022. By Neptune THE GODFATHER **** Speaking of classics, for the film’s 50th anniversary the Empire cinema is showing a remastered version of this finest of Mafia films (1972) directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Mario Puzo. With Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Diane Keaton among a strong cast, […]
FILM: RIFKIN’S FESTIVAL – for Woody Allen fans
18 February 2022. By Neptune RIFKIN’S FESTIVAL **1/2 Anyone who has been following my column would know that I am an unconditional fan of Woody Allen’s. I believe I have seen all his films, which have come out almost annually in the past fifty plus years. He’s quite a phenomenon, as most of them are […]
