15 June 2018. This is a fine week for films – take your pick from this exceptional selection: POPE FRANCIS – A MAN OF HIS WORD **** To start off, there is Wim Wenders’ superb documentary on the Pope. A man of the people who cares for and identifies with the poor. That’s why he […]
FILM: THE BOOK CLUB – star-powered chuckles
8 June 2018. THE BOOK CLUB **1/2 Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen – fine actresses (Keaton and Fonda are both Oscar-winners) and old time troupers. Add Mary Steenburgen and they make up the Book Club, a foursome of close friends from way back who like to read books and discuss literature. Median age around […]
CANNES winners – Neptune’s final report – part 3
25 May 2018. So what was the culmination of the 71st edition of this grandest of all film festivals? I would say the satisfying ‘Palmares’ (awards) handed out by the high-caliber jury headed by the elegant and talented Australian actress, Cate Blanchett. It was indeed a competent jury, since four of its members were among […]
CANNES – Neptune reports from Cannes – part 2
Where do I begin in this second week? Too many films, too many events, so many encounters. But hey, this is Cannes and it’s like the whole world is happening here – beauty, emotions, anxieties, politics…it’s all here in a microcosm of life on this stretch of the French Riviera. So much to report, but […]
CANNES CANCAN – Neptune reports from Cannes – part 1
Ah, to be back again in Cannes – the Everest of film festivals – as mentioned so often before. It’s a thrill each year that I’ve been coming – since 1996 – and it never ceases to excite the voyeur in each of us attending. For it has it all – the most exciting films; […]
FILM: AMOUREUX DE MA FEMME – light-hearted French comedy
11 May 2018. AMOUREUX DE MA FEMME **1/2 (vo French) Do men really fantasize so vividly when confronted with a lovely young creature of the opposite sex? It’s certainly amusing to see it happening to this poor fellow – played by Daniel Auteuil, also director of the film – who is trying to juggle his […]
FILM: LEAN ON PETE – a film that stays in the heart
4 May 2018. LEAN ON PETE (La route sauvage) **** There are films that stay in the heart. This is one of them – a small gem of an Indy film. It’s about a teenager whose mother left him as a baby. His father tries to be there for him, but there are money problems, […]
Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Switzerland
Basel-based Irish writer Padraig Rooney, whose recent book The Gilded Chalet, explores Switzerland’s relationship with American, British and other expatriate authors, looks at Hemingway’s and Fitzgerald’s own encounters with the Lake Geneva region. The war was over and the French franc cheap: twenty-five to the US dollar in the mid-twenties. Ernest Hemingway first breezed into […]
FILM: 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE – a gripping portrait of a real airline hijack
27 April 2018. 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE *** Here’s a gripping portrait of the hijacking of an Air France airliner in the summer of 1976 by two Palestinians and two German revolutionaries, which ended at the airport of Entebbe, Uganda. Seven days of high tension for the hundreds of hostages, the nervous hijackers, the Israeli […]
FIFOG – Festival International du Film Oriental de Genève – this weekend
This 13th edition is once again bringing a multitude of films from the Near and Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and many other countries, to show the amazing diversity of cultures. This year, with about 100 films from 30 countries and some 80 guests, the festival is focusing on women’s issues and […]
