Reviews

I've become really tired of Hollywood's political propaganda through movies; this movie is a barely disguised comment on the "Global Warming Crisis". The left's hysteria over global warming is ridiculous, though the evils of pollution and meat eating are real.

So just try to take the story literally and not metaphorically. We don't know whether to laugh or scream while watching politicians and the rich totally flub earth's chances at saving itself from assured destruction. The characterizations are marvelous. There are references to Trump's mindless minions, to the eccentric super rich narcissists, to the brain-dead irresponsability of the TV... somehow the only group that doesn't get lampooned are the screaming liberals.

Anyway, it was a great well made satire.

On the positive side, the acting of the two protagonists was very good. The claustrophobic mood of quiet desperation was well conveyed through cramped hand-held photography. The characters' melancholy was perfectly mirrored by the dark snowy scenes. Remind me never to visit northern Russia in the winter.

The story consists of a disappointed woman stubbornly taking the train trip she was supposed to take with her girlfriend who stood her up. At first she clings to her past with this woman, but gradually she opens up to this rough Russian, her compartment mate. Finally she finds that all her reasons for taking the journey have evaporated but she has found a kind of love after all.

There is not a lot of dialogue so the simple story is mostly told through images. For me, it was a bit slow moving, but then again I'm American so that's to be expected.

I watched this movie hoping to see Titan and some treatment of how humans might live there. The only thing you see of Saturn's moon is the guy standing there for the last five seconds of the movie.

The whole movie is about the high tech genetic modifications on these soldiers to make them adaptable to Titan's climate. Nine out of ten of the soldiers die. One starts hemmoraging. One goes beserk and has to be shot down. Another kills her partner and has to be shot down. All of this because of the genetic modifications they're getting.

You see, Earth is over populated so man must move to Titan, which has an atmosphere of 95% nitrogen, almost 0% oxygen, and a temperature of about 300 below zero. Being so similar to Earth it costs only 300 million dollars to genetically prepare a soldier to live there, so it's a very feasible alternative to Earth and certainly much easier than consuming fewer resources on Earth and thus solving the over population problem at home.

When the hero soldier is finally all modified up, he can't speak anymore. "They communicate at low frequencies" the doctor tells us. So he can no longer speak with his wife. he can only stare at her with an expressionless alien face. He can't pick up a pencil and write. He can't do much of anything except swim underwater really well. Who knows what he's going to do all by himself on Titan? Swim around and wait for more 300 million dollar soldiers to start a colony?

Of course, nobody can do the Punisher as well as John Bernthal: dark, haunted, coarse but not stupid, and with a soft-heart under it all. But Thomas Jane is particularly miscast. Sure Jane has the muscles, but his all-american good looks betray no tortured past.

Speaking of mis-casting, John Travolta is terrible as the bad guy. He's just not mean enough. He is not scary at all. All I could think of is his goofy grin in Grease and Pulp Fiction.

I watched the initial scene twice where the whole plot is set up, and I couldn't figure out what happened for the life of me. Who were the two kids buying drugs? Why were they on the docks playing the big leagues? What did Frank Castle do in this scene? It is really bad story telling.

Of course, if you like movies where the bad guys get their due, as I do, there's plenty of that.

Overall I liked this film. I have never seen the film technique before that Xavier uses twice, for example during the party, where there is no obvious script, it seems ad-libbed. It gives the feeling of a party.

It's a love story, with of course, the difference of it being a gay love story. It illustrates the difficulty of falling in love and coming out of the closet at the same time.

Of course you can only do so much in two hours, but I felt that the mood of the film, especially that of Matthias, was a bit monotone, although his character was nicely filled out.

The other actors were all good. The photography was beautiful.

I'm a fan of Penelope Cruz so I went to see "Tutti lo sanno" in Italian. First the bad: the film is divided into two parts: the happy beginning and the stressful ending. The second half was very long tiring as it was all one un-modulated emotion: anxiety. The story was very simple. Credit goes to the writers that we are kept in suspense as to the authors of the deed. Penelope Cruz was very good, and you even get to see her without makeup! Bardem was good as were pretty much all of the actors. The Spanish town was absolutely beautiful. And the small town climate where everybody knows everybody else was well illustrated.

This is a true story and a realistic historical film about forgotten people in a forgotten place. The film is set in 1860. While Garibaldi is hogging the national spotlight we go to the Marche region of central Italy about 200 km from Rome. It's not a glamorous or a famous place, but it's a beautiful place as the photography in this film reveals. Neither are the characters glamorous or famous or beautiful. They are real people: poor farmers, carabinieri drafted by the king, landed gentry, a priest, outlaws. Nobody is particularly saintly and then again nobody is purely evil. The characters are believeable and realistic. This is not a story about heros who wrench power from the aristocracy, because they fail at doing that. This is not about the glory of a recently unified Italy, the focus is much too close to be aware of national politics. It's the story of frustrated and angry peasants trying to fight back against a system that for centuries has exploited and wronged them. It's the story of humble people trying to achieve justice during social and political upheavals that are so much larger than them.