20s Movie Review - The Lost Daughter

Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Genre: Drama/ Thriller
Runtime: 121 minutes
Year: 2021
Starring: Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ed Harris

Description: A women’s (Olivia Colman) beach vacation takes a dark turn when she begins to confront the troubles of her past.

Review: At the last minute of 2021, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal comes to Netflix with her directorial debut “The Lost Daughter”. An intelligent film about motherhood and responsibilities. It’s a remarkably nuanced film whose provocative message will stay with you for days to come.
Leda is enjoying some time off on a Greek island. While on the beach, she is relaxing and enjoying the peace and quiet. Her oasis of calm changes when an American family, with screaming children, noisily takes over the beach.
When she meets a young woman called Nina and her daughter Elena, it brings back painful, unprocessed memories for Leda. Memories of Leda’s own time as a mother of two young daughters, Bianca and Martha. In flashbacks sprinkled throughout the film, we see a young Leda combining her work and studies with motherhood and demanding relationship. And those worlds collide more often than not.
Olivia Colman once again puts in a masterful actin performance. But Jessie Buckley’s portrayal of the younger version of Leda also deserves high praise. Seamlessly, the two seem like the same person with a twenty year age difference.  
The title “The Lost Daughter” suggest that a child disappears and the film becomes a quest to find the girl. This is true, but it’s only a small part of the film. The incident is a clever diversion for the film’s real protagonists: atypical mothers. Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut does not unfold as a mystery detective thriller at all. “The Lost Daughter” is a character study of women struggling with motherhood and the expectations and responsibilities that come with it. Women who must choose for themselves. As selfish as that may seem, it is far from incomprehensible.
Leda is also, to a certain extent, not a sympathetic character at all. Not everyone is made for motherhood, and children can be an oppressive responsibility. Leda describes herself throughout the film as an unnatural mother. Her façade of difference and self-reliance makes Leda a complex character whose unpredictable behavior keeps her constantly intrigued. In young mother Nina, with her always crying daughter, she finds recognition. A recognition she has hidden away to avoid having to face her life decisions.
“The Lost Daughter” is a unique film because the self-evident maternal instinct is turned on it head. The film is somewhat uncomfortable to watch, because Leda is such a complex character and she is very clear about her boundaries, and the situations she is put in (or often puts herself in) can be very uncomfortable to witness. For her directorial debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal has passed with flying colors. It’s a very interesting watch.  

Rating: 4/ 5

90s Movie Review - Fargo

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Genre: Drama/Comedy/ Crime
Runtime: 90 minutes
Year: 1996
Starring: France McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, John Carroll Lynch

Description: The lives of guards on Death Row are affected by one of their charges: a black man accused of child murder and rape, yet who has a mysterious gift.

Review: “Fargo” is one of many wonderful films by the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. This was actually their big break in Hollywood.
An abduction is the base of “Fargo”. Off course this abduction doesn’t go according to plan. Jerry Lundegaard wants two men to kidnap his wife, so he can get money from his father in law. But both Jerry and abductors Carl and Gaear have problems and the plan goes horribly wrong. Small town cop Marge Gunderson, who is very pregnant, investigates the case. This role is brilliantly played by Frances McDormand, who made Marge into a character you just can’t dislike. And one of my favorite female movie characters.
The Coen brothers know how to create original characters like no other and manage to surprise us with their plot twists. In “Fargo” that’s a plus, as well as the great casting. Besides Frances McDormand there is also William H. Macy as Jerry. This is a role written for Macy, no other actor could have done it. And then the criminal duo, played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare. These idiots are brilliant! Every actor in this movie just belonged there.
The setting is also great. Camera man Roger Deakins captured the icey cold North Dakota very well.
“Fargo” is without a doubt my favorite movie by the Coen brothers and one of my all-time favorite films. A definite must see.

Rating: 5/ 5

80s Movie Review - Stand By Me

Director: Rob Reiner
Genre: Drama/ Adventure
Runtime: 89 minutes
Year: 1986
Starring: Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, John Cusack, Richard Dreyfuss

Description: After the death of a friend, a writer recounts a boyhood journey to find the body of a missing boy.

Review: The name Stephen King is easily linked to horror stories like “The Shining”, “It” and “Carrie”, but he also wrote some stories that fall in a different genre than horror. The movie  “Stand By Me” is one of them, which is based on the short story “The Body”. In this realistic drama we follow four teenagers in a coming of age story.
Those four boys are Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern. They grow up in a little town in Oregon. In the summer of 1958 a boy from their town goes missing. One of the boys overhears a conversation about the whereabouts of the dead body of the boy. The four kids decided to start a journey to find him. Their journey is more than just that, it’s testing their friendship and it’s the next step to adulthood.
Director Rob Reiner creates the perfect atmosphere and shows us the life of small-town American kids in the 50s. This movie makes you long for your own childhood, where a journey outside your town sounded like an adventure already.
River Phoenix, who unfortunately died too young, is the most impressive actor in the film. He manages to convince us as the tormented problem child. But also Will Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell manage to impress. It’s touching to see how all these very different characters grow on you.
Simple dialogue, a beautiful story and good acting make “Stand By Me” a fantastic film. It’s on my favorites list.

Rating: 5/ 5

Ranking the Franchise - Back to the Future

I believe “Back to the Future” is still one of the best, for some maybe even THE best, time travel movie ever made. And the entire franchise is fun. Ranking this series was not that hard, since I knew what my favorite and least favorites were. But overall I can say it’s a solid trilogy with not one bad movie.
 

3. Back to the Future Part III
A good last part of a fun trilogy, but definitely the least of the three. This one can be seen without the knowledge of the previous films, although it is filled with references to previous evens. Marty McFly travels to the past and ends up in the Wild West. There he meets an ancestor of his arch-enemy. In the meantime, Doc Brown has become completely absorbed in it. Beautiful images of the landscapes, good special effects and a strong soundtrack. That what make this a successful adventure film.
 

2. Back to the Future Part II (1989)
The story of this second film begins seconds after part one ends. Marty McFLy has to go back to the future, says Emmett Brown, because things seem to be going completely wrong there. To solve it, he will have to jump back and forth in time. The film is more complex, because timelines cross timelines and we also revisit scenes we saw in “Back to the Future”. There are people that say this is the best time travel movie ever made, and for me it’s a close call. But it’s a strong second. And for the people who haven’t seen the films, you can’t watch “Back to the Future Part II” without seeing “Back to the Future” first.
 

1. Back to the Future (1985)
Seventeen-year-old Marty McFly travels to the past using the time machine of the remarkable Professor Emmet Brown. There he meets his clumsy father and his charming mother. He will have to pair them up, otherwise he will never be born. The brilliant, witty script by director Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale of this now classic time travel film was only approved by the Universal Studio after a long hesitation.
 

Netflix Friday - Volume 88

Some Netflix film tips for the weekend! And there is something for everyone, since I picked a movie for all the different genres.
 

Action: The Revenant (2015)
A frontiersman (Leonardo DiCaprio) on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.
 

Drama: The Lost Daughter (2021)
A woman’s (Olivia Colman) beach vacation takes a dark turn when she begins to confront the troubles of her past.
 

Comedy: Superbad (2007)
Two co-dependent high school seniors are forced to deal with separation anxiety after their plan to stage a booze-soaked party goes awry.
 

Animation: The House (2022)
Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.
 

Romance: Notting Hill (1999)
The life of a simple bookshop owner (Hugh Grant) changes when he meets the most famous film star (Julia Roberts) in the world.
 

Horror: Don’t Breathe (2016)
Hoping to walk away with a massive fortune a trio of thieves break into the house of a blind man (Stephen Lang) who isn’t as helpless as he seems.
 

Science Fiction: Inception (2012)
A thief (Leonardo DiCaprio) who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O., but his tragic past may doom the project and his team to disaster.
 

Crime: Inglorious Basterds (2009)
A Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincide with a theater owner’s vengeful plans for the same.
 

Thriller: Six Minutes to Midnight (2020)
UK, August 15^, 1939: 17 days before WWII, an English teacher and his camera disappear on a coastal boarding school with 20 German teen girls. Miller (Eddie Izzard) gets the job 6 days later, secretly trying to find out what happened.
 

Documentary: The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019)
A documentary on how Adam Lambert took over from the legendary Freddie Mercury as the frontman for the rock group Queen.
 
 

Family: Enola Holmes (2020)
When Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown), Sherlock’s (Henry Cavill) teen sister, discovers her mother missing, she gets off to find her, becoming a super-sleuth in her own right as she outwits her famous brother and unravels a dangerous conspiracy around a mysterious young Lord.

Rewatching My 100 Favorite Movies - Update 12

I decided to rewatch my 100 favorite movies of all-time. What those are, you can check HERE. I watch them in random order, there is no rhyme or reason there, just watching those movies I love so much.
 

39/ 100: Gremlins (1984)
Chris Columbus wrote the script of this cult classic. The film has dark humor, not-too-scary horror and an ironic Christmas atmosphere. With that, cinema got the cutest movie creature ever. The film about the little Mogwai, which is not allowed to get wet, be exposed to light and can’t eat after midnight, is my all-time favorite Christmas movie and one I never get tired of. Read my full review HERE
 

40/ 100: Mystic River (2003)
As young boys, Dave, Jimmy and Sean suffered a terrible trauma when one of them was kidnapped and sexually abused. Years later, they are now adults and married, the nineteen-year-old daughter of one of them is found murdered. Dave is one of the suspects, as on the night of the crime he came home in a confused state and with bloodied hands. Soon old wounds are reopened. Strong, somber whodunit, worthwhile mainly because of the character building, excellent direction by Clint Eastwood and performances by Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney. HERE is my full review.
 

41/ 100: The Big Lebowski (1998)
Bowling and blowing Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski is the laziest man of Los Angeles. Bandits who mistake him an old rich guy with the same name play a prank on him, whereupon The Dude goes to seek redress with the Big Lebowski. The out-of-control situation is splendidly portrayed, with stron, humorous characters, hallucinogenic dream sequences and wonderful dialogue. One of the best film in the impressive oeuvre of the Brother Ethan and Joel Coen. Read my full review HERE
 
Still to watch: 59

TV Show Review - Only Murders in the Building (Season 1)

Season: 1
Genre: Comedy/ Drama/ Crime/ Mystery
Number of episodes: 10
Year: 2021
Starring: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Tina Fey, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane

Description: Three strangers (Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez) who share an obsession with true crime suddenly find themselves caught up in one.
 
Review: Steve Martin and Martin Short, both in their seventies, go back a long way. Martin wrote she screenplay for this new show and brough in his friend Short.
“Only Murders in the Building” is a very engaging series about jaded television actor Charles Haden-Savage, bankrupt theater producer Oliver Putman and the mysterious Mabel Mora. Not only do they all live in the Arconia Building in New York, but most importantly they find each other in their love of the true crime podcast “All is Not OK in Oklahoma”.
The addition of former Disney child star Selena Gomez to the cast is a golden touch. Not only to bring younger fans on board, but also she has perfect comedic timing and is great in combination with veteran actors Steve Martin and Martin Short. The age gap really works in our favor here.
When a murder is committed in the building, the three find each other in the ambition to sat in their own podcast, the title of which will be “Only Murders in the Building”, as they will be limited to the murders that have taken place in the Arconia. It is quickly apparent that each member of this curious trio has their own motives for making the podcast a success.
I love a good old-fashioned whodunit murder mystery. And that’s what “Only Murders in the Building” is. Add in a bit of humor, a fast-paced story and three protagonist you will love from the start (Oliver was my favorite). I loved this series. Easy to watch, since each episode is about 30 minutes long and there are only 10 of them. I can’t wait for a second season, which hopefully will be released in 2022.