Carnage - 8/10: Polanski's latest film, based on a play, so it all takes place in one room, about four parents discussing an incident between their kids. I liked this a lot; it's short, at under 80 minutes, an it really flies by with the great dialogue and back & forth between the characters. I laughed quite a bit and I found Christoph Waltz in-particular to be quite awesome. I will say Jodie Foster was by far the weakest link here; she was playing an unlikable character, but I thought her performance was lacking and even quite bad in a couple of spots. Good time overall.
Andrei Rublev (Andrey Rublyov) - 7/10: The local theatre is doing a Tarkovskiy retrospective, so I'm hoping to get out to see more of his films. This is the third Tarkovskiy film I've seen (after Stalker and Solyaris) and while it was an interesting, impressive achievement, it is definitely my least favourite of the three. It follows the life of the Russian painter in 15th century Russia, as he tries to resolve his desire to serve God and the atrocities he sees around him, via his painting. This is a 205 minute film, split into two parts and into smaller sub-segments from there. There were definitely some interesting and powerful segments in the film (the crafting of an enormous bell to appease a Prince, the encounter with the Pagans), but overall I did not love it as an overarching biography of the man's life. It was an impressive film to look at and there was enough to keep me interested throughout, it just did not come together for me as I had hoped and did not reach me the way his other two films did.
Beginners - 9.5/10: God damn, what an awesome movie. I can't believe it took me so long to get to this, considering it has been at my house since November, but wow, I loved pretty much every single minute of this film. It is a quirky relationship movie, but it worked beautifully for me; it was funny, sad, and very touching in parts. I thought Ewan McGregor was great, but hot damn Melanie Laurent is a vision. I was enraptured every time she appeared on screen, which was thankfully quite a bit. The film is really just about McGregor's difficulties with relationships, reflected through flashbacks with his Mother and Father, but it is done so well that it never feels silly or trite. I was a little worried about this movie going in because I thought it was going to be a silly look at his Father coming out and entering the dating world, but it was far more than that.
I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) - 3.5/10: An Italian film about a wealthy family changing as the old patriarch dies. A two hour movie and I honestly had no idea what the hell was going on by the 50 minute mark; it was a just a random selection of scenes that each appeared to be leading somewhere, but never really did and when something finally happened, it did not really make much sense nor did I care enough to try and make sense of it. It was a beautiful film to look at, with some great looking shots, and Tilda Swinton was great with what she had, but what a crappy mess of a film.
KT
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