It think it was already clear from her very first movie (Léon) – in which she was just 12 years old – that she’s an outstanding actress. Black Swan also made a huge impression on me. 
… because if we talk too fervently about Portman in Léon it might come across as creepy.
Among the many phases I had there was a Luc Besson phase. After Léon’s critical success my local arthouse cinema, the one where I attended that festival, did a Besson retrospective, where I watched all of his previous feature films, every thursday night at 23:00.
This Star Wars series is one of the rare exceptions that never really clicked with me, despite the fact that I’m a huge science fiction fan. I love sci-fi when it gives me that feeling of “this could actually be real someday.” But that furry guy ruined it for me right from the start… 
I haven’t seen every Besson film. Whether he was behind the camera as a director or involved as a producer, I really enjoyed Lucy, Anna, Dracula, and the Taken series. They’re the kind of movies I can rewatch anytime.
What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t like Star Wars?
I have so many movies that I love, and I wouldn’t try to rank them, but the one above all, without a doubt, will always be Star Wars. That’s not very original, I know. And for a while I decided that Blade Runner woud be my favorite movie, because Star Wars seemed too simplistic but… who am I kidding?
I think I was seven years old when I first saw it (±1?), from a rental Video 2000 cassette, and that experience changed my life. It was just the best thing ever. That is where my love for movies started, seeking similar experiences.
I had been a sci-fi kid even before that, I grew up on Star Trek and Captain Future. (That is very specific to German kids. Our version had its own music which elevated it to another level.) I had only space Legos. Hell, Pigs in Space was my favorite segment of the Muppets Show. And to this day Science Fiction is my main genre in literature.
In movies, even though I’m certainly gravitating to Science Fiction and fantastic genre films, I have learned to embrace a very wide spectrum of the art. See, the thing about Star Wars is not that it’s Science Fiction, it’s simply a brilliant movie.
And it’s not even Science Fiction, really. It’s a space fairy tale. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a wise old wizard takes a farm boy on a quest to rescue a princess from the clutches of the evil dark knight. It is a very well told yarn, which goes for the whole original trilogy.
I really tried very hard to like the prequel trilogy. And the sequel trilogy. They never really managed to capture that magic spark again. Don’t even get me started on the tragic failures of both of these.
But have you seen the Andor series? If the lack of realism, or verisimilitude is your main gripe with Star Wars, of all the subsequent movies Rogue One easily is the best. And Andor takes it even further. This, finally, is a more serious Star Wars for grown-ups. A realistic take on Empire and Rebellion, and a drama so well written and executed that it can compete with the best of HBO.
Now that is a neat trick.
This link goes to one particular tidbit in the video that made me chuckle. Well done, comrade.
The whole video is well worth watching, as are most of this guy’s videos, but this bit is oldschool badass.
And here is how it was done.
Anyone else going to see The Odyssey tonight, or this weekend? I’m off. Though I do hope it won’t take me decades to find my way home.
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I’ll have to digest this a bit more but The Odyssey is a tremendeously good film, easily the best of the year so far.
There has been some controversy in advance about historical inaccuracies and a too international cast, and a real shitstorm of hate-mongering about the casting of a black woman and a trans man in this film.
Christopher Nolan knew perfcetly well what he was doing, had a crystal clear vision for this film and executed it masterfully.
He makes it a point to tell this as a universal story, not a history lesson. Finding meaning for our modern times in this most antique of classics. The too meodern costumes and speech patterns definitely serve to make the charcters more relateable. The cast is perfect.
It’s about civilization crumbling under the savagery of man and PTSD and stuff. So yes, there is some messaging here, it is a very timely movie, and if anyone’s fragile ego can’t take that, too bad for them.
That doesn’t mean it’s a preachy, woke agenda piece, it is absolutely the grand cinematic epic you were hoping for; filmmaking on a ridiculously high level.
Maybe I don’t love it quite as much as Oppenheimer, and that is a very high bar, which I think had more impetus and focus, while this 3 hour movie does also feel like 3 hours, a bit meandering. But it is a story about getting lost, so that’s what it should feel like, actually.
I don’t need to know much more than that Matt Damon and Charlize Theron are in it. In my opinion, they’re both almost always a guarantee of a great movie. That said, I haven’t decided yet when I’ll actually go and see it.
edit: What also piques my curiosity is that the entire film was shot on IMAX film cameras, making it the first feature film ever to be photographed entirely with IMAX 70mm film cameras. I’m curious to see whether the image quality will be noticeably better than that of a conventional production.
There is no IMAX screen in my area but on the best standard format laser projection in the nearby middle-big city it already looked pretty gorgeous.
In two weeks I’ll visit Dresden and maybe see the film again on the imax screen there, but that’s also only laser projection. True 70mm 15perf imax film projection, the gold standard for which this film was made, is only available in London or Prague.
One scene that projection-wise was particularly stunnig was the lightning scene. The boat gets into a lightning storm at night. Very dark interrupted by strobe-light brightness. I would say it was the clarity of visual information you get in these brief flashes that was unparalleled. Masterpiece of cinematography, editing and projection. I was watching this slack-jawed.
One smaller thing that I really liked was the cyclops design. They actually pulled it off to make the one-eyed face not look silly. He has a twisted face, a bad deformity, and the eye is almost turned vertical.
Of course this is promotional propaganda, but come on, it is really impressive.
One of my all time favourites
(The Crow) - Eric Draven and his fiancee are brutally murdered. When he mysteriously returns from the dead with the help of a crow, it begins to guide him to his killers.
My personal favourite in the nightmare on elm street franchise
(Part 3 Dream warriors)
Nancy, a psychiatrist, encounters Kristen, a survivor of an attack by the demonic Freddy Krueger. Using her own knowledge of Freddy, Nancy decides to help Kristen and a group of teenagers fight him.
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Huh, The Crow. I think I have not seen that film since its original theatrical run. I liked it well enough, but Proyas’ Dark City, a few years later, was more up my alley. And I just looked into it, what the hell happened to that man’s career? Gods of Eqypt, that is what happened. Though it does seem he has a film in post-production again. Looks like a very cheap green-screen thing, but it’s based on the 1920 play in which the word “robot” first appeared. So I’m mildly curious.
A Nightmare on Elm Street. Paramount wants to reboot that franchise. Again. They also want to do G.I. Joe. Again. The new leadership of that studio is so aimless, it’s almost as if they’re announcing random shit to reassure people they’re still making movies. With all those law-suits one can only hope that somehow the Warner Brothers merger gets stopped. Because Warner has been knocking it out of the park lately. It’s a tragedy if they get swallowed by these MAGA buffoons.