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Worthy TV
I must say here I tried Fringe, Once Upon a Time, Black Mirror, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones, but couldn't feel any curiosity nor empathy, or at least appreciate their art, so I left them after some episodes. Homeland and Breaking bad had my enthusiasm (bigger in the second case) until the end of their respective second seasons, after which H became erratic and uninteresting and BB just the 901134th banal drug story. Here I should probably mention the strange case of Broadchurch - 7 out of 8 episodes are great and the last one kills them all, it is so flat, absurd and kitschy.
Reviews
Dream Scenario (2023)
Check Carles Torrens' short about the same
It is worth noticing that the main idea (a man who appears in the dreams of the whole world one night) has already been used elsewhere in contemporary (horror) cinema - in a Carles Torrens' (a Catalan filmmaker living and working in Los Angeles) short film.
The short is in English, its title is SEQUENCE, it was screened for the first time in 2013, and it has been at many festivals, earning awards and attention, so I have no doubt Mr. Borgli have seen it. The two directors have been at the same festivals in 2013 with their shorts, for instance Winterthur... (By the way, you can put "Sequence, Carles Torrens" in YouTube and you will find it in its entirety.)
I tried to find a mention of Torres' idea around Borgli's film, but I didn't find any. Not quite cool.
Passenger List (2019)
So tired of clueless American (mis)use
So tired of clueless American (mis)use of other people's names, nations, languages, problems.
There is some pretend Bulgarian on this podcast, some evil Bulgarians doing evil Eastern European things, some assumptions about Bulgarians' level of social and cultural, ethic and aesthetic development. As often when Americans try to improvise on other people's characteristics, they get it wrong. Painfully simplified, ignorant, uninteresting, silly.
Some of the creators of this podcast have Vietnamese roots. Guys, check out how Vietnamese have always been represented in American cinema for instance. As a shouting crowd of some kind of aliens or savages. But Vietnamese aren't that, right? Now you are the Americans depicting somebody else's nation and language as primitive and idiotic. And I am Bulgarian. Two episodes of this farcical concoction, and I cannot take it anymore.
Dear creators of this. Maybe read, learn, travel?
The Tourist: Episode #2.1 (2024)
No
I was waiting for the second season of the show, hoping it would be at least as good as the first. My rating for the first season was 10/10 - I loved the mystery, the actors, the pace, Australia and the underlying message that humans are good (or can be) and that there is some kind of poetic justice.
Unfortunately, the second season starts as some kind of a parody, made in a hurry by people who don't care much about the story and the viewers. Everything is exaggerated without need, the characters are pathetic caricatures, there is much more pointless graphic content. Also, there is nothing in The Tourist 2 that deserves to be called a 'plot'. I am very disappointed.
Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)
Sad
Edmond de Rostand text is one of the best stories ever - noble, tender, gifted, generous, bold, imaginative, just as the main character. It is full of love and selflessness. The director has made a pretty good job, the cast is delivering all right, the rhythm is bewitching. I've seen 'Cyrano' on stage too, in different countries, in more or less talented renditions, and the truth is that the play is so good, that it always makes it somehow, it is always great, even when the circumstances around its staging are much less than perfect. So 100/10 stars for the play, 8/10 for the film and minus million for Gérard Depardieu whose filthy mouth of a women's abuser doesn't deserve to pronounce one single word of this text. Cyrano would have been disgusted to the bone by somebody like this guy.
John Wick (2014)
Porn
It's when you have a lame excuse for a lot of cheap meaningless action and nothing more. Easy death on screen should be considered much lower than porn. (Also: really bad Russian.)
Old Henry (2021)
It is about dirty people...
...killing each other, while pronouncing cocky phrases. I'd give it one star for the actors' interesting faces, and one for the palette of the film which is lovely.
I Flip You Off for Four Hours (2020)
Cinema will never be the same
Truth is I would give it 9 stars because I am sure that even a film of this magnitude and mastery (the plot! The camera! The choreography! The cathartic ending!!) -being a human creation- is (or should be, could be) somehow flawed. On the other hand, I lack the preparation to qualify or even to quantify the probable flaws here, so I'll just stick to my initial overwhelming admiration and put a 10.
Deadpool (2016)
Love Reynolds, hate the violence
No, seriously, all this horrible, cynical, meaningless violence. Really?
Dreissig (2019)
Lonely, needy, boring people
OK. It is interesting to watch when apparently happy intelligent people reveal themselves as lonely, needy and boring. It is also interesting to analyse why they became it, while having the opportunity to become anything else. But to witness passively for two hours how they are just being empty and aimless is kinda self destructive. I appreciate the actors and the tiny touch of humour here and there, but it is so not enough.
Killing Eve (2018)
From 10 to 2
First season: 10/10, because it is clever, sexy, eccentric, chic.
Second season: 6/10, because it still looks good, but progressively looses its logic and wit.
Third season: 2/10, it is just stupid. So much talent (the actors) lost in all this banal nothing.
Pokot (2017)
Cannot be compared to the book - OK, I said it
Olga Tokarczuk's "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" is a remarkable, wise, humorous, and very finely layered novel. Unfortunately all of the subtlety of its characters, all of their lovable quirks, all the rhythm, and funnily enough, almost all of the spectacularity of nature and seasons is lost in the film. So why watch it?
Succession (2018)
Dramatically overrated
One star for the gorgeous music.
One star for some good acting.
One star because it somehow tricked me into believing for 13 episodes that it might become better (it didn't).
There is a bunch of wannabe human beings with no morals, no dignity, no respect and love for each other or anybody else who imitate grownup life by pretending to do things not even they find important. The dialogue is ridiculously immature and pointless, the plot is as flat as they get. Empty, unoriginal, boring stuff.
Barnabo delle montagne (1994)
Read the book.
A failed attempt to normalise everything in Dino Buzzati's first novel that feels original, unsettling and poetic. Two hours of silent poses in the film cannot compare at all with this laconic, but full of emotion book. There aren't women in most of Buzzati's works and it is not by chance - why add them, to "compensate" what? There is no equivalent of a film score in his "Barnabo" - no embellishments/explanations, just raw nature (human and other). The original story is about a man who needs to learn to live with himself - and by the end he does. Still not sure what the film "Barnabo" is about, but it bored the hell out of me.
Der Pass (2018)
Sloppy
I am Bulgarian and I feel offended. Not because a "Bulgarian" is chosen to be the victim-criminal whose dead body triggers the action, but because there is no such surname as "Slowejko" in Bulgarian. To us it sounds idiotic. As if I tried to sell for German Ciprill Bzols or Philirp Stertne. In Europe you can literally put your head out of the window and shout: "Is there any Bulgarian out there?", and the answer will be "yes". And you can get the info you need in 3 minutes.
I am a literary translator. I translate books. When I talk to younger colleagues about the basics of the profession, I start with: check everything. ONE sloppy mistake makes everything sound sloppy. You saved 3 minutes of work and you destroyed your credibility. It isn't the stereotype about what Bulgarians are and can be in this lovely European family of ours that makes you cheap, it is the fact that you don't even consider the Bulgarian line worth of researching. "Ah, some dark haired Eastern Europeans with funny names." Well, sloppy.
Right now I am translating a book about Auschwitz. From Italian. My German is basic, so I check and double check the right way to put in Cyrillic every little monster's name. Is it because I respect or like them? No. It is because I respect and like my profession and my readers.
And now, to something completely different. The series is boring.
Killing Eve: Smell Ya Later (2019)
Lacking everything
Hugely unrealistic, quite illogical, out of humour and rhythm, surprisingly soap-operish. This episode made me feel embarrassed of loving the show until now.