Directed by Alexis Michalik, Cyrano, My Love is a French film in English subtitles. The story begins in December 1897, Paris. Edmond Rostand, played by Thomas Solivérès, is not yet thirty but already has two children and too much anxiety.
He has not written anything for two years. In desperation, he offers the great Constant Coquelin, played by Olivier Gourmet, a new play, a heroic comedy, in verse, for the holidays.
One thing though, a problem: it is not written yet. Ignoring the whims of actresses, the demands of his producers, the jealousy of his wife, the stories of his best friend’s heart and the lack of enthusiasm of all those around him, Edmond must focus and put to pen to paper. For now, he has only the title: “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
The movie looks and sounds a lot like 1998 Oscar winner Shakespeare in Lovedirected by John Madden, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, and Geoffrey Rush. Shakespeare writes Romeo & Juliet while handling the demands of the theater owner and falling in love with Viola, who becomes his muse.
Co-written and directed by Joon Ho Bong, Parasite won the Palme d’Or of the Canne Film Festival 2019, with Jin Won Han credited co-writer.
Ho Bong’s screenwriting and directing credits include 14 movies and some shorts, such as Okja, Snowpiercer, and The Host.
The movie follows the unemployed Ki-taek’s family. The family takes an uncommon interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks family for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.
The young man of the family, played by Kang-ho Song, is tutoring a young boy who is part of the Parks family. Watching the trailer, I sense something peculiar is happening between him and the family.
The cast includes Hye-jin Jang, Sun-Kyun Lee, and Yeo-Jeong Jo.
Written and directed by one of Spain’s most successful filmmakers, Pedro Almodovar, Pain and Glory follows a film director played by Antonio Banderas. Banderas won Cannes Film Festival 2019 Best Actor for his role and New York Film Critics Circle, Best Actor.
The director reflects on the choices he’s made in life as past and present come crashing down around him.
Watch the trailer, and you get a feel for what happens in the movie. The movie is in Spanish with English subtitles. The film also stars Penelope Cruz, who is Almodovar’s muse. His movies launched her career.
The director reflects on the choices he’s made in life as past and present come crashing down around him.
The director reflects on the choices he’s made in life as past and present come crashing down around him.
I love the colors in this movie, so vibrant.
The movie clip shows the reason Banderas won Best Actor at the Cannes Festival.
Cruz looks good in this clip. I suspect the scene is a flashback when the brothers are with their mother.
Co-written and directed by Victor Kossakovsky, Aquarela is a documentary about water being the main protagonist. Society sees it as a great and terrible beauty. For example, the Mountains of ice move and break apart as if they are a life form with their own will to survive.
Kossakovsky’s documentary travels the world showing different forms of water. The movie travels from the dangerous frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal and Miami in the throes of Hurricane Irma to Venezuela’s majestic Angel Falls to paint a portrait of this fluid life force in all its glorious forms.
The documentary shares the undeniable truth of how fragile humans experience life and death, joy and despair, in the face of its power.
Koosakovsky has endless credits as a documentarian. A couple the stand out are Russian From My Window and Graine de Champion. Aimara Reques co-wrote the documentary with Koosakovsky. Reques is also an actress and producer.
Written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron, Roma is an autobiographical story of Cuaron growing up in Mexico City in the early 1970s. The movie spans a year in the life of his middle-class family’s maid, Cleo, played by Yalitza Aparicio.
The movie is available on Netflix and is nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture of the Year and Best Foreign Language Film of the Year.
The movie clip shows the cleverness of the screenplay and the detail of the scenes. The cinematography by Cuaron is stunning. Cuaron wrote, directed, and shot the movie. The details of the story are so powerful.
Cuaron, who won an Oscar for Gravity, has already captured a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director. Aparicio is nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. Marina de Tavira, who plays the mother of the household, is nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
The movie is a well-told story about a time in Mexico when the culture began to change. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.
Directed by Asghar Farhadi, Everybody Knows follows Laura, played by Penelope Cruz, a Spanish woman living in Buenos Aires. She returns to her hometown outside Madrid with her two children to attend her sister’s wedding. However, the trip is upset by unexpected events that bring secrets into the open.
Javier Bardem stars opposite Cruz (who are a real-life couple) as a former lover. The upset on her trip is tragic. The movie trailer indicates a kidnapping or disappearance. It’s not clear, but someone is missing. I believe it is her daughter.
The movie is in Spanish with English subtitles.
After watching the movie clip “Call the Cops.” we find out Laura’s daughter is missing and, at best, kidnapped.
The movie is being called a big-screen thriller. It is scary and intense. This was not obvious in the last clips and trailers. The featurette shows how intense the movie truly is.
The full interview with Cruz is now available for you to view. She explains the story, her character, and her character’s relationship with everyone involved in the story. Cruz talks about working with her husband as well. It’s a beautiful interview, and you get to be with her for a little over 8 minutes.
Written and directed by award-winner Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Never Look Away is a foreign film that won two awards at the Venice Film Festival 2018.
The movie follows young artist Kurt Barnert, played by Tom Schilling. Barnet fled from East Germany to West Germany. Yet, he is still tormented by his childhood experiences as a boy during the Nazi years and the GDR-regime. The German Democratic Republic began in 1949 and ended in 1990. The period when the eastern portion of Germany was part of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War period with the Berlin Wall in existence.
He meets a student named Ellie, played by Paula Beer. He is positive he has met the love of his life. He begins an artist journey creating paintings that mirror not only his fate but also the traumas of an entire generation.
The next three movie clips are long but tell the story or at least part of the story. The oppression these Europeans experienced is appalling. Even though the movie fills with abuse, the colorful scenery and well-defined sets indicate hope for the people.
Directed by Nadine Labaki, Capernaum is a unique story about a young boy named Zain, played by Zain Al Rafeea. Zain is a Lebanese boy, and he sues his parents for the “crime” of giving him life.
Capernaum means Chaos, which offers some insight into the movie’s theme.
The second poster shows Zain with the toddler, walking away from the camera this time—an interesting choice. The perspective is effective in showing a future for the two boys. All in all, this movie hits my heartstrings, a beautifully filmed story.
The movie focuses on Zain as he journeys from a gutsy, streetwise child to a hardened 12-year-old “adult” fleeing his negligent parents, surviving through his wits on the streets, taking care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil, played by Yordanos Shiferaw and her baby son Yonas.
Zain is jailed for a violent crime, and finally, seeking justice in a courtroom, he sues his parents.
The movie won three Cannes Film Festival 2018 awards. Labaki took home the Jury Prize, Prix de la citoyenneté, and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
Written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War is a passionate love story between a man, played by Tomasz Kot, and a woman, played by Joanna Kulig, who meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other. Set against the background of the Cold War in 1950s Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, it’s the tale of a couple separated by politics, character flaws and unfortunate twists of fate — an impossible love story in impossible times.
Pawel Pawlikowski earned the Best Director award for Cold War at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Pawlikowski’s previous film, Ida, won the Oscarand BAFTA foreign-language film awards as well as five European Film Awards. His other feature credits include My Summer of Love and Last Resort.
The movie trailer depicts the mood of the love story and the touching and poignant moments of each character.
Cold War didn’t nab a Golden Globe nomination, which is hard to believe. The movie clip shows so much in such a simple scene. The looks and pauses of each actress tell us undercurrents.
The second trailer is fantastic and all the awards Cold War won, amazing. I love this film and look forward to seeing it.
Cold War received Oscar nominations including Best Foreign Film, Best Director, and Cinematography . Watch the above trailers and the understanding of the nominations is clear. The movie is intense and unforgiving. “Collaborating with director Paweł Pawlikowski on Cold War has been an incredible experience and honor. I am greatly humbled by this recognition from the Academy. Thank you to Amazon Studios for supporting this film and thank you to the audiences around the world that have seen and embraced Cold War,” Lukasz Zal, Cinematography.
Three movie clips show how the movie flows as the relationship becomes strained and undeniably tragic. The camera work by Zal is worthy of his Oscar-nomination. The seamless images show a hard life in the spontaneity of the woman who wants to be free, communicated in with very little dialogue.
Kulig sings beautifully in this poignant moment. The shot is set in a time of longing and hope.
This movie clips shows the strength behind the woman.
Written by Sean Drummond and directed by Michael Matthews, Five Fingers of Marseilles is a western taking place in South Africa. The studios call it a pistol-packing and thrilling tale. Similar to such classics as Once Upon a Time in the West and counterparts like The Proposition and No Country for Old Men.
Set against the backdrop of post-Apartheid South Africa, the movie takes place in a small town run by shady local officials. The movie stars Vuyo Dabula, Hamilton Dhlamini, Zethu Dlomo, Kenneth Nkosi, Mduduzi Mabaso, Aubrey Poolo, Lizwi Vilakazi, Warren Masemola, Dean Fourie, Anthony Oseyemi, Brendon Daniels, and Jerry Mofokeng.
The story is about the residents of the colonial town of Marseilles. They are under the thumb of police oppression and only the young rebels known as the Five Fingers are willing to stand up to them.
Their battle is just until Tau kills two policemen and flees the scene. The remaining rebels disband while the banished Tau resorts to a life of crime. Twenty years later, Tau is released from prison and is a feared outlaw by the name of The Lion of Marseilles.
He returns home, desiring only peace and to reconnect with those he left behind. The battle for South Africa’s freedom has been won, and former comrades-in-arms are in prominent positions as mayor, police chief, and pastor.
But it quickly becomes clear to Tau that Marseilles is caught in the grip of a vicious new threat — and he must reconstitute the Five Fingers to fight frontier justice. Standing against former allies and new enemies, the re-formed Five Fingers saddle up and ride out, and put their lives at risk to save their beloved Marseilles.
The movie trailer is well done and shows what to expect from the movie. Obviously, it is in English subtitles, but once the western action starts shooting the subtitles will be ignored.
