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„Alice, Darling“ /01/20/23/ Genesis Cinema, 93-95 Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4UJ, United Kingdom, 15:20 · 17:50 Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High St, London E8 2PB, United Kingdom, 17:15 "Alice Darling" Alice (Anna Kendrick) in a woman pushed to the breaking point by her psychologically abusive boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick). While on vacation with two close girlfriends, Alice rediscovers the essence of herself and gains some much-needed perspective. Slowly, she starts to fray the cords of codependency that bind her. But Simon’s vengeance is as inevitable as it's shattering, and, once unleashed, it tests Alice’s strength, her courage, and the bonds of her deep-rooted friendships. When the audience first encounters Alice, she's fully in denial about her fraught relationship with her boyfriend Simon and how damaging it's. Her slow burn realization of the harm it's doing to her and her participation in that reveals itself over time, but at first, it's a mystery, to the audience and to the character. When we meet Alice, she doesn’t really know who she's all. It's actually a really bizarre character to play because the whole point is that she’s sort of lost herself, and that everything in her focus, all her energy, is going toward being kind of small and flexible and to manage her partner’s potential reactivity. And the sense that if she’s just a little bit better, if she's just perfect, everything will be okay. That mindset slowly creeps in, and, before she knows it, she doesn’t recognize yourself. Only when she's with her close friends does Alice have a little more room to breathe. It’s interesting because she’s resistant to that at first, if she fully recognizes and accepts herself and then returns to her partner, she will be in serious trouble, and her carefully constructed if self-sabotaging world will come apart. Alice’s very different public and private demeanor offers existential clues into Alice’s authentic self, even when Alice is not quite aware or willing to accept who that's. This character seems fine on the surface, but obviously, you've little windows into her. A lot of the times that she’s in the bathroom, obsessively twirling and pulling her hair, it's clear she's in great distress about something. So how do you bring that out in a subtle way that tells you what’s happening inside the character? Alice presents as successful and secure, beloved by her boyfriend, her friends, herself. But slowly the enigmatic, self- destructive fissures appear, even as Alice refuses to address her mysterious downward spiral. She refuses to admit or confront it. Façade is all. We're with her, in her emotional perspective. The audience, like Alice, experiences the symptoms but not the root cause. But in this case, as in so many in real life, the character isn’t fully aware of what’s happening to her because it isn’t overt and because there’s a lot of gaslighting happening. The cause is a mystery, as much to her as to the audience; in many ways, Alice is an unreliable narrator. The literal and emotional journey of Alice, especially her complicated, inner turmoil that she cannot articulate but reveals in often self-sabotaging ways. There's a world where we understand that Simon will never change. He will leave this movie telling everyone he knows, ‘Yeah. I dated this girl who was crazy. She turned off her phone. I didn’t know where she was. I went to find her and her friends ganged up on me'. This is the sort of abuse that's very much under the surface but still very present and toxic and it's all too common, if not discussed or recognized fully. The hidden nature of Alice’s relationship with her boyfriend, Simon; his controlling, manipulative behavior; and Alice’s willingness to keep the by peace by accepting blame that doesn’t belong to her. Alice, incapable of facing her issues, sublimates and acts out her suffering in increasingly alarming and mysterious ways. Her polar opposite is her friend Sophie (Wummi Mosaku), a clear-eyed, emotionally centered warm soul with an altruisticr heart. She's the proof. People, but especially women, have a really hard time trusting that what they’re feeling is real and that there’s a temptation to show really overt acts or scenes that make you really understand that, okay, what’s happening is wrong. But that's not how it plays out all the time. To trust that the audience would come along with one character’s perception, flawed, personal and complex as it's, that being enough, is scary. Sophie is someone who's filled with love and enthusiasm, and she wants joy to surround the people that she loves and she just tries her best to do that, whether it’s through like baking or like hiking and kayaking or fireworks she plans for Tess’s (Kaniehtiio Horn) birthday. She wants people to feel loved and happy. It’s no accident that she works for a nonprofit! She's someone who accepts people for who they're, and doesn’t try and change them. Tess is loyal, bighearted, forthright, mischievous, blunt, kind, sometimes judgmental but ultimately forgiving. Tess is a brilliant artist but she’s not raking in the cash or the notices, in contrast with Simon, who's very successful. Tess has all of the best intentions. But we don’t think that she knows how to vocalize her feelings with sensitivity. She's brash and doesn’t exactly think before she speaks. Tess says what's on her mind and deals with the consequences later. And, in this case, her feelings about Simon and her best friend Alice are also influenced by where she's in her career, but ultimately it's motivated by her deep love for Alice. Honesty without compassion is brutality. Compassion without honesty is enabling. They haven’t figured out how to be compassionate and honest, Sophie for sure, and Tess definitely hasn’t figured out how to be honest with compassion. They're all in a transitional time, in their early 30s and going through their personal growth as people and friends and figuring out how to navigate all of it. The characters, their emotional and literal journey is recognizable and, unfortunately, in terms of Alice and her issues with her boyfriend, and her struggle to reconcile those with herself and her childhood friends. The film tells the story from the emotional point of view of the characters, particularly Alice, so audiences experience her self-destructive habits/reactions to her deep despair and low self-esteem as she does, not entirely sure from whence this comes because she isn’t capable of addressing her underlying angst. A particularly telling and disturbing routine is her incessant hair twisting and yanking of strands, a small but alarming physical manifestation of her inner turmoil. There's also something to the literal journey Alice and her friends take, from city to bucolic countryside, this change of scenery and vibe ultimately liberates Alice and her friends. "Alice, Darling" is a subtle, nuanced story about coercion and control. It's about female friendship and coercive abuse. It’s riveting tale, of course, but ultimately it's a story of female resilience and empowerment. What you can do very well in literature is describe what’s happening to somebody internally, what’s happening inside them. Sometimes in film it’s harder to bring something that’s nonverbal out. You need to see the lake from the hot tub and the herbs from the kitchen. There’s a whole bit of business with wood chopping. It's all part of the dance of designing the blocking and that interaction between direction, cinematography, and production design. Written by Gregory Mann

Rudyard, there are no people living in this forest. Do you see any animals? There’s no flora with any color, nothing to allure insects! Are you someone who prefers to spend his free time in his perfectly tended garden? Is your lawn as if a delegation from the International Golf Federation could arrive any minute to ask if it could be used as a “green” at a next golf championship? Do you spend hours in your garden staring at freshly planted and potted flowers and plants? Are you an expert in fertilizing, scarifying, digging, pruning, grafting and draining? Well, I guess this film is really suitable for you. Because “Flora” is actually nothing more than a nature film that every botanical film viewer will be excited about. Do you know which film quote always came to me? “Run, Forrest, Run!“. Only here the main characters are running away from a forest. They might have used the following alternative movie title: “Attack of the killer pollen“. That about covers it. It really looks like the 1920s. “Flora” certainly isn’t a bad film. But for those who don’t see themselves as purebred nature lovers, this film may seem terribly boring. What they managed to do, is to show a decent image of the 1920s. I found the props and atmosphere perfect. All the pieces fitted. The oldtimer, the costumes, and the used music. Perfectly chosen. Everything seemed innocent and frivolous in those days. The naivety and insufficient knowledge are portrayed in a proper way. The resources available to the six scientists are fairly limited. Plants are cataloged in notebooks. Illustrations are made with the use of a whole array of colored pencils. No electronic worksheet and digital camera as one would use in the present time. You won’t see the main characters wandering around with a tiny headphone connected to a compact MP3 player. No, here they are lugging around with an impressive gramophone with a huge horn. Before you know it, an old-fashioned foxtrot echoes through the forest after putting on such a fragile record. The footage and acting look great. Unfortunately, it’s slow and superficial. Praise for the creators of this indie-horror. Because despite the extremely limited budget, film-technically it looks fab. Even the for me unknown actors made themselves meritorious in the field of acting. Admittedly, sometimes there was a touch of overacting. And they tried to bring drama in a forced way. But this was certainly not irritating. Unfortunately, it was all fairly superficial with a painfully slow pace. It seemed after a while that the entire film consisted of exploring the surrounding nature. And yes, the discovery that no living organism can be detected in the surrounding area can easily be called troubling. But it’s never really exciting. Nail-biting boredom. Trust me, I’m not someone who only associates horror with gory slaughter and diabolical entities. And also, a forest in a horror movie isn’t automatically linked to a lonely, deserted wooden cabin. Or a wandering, bloodthirsty creature that suddenly shows up from behind a tree and rips you into pieces. So all the praise to try a different idea and for once think out of the box. However, I don’t think this symbiotic fungus that kills every human and animal life is something that ensures it to be a movie with nail-biting suspense. All in all, the starting point of the film wasn’t bad when you talk about originality. But apart from some beautiful nature shots and moments in which the dialogue seemed interesting, it’s all relatively boring and monotonous. My rating 3/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

(Release Info London schedule; August 21st, 2019, Cineworld Leicester Square, 5–6 Leicester Square, London, WC2H 7NA, 13:40 pm) https://film.list.co.uk/cinema/42944-cineworld-leicester-square-london-wc2h/coming-soon/#times "Angel Has Fallen" When there's an assassination attempt on 'U.S. President' Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), his trusted confidant, 'Secret Service Agent' Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), is wrongfully accused and taken into custody. After escaping from capture, he becomes a man on the run and must evade his own agency and outsmart 'The FBI' in order to find the real threat to 'The President'. Desperate to uncover the truth, Banning turns to unlikely allies to help clear his name, keep his family from harm and save the country from imminent danger. "Angel Has Fallen" is a explosive, rip-roaring thriller in which the fate of the nation rests on the very man accused of attempting to assassinate 'The President Of The United States'. The film opens at the former 'U.S. Air Force Base' at 'Upper Heyford' in Oxfordshire where Banning goes through a terrifying simulation. Banning has long been one of the stalwart heroes-in-the-shadows on whom national security depends on day in and day out, but is the always-ready warrior starting to lose it? Haunted by a lifetime soaked in adrenaline, danger and more than a few insane snafus, Mike feels his usually knifelike edge slipping. The uncertain becomes the unthinkable as he wakes up to his worst possible nightmare; The President' has fallen and Banning stands accused of conspiring to kill his friend, mentor and the man he’s sworn to protect. Now the expert hunter has become the hunted, spurring Butler’s deepest, darkest take yet on the loose-cannon action hero. On the run and with no one but his family on his side, Banning may not be able to pull himself back from the brink. But he will put his patriotism above his own as he stops at absolutely nothing to save the country that he’s alleged to have betrayed. As Banning maneuvers to evade his savvy colleagues, every quality that made him the top agent on the presidential detail is put to the test; his high-level combat skills, his ability to out-think the most twisted minds and his willingness to put himself at extreme risk to pull others from harm, only that might just be the easy part, for Banning now faces a situation for which he has zero preparation. Forced into the cold, isolated from his family, in dire physical and mental peril, the only way he can go forward is to take an unwanted turn into his past. 'Secret Service' agents live in a constant state of high alert. At any given second, they've to be ready to thwart a near-infinite number of potential threats that could come from any country, any group, or any person, without warning. Their sacrifices, the persistent danger, the merciless demands on body and soul, the stress on their relationships, are rarely recognized publicly, but they don’t do it for the recognition. They do it because they're driven to serve the highest office of the land and the bedrock of democracy. That kind of devotion has always defined Mike Banning, though, he's also a man of contrasts. On the job, he's a cunning, dogged, laser-focused patriot, but he's also a self-questioning and at times a self-deprecating man who has his dark corners of jagged regrets and frustrations. He has done and seen it all. In "Olympus Has Fallen", he rescued 'The First Family' from a 'North Korean'-led kidnapping inside 'The White House'. In "London Has Fallen", he kept 'President Asher' from harm during a terrorist attack on world leaders attending 'The British Prime Minister’s' funeral. For the first time in "Angel Has Fallen", Banning is no longer sure if he can trust his own agency. He can’t sleep, he can’t get through the day without pain killers and even his doctor can see that he’s heading at 100 mph for a brick wall. Then, the bottom drops out. He might be a trained killer, but there’s always been an everyman aspect to Mike. So, in this film, even though there’s a huge external struggle, we get to know a lot more about his internal struggles with his father Clay (Nick Nolte), his wife Leah ( (Piper Perabo) and his own future, struggles we all have. It makes the stakes of the action that much higher because we’re so inside his world. It's a portrait of a more life-sized man, a hardboiled warrior facing down his own doubts. It all starts with Banning being offered the prized job of 'Director Of The Secret Service' by 'President Trumbull'. It’s an incredible opportunity, but it’s also just the kind of indoor job that makes Banning chafe. He’s not at all sure he’s ready to be a desk jockey. Mike’s wife Leah loves the idea of the director job. She knows he’ll be safer, but Mike still loves being on the frontlines. In a way it’s heartbreaking because his dedication and courage are what motivated 'President Trumbull' to offer him this really great, prominent job; yet to Mike, it feels a little like the end of who he's. That’s exactly what Mike is thinking about as he faces a desk job. It brings up this huge question for him; 'do I keep trying to be the person I was in my youth or do I find a way to embrace who I’ve become'? It’s something a lot of people go through in all walks of life. Mike Banning is known for his badassery, and now we get to see a lot more of where he comes from. The film puts you inside Banning’s head as he goes from offense to defense, from proud warrior to fugitive, so that you get to see and feel everything he’s going through. For fans, it’s a chance to see what makes Banning tick, and for new audiences, it's a discovery of a really relatable character surviving in an extraordinary situation. So, you still get a tremendous amount of action but with a whole new and fresh point of view. It has always been Banning’s everyday authenticity and down-to-earth humor that stands out against today’s line-up of fantastical superheroes, but in this film, he's stripped down to his most human yet. Part of Banning’s appeal has been that he’s such a real-life guy. He’s someone trying to be a family man while dealing with the heavy emotional toll his work takes on him. People can really relate to that, but on the other hand, he’s one of the toughest dudes you could ever hope to meet. He will never quit. That’s how he sees himself, but that image is put to the test in this film in ways he’d rather it wasn’t. With his grit and loyalty under fire, Banning also comes face-to-face with the costs of the warrior’s life as he tries to evade mounting signs of 'PTSD'. In this chapter, you realize that this man you’ve seen go through all these firefights, explosions and crashes has paid a price. Banning has been silently struggling in his work and at home, but he’s keeping it all secret because he doesn’t want to let people down and he wants to keep doing the job he loves and believes in. It’s not the greatest timing for the whole nation to think he’s a terrorist at large, to say the least. He’s also very clear on that fact that, whatever his fate, 'The President' is in grave danger and he's the only person left who can figure out where the threat is coming from. As Banning is put under crushing pressure, it gives him more room to dive deep. It’s very revealing to watch an incredible hero you’ve always seen chasing others, become the chased and desperate man. 'President Trumbull' has taken on the mantle, and all the hazards, of being 'Commander-In-Chief'. Now his life is on the line along with his trust in Banning. Nearly assassinated and told his most trusted 'Secret Service' agent is the prime suspect in the deadly attack, Trumbull faces a dilemma that could endanger not only his cherished friendship with Mike Banning but the future of the world. In the earlier films, Trumbull already proved that he trusted Banning, and Banning has always felt a bond with Trumbull, beyond his duty to protect him. In this film, you see how much of a mentor Trumbull has become to Banning. They each look at the other as one of the few people they can talk to honestly. They can joke together, and they even rip on each other a little, respectfully, which is rare in Trumbull’s life, and to me, Trumbull becomes the center of the movie because in a way, they're each other’s lifeline if either one is going to survive. 'President Trumbull' is such a father-figure to Mike Banning and that's really put on the line. He has that mix of pathos, gravitas, and warmth, yet with a dash of roguishness that makes him a great leader and the kind of person to whom Mike can relate. Trumbull is a honorable, courageous man and a very good politician. But he’s not really based on any historical president because the situation is so unique and the decisions he has to make haven’t really had to be made by any President that we know of. "Angel Has Fallen" takes Mike Banning into his darkest hour, but also his hidden past. Things take a wild switchback into turbulent father-son territory when Banning looks for refuge in the last place on earth he ever thought he’d go; his long-estranged father’s Clay (Nick Nolte) off-the-grid cabin. Here he has to confront a man he has never understood or had the chance to question; the Vietnam vet who walked out on him as a boy and retreated from his 'PTSD' and paranoia into life as a lone survivalist in the woods. He brings a sense of frayed dignity to a man not quite sure if he’s ready for redemption. There’s a fascinating contrast between Mike and his dad because Mike is driven to keep running into war and his dad is still trying to run from it. All along, it’s been a deep regret in Mike’s life that he never really had a father, but now that he needs his father that means he also has to put up with him. He and Clay think they're cut from different cloth, but now that they’re forced together, it allows them to see their connection. Like Mike, Clay came from a proud tradition of military discipline, but it left him in distress. After two tours in Vietnam, when he came home to his wife and child, he couldn’t make it. It happened to a lot of good soldiers. You can’t go easily from the extreme survival of war back to a normal life. Your brain gets rewired and that’s what happened to Clay. He came back and felt he couldn’t be a good father, so he cleared out. The way he sees it, his disappearing was the best thing that ever happened to Mike because Clay felt he had nothing to teach but violence and anger. Clay wants to allow himself no creature comforts. He wants the barest minimum he can possibly live with, one cup, one fork, one plate, one bed. Really there's no reason to even have a chair because he doesn’t have any visitors, not until Mike shows up. When Mike does show up, the mix of anger and affection, skepticism and understanding, defiance and need is incendiary. In the scene at the cabin, you can feel so much going on inside Clag all at once; he’s broken, grief-stricken, excited, questioning, wondering, fearful, judging, hoping and more. You can see Clay’s whole life and struggles coming through in just the way he moves his face. As the characters grew closer, we also bonded in a big way. Another character who comes to the fore in "Angel Has Fallen" is Banning’s wife, Leah. She has always been one of Mike’s biggest supporters and joys, but now as a new mother, she worries that Mike is retreating into private darkness that could lock her out. Now that they've a daughter, there's a whole new dynamic between Leah and Mike, she has a vision of them moving forward in a way that will make them both happy. Much as she understands what drives her husband, Leah can’t hide her desire for Mike to take the director job that will see him still doing his patriotic duty, but safely seated within four walls. Most of all Leah just wants Mike to be home more. Their relationship is really healthy and they trust each other, but she just wants more time to have fun with him. Leah knows something is about to explode. Another key player in the film is Wade Jennings (Danny Huston), a long-time buddy and military compatriot of Banning’s, who in a time of peace has turned to the growing world of private military contractors. It's Wade who spurs doubts in Banning’s mind after a training session that leaves him battered. Wade has taken a different path from Mike. He sees himself as a ferocious lion who has been put in a cage and he doesn’t really know how to interact with the world in a state of peace. They both understand that power of adrenaline, even if they make different choices. Once the chase begins, the cat to Banning’s mouse is 'FBI Agent' Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith). She's really smart and tough as nails. She's intense, serious and a straight-shooter, but she’s also wily enough to keep up with Banning. Of course, she’s under biggest pressure to bring in the suspect wanted to assassinate 'The President Of The United States'. To lock Mike Banning into a chaotic world of ceaseless jeopardy, the bottom line for all can be summed up in one word; groundedness. The film captures how people really move in a fight or a chase, what it really sounds like and the visceral feel of it. The idea is to immerse people completely into Banning’s 'POV' of every moment. "Olympus" and "London" each had about 13 action sequences. Here we’ve upped that to 23 sequences, which is a lot. It never stops. The audience feels every bump and explosion. Everything is bigger and faster in every moment; we've fast boats, fast trucks, fast drones, and huge explosions. These drones can work as a swarm to find and target an enemy. Of course, it’s all military secrets, so the film designs his own, but everything you see in the film is based on real tech. In one of the film’s most harrowing chases, Banning finds himself in a speeding semi on a dark mountain road pursued by police and helicopters, with no obvious escape route. It feels super grounded and real but also put you inside Banning’s head as he’s trying to escape while inflicting as little damage as he can. The film puts in almost documentary-like details to create what’s an incredible gauntlet run. As Mike Banning becomes a fugitive on the run, the film flows seamlessly through a real-time chase that never lets up. The 'Oval Office' colors are quite different to the ones you’ve seen before, but we learn that each president gets to pick the colors they want, so 'President Trumbull' has a great taste and makes 'The Oval' more dynamic than you’ve seen it. The third installment in 'The Fallen Series', "Angel Has Fallen" stands on it's own as a psychologically tense, kinetic thriller that never lets off the accelerator from its opening killer-drone attack. It also adds a revealing new chapter to the legend of Mike Banning, as the hazards of his work collide into his private life, pushing him to explore how he became the man he's now. It’s also exactly where we want to see the franchise go next, inviting audiences into a ride as psychologically volatile as it's filled with wall-to-wall stunts and battles. What’s great is that while this movie gets much more personal, there’s also more action than ever, so the ride is heightened on all levels. There’s brutal, crazy, epic combat, but in the same breath, there’s real drama and it’s also the funniest of the films. The film makes this mad roller-coaster ride as visceral as possible at every turn. As visceral as the action and design are, it all serves to open up a window into Banning’s soul that resonates beyond the thrills. The film puts in all the fun and thrills you’d expect from a Mike Banning story.

„Alice, Darling“ /01/20/23/ Genesis Cinema, 93-95 Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4UJ, United Kingdom, 15:20 · 17:50 Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High St, London E8 2PB, United Kingdom, 17:15 "Alice Darling" Alice (Anna Kendrick) in a woman pushed to the breaking point by her psychologically abusive boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick). While on vacation with two close girlfriends, Alice rediscovers the essence of herself and gains some much-needed perspective. Slowly, she starts to fray the cords of codependency that bind her. But Simon’s vengeance is as inevitable as it's shattering, and, once unleashed, it tests Alice’s strength, her courage, and the bonds of her deep-rooted friendships. When the audience first encounters Alice, she's fully in denial about her fraught relationship with her boyfriend Simon and how damaging it's. Her slow burn realization of the harm it's doing to her and her participation in that reveals itself over time, but at first, it's a mystery, to the audience and to the character. When we meet Alice, she doesn’t really know who she's all. It's actually a really bizarre character to play because the whole point is that she’s sort of lost herself, and that everything in her focus, all her energy, is going toward being kind of small and flexible and to manage her partner’s potential reactivity. And the sense that if she’s just a little bit better, if she's just perfect, everything will be okay. That mindset slowly creeps in, and, before she knows it, she doesn’t recognize yourself. Only when she's with her close friends does Alice have a little more room to breathe. It’s interesting because she’s resistant to that at first, if she fully recognizes and accepts herself and then returns to her partner, she will be in serious trouble, and her carefully constructed if self-sabotaging world will come apart. Alice’s very different public and private demeanor offers existential clues into Alice’s authentic self, even when Alice is not quite aware or willing to accept who that's. This character seems fine on the surface, but obviously, you've little windows into her. A lot of the times that she’s in the bathroom, obsessively twirling and pulling her hair, it's clear she's in great distress about something. So how do you bring that out in a subtle way that tells you what’s happening inside the character? Alice presents as successful and secure, beloved by her boyfriend, her friends, herself. But slowly the enigmatic, self- destructive fissures appear, even as Alice refuses to address her mysterious downward spiral. She refuses to admit or confront it. Façade is all. We're with her, in her emotional perspective. The audience, like Alice, experiences the symptoms but not the root cause. But in this case, as in so many in real life, the character isn’t fully aware of what’s happening to her because it isn’t overt and because there’s a lot of gaslighting happening. The cause is a mystery, as much to her as to the audience; in many ways, Alice is an unreliable narrator. The literal and emotional journey of Alice, especially her complicated, inner turmoil that she cannot articulate but reveals in often self-sabotaging ways. There's a world where we understand that Simon will never change. He will leave this movie telling everyone he knows, ‘Yeah. I dated this girl who was crazy. She turned off her phone. I didn’t know where she was. I went to find her and her friends ganged up on me'. This is the sort of abuse that's very much under the surface but still very present and toxic and it's all too common, if not discussed or recognized fully. The hidden nature of Alice’s relationship with her boyfriend, Simon; his controlling, manipulative behavior; and Alice’s willingness to keep the by peace by accepting blame that doesn’t belong to her. Alice, incapable of facing her issues, sublimates and acts out her suffering in increasingly alarming and mysterious ways. Her polar opposite is her friend Sophie (Wummi Mosaku), a clear-eyed, emotionally centered warm soul with an altruisticr heart. She's the proof. People, but especially women, have a really hard time trusting that what they’re feeling is real and that there’s a temptation to show really overt acts or scenes that make you really understand that, okay, what’s happening is wrong. But that's not how it plays out all the time. To trust that the audience would come along with one character’s perception, flawed, personal and complex as it's, that being enough, is scary. Sophie is someone who's filled with love and enthusiasm, and she wants joy to surround the people that she loves and she just tries her best to do that, whether it’s through like baking or like hiking and kayaking or fireworks she plans for Tess’s (Kaniehtiio Horn) birthday. She wants people to feel loved and happy. It’s no accident that she works for a nonprofit! She's someone who accepts people for who they're, and doesn’t try and change them. Tess is loyal, bighearted, forthright, mischievous, blunt, kind, sometimes judgmental but ultimately forgiving. Tess is a brilliant artist but she’s not raking in the cash or the notices, in contrast with Simon, who's very successful. Tess has all of the best intentions. But we don’t think that she knows how to vocalize her feelings with sensitivity. She's brash and doesn’t exactly think before she speaks. Tess says what's on her mind and deals with the consequences later. And, in this case, her feelings about Simon and her best friend Alice are also influenced by where she's in her career, but ultimately it's motivated by her deep love for Alice. Honesty without compassion is brutality. Compassion without honesty is enabling. They haven’t figured out how to be compassionate and honest, Sophie for sure, and Tess definitely hasn’t figured out how to be honest with compassion. They're all in a transitional time, in their early 30s and going through their personal growth as people and friends and figuring out how to navigate all of it. The characters, their emotional and literal journey is recognizable and, unfortunately, in terms of Alice and her issues with her boyfriend, and her struggle to reconcile those with herself and her childhood friends. The film tells the story from the emotional point of view of the characters, particularly Alice, so audiences experience her self-destructive habits/reactions to her deep despair and low self-esteem as she does, not entirely sure from whence this comes because she isn’t capable of addressing her underlying angst. A particularly telling and disturbing routine is her incessant hair twisting and yanking of strands, a small but alarming physical manifestation of her inner turmoil. There's also something to the literal journey Alice and her friends take, from city to bucolic countryside, this change of scenery and vibe ultimately liberates Alice and her friends. "Alice, Darling" is a subtle, nuanced story about coercion and control. It's about female friendship and coercive abuse. It’s riveting tale, of course, but ultimately it's a story of female resilience and empowerment. What you can do very well in literature is describe what’s happening to somebody internally, what’s happening inside them. Sometimes in film it’s harder to bring something that’s nonverbal out. You need to see the lake from the hot tub and the herbs from the kitchen. There’s a whole bit of business with wood chopping. It's all part of the dance of designing the blocking and that interaction between direction, cinematography, and production design. Written by Gregory Mann

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(Release Info London schedule; June 30th, 2019, Electric Cinema, Notting Hill 191 Portobello Road, Notting Hill, W11 2ED, 10:00 AM) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/1296251-never-look-away/ "Never Look Away" Amidst the chaos of pre-war Germany, Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling) based loosely on one of Germany’s most revered contemporary painters, Gerhard Richter, becomes fascinated by the art in the world around him. Kurt attends art school, where he meets and falls in love with fellow student, Ellie (Paula Beer). Kurt soon discovers that his family’s past is intertwined with Ellie’s in sinister and violent ways, just as art in Germany is entangled with the nation’s past. Ellie’s father, Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch), a famous doctor, is dismayed at his daughter’s choice of boyfriend, and vows to destroy the relationship. What neither of them knows is that their lives are already connected through a terrible crime Seeband committed decades ago. Through the Dresden bombings, a job as a Soviet propaganda artist, and a move from 'East' to 'West Germany', Kurt strives to find his voice as an artist. The focus is an artist named Kurt Barnert. While Kurt is growing up during 'The Second World War', his aunt Elisabeth (Saskia Rosendahl) sparks his interest in art. She's freedom, art, beauty, extreme sensitivity, and madness all in one. After the war he studies first in Dresden, and later in Düsseldorf at the legendary art school 'Kunstakademie', where at the time some of 'West Germany’s' most important artists completely revolutionized their field. His love of Ellie Seeband leads to a confrontation with her father, the famous gynecologist Professor Carl Seeband, a staunch rationalist and perfectionist who despises everything that Kurt stands for. Kurt Barnert’s life makes it clear that we as humans have an almost alchemistic ability to make something good out of the difficult things in life that happen to us all. No less important a role is Ellie Seeband, the professor’s daughter, whom Kurt Barnert falls in love with without knowing who her father is and without knowing that they're bound by tragic circumstances in the past. The complete antithesis of Kurt is his 'father-in-law' Professor Carl Seeband. The character of Seeband is a dyed-in-the-wool 'Nazi' and witnessed the complete failure of this ideology and how it brings about his country’s collapse. He finds safe harbor in the next systems, however, and with his discipline, health, intelligence, and scientific expertise, remains unassailable. It's these qualities that also enabled him to conceal his guilt and save his neck. This gives him a feeling of superiority and a great feeling of security. This is why he finds it so inconceivable that his only child becomes involved with a powerless artist, whom he also deems frail and of mediocre intelligence. He opposes the relationship with every means available to him. Seeband is a monster. He's ice-cold and domineering. But what's truly monstrous about him is that he's convinced he's doing the right thing. There's no feeling of wrongdoing, no sense of guilt. He does what he does because for him there's absolutely no alternative. The clash of two men who at first glance have nothing in common, both brilliant minds but who could not be more different, and who also have completely opposing approaches to life and the world. The subject derives it's power from the clash of these two men, and the result is a story about the essence of inspiration and the power of art. For a long time the cinematic treatment of German history fixated on 'The Second World War', and naturally on the 'GDR' past. One of the things that particularly excited about "Never Look Away" is that the film covers several periods of German history and connects the developments in each. The film sheds light on these periods from the perspective of three human destinies; of the artist Kurt Barnert, the love of his life Ellie, and her father Professor Seeband. All three are invisibly bound by a dark family secret of which Kurt and Ellie are at first completely unaware. The story takes us through three decades of German history: war, destruction, reconstruction, Socialism, the young 'Freedom Republic Of Germany'. But the film’s focus is above all on the art of this period, on the work of our main character Kurt, and his path to finding his own personal style as an artist. What's the defining quality of the Germans? Where does art come from? "Never Look Away" is based on the work of German painter Gerhard Richter, whose life and work serve as one of the film’s many sources of inspiration. Inspired by real events, the film explores a subject matter that's both unusual and compellingly ambitious, spanning three decades of German post-war history in a suspense-packed drama. It also makes use of a sweeping historical backdrop to tell a highly personal and emotional story through the portrayal of three human destinies. A gripping drama and moving family story inspired by real events, by what it means to create art, and by the search for an artistic voice of one’s own. The images of Gerhard Richter are like memorable melodies that continue to dance around in our head. Like earworms. But in this case eyeworms. With the difference that they weren’t annoying, but a continual source of enrichment. It's a film about German art in the period following 'The Second World War'. "Never Look Away" explores the question of how great, genuine art is created. Art is one of the mysteries of human creativity. There's no formula that can determine why a work of art moves, shocks, or captivates us. This film is for everyone who might be a bit bored with the triviality of so much of what's seen in movie theaters today. The film creates a sense of true grandeur and capturing the audience’s imagination. "Never Look Away" is the best argument, the best reason for going to the movies.

Who exactly was Lee Israel? Leonore Carol “Lee” Israel, born in New York in December 1939, died in New York in December 2014. In the 1970s she began writing biographies, her first being about Tallulah Bankhead, in 1972. Her third and last biography was published in 1985 and concerned Estee Lauder. Unfortunately for Lee it came out at the same time as Lauder’s own autobiography and simply could not compete. The film Can You Ever Forgive Me? narrates an episode in the life of Lee Israel. In 1991 she lives alone with just an elderly, ailing cat called Jersey for company. She loses her job as a proofreader, for inappropriate language, and for drinking whisky in the office. She suffers from “writer’s block” as she attempts yet another biography, this time about Fanny Brice, a comedienne, singer and actress who died in 1951. She is three months behind in the rent. She turns up at a party given by her agent, Marjorie, who could not be less interested in what Lee describes as her “fascinating new projects”. To get her own back, Lee steals toilet rolls from the bathroom, and an overcoat from the coat-check. The outlook is depressing, to say the least. We next find her in a bar at four o’clock in the afternoon, alone, drinking whisky. And she meets Jack Hock, who is all that Lee is not. She is short and dumpy. He is tall and elegant. She dresses just to cover herself. He dresses to impress. She is unsociable, sullen, staves off any social contact. He exudes charm, will talk to anyone, makes instant contact. Neither of them has any income to speak of. One day, Lee Israel’s life takes a turn for the better. Doing a bit of research for her Fanny Brice biography, she comes across some letters signed by Brice herself. In a moment of inspiration she quickly hides them and manages to sell them in one of those New York bookshops dealing in rare books and unusual finds. Lee has discovered a new source of income: the market for letters written by celebrities. She starts on her new letter-writing career using a collection of old typewriters, one for each writer. These are not copies, fakes perhaps, but original letters Lee composes imbuing them with the very essence of the person she personifies. She researches her characters to reproduce each one’s writing style and manner of speech. Her favorite character seems to have been the writer and scriptwriter Dorothy Parker. The film’s title -- Can You Ever Forgive Me? -- alludes to Dorothy apologizing for her alcoholic behavior at some party. There is a moment in the film where we see Lee enjoying and reciting lines from The Little Foxes on TV (Parker wrote additional dialogues for this film). Dorothy and Lee had in common a huge capacity for alcoholic intake, a caustic sense of humor and a talent for scathing comments. Lee devotes the next year and a half to her letter writing business. She writes some 400 or more, from the most diverse celebrities, Edna Ferber, Noel Coward, and Dorothy Parker being only a few. To Lee this is the most creative, gratifying time of her life. For once she is happy, and manages to pay off her debts. Of course, rumours and suspicions eventually catch up with her. Her friend Jack makes use of his considerable talents of persuasion to sell the letters for her. As a last resort she takes to stealing and selling genuine letters, replacing them with fakes. The FBI is implacable. Lee receives a suspended sentence of five years, the first six months to be spent under house arrest. Jack, that good friend of hers who denounced her and collaborated with the FBI, is given a suspended sentence of three years. The film Can You Ever Forgive Me? is based on the book Lee Israel wrote concerning this episode in her life. Published in 2008 it was more successful than any of her biographies This is by no means a glittering super production. It is a loving reconstruction of New York in the last decade of the 20th century, reproducing some of Lee Israel’s favourite haunts: the bars she used to drink in, the renowned Bar Julius, the second hand bookshops she knew so well. It includes a lot of music and songs of the time, including one sung by a transgender singer (Justin Vivian Bond) In the Bar Julius, that well-known venue among the gay community of New York. The script by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty is agile, sparse, concise, with no unnecessary explanations and with not a dialogue too many. The two main actors, Melissa McCarthy (Lee Israel) and Richard E. Grant (Jack Hock), are extraordinary, portraying two solitary people who live precariously and survive miraculously. Melissa McCarthy started her professional life as a stand-up comedian, before beginning her film career, appearing basically in comedies. This time she has put together a character so complex, so intrinsically unpleasant as to be moving, tender, even likable. McCarthy’s version of Lee Israel is grumpy, thorny, bad-tempered, hopeless at personal relationships (she only gets on well with her cat, Jersey). In Jack Hock she finds a friend, she trusts him with her privacy, her secrets, and even lets him into her home – with mixed results. Richard E. Grant is a perfect Jack Hock: that happy conman dripping charm and charisma, oozing raffish elegance and juggling uncertain finances of a dubious origin. What a shame that though both actors were nominated, neither ended up winning an Oscar. This is Marielle Heller’s second full length film, her first being The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), dealing with a teenager’s first, and most enjoyable sexual experiences. However, she seems to have several projects in hand so hopefully we will soon hear more from her.

(Release Info London schedule; January 29th, 2021, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-assassins-film-online "Assassins" In 2017, Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of 'North Korea’s' leader Kim Jong-un, was assassinated in the bustling departures hall of 'Malaysia’s International Airport'. The spectacularly brazen murder happened in broad daylight, filmed entirely by security cameras. Footage showed two young women approaching Jong-nam from behind, covering his eyes with their hands, and pressing 'VX', the most lethal nerve gas on earth, into his eyes. He stumbled away and was dead within an hour. But if the murder was extreme, the story that came next was even more bizarre: The two women who killed Jong-nam claimed they had simply been hired to pull a video prank and had no idea what they're really doing. 'The Malaysian' government scoffed, arrested and imprisoned the women and put them on trial for murder, facing execution. But was their outlandish story actually the truth? And would anyone believe them? "Assassins" travels from the sanctums of 'Pyongyang' to the rice fields of 'Indonesia' and 'Vietnam' to the courtrooms of 'Kuala Lumpur' to tell an extraordinary tale of manipulation and subterfuge in the age of social media. A masterful investigation that offers an unprecedented look at the real story of Kim Jong-nam’s murder, "Assassins" is the wildly improbable tale of a calculating dictator, a nefarious plot, a very public murder, and two women fighting for their lives. Siti is represented by 'The Gooi & Azura' law firm. They've a contract with 'The Indonesian' embassy in 'Kuala Lumpur' so any time an 'Indonesian' citizen in 'Malaysia' is on trial facing the death penalty, they get that case. Doan’s situation is a little bit different. 'The Vietnam Bar Association' ended up hiring a team to represent her, three different lawyers in two different firms. Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, the main character in our film who’s her representative, is a big-time lawyer in Malaysia and in death penalty cases specifically. We feel that Siti’s and Doan’s lawyers don’t get enough credit for how brave what they're doing actually is. They're two of the only groups to publicly point the finger at 'North Korea' in a way that 'The Malaysian Government' would not, in the way that other foreign governments would not. It's almost as if nobody wants to take on that assertion, to say clearly that even if these women were the assassins, they're not the masterminds. Siti and Doan are from different countries, they've different backgrounds, they've different educations, it's really chilling, the idea of what might have happened to them. Worldwide almost everyone presumed that Siti and Doan were guilty, that they must have been part of this regime in some way, or that they're paid assassins. No one would ever jump to the conclusion that two people could be tricked into pulling off a major political assassination. Everybody on the ground thought that they're going to be convicted, the odds were so stacked against them. So the more we realized that they might be innocent and the further it got into the trial and the more likely it looked that they're going to be executed, the more heart-wrenching it's. Somewhat morbidly we assumed that because they're going to be convicted and sentenced to death. One of the more heartbreaking parts of the film is when Doan says that the world used to be pink to her and now she won’t trust people in the same way that she did. It’s so sad because that's robbed from her, why shouldn’t she be allowed to be trusting? But this film illustrates how dangerous the world can be if you're too trusting. Every time we follow the women at trial, day in and day out, the women are immediately escorted onto the elevator and up to the courtroom. And one day the elevator isn't there on time so the women have to wait a second and the camera is able to get this single shot of Doan clenching her fists with her handcuffs on. That shot gives us goosebumps because you can just feel what she’s feeling. Her hands are bound behind her and she’s feeling so much emotion and that’s how she expressing it, with these hands that she can’t move as she walks into a courtroom where she listens to a trial that’s not in her native tongue and faces the death penalty. The film creates a real sense of apprehension about whether Siti and Doan will be found guilty and put to death. The nexus of the film is the exploitation of young women. Even though this story goes in the most warped, bizarre, perverse direction, in the end these were women who were exploited because of the circumstances that they're in, who were vulnerable. And that's happening worldwide. Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in February of 2017. To go back and look at history, that was Donald Trump’s first full month in office. Most Americans, remember it as a huge news story the day that it happened, but very quickly it subsided in 'The American' news because so much of the airwaves were dedicated to Trump. The assassination became one of those stories that everyone remembers happened but they don’t remember exactly what happened. They remember bits and pieces, they remember that it was something sensational. People say, weren’t they female assassins? And then they've some crazy version of how the women killed Kim Jong-nam, and those stories are always very elaborate and wrong. We’ve heard poisonous lipstick, we’ve heard darts, we’ve heard guns; everything but what actually happened. We didn’t have that big-picture view of the arc of Kim Jong-un’s rise to power and what role Kim Jong-nam’s assassination played in that rise. There’s a theme to the whole story about vulnerability and the exploitation of young women; it’s almost as if they've to force themselves to be gullible because they’re so desperate to survive and find a way forward. Anna Fifield, who's the Beijing bureau chief of 'The Washington Post', published a book last year called 'The Great Successor', which is an amazing account of Kim Jong-un. We feel like he’s often seen as a caricature, he’s laughed at, Trump calls him 'Rocketman', and Anna’s book really traced his pathway to power in a way that treats him seriously. When we read her book, it's like a missing link from the film. The story feels so bizarre, and so distant that in a way your first thought is that you don’t relate to these women. And then as you dig deeper into it and you realize exactly what happened to them, you recognize that this could have happened to anybody, that this appeal of fame and opportunity and a better life, particularly when you're more vulnerable, could lead you to do things that others may see as ridiculous. When you’re hoping so much to find a better life for yourself and you’re presented with something that seems like it will give you that, of course you’re going to want to do it. And also they've seen it happen successfully to other people around the world, people who had found fame and fortune with social media and Internet opportunities. So it didn’t seem far-fetched that it could happen to them. What’s so interesting about it's that in the end it did bring them fame but for the worst possible reason, for a crime neither of them knew they're committing. To see them toward the end with all of these cameras is just so ironic because in a way that’s what they both wanted but certainly not under those circumstances. That's something that we're always batting around. And there’s going to be no answer. No one will ever know why it was done in such a spectacle. There are various theories around the personality of Kim Jong-un, who loves the world of pop culture and spectacle, that perhaps that world influenced the choice of the way to do it. The one common denominator that most people come to is that this murder was a message to opponents of the Kim regime that you’re never safe no matter where you're, that they can get you at any time. This murder is so brazen and so terrifying, done in a public space, all over camera, by people who might not even be assassins and in a way that would grab the headlines in a sensational way. It’s a warning to all of 'North Korea’s' enemies. Even though there are so many factors that implicate 'North Korea' and specifically Kim Jong-un, we can’t say for sure. Assuming he's responsible, he had so many ways and opportunities to kill Kim Jong-nam and yet he chose to do it this way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwO4VhXHg1s&lc=z23aflugwrbruh03yacdp43b4q0jnkl2hovynbthgbpw03c010c

You never, ever take off your blindfold. If you look, you will die. Do you understand? Each year ends with a bang. You’ll have the end-of-year festivities and people party themselves into the new year. But when it’s about movies, this one created an end-of-a-filmyear-bang. Frankly, I didn’t expect too much of it. But maybe my prejudice about Sandra Bullock has something to do with that. I readily admit that I’m not really a fan of this actress. Is it her way of talking? Or her facial expression? No idea. But I have already avoided a lot of films just because of her being in it. But for her acting performance in “Bird Box“, she deserves a standing ovation. I admit Sandra Bullock’s acting is brilliant. Brilliant how Sandra Bullock plays her character, Malorie. A free-spirited woman who’s on her way to becoming a single mum. All indications point to her being a cynic who prefers not to have too emotional bonds with others. Even the way she talks about her unborn baby shows how aloof she is. Even the two children, with whom she makes the dangerous boat trip, are still called by the names “boy” and “girl” after 5 years. Is it pure selfishness? Or self-preservation? Or fear of commitment? Probably. But as the film progresses, you’ll also notice that she has other character traits that make her more human. She stands her ground, shows understanding, defends others and shows how vulnerable she is herself. So thumbs up for Bullock, even though she looks more and more like Michael Jackson. The threat, helplessness and fear. But it’s not just the acting of Sandra Bullock why this film entered my list “Best movies of 2018”. The film itself impressed me. It’s that constant feeling of threat, helplessness, and fear that you get while watching this film. Inevitably one will compare “Bird Box” with “A quiet place“. In this film, the survivors had to produce as little noise as possible, because those who have conquered our beloved globe have a pair of sophisticated ears. Every sigh or groan can, therefore, be heard by them over kilometers, with the result that the person who produced the sound can’t do this a second time. In “Bird Box“, looking is already fatal. That’s why a lot is being blinded with newspapers, curtains, and blindfolds. An advantage for the pregnant among the survivors. No problem to be noisy while giving birth. Look! Oops no, don’t. You can see this film as a fusion of “A quiet place” and “Cell“. Just as there’s chaos in “Cell” after a telephone signal has changed those who were on the phone into murderous psychotics, in “Bird Box” it’s when looking at something unknown that all hell will break loose. In this film, I found that moment more frightening and more breathtaking. When I watched “Cell“, I was slightly disappointed about that moment. Perhaps because I also read Stephen King’s book and King wrote it in such a brilliant and unparalleled way that it was impossible to film it. After the general mass hysteria where a lot of suicides are being committed, we see how a group of random people is entrenched in someone’s home. Soon they are confronted with the known problems. Their food supply is shrinking so they are forced to go outside to resupply. A hazardous undertaking that provides the necessary tension. There’s also the constant threat of falling prey to the unknown danger. Or people who seek help (or something else) knocking at their door. A lot of flashing back and forth. Most criticism will probably be given to the fact that the phenomenon that causes a global suicide wave can’t be seen at all. Apart from some wind, shadows, and leaves that appear to be floating motionlessly in the air, there’s nothing to see. Is it an alien invasion? A failed scientific experiment? A virus? A social media syndrome? No idea. And weird but true, even that didn’t bother me. It stimulates your curiosity and makes you feel the same way as the victims. A feeling of helplessness and fear of the unknown. During the entire film, it goes back and forth between past and present. Normally I’m not such a flashback-fan because this usually undermines the pace and mood of the movie. With “Bird box” I didn’t have that feeling and the subcutaneous tension remained constant. A must see. It’s clear this film competes for the title “Best film of the year 2018“. Sandra Bullock steals the show and is emphatically present in almost every scene. Also worth mentioning is John Malkovich as the sometimes hard-hearted cynic and pessimist Douglas. Such a person who immediately assumes that his country is in a state of war. So he’s constantly parading around with a gun. There is also Trevante Rhodes who is the absolute opposite of Douglas. A sympathetic fellow who’s helpful and shows compassion. And finally, the two young children who act so natural at certain moments. The moment when a terrible decision had to be made during the trip on the river, was touching and brilliantly acted. It’s kind of obvious. “Bird box” left a crushing impression on me. It wasn’t so exciting that I wanted to cover my eyes. But it was a close call! Indeed, a must see. My rating 9/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here