Category: Entertainment

Willem Dafoe gives one of his best performances as a film director struggling to come to terms with life.

Dafoe is the title character – ‘Tommaso’ – an older American ex-pat living in Rome. He is putting together a new film from his roomy apartment he shares with his young (29) Moldovan girlfriend Nikki (a stunning and very good Cristina Chiriac, and Director Abel Ferrara’s real-life wife) and their three-year-old daughter Deedee (Anna Ferrara – Chiriac and Ferrara’s actual daughter). Tommaso also teaches an acting class and is surrounded by young attractive wannabe actresses who literally throw themselves at him – He is definitely not short of female attention. He is also taking Italian lessons to learn the language better – though he speaks it pretty well, and attends alcoholics anonymous meetings – he used to be a drunk – and recounts stories to his fellow members about this wild and crazy days.

He seems to be settling down and is happy in his mid-life, but something just doesn’t seem right. Is it him? Is it his relationship with Nikki? Could it be the pressure of the new movie that he is putting together (which is very dark, and deals with death)? Why does he feel himself ready to unravel at any moment. And if he does, what’s going to happen?

This is Ferrara’s first dramatic feature since 2014’s ‘Pasolini‘ – which also starred Dafoe – and is easily his and Dafoe’s best collaboration to date because the subject matter works well for both of them. ‘Tommaso mirrors events in Ferrara’s life 16 years ago when he moved out of post-9/11 New York City to Italy where he, in his words, ‘got a girl knocked up.’

Dafoe, who has yet to win an Oscar (he’s been nominated four times) is superb. Dafoe will be honoured with a golden statuette one day – perhaps not for this film. But in ‘Tommaso,’ it shows that Dafoe is one of the best actors of our generation, and he’s getting better with age. 

‘Tommaso’ is now available through virtual cinemas at Kino Marquee.
https://kinomarquee.com/tommaso

A woman disappears in the snowy mountains of France – and it’s her death that links several people together in the very dramatic French film ‘Only the Animals.’

The opening shot in this film is of a black man with a goat on his back riding a bike through the streets of Abidjan, then the film quickly moves to France. But the goat scene is a metaphor for when, later in the film, a man (Damian Bonnard) carries a woman’s dead body, on his back, in the mountains to find her a final resting place. But who is this dead woman?

It’s the journey to get there that’s extremely intriguing where we discover the link between several people. Alice (Laure Balamy) is a social worker who checks on people in and around her area. One of her clients is Joseph, who she’s also having sex with. Her husband Michel (Denis Ménochet), meanwhile, is having an online love affair with attractive young woman Marion (Nadia Tereskzkiewicz). But she’s actually a gang of men in Adijban who are scamming Michel for a lot of money. But the woman whose photo he is sent by these men does actually exist and coincidentally winds up near his village.

Why is she there?

Because she is tracking down Evelyn Ducat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), a very well-to-do attractive woman she met at the restaurant where she works, and after a brief affair between them, Marion wants more. But as the story winds up, and the drama and tension builds, we soon discover who the dead woman is, and how her death will change all of the characters lives.

‘Seules Les Betes (Only the Animals)‘, directed and co-written by Dominik Moll, based on the novel by Colin Niel, is engrossing from start to finish.

Each character’s thread is enough to give the viewer bits and pieces to the story, without giving to much away. It’s the intertwining of the characters lives that is unique and clever, with excellent acting. And while a couple of the connections between the characters are a bit too easy, Only the Animals will keep you engrossed for all of its two-hour running time. 

‘Only the Animals’ is exclusively now available on Curzon Home Cinema.

A film about the author J.D. Salinger that was originally shot in 2016 is now released in the UK and is actually not half bad.

‘Rebel in the Rye’ is about J.D. (Jerome David Salinger) and the years leading up to him writing what is perhaps the most famous novel of all time – Catcher in the Rye. It’s a book that almost everyone has read at least once while a million copies are still sold every year.

The film did have its premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and a U.S. release followed – earning an eye-watering pittance of $154,326 total – it was hardly enough to recoup its cost. ‘Rebel in the Rye’ stars Nicholas Hoult as Salinger, but more worringly Kevin Spacey plays his mentor and teacher Whit Burnett. It was in 2017 when Spacey was accused of molesting actor Anthony Rapp when he was young, then more molestation allegations against Spacey surfaced. But if this did not happen Spacey could’ve picked up awards for his performance in this film – he’s fantastic.

We see a young Salinger taking a stab at writing with the encouragement of his mother Miriam (Hope Davis), and much to the dismay of his father Sol (Victor Garber) who wants his son to follow him into the cheese business. With Burnett’s mentorship, Salinger keeps on churning out short stories in the hopes of getting published, amidst the backdrop of WWII. Soon enough Salinger is drafted and is off to war (finding out in the papers this his girlfriend Oona (Zoey Deutch) has ran off with Charlie Chaplin). These events lead to a breakdown where he is sectioned in a mental hospital for the horrific things he saw during the war. But his persistence of writing about a fictional character (Holden Caulfield) keeps him going, keeps him alive until he sees his dream come true, all with the help of his agent Dorothy Olding (Sarah Paulson). 

Costumes, set and art direction and the acting are all fine, with Hoult very believable as Salinger, and with strong direction by actor Danny Strong, who also wrote the film. But there is one person who you can blame for the failure of this film. In ‘All the Money in the World’ (2018) all of Spacey’s scenes were redone by the actor Christopher Plummer (who received an Academy Award nomination for his effort). ‘Rebel in the Rye’ could not do this because it already had been premiered and released, so it was too late. This film flopped because of Spacey. But it’s actually quite a good film. If you can overlook that Spacey is in it, seek it out, it’s worth it.

Rebel in the Rye is now available to buy and stream