Giuppi's Movie Reviews

Best Picture   1. Blade Runner 2049 2. Phantom Thread 3. Call Me By Your Name 4. Lady Bird 5. Dunkirk 6. Get Out 7. I, Tonya 8. The Shape of Water 9. The Death of Stalin 10. Good Time Best Director 1. Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread 2. Jordan Peele, Get Out 3. Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water 4. Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk 5. Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 6. Luca Guadagnino, Call Me By Your Name 7. Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird 8. Craig Gillespie, I, Tonya 9. Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie, Good Time 10. Sean Baker, The Florida Project Best Actor in a Leading Role 1. Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name 2. Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out 3. Ryan Gosling, Blade Runner 2049 4. Hugh Jackman, Logan 5. Robert Pattinson, Good Time 6. Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread 7. Valerio Mastandrea, The Place 8. Ethan Hawke, Maudie 9. Jake Gyllenhaal, Stronger 10. Steve Carell, Battle of the Sexes Best Actress in a Leading Role 1. V...

Angie Dickinson made her breakthrough in 1956 with the film Gun the Man Down . Her career was more prolific in television (she received multiple Emmy nominations) than in cinema, where she was often relegated to paper-thin, even sexist roles (looking at you, Rio Bravo ). That was up until 1980, when she was cast in Brian De Palma's erotic thriller Dressed to Kill . The movie is generally held in high esteem nowadays, though there are actually many faults to be found in it. But it is an interesting view, and it offers Dickinson the chance to deliver the best performance of her career. And she does. Dickinson plays Kate Miller, a sexually frustrated housewife. The film opens with Kate's dream in which she masturbates in the shower before being murdered by a masked killer. Is it a gratuitous, needless scene? Perhaps. But Dickinson digs deep into Kate's loneliness and gives the character a painful depth another actress might have missed. In the morning, she confesses her...

Hi everyone! I'm sorry if I've being absent in the last few weeks, but I couldn't find the time to post my reviews here. I hope I'll be more active in the future, in the meantime I've decided to post here a few short reviews of some movies I've seen in the last month.  Monster  (2003) Patty Jenkins' Monster is mostly remembered for Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning turn as serial killer Aileen Wuornos. And while the actress' towering, bone-chilling performance is indeed its strongest asset, it's also a movie worth-mentioning per se. It's hardly a perfect film and from a technical point of view it leaves something to be desired. The cinematography is drab and unappealing, which could have been fitting for the story, but there's no sense of a visual style of any kind. The editing is clumsy, especially in an awkwardly done montage at the movie's end. The structure and the pace are problematic with some passages being far too rus...

Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady is not a conventional period drama. This is evidenced by the opening scene, set in the present and shot in black and white, in which a group of girls tell each other what they think love is all about. Campion, a sensitive, intelligent director, is not interested in merely adapting Henry James' masterpiece: she is interested in the hearts and the minds of the characters, in the motives behind their actions and in the emotions that trascend the time period and make them akin to us. Though not a huge success when it was released, The Portrait of a Lady is a film that deserves to be revalued and that should be acknowledged for its stunning aesthetic, its impressively accurate depiction of the time period, its rich characterizations and its sharp observation of human desire. The film follows the story of Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman), an American girl who lives at her uncle's estate in England. Men are attracted to her delicate beau...

An elderly woman (Cheng Pei Pei), living in a retirement home, is visited by her son (Andrew Leung). They argue a little, both because he forgot to bring her a CD that she had asked him and because she hates living in that place. Then she tells him about a man she has met and with whom she has been sort of dating, and they tenderly joke about it. Only her son isn't actually there. She's just remembering their last conversation together. Her son is dead. That's the opening scene of Lilting , the debute-feature of British-Cambodian director Hong Khaou who proves himself to be someone to keep an eye on. Lilting is far from perfect, but it's a strong first work that shows the director's sensitive, empathetic touch.  The woman is called Junn and she's played by Cheng in an outstanding performance of remarkable subtlety and grace. And she is matched by Ben Whishaw, who gives an aching, soulful portrayal of Richard, the companion of Junn's late son for fou...

" I am Shiva the destroyer, your harbinger of doom this evening " says Kym Buchman, a recovering drug addict at the rehearsal dinner of her sister Rachel's (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding. And, as played by Anne Hathaway in a volcanic, unhinged performance, she most certainly is. Don't expect anything light-hearted from Rachel Getting Married , Jonathan Demme's slow-burning, quietly bruising and then finally explosive observation on family dynamics, pain and old wounds. Even the comedic moments leave a bitter aftertaste. But it's not a cruel film that enjoys dwelling into despair: it's a film that talks about that despair and  how to grow from there.  The film opens with Kym's release from rehab so that she can attend her sister's wedding. Right from the beginning it's quite clear that the family relationships are strained: her father Paul (Bill Irwin) is warm and caring towards her, but she sees his concern as mistrust; her mother Abby (De...

The raunchy sex scene between Nanni Moretti and Isabella Ferrari has been both a blessing and a curse for Quiet Chaos : a blessing because it sparkled the audience's interest and made the film quite successful at the box office, a curse because most of the discussion around the film ended up focusing on that single scene. But Antonello Grimaldi's film is much more than that - it's an original, delicate and subtle reflection on grief and healing, buoyed by an almost uniformly great ensemble.  Pietro Paladini (Nanni Moretti), the manager of an important network, is at the beach with his brother Carlo (Alessandro Gassmann), a fashion designer. They see two drowning women screaming for help and they come to their rescue. Upon returning home, Pietro realizes that his wife has died unexpectedly. Instead of falling into despair, he finds himself in a sort of "quiet chaos": unsure of what to do with his life, he stops showing up at work and decides to wait all da...