This is a slow burn of a romance set in an absolutely gorgeous setting off the coast of Brittany during the 18th century. It’s an impressive film with two pretty stellar performances by the leads.
Tag: Romance
Pyaasa (1957, Guru Dutt)
This film is considered one of the greatest Indian movies of all time and a foundational film in Bollywood history. You can bet I didn’t enjoy it. SPOILERS I guess
All the Old Knives (2022, Janus Metz)
This is a spy mystery film with a fairly big dose of romance which feels like it would have been a lot less of a mystery if it had been told in chronological order.
Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (2021, Edwin)
This film is many things all at once. It is, kind of incredibly, based on a novel, which made my confusion over what happens all the deeper, as the thing that I can’t resolve feels like its the kind of issue that wouldn’t exist in a book. So I’m wondering if something was lost in …
Private Fears in Public Places aka Coeurs (2006, Alain Renais)
This is an incredibly stagey French adaptation of a British play. I’m not familiar with the playwright but I can’t imagine getting excited about seeing one of his plays, if this is faithful.
Le Genou de Claire (1970, Eric Rohmer)
Ah, the good old days, when European men could prey on little girls and everyone thought it was just great.
Cocktail (1988, Roger Donaldson)
Can I review a movie I missed the first 20 or so minutes of? And which I cooked pastitsio through? Well, I’m doing it anyway!
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Jane Austen adaption, except for Clueless when I was too young to appreciate it. But somewhere along the way the culture forgot to impress upon me that Jane Austen is funny. (Imdb lists this show as a “Drama” and a “Romance”.) I find myself kind of incredulous that …
Chocolat (2000, Lasse Hallstrom)
An overly religious, stuck-up town is saved by a magical fairy woman who makes chocolates that bring the town back to life. What a wonderful premise for a movie.
Certified Copy (2010, Abbas Kiarostami)
This is one of those movies where two people have an intense conversation in a pretty part of Europe. But with a twist. Think of it like a psychotic, mid life Before Sunrise, where the man is British instead of American. Mild Spoilers
Un carnet de bal (1937, Julien Duvivier)
One of the things I love about watching European films from the 1930s and 1940s – particularly French films – is how much more sophisticated they are than most if not all Hollywood films from the same era. French films are often both technically superior – location shot, liberal use of advances in technology, liberal …
Carol (2015, Todd Haynes)
There is a part of me that, while watching this, wants to say “All Todd Haynes movies are the same!” But really I’m thinking of one movie, Far From Heaven. It’s not fair to Haynes other films – most of which I’ve never seen – but I cannot help but see very strong similarities in …
Brokeback Mountain (2005, Ang Lee)
I think it’s probably hard to discuss Brokeback Mountain without talking about the hype: this film is considered by many to be a landmark either in Hollywood with regard to LGBTQ topics, or in LGBTQ cinema in general. Now, I don’t know much about the history of LGBTQ cinema – just what I got from a …
TIFF 2017 Racer and the Jailbird (2017, Michaël R. Roskam)
This is an entertaining, albeit slight, amalgam of the bank heist genre with one of those romances where the two alpha leads, who do risky things in their professional lives, fall in love with each other, but which is pretty much entirely ruined by an absolutely bonkers left turn (well, a series of left turns) …
The Golden Bowl (1904) by Henry James
At long last I am done with this tedious novel. But, I shouldn’t start this on a bad note, so let’s start with the positives:
Brideshead Revisited (1981)
This is a nearly unprecedented 700 minute TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. It is about as good as it gets for these British “chamber” TV shows, and is a reminder (when you watch it) that we are seriously missing out because more classic literature isn’t adapted into TV miniseries.
The Good Soldier (1915) by Ford Madox Ford
Sometimes I can handle stories of the idle rich, sometimes I cannot. This is one of the latter, where I really struggled to care about any of the characters, their rich, bored lives and their endless emotional struggles with being rich and bored, and having to deal with each other.
Bellflower (2011, Evan Glodell)
First of all, it’s really, really hard to like a movie when you don’t like any of the characters. (And I mean any.) And it’s hard to like a movie when you don’t understand why anyone does anything. These people drink all day and spend money. (And do some drugs too.) One of them appears …
Adolphe (1816) by Benjamin Constant
Adolphe is an odd one: it’s a story of a romance with virtually no context. Sure, we get some idea of what Europe was like for a son of a wealthy family in the early 19th century. And, in one of the later chapters, Constant describes the physical geography of an area of Poland. But, …
Another Earth (2011, Mike Cahill)
This is a movie that, by its very title, advertises itself as science fiction. But it’s not, not really. I mean, it’s barely science fiction. It’s not science fiction in the way you expect. MILD SPOILER ALERT
Alice Adams (1935, George Stevens)
I haven’t read this particular Tarkington novel but I’ve read another and I can’t say I liked it. If the book was effective, the filmmakers messed up.
The Adjustment Bureau (2011, George Nolfi)
I guess there are some SPOILERS!
The Age of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton
Scorsese’s version of this book is, in my opinion, one of his very best films and on the short list of films I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand good direction. This despite Michelle Pfeiffer’s supposedly miscast as the female lead.
An Affair to Remember (1957, Leo McCarey)
This is one of those “classic” bantery Hollywood romantic comedies with a Cary Grant-type – this time played by Cary Grant, here paired with one of his regular sparring partners, Deborah Kerr. It’s one of those movies where two unbelievably rich and self-assured people throw witticisms at each other – with a little tiny bit …
Shyness and Desirability
I have been meaning to post something about my continuing shyness on here for the last month. It would have gone something like this: Even though I have had numerous moments in the past five years where I’ve still made shy, I was convincing myself that things were different. What had changed? Well, I felt …
1934 (1983, Farrar Straus Giroux) by Alberto Moravia
I have written before about my love-hate relationship with Italian movies. But I can’t say that I have had this same experience with Italian literature, at least until now. Until now, I have genuinely liked the few Italian novels and short stories I have gotten my hands on. It seemed to me that what I …
Toronto International Film Festival 2012 Wrap Up
Here is my roundup for TIFF 2012. I managed to see 13 films this year, which is better than last year. Many of them managed to be documentaries, which Monique attributes to our constant attendance at the Bloor over the summer. (I guess, subconsciously, we have become documentary people.) I didn’t see a film that …
Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders (1987)
I think that Wenders is perhaps the poor man’s Fassbinder. He clearly has many similar abilities: this film has some absolutely spectacular (and ballsy) shots in it, and has a pretty great sound design, both things Fassbinder was also extremely adept at. But where Fassbinder grabbed you with his very human dramas – despite his …