Εμφάνιση αναρτήσεων με ετικέτα Oscar 2014. Εμφάνιση όλων των αναρτήσεων
Εμφάνιση αναρτήσεων με ετικέτα Oscar 2014. Εμφάνιση όλων των αναρτήσεων

Κυριακή 29 Μαρτίου 2015

The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012)





Director: Felix van Groeningen
Writers: Johan Heldenbergh (play), Mieke Dobbels (play)
With: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh, Nell Cattrysse
Duration: 111'
Production: Belgium, Netherlands

I always find it hard to write down my thoughts when it comes to films I love. "The Broken Circle Breakdown" is one of them. This intense Belgian drama took over my consciousness for many days. For its strong narrative and storyline are breathtaking and every shot vibrates out of real life. 

Nominated at the 2014 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film for Belgium, this film made an intense impression worldwide because of its inner strength to narrate a magnificent love story between two earthly creatures. 

Didier is a musician, specified in the banjo. He sings and plays for a bluegrass band. Elise is a tattoo artist with her own tattoo shop. They fall in love instantly. Their shared love for American music and culture will bring them even closer. Soon their life together begins and they have a daughter. The girl is diagnosed though, with an aggressive type of cancer and their lives change dramatically. We follow the course of their relationship by reversed narration. Pieces of their life appear in front of our eyes in order to understand the depth of their love and all those incidents leading to the present. 

The characters evolve gradually through the unfolding of their story, making you fall in love with them without even trying. They have a natural coolness, they way they fall in love, the way they live, singing together on stage, raising their daughter as free as possible. They live absorbed by their strong feelings for each other, a love that seems to grow every day. But cancer decomposes little by little that bond. Suddenly what drew them together sets them apart. 

Where once was deep love is now replaced by enormous confusion. Didier, a strong-minded atheist finds it difficult to suppress his opinion about the world and religion, while Elise has found a shelter and comfort through it. Their differences in how they see the world have enlarged through their daughter's illness. Elise, a woman full of temperament has found her soulmate in Didier and he feels exactly the same. But how can you fight life's struggles when the ego stands in front of you building a stiff wall?

"The Broken Circle Breakdown" is an intense elegy on true love between two different people who merged their lives and created a new one, a better and happier one. But their shared life is cracked and smashed from life's cruelty and harshness. The remains of their love are falling apart and they are losing each other along with their own selves. It takes a lot of courage to just go on even when you feel you have lost everything. 

Felix van Groeningen has created, through magnificent storytelling, a heartbreaking love story, presenting the true power of love. He has adapted skillfully the play "The Broken Circle Breakdown Featuring the Cover-Ups of Alabama" by Mieke Dobbels and Johan Heldenbergh, who is playing the role of Didier. 

With an amazing bluegrass soundtrack (performed by the protagonists themselves), inspiring performances and a great story, "The Broken Circle Breakdown" will make you laugh, hope and love, but mostly will make you want to live a full life/ With no regrets, no mistakes. Just a life filled with love. Can you handle it?


Σάββατο 1 Μαρτίου 2014

#Blogoscars - Best Film

20. August: Osage County

19. American Hustle

18. Behind the Candelabra

17. Captain Phillips

16. Rhino Season

15. Rush

14. Stoker

13. The Hunt

12. Prisoners

11. All is lost

10. Fruitvale Station

9. Her

8. Inside Llewyn Davis

7. Only Lovers Left Alive

6. Stories We Tell

5. La Grande Bellezza

4. Blue Jasmine

3. 12 Years A Slave

2. Gravity

1. Frances Ha


Why you gotta love and hate “The Wolf of the Wall Street”


  • Leonardo DiCaprio's performance. Is dramatic, hilarious when needed and absolutely challenging for your eyes. And because you know there should be a special award category only for him.
  • The absence of any particular meaningful point. Or maybe that's the point. Nothingness.
  • The seductive energy of the movie, the money, the drugs, the sex, everything. It just justifies everything, ignoring any potential consequences.
  • The non-judgmental view of Scorsese's direction, his recklessness, his euphoria and impulse like his is still 20 years old.
  • The disturbingly hilarious sequence with the expired pills. 
  • The addictive feeling of this materialistic universe, the porn, the drugs, the excess in money and in living.
  • Because it showed how Wall Street really is.
  • The fact that at the end you feel completely empty and numb. Some thoughts of how you would live this life are running in your brain for at least 30 seconds.
  • The greedy need to see this guy failing completely, not just talking to seemingly untalented people. Now he probably earned a lot of money through this film.
  • The over the top characters, the scary moment when you realize they were/are all real people.
  • When DiCaprio talks to you in the camera. You feel like you can be a part of all this extravaganza.

And after all this I have to admit that unlike everybody else I will never watch this movie again. I appreciate its honesty and I salute Scorsese with respect, but no thanks. No hard feelings. 

Τετάρτη 26 Φεβρουαρίου 2014

#Blogoscars - Best Actress

10. Mia Wasikowska (Stoker)

9. Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

8. Bérénice Bejo (The Past)

7. Scarlett Johansson (Her)

6. Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)

5. Tilda Swinton (Only Lovers Left Alive)

4. Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)

3. Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha)

2. Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station)

1. Cate Blanchett με διαφορά (Blue Jasmine)






#Blogoscars - Best Actor

10.  Daniel Brühl (Rush)

9. Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis)

8. Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)

7. Joaquin Phoenix (Her)

6. Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station)

5. Hugh Jackman (Prisoners)

4. Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt)

3. Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

2. Robert Redford (All is lost)

1. Toni Servillo (La Grande Bellezza)


Τρίτη 25 Φεβρουαρίου 2014

#Blogoscars - Best Scenes

10. August Osage County (η συνειδητοποίηση)

9. Gravity (ο τρόμος)

8. Fruitvale Station (η ευτυχία)

7. Wolf of Wall Street (τα ληγμένα)

6. The Hunt (ο πόνος και η αμφισβήτηση)

5. Her (ο έρωτας)

4. Only Lovers Left Alive (η αρμονία)

3. Blue Jasmine (η τρέλα)

2. Frances Ha (η φιλία)

1. American Hustle (το ξεμπρόστιασμα)

Ή αλλιώς λίγα από τα όσα θα συναντήσεις/χρειαστείς/ποθήσεις σε τούτη τη ζωή. 

#Blogoscars – Best Direction

1. Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity

2. Ron Howard – Rush

3. Woody Allen – Blue Jasmine

4. Noah Baumbach – Frances Ha

5. J.C. Chandor – All is lost

6. Sarah Polley – Stories We Tell

7. Paolo Sorrentino – La Grande Bellezza

8. Ryan Coogler – Fruitvale Station

9. Spike Jonze – Her


10. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen – Inside Llewyn Davis

Δευτέρα 24 Φεβρουαρίου 2014

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Direction: Jean-Marc Vallée
Script: Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack
With: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto
Duration: 117'
Production: USA

In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is himself diagnosed with the disease.

It is so undeniable obvious how ignorant people were at that time about AIDS, stripping it out from all the shame and terror it represented. Also the pharmaceutical (disgusting) business and their deals with hospitals for new uncertified treatments in order to earn money. They put people's misery and despair into their wallets. And along with that they banned everything else that could destroy their “kingdom” of treatments.

Here comes our hero, who after the shock of being sick, he quits his job and starts a small illegal business of treating HIV patients like himself with importing medicine from Mexico and other countries. His influence is big and his business brains will prove a priceless weapon for himself and everyone around him. Drugs and alcohol didn't manage to get out of his life though and his attitude towards other people keeps being mean and arrogant (and in times hilarious).

He meets Rayon, a drug addict trans who is also sick with HIV. Even though their first encounter is not really ideal, they turned out to be close partners and friends. The truth is that the relationship between Ron and Rayon is not given the proper time to flourish on screen. We follow them around the film quite scared of how Ron would behave towards Rayon, while there is not really a connection somewhere to prove that he actually accepted his partner. We just see the ending phase of this relationship, that they have become good and truthful friends.

While the character of Mathew McConaughey tries so hard to be rude and to build a sort of “protection” wall against other people, he also provokes an embarrassing laughter while his character acts like that. So tough and straight that to our eyes looks a bit ridiculous. But the character was real and his behavior and choices where also real. Many people who were like that existed back then, especially to a city like Dallas. And they probably still exist. So it is not really funny, but mostly depressing and disappointing.

Ron changes though, through all these business and especially through the disease. Even though he has so many bad elements as a person, he is still doing everything his own way only to help himself and other people. I would love to see more about the court procedures and all the decisions taken but here obviously is not about that. Here is about people trying to make amends with their harsh reality and try to decide what to do with the remaining time. Sometimes through McConaughey's performance we feel how his character feels, we understand in a peculiar way all his motives, fears and choices, while we subconsciously console him for the impact his actions have, even though they are racist, dysfunctional and completely irrational.

This movie has many faces, has many parts that wants to narrate. But does it actually manage to say what it wanted to say from the beginning? In an extent yes it does. Clearly the director tried to fit the small romance with Garner into the film unsuccessfully, but also the relationship with Rayon. It seems that everything is about Ron and the movie cannot escape from this. It is not necessarily bad, it is just enough. You see the gradual change into Ron, but you fail to separate his relationships and distinguish their progress through the plot.

Ron doesn't want you to like him. Actually he doesn't really care if you or anyone else likes him. He is very obnoxious but at the same time what he tries, and at the end manages to do, is extraordinary. Attempting to help sick people with effective medicine, attempting to ease their pain and mostly his pain. We do see him go through many sentimental turbulences and making amends at the end with his condition. He is strong and a fighter, a magnificent characteristic that is obvious not until the very end.


Dallas Buyers Club is a bit not sure where to confine itself, whether it is his genre (drama, comedy, political, historical, biography) or its story, but at the end you can see clearly what its purpose was; through Ron's story to talk about a matter that is still a taboo in many places in the world, to show how people can deal with their very own real and harsh problems and how a surprise in your life can turn out both inspirational and truthful for you and the others around you.