Oddity, written and directed by Damian McCarthy, Ireland, 2024 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

I needed some comfort watching, and I found it in this film, as carefully crafted as the cursed curios in Darcy’s (Carolyn Bracken) shop. It’s almost perfect in the way the characters’ actions are motivated, and you can’t help siding with Darcy, despite how scary she can be at moments.

Caveat, written and directed by Damian McCarthy, Ireland/United Kingdom, 2020 - ⭐⭐⭐ (down from ⭐⭐⭐½)

After Oddity, I thought I might give McCarthy’s first film another chance. But according to Letterboxd, I liked it more the first time around.
It’s at the same time similar and opposite to the later film: it also takes place, mostly, in a single location - but in a house as repugnant as the one in Oddity one is beautiful (and, not unexpectedly, it is actually the same building), it features some kind of battle between a man and a woman - but look me in the eyes and tell me any of their actions make sense -, and of course there is a murder, and a cursed object.
What really brings this film down is the prolonged section where the lead character (Jonathan French) drags himself around the house in pain. Maybe I’m being too critical, because overall it’s quite darkly funny, but I really wanted it to end a bit earlier.

Chevalier, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, co-written with Efthimis Filippou, Greece, 2015 - ⭐⭐½

Another entry in the Greek Weird Wave exploration: if last week’s The Capsule put on the scene seven women in a single place, and established a clear hierarchy among them, Tsangari’s second best-known film deals with six men (including Attenberg’s Vangelis Mourikis) on a ship, playing games to identify the alpha in the group, or at least to find the best of the bunch.
It’s all about ’toxic masculinity’, some times funny, other times obvious (it’s what you think).
The inevitable escalation doesn’t get as far as one could predict based on co-screenwriter Filippou’s standards: per se, this could be a nice surprise, if it didn’t make the whole experience rather bland and repetitive.

The Drama, written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐½

A few years after Sick of Myself, the director of Dream Scenario proposes another story about a couple with peculiar dynamics. I’m conflicted about this film, and it’s difficult to explain why without spoilers. And maybe I like Zendaya’s acting too much when she’s playing a ’normal young woman’ (e.g. the Spider-Man films as opposed to Dune or Challengers).
In short: I’m not sure Borgli is the right person to tell this story, and I think I’m not the right person to ‘judge’ the drama it depicts.
As a very dark comedy, it mostly works. The film is produced by Ari Aster, and this could already give an idea. And the ending, despite it being very predictable, made me a bit emotional.
I didn’t particularly notice Alana Haim’s acting in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest films, but she really gives a strong performance here.
Nice to see Archive 81’s Mamoudou Athie again (I forgot he was in Kinds of Kindness too). Robert Pattinson is dependable as ever and it’s always fun to see him play slightly goofy characters.

Frozen, directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, co-written with Shane Morris, US, 2013 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

It took me only 13 years but I finally watched Frozen, making the most of the festive atmosphere of Easter Sunday. May I say that I expected more from Let It Go?
Anyway, after the all-too-tragic first act (not that I expected anything different), it was fun. Some, but not all, plot developments were predictable, but I suppose middle-aged men are not exactly the target audience for a Disney animation film.
I understand people’s love for Olaf - the sequence where he dreams of enjoying Summer is the best surprise of the film - although I wonder if it’s ’normal’ to have two sidekicks (in this case, Olaf and Sven) in a Disney film (I’m a bit rusty on animated classics).

Attenberg, written and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece, 2010 - ⭐⭐⭐½ (up from ⭐⭐⭐)

Moving on (in a way) from last week’s Yorgos Lanthimos centrality to the second best-known director of the Greek Weird Wave (and Dogtooth producer), I rewatched her most famous work.
I said ‘in a way’, because Lanthimos is in this film, as an actor. And I must say the film works better when you are prepared for the idea that you’ll watch one of your favourite directors getting really really intimate with the lead actress (pre-Alps Ariane Labed). Although it’s not clear to me if they were already together before this film, or they ended getting married because of this film.
Anyway, the plot revolves around a young woman (Labed) looking for a human connection with someone other than her terminally ill father (Vangelis Mourikis) or her best friend (Kinetta’s Evangelia Randou). The most striking scenes from the film depict a series of funny walks by the two friends, discussing about dreams and human life, inspired by David Attenborough’s (or Attenberg) documentaries.

Final Destination 2, directed by David R. Ellis, written by Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber and Jeffrey Reddick, US, 2003 - ⭐⭐⭐ (down from ⭐⭐⭐½)

Also moving backwards in the Final Destination series, mostly to check that what I wrote last week was correct, I watched again the second episode. The logs scene remains the highlight of the movie, the rest felt intermittently quite silly, like the read-don’t-tell exposition about the fate of Devon Sawa’s character from the first film, and our heroes shouting about pigeons to the poor boy that will end up offed by glass panes, just not in the satisfying Omen way.
On the plus side, I liked the narrative linking of the characters to the previous films’ events: it’s something that, for a change, makes sense, and reverberates down to Bloodlines.

Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Drew Goddard, based on Andy Weir’s novel, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐

In this week’s edition of Paolo’s Grumpy Corner: guys, what did you see in this film?
There are jokes, ok, but nothing that happened moved me in the slightest. I didn’t feel any tension at any moment. And to think this is supposed to be about the end of humanity.
Maybe I’ve been affected by Sandra Hüller’s detached demeanour - glad to see her in a Hollywood film, maybe next time she won’t be cast as the über-cold German woman?
This is not a bad film, not at all, but I was incredibly bored; to keep myself entertained, after noticing that Rocky is essentially the mineral version of Shang-Chi’s Morris, I tried to imagine how funnier this film would be with the furry creature and Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery as the lead couple.

The Capsule, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, co-written with Aleksandra Waliszewska, Greece, 2012 - ⭐⭐⭐

I normally don’t include short films in these reviews, but this one is more than thirty minutes long, it fits with the Greek theme of these weeks, and with another film that I will mention next week, so let’s make it count. It’s a very arthouse film that could visually be compared to a perfume advert or one of Tarsem Singh early films.
The director of Attenberg assembled a cast of seven women, including her two leads from that film, her co-screenwriter (Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska) and Clémence Poésy, to paint the story of the guests of a mysterious Greek mansion, welcomed and then ‘shaped’ by their host (Labed), until they are ready to go back into the world.
It includes animations and various effects, spontaneous dancing, and A Horse with No Name.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐

A film that went straight to Disney+, and that’s fine because honestly… it’s an okay comedy, featuring a repentant gangster (Vince Vaughn) who travels back in time to try and save the man (James Marsden) that is having a relationship with his wife (Eiza González).
It has some fun moments, a double Vaughn, some fun cameos, fifteen minutes too many, and it’s forgotten the moment it ends. And still, I prefer it to Project Hail Mary. Maybe it’s because everything stops when González is on screen.
Other people are more enthusiastic than me about it, but that can be applied to almost every film in any of my posts.

Shelby Oaks, directed by Chris Stuckmann, co-written with Sam Liz, US, 2024 - ⭐⭐

I learnt that Stuckmann is a YouTuber from the highly polarised reactions to this debut film. My opinion is that it’s a decent first feature film (much better than anything I could ever put together, and far superior to something like Milk & Serial, although I suppose that to have Mike Flanagan as a producer makes the comparison a bit unfair).
It’s well shot, but it ends up being an exercise in style, uncertain about what it wants to be: it starts as a found footage, then it becomes a mockumentary, then it’s found footage through someone’s TV, finally deciding to be a traditional film. The found footage part is the scary one; the rest feels less effective, very very derivative and not necessarily making sense.
But everyone has to begin somewhere, so let’s take this as a promising starting point.

平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ / Pom Poko, written and directed by Isao Takahata, Japan, 1994 - ⭐⭐⭐½

After reading Chuck Jordan’s review of Hoppers , where he mentions this film as a clear source of inspiration, of course I wanted to check for myself. I have never seen a Takahata film before (I’ve never felt emotionally daring enough to watch Grave of the Fireflies), but I discovered, after watching the film, that he is responsible for half of the cartoon series I watched in my childhood (we didn’t call them anime back then). The drama here is not as strong as in those series, or perhaps it’s just diluted in the long running time, which was my main issue: there is a lot of repetition as the tanuki population tries its best to save its habitat from human urban expansion.
Or maybe the pathos is just balanced by the unexpected importance of testicles in the story. Is that based on traditional Japanese legends?
I loved the creativity and imagination on display, but I can’t say I had as much fun as I had watching the most recent Pixar film.

The Final Destination, directed by David R. Ellis, written by Eric Bress, US, 2009 - ⭐⭐

Netflix has added nearly every Final Destination to its catalogue, so I took the chance to watch the one I was still missing. This fourth episode is universally considered the worst in the series, and I can only agree: an uninspired first sequence (where people hope an accident will happen), bad characters, weak acting (so many reverse shots where the actor being talked to is totally still and expressionless), horrible CGI all over the place, so much focus on red herrings (near-miss causes of death). This marked the return to the series for the creative team behind the second chapter, and I join the club of all those baffled by the drop in quality between the two films.

Final Destination 3, directed by James Wong, co-written with Glen Morgan, US, 2006 - ⭐⭐⭐ (up from ⭐⭐½)

Right after ending FD4, I wanted to cleanse my palate by watching the start of episode 3, which I somehow remembered fondly (my Letterboxd rating disagrees). I’m pretty sure that ‘somehow’ has a name: truth is, I’ve always had a soft spot for Mary Elizabeth Winstead. For most of this film she’s sad and brooding and for some reason feeling guilty, but still, it’s refreshing to see someone actually acting, for a change.
I was glad to see that most of the flaws of number 4 don’t affect this one; the nighttime setting of many scenes helps with the atmosphere.

I loved the Omen-like mechanics of the forebodings, because they give all characters more agency. I think Final Destinations work better when the characters know each other, like they do in the odd entries (here it was the crew of the first film returning to the crime scene), because they have more incentive to care for one another.

I didn’t appreciate the end-credits song (a rather downbeat cover of The O’Jays’ Love Train), but they had already used Love Rollercoaster in the sexist scene, and this is not Thor: Ragnarok, so they avoided using the same song multiple times.

Κινέττα / Kinetta, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, co-written with Yorgos Kakanakis, Greece, 2005 - ⭐⭐

As I wrote above, everybody has to begin somewhere, and this first solo directorial effort by twice-Academy-Awards-nominee Lanthimos, also known as one of my favourite directors working today, is definitely ‘a promising starting point’ but far from a great film. At least, on this first viewing (although, being able to fill this gap means I am much less annoyed at paying €13 for a month of MUBI now).

I’m not even sure what the story is: a director (Costas Xikominos), a cinematographer (Aris Servetalis) and an actress (Evangelia Randou) enact violent scenes (possibly based on true crime, possibly completely fictional).
Let’s call it an exploration of the life of aspiring artists, trying to find their voice, and success, and in the meantime having to work traditional jobs.
The dialogue is so sparse and, honestly, irrelevant, that I spent most of the film trying to learn some Greek just to be somewhat entertained.

Still, the signs of Lanthimos’ tone and style, to be developed in the course of the following two films, are there.
So is the beginning of long-term collaborations, such as the one with cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis (who will work on YL’s next films until Sacred Deer), and editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis (who keeps working with him to this day).

Άλπεις / Alps, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, co-written with Efthimis Filippou, Greece, 2011 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (up from ⭐⭐½)

Speaking of long-terms collaborators, this was Lanthimos’ second film scripted together with screenwriter Filippou, after Dogtooth (most recently, they worked together on Kinds of Kindness). Since it’s much less celebrated than its predecessor, and very hard to find it on physical media, twelve years have passed between my first and second viewing. I was worried I would find it as difficult to watch as Kinetta; instead, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

The story follows a group of amateur actors (including Kinetta’s Aris Servetalis, Dogtooth’s Angeliki Papoulia and the director’s future wife Ariane Labed) who provide their services to the families of recently deceased people, taking the place of their dearly departed in re-enactments of scenes from their life, to ease the grieving process.
In some ways, it feels like the characters from Kinetta found a purpose for their obsession.
Given how much my appreciation of this film has grown, I must have changed so much in these twelve years. And I’m happy with the direction of this change.

Zootopia 2, directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, written by Jared Bush, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐½

I liked the first Zootopia, so I didn’t expect that watching this sequel would have taken me as many sittings as Kinetta. Truth is, I found it incredibly dull, despite the constant focus on action scenes and new (shallow) characters.
Its message of inclusion and openness seems somehow undermined by some narrative choices, that seem to be included only to tick off some necessary plot points.
The only moment where it got my attention, by playing with the familiar notes of a classic horror soundtrack and a location nod to the same film, was rapidly nullified by literally destroying that setting for yet another action scene.

Hoppers, directed by Daniel Chong, co-written with Jesse Andrews, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sort of a return to form for Pixar, this is a really fun film with a message. It’s clunky at times, like when it has to explicitly say that ‘it’s nothing like Avatar’, or with the weird trajectory it reserves for its apparent villain.
The insistence on always looking for the good in people is, in general, good advice, but, in this day and age, it seems that being too open towards people with clearly bad intentions may not be the right recommendation.
My appreciation of this film was a bit tainted by Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer and, until recently, legend, making not the most enlightened declaration about the Studio’s recent choices (a link I found through the always excellent Chuck Jordan, who also has a very informative review of this film).

Keeper, directed by Osgood Perkins, written by Nick Lepard, Canada, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I’ve read so many negative reviews of Perkins’ latest film that I was expecting a real mess. Surprise, surprise, it’s a very unsettling and competent horror in the vein of Gretel and Hansel, set in a cabin-in-the-wood (well, more a proper house) where scary things happen and you don’t know why. Sure, the last act might have been more satisfying - or clearer - but that doesn’t make the rest of the film any less effective.
Tatiana Maslany is the cornerstone of the film: her acting, as always, feels so natural - a quality very few actors possess.
Too bad that both the French and the Italian versions, not knowing how to translate the title, add a subtitle that’s a bit too revealing.

O agente secreto / The Secret Agent, written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½

This was the last Best Picture nominee I needed to watch before the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday (for no reason other than being able to have a preference and possibly complain the wrong film was rewarded), and I subscribed to (the quite expensive) MUBI just for this reason (not to mention a temporary relocation to Canada).
While adopting a very different tone, the substance was quite similar to last year’s I’m Still Here: clearly, Brazilian authors are worried that their country might forget the past (which I suspect is the whole point of the long and anticlimactic epilogue). The result is a tense depiction of life under fear, corruption, and censorship, although it can be confusing at times unless one knows or wants to know more about this period.

L’innocent / The Innocent, directed by Louis Garrel, co-written with Tanguy Viel and Naïla Guiguet, France, 2022 - ⭐⭐⭐

I was not familiar with French actor/writer/director Garrel, except for the fact that at some point he seemed to be very popular with Italian women (maybe around the time he appeared in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women).
Oh I’ve just learnt that he’s the one that is neither Eva Green nor Michael Pitt in Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (which I haven’t seen).
Anyway, this is his latest directorial effort, and it’s inspired by an autobiographical event: his mother marrying someone she met while working with prison inmates.
The lead character, Abel (played by Garrel himself) is very sceptical about this relationship, and doesn’t really trust the man’s (Roschdy Zem) declared intention to start a new, crime-free life. He then involves his late wife’s best friend Clémence (Noémie Merlant) to keep an eye on him.
I reasonably enjoyed the film, although it bounces a bit too irregularly between different tones (alternating very comedic moments with serious thriller scenes), and Garrel’s acting in my opinion doesn’t suit all of them equally.
I also spent some time wondering whether it was shot in Lyon (ten points for me for identifying a place I spent two days in).

Companion, written and directed by Drew Hancock, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wasn’t 100% sure when I bought the Blu-ray, but now I can confirm that Companion is as fun to rewatch as it was when I watched it at the cinema. I think it will join Ready or Not in the ranks of ‘comfort films’ that are there for me to enjoy when I need something familiar to watch.

Quitter la nuit / Through the Night, written and directed by Delphine Girard, Belgium, 2023 - ⭐⭐⭐

Delphine Girard reworked her Oscar-nominated short film Une sœur, about a woman in danger pretending to call her sister while she’s actually placing an emergency call to the police. With the same cast, the story is expanded to show what happened afterwards and, in flashback, what happened before the call.
As is often the case where a successful short is expanded to a feature-length film, there is a significant difference in effectiveness between the original section and the added material. There is no doubt that the director had many important things to say, but the pacing and the way decisions unfold risk diluting the strength of the message.

８番出口 / Exit 8, directed by Genki Kawamura, co-written with Kentaro Hirase, based on the videogame by Kotake Create, Japan, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I rented this film because I was starved for horror, and it was featured in the rental section of the Sooner catalogue. I saw it had positive reviews, clearly it was a Japanese film, and that’s all I needed to know.
Its videogame origins are quite evident in the simple mechanics of the ‘plot’: a man trapped in the corridors of a metro station needs to follow some rules in order to get out.
It didn’t take long to capture my attention, and I found myself often wondering what I would do if I were the protagonist. I also thought about a story a colleague once told me, of meeting a young woman in a station of the Tokyo metro, desperate because she couldn’t find the exit and no one could understand her requests for help.
Anyway, this film works best when it captures the feeling of being lost and confronted with thoughts of inadequacy, stuck in obsessive thinking and clinging to every sign that things are getting better, until you find yourself back at square one.
When it goes for actual horror imagery, less so, except for the always effective (for me) J-Horror tricks.

F1, directed by Joseph Kosinski, co-written with Ehren Kruger, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐

Listen, I’m happy that Kerry Condon is in two Best Picture-nominated films this year, and that’s all the positive that I can say about this trite, by-the-numbers, celebration of reckless ‘disruptive’ masculinity.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard, co-written with Shem Bitterman and Michael Jacobs, US, 1989 - ⭐½

After (re)watching Halloween 4, I proceeded, still on Plex, to watch the next chapter in the series. What an absolute mess. The capable Final Girl of the previous chapter, Rachel (Ellie Cornell), spends her time giggling on the phone (probably she’s still worrying, inside, but has decided to embrace carelessness for her own mental health); Jamie-the-child (Danielle Harris) is still troubled, but in a different way from where we left her: she is a psychic now, and has terrible visions about all the people she loves being in danger. But then, when major characters are killed off, she (and anybody else) doesn’t even notice, because now she’s all focused on new character Tina (Wendy Kaplan), a real teenager that wants to have fun (and sex), and is annoying more often than not.
Dr. Loomis is even more deranged and scary than Michael Myers. I’m worried, he needs someone to take care of him.
This Halloween sequel felt much more like a Friday the 13th rip-off.

Scream 7, directed by Kevin Williamson, co-written with Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐

Speaking of returning Final Girls, after endless production controversies this new chapter of the Scream saga puts Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott back at the centre of the story, orchestrated by the series’ original screenwriter Kevin Williamson.
My position on horror sequels is always the same: people like Sidney, who suffered and survived already multiple times, should be allowed to enjoy a happy life with Mark and the kids.
That’s not what franchises are for, unfortunately, so the scripts need to find new ways to justify bringing them back into the fight.
So, just when she thought she was out, Dawson’s Creek creator Williamson pulls her back in, even exploiting her absence from ‘New York’ (the previous chapter) to make her feel guilty she wasn’t there (and to please some fans). And with her, also the sources of her normal life, Mark (not that one) and one of the kids, Tatum (Isabel May), need to be put under the spotlight to perpetuate the franchise.
Randy’s niece and nephew, Mindy and Chad - the only characters who really bring some life to this movie (but beware: every reviewer hates them) - put it in milder terms, but the theme of this instance of Scream is that: the punishment of legacy characters that dare escaping their fate to pursue a better life.
Ostentatiously, the past is burnt to the ground in the excellent prologue (that unfortunately has little consequence on the rest of the film): Williamson shows no interest in following the rules of the Scream franchise, but on the other hand, he goes back to mining his own first two chapters for inspiration (and repetition): the spirit of Rose McGowan’s Tatum gives the emotional weight and the ghost-face of Matthew Lillard’s Stu provides the threat.
What we are left with is a nostalgia operation that, despite its DNA, is the issue of the series that’s least faithful to its original concept.
Maybe Williamson thinks that Scream has nothing more to offer. To this film, even the most longtime fans will prefer The Babadook.

Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, written by Gillian Flynn, based on her novel, US, 2014 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I had not rewatched Fincher’s last good film (sorry if you liked Mank or The Killer) since it came out in cinemas, mostly because of a disturbing scene involving Neil Patrick Harris (well, all the scenes featuring him in this film feels very disturbing). I think this second watch gave me the same impression as the first one: an interesting start, and a second part that begins surprising and intriguing but then gets more and more forced as it goes on.

Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, co-written with Greg Kwedar, based on Denis Johnson’s novella, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I know this is one of those films that is supposed to elicit stronger emotions than it actually did for me. Which doesn’t mean that it left me cold, but I was affected in a way that felt, all the time, mediated by the intellectual layer of an arthouse film.
It gave me so much time to think, while watching it, that I wondered whether I could write a film based on my own life (it would be boring as hell).

Anche se è amore non si vede, directed by Valentino Picone and Salvatore Ficarra, co-written with Francesco Bruni and Fabrizio Testini, Italy, 2011 - ⭐⭐⭐

I usually like Ficarra and Picone: they are two Sicilian comedians, very well known on Italian TV, with a gentle, family-friendly style, and a tinge of social commentary.
This is the first of their films I’ve watched (if we exclude the Netflix mini-series Sicily Express, which Letterboxd considers a feature film), and it was in line with my expectations: the two play their usual characters - Picone’s Valentino is the straight man to the ‘cunning’ agent of disruption that is Ficarra’s Salvo (yes, their roles usually keep their real first names), the plot is thin (Valentino’s wife feels suffocated by his constant cares and attention), there are farcical elements and exaggerated acting.
But it was the perfect film for that Sunday evening.

Ecce Bombo, written and directed by Nanni Moretti, Italy, 1978 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Following last week’s Sogni d’oro, I was a bit nervous I would find an even more insufferable Michele Apicella in Moretti’s previous film.
Luckily, that’s not the case, and Apicella’s semi-antisocial behaviour feels funny and almost endearing (‘Why are you crying, honey? Is it because I’m a great artist?’).
The film has very little plot, and mostly follows Michele and his friends in their intellectual ennui, feeling lost in a world that has changed and no longer supports their political fights, having ‘consciousness sessions’ in their living rooms, and directing their anger towards their families (I felt really sorry for Michele’s parents).
Nevertheless, the film is entertaining and leads to a quietly powerful ending.

All through my deep dive into Moretti’s early filmography, I was impressed by two things: first, the presence of several faces and names who are well known today for being on the opposite side of the political spectrum. What happened in their life to make them change their views so radically?
Second, the fact that in every film (at least until Bianca) there are expressions and dialogue that have become commonplace in Italian lingo. Here there are two: when a girl is asked what is her main occupation, she replies with (a longer sentence that has become) the vague ‘I see people, I do things’. And the mockingly-self-important ‘Do I draw more attention to myself if I don’t come to the party, or if I come and I sit on my own?’ (roughly), which is also, in my opinion, the key to that ending.

Sibyl, directed by Justine Triet, co-written with Arthur Harari, France, 2019 - ⭐⭐½

Before Anatomy of Fall, Justine Triet and her co-writer Arthur Harari created this story about a psychotherapist (Virginie Efira) who is eager to stop seeing her patients to return to being a full-time writer, but the latest person that needs her help, the young actress Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), upsets her life in an unexpected manner and forces her to confront a past trauma.
On a surface level, this film’s plot is a messy story that leads its protagonist into a series of events that give her more and more importance and power over the other characters, in a way that challenges one’s strongest willingness to suspend disbelief.
But then, there are hints at the possibility that all of this is the self-aggrandising fantasy of a wannabe writer. Still, if this is the right interpretation, it is not fully resolved by the film’s insistence on showing the events as subjective.
Sandra Hüller has a small role as the very nervous director of a film that’s set in Stromboli (by chance, marking the second consecutive week the island appears in these posts, following last week’s Caro diario).

Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie, co-written with Ronald Bronstein, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐

My immediate thoughts about this film would be spoilers, so I’ll just say that this feels like Uncut Gems again, except for the ping-pong matches, that were tense only because I feared the direction the script would take.
I guess technically it’s impeccable, but claustrophobic and dark shots, although justified, put me at unease.
Is this a real Academy Awards Best Picture contender? I don’t think it should be, but I don’t like arrogant characters, and I was so disappointed by the ending.
Should Timothée Chalamet win for Best Actor? I’ve enjoyed his work much more in other films, and I don’t think he does anything compelling here that we haven’t seen before from him. But they gave Leo an Oscar for living in the mud for a while, they might as well reward Chalamet for playing good table tennis.

Io sono un autarchico / I Am Self-Sufficient, written and directed by Nanni Moretti, Italy, 1976 - ⭐⭐⭐

Finally finishing my retro-retrospective of Nanni Moretti’s early films, his first feature-length work is quite experimental, although it has possibly a little more story than Ecce Bombo: we follow a group of friends preparing a stage play, led by Fabio (Fabio Traversa) through a series of activities - including a team-building trip that has ’tragic’ surreal consequences.
The film, therefore, has two leads: Moretti, already in the role of Michele Apicella, dealing with the breakup of his marriage and the education of a son, often leaves the spotlight to Traversa. It will take thirty years for him to give so much space to another actor again.
Still, Moretti’s distinctive presence is already there, vocal and determined.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, directed by Dwight H. Little, written by Alan B. McElroy, Dhani Lipsius, Larry Rattner and Benjamin Ruffner, US, 1988 - ⭐⭐½

So here we are, back with a horror film, courtesy of Plex. I was pretty sure I had watched this film already just last summer, but I didn’t log it on Letterboxd, and we know that if it’s not logged it didn’t happen.
I remember being confused before about how Laurie Strode apparently died, and… when did she have a daughter? Halloween II happened ten years before, so she couldn’t have died in that film, unless Jamie (the child, played by Danielle Harris) is already 10 years old… but definitely she wasn’t there in the first films… ok, clearly this is just a workaround to replace Jamie (Lee Curtis) and give Michael Myers some vague motive to reunite with his long lost family.
Anyway, the actual new Final Girl, Rachel (Ellie Cornell), was up to the task, persistent and protective, while Dr. Loomis made me wonder about the trajectory of Donald Pleasence’s career before this role.
All in all, a rather basic slasher, slightly elevated by that ending, even if it doesn’t make too much sense… let’s say it takes the series to a whole new direction.

Brussels by Night, directed by Marc Didden, co-written with Dominique Deruddere, Belgium, 1983 - ⭐⭐⭐

A deeply troubled man leaves his home in the Flemish region of Belgium to spend some time on his own in Brussels. There, he meets an old friend, and finds new ones in a young bartender and aspiring actress, and her Moroccan suitor.
More than anything else, this film was an opportunity to see the city of Brussels as it was forty years ago, some places having changed, and some staying the same.
Narratively, it was at times an uncomfortable watch, as you keep watching people ignore very clear red flags. And, this being a Belgian film from the eighties, is almost guaranteed to go a little bit too far.

Reste un peu / Stay With Us, directed by Gad Elmaleh, co-written with Benjamin Charbit, France, 2022 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Renowned French comedian Elmaleh returns to his parents’ place in Paris after a few years touring the US, trying to hide from them that he has decided to convert to Catholicism, due to his devotion to the Virgin Mary.
It’s clear that I find stories dealing with faith and doubt very interesting (see also Midnight Mass and Wake Up Dead Man), plus I have a soft spot for films where people play themselves, especially when they involve their relatives in the game. I don’t know how much truth there is in this story, but it looks sincere enough for me to appreciate it.
The few first scenes, and the religious theme, are very reminiscent of Nanni Moretti’s La messa è finita, and Elmaleh has recognised the influence of the Italian director on his work.

Caro diario / Dear Diary, written and directed by Nanni Moretti, Italy, 1993 - ⭐⭐⭐

Speaking of whom, when I chose my next film, I thought it would be my only ‘Moretti of the week’.
This is still part of the ‘forward’ direction in my revisiting of his filmography, and it marks quite a departure from previous films: the semi-autobiographical aspects of the previous works gives way to three stories allegedly adapted from the director’s personal journal.
‘Michele Apicella’, the protagonist from all his previous films, is now simply ‘Nanni Moretti’: a (slightly) more realistic version of the same character. We follow him as he enjoys his favourite pastime (wandering around Rome in summer on his Vespa), undertakes a trip with a friend to to Aeolian Islands (just north of Sicily), and deals with a serious and difficult-to-diagnose health issue.
The first segment is the most enjoyable one, weaving his description of Rome neighbourhoods with considerations about cinema (this was the first time I heard of a film called Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) and his love for dancing (and flash-dancing). The sequence where he ’tortures’ a film critic by reading him back his pretentiously literary-sounding reviews is hilarious.
The second one is (I assume) the most fictional part, still funny but a bit too long (to give space to most main islands in the archipelago), and a trivial subplot commenting on TV series.
The final episode, depicting his countless consultations with doctors, unavoidably has a very serious (and a little scary) tone.
All in all, still a satisfying watch, but with such a difference in tone between the episodes that can feel quite discordant.

No Other Choice / 어쩔수가없다, directed by Park Chan-wook, co-written with Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar and Lee Ja-hye, based on the novel The Ax by Donald E. Westlake, South Korea, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have seen Lee Byung-Hun on-screen before (for instance in I Saw the Devil… which I hated ten years ago; I wonder whether my new taste in horror has changed that), but it took Squid Game for me to recognise him. As the lead actor in director Park’s new film, he went past my oversimplification as ‘a Korean Mads Mikkelsen’ to additionally show great comic skills (not that Mr. Mikkelsen isn’t funny in a lot of Danish films).
No Other Choice is another film exploring the problems in Korean society, although the fact that it is an adaptation from an American novel shows the universality of the struggle of losing a job when you’re in your fifties and your family depends on you; but the fact it’s a 30-years-old story perhaps explains why, instead of the ‘eat the rich’ attitude so prominent in modern films, it adopts a more traditional, and ultimately more realistic, ‘war between the poor’ approach, where decent people lose all compassion and empathy towards their fellows, in order to survive.
This is a more coherent, less provocative or surprising entry in Park Chan-wook’s filmography, so for me it doesn’t rate as high as some of his older films, but it’s still a very solid movie, supported by an incredible work of cinematography and editing.

Sogni d’Oro / Sweet Dreams, written and directed by Nanni Moretti, Italy, 1981 - ⭐⭐⭐

Going Moretti-backwards, this is the film I didn’t even know existed: for his other works, I had at least heard the title. This title is perhaps a bit too generic to be memorable.
I said in the introduction above that his films have a relaxing effect on me, but this one absolutely didn’t.
‘Michele Apicella’ is at his most obnoxious here: while he tries to come up with ideas for his third film, he struggles with the insecurity of no longer being relevant, and worries that he will be set aside in favour of less-skilled directors trying to imitate him. So he berates (and even beats up) people around him (including his mother), as he fears that his serious film about Sigmund Freud’s relationship with his mamma will be obscured by a musical about the student’s protests of the sessantotto directed by one of his copycats.
All the while, he dreams of a different film, about a high school teacher having a crush for a young woman.
In real life, this was Moretti’s third feature film, and the overlap between the author and his alter-ego has probably never been this high. Apicella’s arrogance and temper are depicted in such a negative way that they feel like a confession, without any easy self-absolution (compared for instance with Michel Gondry’s Le livre des solutions).
I struggled with this film and its scattered, nervous nature. Still, the fact that Apicella’s dream film is essentially a proto-version of Bianca, gives (perhaps only in hindsight) hope in this author finding a different way of channelling his creativity (and different facial hair).
I feel like I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near Moretti/Apicella in this period, but I can’t help feeling affection for him.

Aprile, written and directed by Nanni Moretti, Italy, 1998 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Sogni d’Oro left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, so I jumped to the next Moretti movie, the one following Caro diario.
Aprile is a film in the same vein as its predecessor but also, by chance, it shows links with Sogni d’Oro, as it goes back to depicting the filmmaker’s struggle to return to making ‘a real film’. Funnily enough, he tries to shoot a musical: the one about the Trotskyist confectioner he first mentioned in Caro diario.
This fictional part of the story merges with real events, both political and autobiographical: the 1994 elections that brought the right-leaning coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi to power, the 1996 ones that swung the balance back to the leftist alliance uniting under Romano Prodi (you wouldn’t believe the strong feelings I felt just by rewatching both events thirty years later), and, most importantly, the birth of his son Pietro.
Most (if not all)of the people we see play themselves, starting with Moretti’s then-partner Silvia (already seen in Caro diario) and his mother Agata Apicella (oh wait…). Moretti’s father, who had cameoed in all of his films up to Palombella Rossa (although, he never played the father figure), passed away in 1991.
Far from being superficial navel-gazing, Aprile once again mirrors the feelings of a whole section of Italian society; actually, for the first time, the majority of Italians was on the same side as Moretti. Without ignoring the many problems still existing, optimism was allowed.