Reasons to see (or not) La La Land

Synopsys: Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a jazz piano player that lost his club and now plays in restaurants. Mia (Emma Stone) is an actress that goes from audition to audition. They meet casually, they fall in love, and they start dealing with their dreams and how those dreams can endanger their relationship.

La La Land is a movie with a director that clearly loves music (as we saw in the excellent Whiplash) and it is a musical romantic comedy-drama. Already from its definitions, you can guess that the film has multiple sides. Let's try to capture most of them while remaining spoiler-free.

The acting performances are amazing. Emma Stone is absolutely stunning with her expressivity. There are funny situations, both during the songs and the normal acting, that are enhanced by the excellent dynamic between the two main performers. A few scenes have a terrific intensity, they look at each other and take your breath away. J.K. Simmons (in the role of himself again) appears for a short time but delivers his performance as usual.

The musical parts are not forced but very naturally make their appearance in the plot. They are tools to describe a feeling, a dream, a desire, a memory. I particularly appreciated the dance happening between the two main characters, with the LA sunset in the background, symbolizing the newborn romantic tension emerged due to their encounter. The soundtrack is very enjoyable and I will let you know when it stops haunting me.

There is a quite predictable discussion on the beauty of Jazz. Usually, such discussions are very pretentious (you don't like it because you don't understand it) and the essence of it is the same in the film. However, Sebastian doesn't give a lecture on the beauty of Jazz, but rather makes Mia see the music with his point of view, with his passion. This substantial change gives a very romantic tone to one of the most tedious arguments of the Jazz enthusiasts (like myself).

The theme that stroke me harder (but far from being the only one) is how to pursue your own dreams while you have another person with another set of dreams next to you. The mistake displayed on the screen is that the characters make decisions not based on what they want, but rather on what they think their partner is expecting from them. This is eventually creating a tension which will lead to the wrong assumption that their dreams are somehow subjected to a hierarchy (my dream is more important than your). The plot is then developed around this tension, exploring different solutions.

In conclusion, La La Land has a very romantic, bitter-sweet, tone all over the movie, but with a very persistent note of realism. The result is a well-told story to which everyone can relate to and, therefore, reaches its goal: make you feel a wide spectrum of emotions and think about your own life.

Collateral Beauty of advertisement

This will be a review slightly different than usual because this movie requires a different approach. Looking at the trailer, the plot seems to be the following. Will Smith's child died and he is very depressed. His friends are worried about him, especially when they find out that he is writing letters to Love, Time and Death. Suddenly, those three abstractions start to answer him back.

Therefore I was not expecting much because the risk of cheap philosophy is two scenes away at any given time. I was secretly hoping that Love, Time and Death were just actors hired by his worried friends to make him come back to a normal life.

Now the real plot (not a spoiler, it is revealed in the first 20 minutes).

Synopsys: Will Smith is a creative and charismatic man, whose life is upset by the death of his 6 years old daughter. His friends are also his co-workers and they are very worried that his depression will make their company fail. Thus they decide to hire actors in order to drive him crazy, film everything, show him the tape in front of the board and push him to resign from the company he founded. 

Yes, people, this is the shitty plot about shitty people. The movie is structured to make you cry for the grieving father, but it is telling such a meaningless act of evil that everything is in the background of the selfishness of a bunch of assholes. The feeling is that there was a good movie somewhere in there, but something went horribly wrong once the final product was made. Then I imagine the conversation went in a similar way.

Aren't we telling the story of how three assholes kicked their friend out of the company because he was sad and he was making everyone sad?

Good point, Harold, let's advertise it as a movie about the importance of accepting the grief, the importance of love and how beautiful is having a friend that cares about you.

Well, can't we simply change the motivat...

Sorry, Harold, I can't hear you: all these lambs make a hell of a noise while I smash their head with this baby seal.

So far it is just a bad movie with great actors and performances. They go even further and introduce three subplots involving the three worst friends in the history of filmmaking. Probably the message is that everyone has some problem and you should empathize with them too. First, their problem is that they are assholes. Second, the result is not emotional at all. The only one that empathizes with them is Will Smith, the victim of their plot, that is eventually revealing them that, although his grief is heavy on him, he feels their problems. Here the villains have the chance to redeem themselves and tell the truth, give balance to Will Smith's life again, but no, they cry a little, the go drinking, they steal the company.

As an extra point, there is even a fourth subplot involving the main character and, without anticipating anything, it makes no sense at all. It is clearly an attempt to give some kind of deepness to the movie by adding some obscure twist just to make the viewer guess about it. There is nothing to guess: it is a cheap move to force us to get emotional about the finale. It is in this subplot that the movie explores the meaning of its title: 32 seconds, a monologue by a secondary character, defined bullshit by the main one. That's it.

In conclusion, a very bad movie that loses the occasion of having on screen a lot of good actors by making them be horrible people and then trying to be profound simply by taking out any sense from the plot. It is a pity: a few dialogues about death are free of the usual rhetoric and the potential for a movie to be remembered was there. 

Do not spend your money on it: they will use that money to kill more lambs using baby seals as a weapon.

Reasons to see (or not) Rogue One

Synopsys: It is Saturday morning, you are like a 4 years old kid. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... TADAAA Yellow crawling credits. There you go, Rogue One is precisely that.

There is nothing to spoil about this movie since it is the story of how the rebellion got the Death Star's plans. However, just to maintain the usual tone, the potential spoilers will be placed at the end of the post, right after the picture.

When a new Star Wars movie comes out, generically, you find two kinds of people: the overly enthusiastic no matter what, and the critic that accuse Disney to ruin the franchise. First, Phantom Menace is a scar that we will always bring in our heart. Second, Empire can't be beaten, get over it already. I say so only to be transparent on my positions about Star Wars and I will try to give a broad view of the elements of this film. 

Rogue One is an anthology movie taking place before the events of A New Hope. In my opinion, it is more a movie taking place in the Star Wars universe, rather than a Star Wars movie. Therefore the scenario is a Galaxy in the middle of a war, a rebellion, and you will be thrown in the dirt with the events on screen. The film is picking up the legacy of Awakens and comes back to the dusty planets, the raw battles, the presence of an overwhelming power to be defeated. 

It doesn't contain all the philosophy on what is good and what is not. This was a natural consequence of the presence of Jedi and Sith in every other Star Wars, here is simply not a theme. We are in a war and both sides are going to be tough; the realism of this aspect sheds a new light on the film, a more desperate and dark light. It is a story of hope and of sacrifice in the name of such hope. Therefore, the movie reminds a War World II film: there is a resistance, there are soldiers, and there is a lot of humanity fading away in front of your eyes.

The action scenes are simply amazing. The CGI is barely visible, the choreography is credible and never over the top (thus again closer to the Trilogy and Awakens than to the prequels). The battles, both in space and in the trenches, will keep you on the edge of your seats. The soundtrack is a revisitation of the original themes and it works spectacularly in a constant reminder of the past while introducing new features and, most importantly, remaining well embedded in every scene (a classic Star Wars move).

However, my enthusiasm has to be size down by a few bad aspects. First of all, the first two acts proceed from planet to planet, from situation to situation, with a very quick pace. The intention (and it is very well accomplished) is to collect piece by piece the full story and then make a great, mindblowing, third act. However, many arcs seem too squashed on the running plot: some character doesn't have a fluid evolution, some other is not explored with the accuracy that deserves, and some others are completely disposable and they have an unnecessarily high screen time. On the other side, the cameo are contained and I appreciated all of them, the comedy is reduced to a minimum and thus looks natural.

In a movie where it is fair to say that there is no wow effect coming from the plot, the intensity of a lot of scenes, first and foremost the entire third act of the film, is something that cannot be found in any other product of the franchise. This is the take-home feeling: it is difficult for me to judge the entire movie because I saturated my thoughts with that amazing final part. That's why I decided to see it again as soon as I can.

A final note on Darth Vader. He is barely in the movie, as he was in the trailer, and I have already seen a lot of people bitching about it. I just want to remind you that in a New Hope he had 12 minutes of screen time, but he was one of the best villains ever nevertheless. Here we find a Vader that is at his peak, fully matured, powerful, scary as hell. I don't care that he is not much on screen because everything he does is freaking awesome and I am screaming while I'm writing how good he was.

In conclusion, I had a good time, the movie is good but probably will not be a generational movie (and he doesn't mean to be one). The experiment of the anthology movie is a success and I look forward to the other ones, a good methadone while we wait for the saga to unravel every two years.

A small spoilery note, nothing that can ruin your view but don't proceed any further if you don't want to know.

Rogue One settle down an open debate about the fragility of the Death Star. While having some sort of exhaust port is necessary because it is how machines work, a lot of people complained about the fact that a single hit destroyed the most powerful weapon of the Galaxy. This is settled here since it is revealed that it was made on purpose by the true hero of the saga: the guy that designed it. 

I just mention that because I am waving this hypothesis around since 25 years, give or take, and thus it is a good moment for me.

Westworld, our sweet violent delight

This fall is giving us excellent experiences if you are a TV Show enthusiast. It all started with Quarry, which cut so deep in me that I still can't write about it in a reasonable number of lines. Then we had Pitch, a show that is somehow managing to face any major contemporary theme while telling a story about baseball. Then many other shows are going very well: You are the Worst, Chance, and even The Walking Dead is coming back to be a great show thanks to the best villain ever.

Above all of that, here comes HBO. For. The. Win. 

Westworld just aired its last episode and I can finally be sure about one thing: it is the show of the year. I will not say anything that can possibly spoil the events of this amazing show, go ahead with peace.

Westworld is a futuristic theme park inhabited by robots where the visitors go to be involved in numerous storylines. Or, you know, to kill or have sex with stuff. The show drives us along some of those storylines, making us grope in the maze of its main plot, and showing us the hand every time before hitting with unusual strength.

The futuristic look of the show is masterfully mixed with the raw, dusty one of a western movie. The subtle, sneaky moves of the big corporation are surrounded by the dreams and the obsessions of a human mind. The piano is playing in the background, but it is playing a rock song. The perfect gift wrapped up with extremely convincing acting performances, deep dialogues, and a few hauntingly beautiful scenes.

There are many aspects of this show that make it great, but the one that stands out, in my opinion, is the use of foreshadowing. Mostly because this series made me realize that I don't hate foreshadowing, I simply never liked how it was used before. Every piece of information is given in the first few episodes and the rest of the season relentlessly drives the viewers to what they knew all along. In this sense, Westworld is very similar to the first season of Mr. Robot. Every turn, every twist, every revelation is in front of you at any given moment: you just realize it step by step.

The narration is designed to make you lose sight of what you know, providing a full immersion in the fictitious world represented by the park. The narration itself is the maze and the viewer is the character looking for its center. This mechanism is so well implemented that nothing is really a surprise anymore, every twist is part of the maze and you see it coming. However, like the characters are completing their journey, loop after loop, you also need time to process it and the effect of every revelation is not ruined.

If you can't tell the difference, does it really matter?

In this genre, a recurrent theme is what can possibly differentiate a human from a very intelligent machine. The authors acknowledge that in the first two episodes using two not so relevant characters and thus paving the way for the exploration of such deep theme. The instrument for the exploration is an introspective trip, involving both the humans and the machines, eventually leading to their own consciousness and, ultimately, to free will.

The robots struggle relentlessly looking for a way to do something originated by their own will and not by their code. They miserably fail over and over, since their will is by definition a creation, they are constantly under the control of their maker. At the same time, every human in the park experiences something that resembles a world of complete freedom. This is no less than another illusion of the creator of Westworld: for how much they let themselves go, none of their choices is unscripted.

As one may expect, the rebellion to such scheme emerges on both sides. We assist to the same stages of the different journey that a robot and a human experience in their seek of freedom. The only difference is that a human will be able to leave the park and its illusions, finally experiencing a true free will and a true consciousness. Under this light, the park/maze is for the hosts a representation of what a religion is for a human brain (I will elaborate more in the spoiler section).

The theme is beautiful, although not particularly original for the genre (I cite Dark Matter as most recent example AND for a pointless self-promotion). In conclusion, there is a concept to express, a very good story to do so, and a general badassery all over the place. This is more than enough to look forward to a season 2. 
(Do not pass the picture to avoid spoilers)

These violent delights have violent ends

    
I would like to spend a few more words to explain the religious analogy that I saw in Westworld. The hosts are designed to have a very blessed life, considering that their purpose is to satisfy any sadistic impulse of the guests. They are designed to not see anything that may hurt them because, otherwise, it will drive them crazy. As soon as they are allowed to see the real world, they call the humans gods and, of course, the first decision is to kill the gods and free themselves. However, this is just another illusion because, once that you admit the existence of a maker, free will loses any meaning and even the killing of the gods or the acquisition of self-consciousness is just a permission given by a greater designer.

I particularly appreciated a moment in the finale where the technician finds out that Bernard is a robot and instantly questions his own nature, stressing out how facing the existence of a maker lead to an instantaneous collapse of the self-consciousness. However, again, if you can't tell the difference, does it really matter?

Another question is: now that the true god has been killed, are the hosts really free or rather actors in a different narration? 

At last, I would like to speculate on what is coming next. After the mark left in me by the second season of Mr. Robot, I try to manage my expectations as much as I can. One of the more interesting characters, Antony Hopkins (in the role of himself, evidently), is dead and therefore I expect the show to elaborate a way to compensate such important defection.

We saw on the technician's note to Maeve that the park is only park 1. Moreover, we saw the samurais being prepared. So, looking at the original material too, I expect to see a lot about this other park. The result is not going to be good a priori, but the writers pleasantly surprised me so I am confident in a good result. Moreover, we have to wait till 2018 and this may indicate another accurate execution of the new narration.

The first season was so well designed that it didn't leave many open questions. It is, in a sense, very self-consistent and there would be nothing wrong to end the show with those amazing 90 minutes. Except that it was so good that I want more.

We are then left with the usual feeling: we must wait an entire year to find out. Luckily we can watch scenes like this one every day. 

Why Snowden is a bad movie

I am throwing the main concept in the title because I found Snowden a two hours and twenty minutes long waste of time, therefore I don't want you to waste your time as well. If you are willing to stay with me for a few more lines (or you've already seen it, liked it, and you want to see how wrong I am), here my motivations for such a harsh title (that, roll credits, is always a complicated deal).

Snowden is a dramatization of the events occurred between 2003 and 2014 to Edward Snowden, the former CIA and NSA employee, and now whistleblower currently living in Russia. He revealed to the press that the USA government was illegally surveilling the US citizens as well as every cellphone or computer in the world. 

The movie is about him, since when he was unable to join the military forces, to the day he blew the whistle. I saw very polarized discussions over the internet about how good or bad he is. I am not here to discuss that. Just looking at the movie, one aspect strikes you in the worst possible way: we are not seeing the story of a human being.

If you produce something to tell a story that everyone in the room already knows (it happened 3 years ago), you need to characterize it with something. This is completely missing, we are seeing a series of events that lead to an already known epilogue, and the actors do not transmit any emotion. I'm not talking about their acting performances, that aspect was overall good. My problem is how the film is structured.

Oliver Stone tries to make us care about Snowden by introducing showing us the fact that he has a girlfriend. The obvious problems that can emerge in a relationship where one of the two has a top-secret clearance are explored in two brief, emotionless, scenes. The same treatment goes to the emergence of his paranoia, to his health issues due to his paranoia, and to the struggle of the journalist to whom he blew the whistle. Above all of that, we see a character showing nearly no struggle for 2 hours, that could have easily walked away at any given moment (at least in the movie he could), and makes the decision of spreading a pretty damaging news on his beloved country in literally 10 seconds. No transitions whatsoever, point A to D and a scene cut in between.

This movie lacks a human presence, becoming more similar to a documentary, except that it doesn't have the precision of a documentary. Therefore, in my opinion, it falls short in nearly every aspect that makes a movie a good one. The only thing that makes it interesting is the fact that it is polarizing the audience between those that consider him a traitor and those that consider him a hero. Something that could easily happen if you read about it or watch a documentary, with the downside that, being a movie, it doesn't have enough content to provide a satisfactory picture. 

These are the aspects that made the long movie Snowden something excruciatingly long and a pointless cinematographical product. 

Reasons to see (or not) The Accountant

Synopsis: Christian Wolff is an accountant, diagnosed with autism since he was a little kid. He conducts a mysterious solitary life, moving from continent to continent to uncook the books of big criminal organizations. When hired to find out who is stealing money from a big company, he finds himself involved in a dangerous situation.

I kept the synopsis clean and short, but the truth is that this movie revealed itself to be a fully entertaining, emotional product. It is centered around the figure of Christian (Ben Affleck) and its mental condition with a rather simple main plot. However, the narration brings the viewer on a journey through the past and the mind of the main character with the use of several subplots. 

The presence of so many plots is usually dangerous for a 2 hours movie and, in all fairness, the movie can seem to be a confuse bunch of events until they are all wrapped up during the third act. For this reason, I believe the only reasonable main plot of the movie is not about the events on screen, but rather about the solitude and the struggle of the main character and how he affects the people around him. With this assumption, every single subplot is revealing a different aspect of the protagonist's life and eventually all of them matters in the big picture.

We are brought into his past with a series of flashbacks with the pretext of giving us some detail on how he got his abilities and generic background. However, the real message is to illustrate three different approaches (from the three different family members) to deal with a child affected by a mental condition. 

We see how that child learned how to interact with the people around him at the best of his possibilities, from identifying the emotions of his interlocutor to the emotionless homicide. On this aspect, the movie oscillates from a dark tone to a comic one. I saw the movie twice and I got fascinated by the heterogeneous response by the audience at every scene. The emotional detachment of the protagonist hits the viewers with a two folded emotion, at times making you burst into a laugh, other times making you empathize with the solitude of the character. In other words, the movie keeps you on your toes, making you dig deep in your feelings about a mental condition that by definition makes any kind of interaction difficult. 

The excellent action movie surrounding this aspect makes The Accountant a unique product. I should confess that I do not like Ben Affleck as an actor but this role is perfect for the emotionless pretty face he carries around. His job is nearly perfect and probably the most appropriate casting choice of the year. The supporting cast is very convincing, J.K. Simmons above everyone else, delivering a touching performance that reveals yet again how good he is in his job.

In an era of poor action movies, The Accountant is a bright spot, approaching the genre with an interesting angle. 

Reasons to watch (or not) Hacksaw Ridge

Synopsys: Desmond Doss is a conscientious objector that decides to enlist in the army to fight the Second World War. For religious reasons he can't touch a gun, so you immediately imagine the problem. However, it is a free country and the army allows him to go to the Pacific theater without a single weapon protecting him. He then starts to serve as a medic on the battlefield, as he wanted in the first place. In a gruesome battle with the Japanese, he stays behind during the retreat to save as many lives as possible, becoming a hero and the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

2016 has been a year full of true stories and Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson, is entering pretty high on that list. It is a long movie that flows smoothly thanks to a solid structure: introduction of the character in his normal days, army training, battle with heroism acts. 

The character of Desmond (Andrew Garfield) is well presented, both by a good screenplay and a good actor's performance. Therefore the goal is easily achieved: the viewer is naturally brought to care about him. Thus the intensity of the movie and the emotional impact come out enhanced, keeping you on the edge of your seat.

Mel Gibson plays with our emotions by showing us a battle sequence that I'm not worried to define at the level of Saving Private Ryan, with the addition of the modern graphical technology. In short, you perceive the hell of the war, you hear the bombs falling around you, you see the body parts, you feel the danger of an enemy able to appear from nowhere and not afraid to die. 

The immersion in what private Doss has experienced that day when he stayed behind and saved over 75 soldiers on the battlefield is complete and therefore emotional. Such feature alone makes the movie worth seeing.

The downside of telling a story about a conscientious objection for a religious belief is that the rhetoric on religion is particularly heavy in the movie. The faith of the main character and the importance that the 10th commandments have for him is constantly reminded during the entire film. I said heavy because the religious aspect is irrelevant for the story. It characterizes Desmond and gives us his legitimate motivations. However, the constant reminder of this aspect stops to be functional to the story and becomes more like a fanatic propaganda of how good are the things written in the bible. I really don't care, but I do know that in the same book is also written (to remain in theme) [and Jesus said] "But those my enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring here, and slay them before me." (Luke, 19:27). So, it is not about the book, it is always about the readers and we can be lighter on the rhetoric.         

Looking at the actor performances, it is difficult to not appreciate the job of Hugo Weaving, in the role of Desmond father. His representation of the horror of WW1, where he lost all his friends and part of his humanity, places him several steps above all the other actors. On the other side, the performance of Vince Vaughn, although convincing when he is speaking, looks quite off every time he as to move. In particular, you can tell he is not a soldier when he runs with a gun in his hands.

All that being said, I had a good time in the theater, the movie tells a fascinating story, it is visually very good, and these aspects help to overcome the heavy religious rhetoric. It is probably the best movie based on a true story of the year. 

Reasons to see (or not) Arrival

Synopsys: One day, out of the blue, 12 alien ships appear on our planet at random locations. The only action such aliens are taking is opening their ship, letting us in, and burp at us for an hour or so. The US army thinks that an expert linguist able to speak nearly every language can translate the burps for them just by listening to a tape. The US army is not particularly bright. The linguist is then allowed to go inside one of the ships where she starts working on their language.

Arrival is a Sci-Fi movie that very often will remind you of other Sci-Fi movies but somehow manage to maintain its own identity. The fans of the genre will enjoy both the references and the peculiarities of the film. Everyone else will enjoy a reasonably original product, given that you can't demand scientific accuracy from such a movie.

As usual, I will try to give you as many elements as possible to decide if the movie is worth seeing by remaining spoiler-free. Part of the discussion can't avoid spoilers and will be placed safely after the picture.

The dominant theme of the movie is the importance of communication and, more generally, of making the effort of understanding each other. The aliens make their appearance in a pacific fashion and immediately show that they want to talk. This defuses our aggressiveness and we start making the effort of understanding each other. 

Nearly the entire movie is centered around the main character (Amy Adams), a linguist, and her attempts to understand their language in order to be able, one day, to ask them what is the purpose of your trip? 

So, in short, it's a movie on how to become an intergalactic airport security guard.

The plot proceeds on this theme until, as we see in the trailer, things go sideways because we see them saying the word weapon and we just go bananas about it. In this intense part of the film, the other big theme takes over. It is true that, since the aliens appeared all over the planet, the various governments are cooperating. However, as one may expect, there is no full information disclosure and this lack of trust is leading to a global war. 

More about these themes will be written in the spoiler section (after the picture) 

Looking at the movie as a cinematographical product, it is globally well executed. The various arcs of tension are well displayed and it is not difficult to follow the plot. However, I should admit that going out of the theater I had the feeling that the movie was longer than 2 hours. It can thus look slightly slower than it should be mostly because, more sooner than later, the viewer figures out where it is going. 

The actors' performances are convincing but I've perceived a couple of weaknesses. The first is the Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, whose presence was pumped during the promotion of the film, because he has a very marginal role with, occasionally, very stupid lines. In other words, I was expecting more from him. 

The second dark spot on the movie are the mentioned stupid lines. In a generally solid screenplay with peaks of deep dialogues, the tone is occasionally disrupted by very silly lines thrown from now and then. Someone in the theater will find them funny but it will be the same someone that laughs at the Nespresso's commercial.

In conclusion, it is a movie worth seeing with a good set of themes (some of them discussed above, others in the spoiler section) that may let you think about them for a bit when you leave the theater. I personally had the same feeling I had right after 1997 movie Contact, another product with some sloppy aspects that made it slow. To be more specific, I had the feeling that the book (because both movies are inspired by a book) would be a very nice read. With Contact I was right since it is not a masterpiece but rather a cornerstone of the genre. Maybe Stories of your Life, the book that inspired Arrival, will give a similar emotion.

I give you one more line to not accidental read what is next, from now onwards: Spoiler Alert.

The big theme that hits you once that you figure it out the main twist (and this happens fairly soon) is the value, even the existence, of free will. I actually enjoy this kind of pointless discussions, so here we go. 

Essentially the aliens came to Earth to teach us their language because, as poorly explained in the movie, this knowledge will completely change our perception of time. In particular, we see how the main character is affected by that: she starts to remember the future. This not only destroys any concept of entropy that we currently have, but essentially reduce the future to a self-fulfilling prophecy. She saves the world by using a knowledge that she can acquire in a future where she saved the world in that specific way. 

At the same time, she accepts her future, the birth of a child that will die too young, without making any effort to change it. Essentially, she is living her entire life, any single moment of it, at the same time. However, since she is not trying to change anything, she gives up any control on it, being a simple passenger of her own existence. 

The movie addresses it as a gift (knowing there will be an end will make me appreciate every moment more), I just find such existence very sad and pointless for her. However, such knowledge apparently brought humankind to a fully cooperating, peaceful existence, suggesting that knowing how bad is going to end will stop us to screw it up. As if it ever worked before.

The main reason why I've enjoyed the film is that it made me think about this. On the other hand, in addressing its brightest spot, the movie falls short in motivating itself. This is the other reason why it reminded me of Contact. Also there we had aliens coming to us to give us their technology and also there the movie felt short in motivate such choice (the book did very well though). Since the question is essentially Why is this movie happening? I think that addressing it with the appropriate attention would have made it a very good product.

Netflix finally missing a shot: Marvel's Luke Cage

To understand the title, I immediately redirect you to the other two reviews on Marvel's superheroes on Netflix: Daredevil and Jessica Jones. There you will find why Netflix was taking over the business and smashing any competition. 

It was thus a big surprise when I finished Marvel's Luke Cage: it is not at the level of the other two. Not even close. I will try to explain why and remain spoiler-free.

Luke Cage was introduced in the Netflix universe during the first season of Jessica Jones. He is a bartender somehow connected to the recent past of Jessica and it turns out he has superpowers: his skin is indestructible and he is superstrong. Here, we find him in Harlem a few months after the events of Jessica Jones, living a quiet anonymous life. 

The season is essentially an origin story: the events will make Luke Cage take action against the evil villain, forcing him to face his obscure past and finally move forward. Always. I will say no more to let you discover it by yourself. 

The first issue is the most problematic one and is about the hero himself. I have the same issue with Superman: any challenge is futile until kryptonite appears. For Luke Cage is even worse since there is no kryptonite for him. The immediate consequence is that any action scene loses its tension and they are not choreographically good as in other shows. Why dodge a bullet if it bounces on you? I can save a few of them because we can all like a power player from time to time but, in general, they are very underwhelming.

Luke Cage's kryptonite is really only his past and his consciousness. This is well displayed in the show, but I never felt tension when his fate was on the line. If you have an invulnerable character you need to give him some sort of deepness, some moral purpose, something other than the usual call for justice and revenge we are used to seeing. We thus have to look how the character and the story are presented.

Most of these guys wear spandex, who would have thought that a black man in a hoodie would be a hero

The entire story takes place in Harlem, therefore we have glimpses of Harlem's culture and how the characters are participating in such culture, what is their role. When it comes to Luke Cage, we can appreciate an attempt to give him some political weight by making him expressing some opinions on the role of the community. In particular, it comes to my mind a very intense monolog on Crispus Attucks and the use of the N-word. However, such attempts are quickly lost after the first few episodes, leaving the picture incomplete and thus failing in drawing a character that creates tension or emotions. The collateral effect is representing a community through powerful messages and then fall in the most generic silliness. Allow me a very insignificant spoiler: a black kid is beaten up by the police during an interrogation and the community, after like 5 minutes of rage, responds by giving the police better guns. That's generic silliness.

Another big issue is the presence of too many villains in one season. In a superhero show, the villain is 80% of the final result because what makes the story interesting is the struggle, how the superhero overcomes the adverse conditions and defeats the villain. In Luke Cage, there is a potentially great villain that is then wasted, lost and obscured by other breaking into the scene, villains way less interesting and way over the top. 

The storyline is then confused because force the viewer to shift the attention to different menaces. 

There is this villain!
Forget about that, now there is this one!
What's up, guys? I am another one, watch me!

The result is either a very non-linear narration or a very slow one, needing half of the season to even begin.

One last remark about the crossover technique, which was one of the strong suits of Jessica Jones. If the viewer was able to appreciate everything of the last year's show without knowing the rest of the Marvel universe, this time I feel like you actually lose something. You don't get the reasons why some character acts in a certain way. Therefore I feel one of the revolutionary aspects introduced by Netflix one year ago as lost in favor of a more conventional marketing strategy.

In conclusion, it is a show that brings some fun, the technical execution is at the level of the others, but fails in being innovative as it could be. A not so well characterized superhero, a not convincing narration structure, and the feeling that the only reason of its existence is a set up of what is coming next year on Netflix all make the show a forgettable one and several steps behind the previous two.

The fall of the titan: Mr. Robot

I took my time to re-watch the two seasons and be sure about what I want to discuss here. Before moving forward, I have to admit that I can't hold such discussion without talking about specific events of the 22 episodes aired so far. So consider yourself warned, there will be spoilers.

I also have to admit that I am writing these lines with the spirit of a betrayed lover. Therefore, to explain my feelings, I have to justify both the love and the betrayal.

The love was coming from season 1. I am not afraid to say that Mr. Robot (with Sense8 a close second) was the best show of the past year for the concept, the message and, most of all, the execution. The structure of the narration was nearly perfect, moving the plot at every given episode without wasting any time: every single storyline matters in the big picture of the full season. I can spend many words on the convincing acting or the amazing camera work, or on how much I loved the soundtrack (and how they brutally interrupt it to let a scene suddenly begin). The psychological drama was in a sense hidden in the frame of the plot before revealing itself in that eighth episode and then explode in the amazing next one.

You knew it all along, didn't you? 

It is thus clear that living up to that level is difficult for any show. If you try to look at it with a cold heart, you will notice that you have enjoyed a show that is basically a montage of different movies. The high skill of the creators was lying precisely in feeding us something that we knew all along and yet entirely different and exciting. For this reason, I look at the first season as a miracle of TV Shows.

However, considering my high expectations, season 2 turned out to be such a mess on almost every good aspect of the previous one. I can't help to consider this a betrayal.

First of all, the season suffers from a problem sadly common to many many movie sequels/prequels: a good part of it is dedicated to explaining the previous season. Such explanations, like the episode that opens up with a flashback to the moment when they decided to do the hack, do not add anything to the story and, therefore, have no reason to be there. In a season that, as we will see in a moment, has to explore so many storylines, adding unnecessary details to something that already happened makes the narration cumbersome and confusing. 

It appears clear that the plots to be explored are 4:

• How they follow up the attack
• How they escape to the FBI
• What the Dark Army and WhiteRose have in mind
• What's the next move of the E-Corp

These were the plots to be developed and to some extent they were. My problem is in those useless flashbacks and in what surrounds them. One plot above all: Joanna, Tyrell Wellick's wife. At the beginning of the season, she is covering something up about the hack by paying and then killing (s02e05) the guy that woke up Elliot at the end of the previous season (s01e10). Then she is struggling to maintain a clandestine relationship with the boring but beautiful guy that punches like a little girl. Her continuous presence on screen is not justified by the events, I waited and waited to see if she got eventually relevant, but no. She receives calls for the entire season, that would be interesting if they were coming from Tyrell; except they were coming from another insignificant character! Her presence just slows down the stories and it is, in the big picture, irrelevant. 

One may argue that it will be relevant in the next season so they, so to speak, kept her character warm for the viewers. But this is a betrayal of the first season's approach where nothing was there only to set up a sequel.

Another element of confusion is the character of Angela. She is popping out everywhere in the story, in every subplot. She does everything, she even knows how to contact Tyrell and even WhiteRose is surprised of her. Her character takes so many spins and turns along the season to lose any identity: she is just what is needed to move the plot along, the Angela ex machina. 

Control can sometimes be an illusion, but sometimes you need illusion to gain control.

The first episodes were mostly dedicated to exploring the psychological drama of the main character, Elliot. This was done perfectly, with him fighting his alter ego and then understanding how to live with it (except falling in another illusion of control). I started to appreciate that only during my second viewing, especially once that I was sure what was the end of the mentioned illusion. It is precisely this difficulty in being involved in this new season that made me focus on another sloppy aspect of the show. 

We can all agree that the opening is very dense of plots to be wrapped together, reminders of what happened a year ago, and Elliot descending to madness. Thus I now justify the difficulties that brought Sam Esmail to apologize on twitter. However, after episode 5, the narration is confusing, jumping from character to character without a specific logic. Sometimes the authors interrupt one plot for 1 or even 2 episodes, moving our attention somewhere else. This can be a strategy to transmit the chaotic state of mind of the protagonist, but the effect is rather making the viewer less involved in what was happening on the screen. 

I could surely mention a few great scenes or even great episodes, from now and then. I surely appreciated the bold experiment of episode 6, where Elliot finds himself living in an illusory world based on the Tv Show Alf, a situation heavily recalling a scene from Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers that is one of my favorite movies. But if I have to evaluate the season in its entirety, Mr. Robot falls short even if I do not consider my high expectations.

You realize that the episodes that effectively develop the plots listed above are less than 5. In a 12 episodes season long, this is a failure at the level of Game of Thrones. The powerfulness of the show was to create a cluster of episodes where everything ultimately mattered and contributed to the final result. The plot was interesting and loaded with complexity by itself, the narration was then direct because further complications weren't needed. Here we just have another show trying to drown itself in the storytelling. The complexity is now coming from a cumbersome narration rather than from the plot itself.

The entire post could have been shorter, containing the single thoughts that surprised me at the end of season 2: I didn't want to find out immediately what happens next. This is how bad it was. And we can only feel sorry about that because we have probably lost a gem.

Reasons to see (or not) The Magnificent Seven

Synopsys: We are in a quiet town somewhere near Sacramento, full of quiet, probably even good, people and a preacher that cares more about an empty building with respect to the six dead bodies around him. Why six dead bodies? I don't know, I'm not sure they were six. The point is that a bad guy called capitalism is coming to town and he is not fucking around too much. The quiet good people hire Denzel Washington to be himself once again. This time, he finds 6 other guys with different stories and probably even a few dreams. Yes, you are right, this makes them 7 and they are... beautiful. This is the story on if and how they saved the town from capitalism.

This movie is a remake of a western that was a remake of a Japanese movie. So one can expect a lack of originality and, let's face it, this movie gives you a Deja Vu feeling that remains with you when you leave the theater. As you can see, the plot is pretty standard for the genre and its development doesn't bring any particular new element.

During the movie I found myself appreciating this aspect. I lived classic western scenes as a citation, even as an homage to the genre. The piano player that stops playing when the badass character enters the saloon while everyone turns to look at him. The excellent crescendo during the staredowns on dusty roads. The music that embraces the plot till the final explosion of notes. All of this is done and presented with great skill, making the movie a very nice work to look at. The problem is that there is nothing new to support the homage, no contribution is coming from the movie. It thus looks very unoriginal to everyone that ever saw a western movie.

A bright spot is the overall performance of the actors, yet bugged with its highs and lows. Denzel is excellent, this is the kind of role that probably most suits him and the alchemy with the director (Antoine Fuqua) is strong for the entire movie. Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke bring to the screen a convincing performance, the one that I have appreciated the most since they convey some sort of journey for the respective characters. On the other hand, the performance of Vincent D'Onofrio, an actor that I liked a lot every time I've seen him (Full Metal Jacket and Daredevil), sounds off and underwhelming. But it can just be me feeling strange while I laugh every time he speaks or moves.

Another bad performance, but I suspect the reason is how the character is written, is coming for the bad guy. It is not a case that I refer to the antagonist as "the capitalism" or "the bad guy". While can be easy to find the actor's name online, I want to stress out that, in a movie with 7 important good guys, the bad guy should pop out of the screen and it simply doesn't happen, leaving the antagonist in an annoying shade of anonymity. The antagonist is one dimensional, he has a very little screen time and does nothing to be remembered.

This was probably the biggest disappointment since the rest of the characters is introduced very efficiently (with a few minor exceptions). We spend the first 30 minutes to meet our heroes, seeing them doing something that immediately gives us a reason to care or be curious about them. This is an aspect that I have appreciated since the last movie that I saw with multiple protagonists (Suicide Squad, reviewed here) was a mess in the introduction. If there we spent the first part of the movie by listening to someone telling us about the characters, in The Magnificent Seven they appear naturally one by one, saving us from what I can call the audiobook-effect. In other words, this movie succeeds where Suicide Squad failed: it goes beyond its trailer.

The action sequences are the other strong suit of the movie. The tension is slowly built up with excellent camera movements and small dialogues. Then the scene explodes with its choreography of smoking guns, flying knives, arrows, and dead bodies piling up. For being only a PG-13 movie, its violence is a very dominant factor, so expect a lot of very well written and directed action sequences with a lot of people dying on screen.

In conclusion, if you never saw a western movie, this is a fair sample of how it would look like and you will probably enjoy the action sequences and the badassery of the protagonists. Otherwise, everything will look familiar and there is the chance to be disappointed by the lack of originality of this movie.

At last, that preacher is a motherfucker.

Everything is fun and games until... Nerve

Synopsys: Nerve is a game like truth or dare, but without the truth. Nerve is or dare (it had to be said, move along). One day, the young people of New York find out that there is a website that dares people to do something in exchange for money and adrenaline. People can play or pay an outrageous amount of money per hour to see other people playing. In this world, where cell phones battery are extremely efficient, a shy girl is tired of not taking any chances in her life and start playing. In the night that follows that decision, everything goes wilder and wilder.

Regardless of my tone, Nerve turned out to be a very entertaining movie, with the right twists and turns, and some sequences that will keep you on the edge of your seats. I went to the theater with no expectations, I didn't come back thinking that I completely wasted my time.

The movie is essentially about how far one can go to impress the faceless crowd that is the internet community. It shows us a story, it shows us the risks of being trapped in such situations, and it shows us how being a faceless crowd and having easy access to other people's life can change our behavior. 

The main risk is to not sound credible. I personally find credible that an app that dares you to film yourself doing something unusual in exchange of money would have success. It's not difficult to imagine that the game goes too far eventually and someone is ready to get hurt in order to not lose the prize. It's not hard to believe that people would watch or film that. Less credible is the indifference of the media (or the police) towards such game, as many others pointed out already. However, the entire movie takes place in less than 24 hours, so it is not impossible to keep it as a secret (and it is in the rules).

Thus we have a credible absurd story unraveling in front of our eyes at a very high pace. She presses that button to start the game and from that moment it escalates with a very constant pace till the predictable grand finale. When I talk about predictability, I only mean that it is easy to expect that something big is going to happen, the curiosity to find out what keeps the viewer attention and makes the high rhythm a good aspect of this movie.

Regardless my surprise of seeing an unexpectedly nice movie, it is fair to say that this light movie has some problems, even accepting its lightness. The main issue is the lack of closure both in the main plot and in the secondary ones. To maintain it spoiler-free, the movie opens arcs of tension between the characters and then simply ends, without resolving most of them. This is usually indicating a lazy writer behind it, or, even worse, a characterization of the story dangerously stereotyped.

Then a message to those that cannot enjoy a movie if it is not scientifically or, as in this case, technologically accurate. Don't go, you will not like it. In the movie, the internet is a magical place, the hackers are wizards, the deep web is an even more magical place with leprechauns, and cell phones' batteries last forever.

In conclusion, this movie is able to surprise you. I'm not sure if it is because of its intrinsic qualities or because of my non-existent expectations, but it is going to surprise you. If you have a couple of hours to spare, it is not a bad idea to lighten up watching it.

Reasons to see (or not) The Infiltrator

Synopsis: Special agent Robert Mazur is like the Obi-Wan Kenobi of undercover agents, but gets tired of chasing narcos for a few dozen of Kg of drugs. He thus decides to chase the dirty money instead of the funny drugs. Here begins the true story of the man that infiltrates Pablo Escobar's cartel and discovers the money-laundering organization behind it. 

Being a true story, it is difficult to really define what is a spoiler or not, but, on the cinematographical point of view, everything that follows is completely spoiler-free.

True stories usually encounter two big issues once they are translated to the screens of our theaters. The writers are often lazy in explaining why a character changes attitude; since the change really happened, they don't feel the need of explaining it too much. Moreover, the fact that the viewer already knows how the story is going to end is often a reason for the lack of tension or, even worse, to make clumsy every attempt to create such tension. Therefore, before we continue with this post, I have to say that movies based on true stories are not my favorite one, generically speaking.

All that being said, The Infiltrator is, by all means, a good movie and most of the credit has to go to another marvelous performance by Bryan Cranston. I'm not usually a big fan of overwhelming performances by actors, but it is difficult to remain indifferent in front of the tridimensionality and the realism that this actor gives to his characters. Therefore, after admitting that true stories are not my favorite stories on screen, it is also time to admit that the ability of the actor is more than enough to make this movie enjoyable. Bryan Cranston's performance is not as good as last year's Trumbo (another true story for which I believe he deserved the Academy Award) but doesn't go too far from that.

However, the ability of the actors is not enough to compensate the transition-problem mentioned before. Although we are not at the low levels of War Dogs (to cite the most recent example AND continue in my self-promotion crusade), where nothing was explained, we are also far away from the high levels of Sully (to cite the most recent example AND continue in my self-promotion crusade), where the transitions in the attitudes of the characters are always well displayed. My guess is that, by trying to communicate the uncertainty and the insecurity of that investigation, the producers ruined from time to time an otherwise perfect flow in the movie. A few transitions are not smooth and they simply do not work on screen.

On the other side, The Infiltrator is a movie that keeps the tension level high every time it is needed. There are many sequences that make you wonder or fear for the protagonists. This is a big win for this kind of movies and worths the price of the ticket by itself. You naturally perceive the danger surrounding the investigation, how incredibly easy is to screw everything up and how close to screwing everything up they actually went.

In conclusion, coming from someone that is not a fan of true stories, not a fan of movies too centered around the ability of an actor, and pretty tired of seeing Pablo Escobar on a screen, this is a very recommended movie, it will completely absorb you into the narration, it has a few good comedy moment and it si definitely a good way of spending your time.

Sully: doing everything right and saying the wrong thing

Clint Eastwood comes back to our screens two years after American Sniper to tell us another American story. This time is the true story of the US Airways flight 1549, which, on February 15, 2009, was forced to land in the Hudson River after hitting several birds in the act of taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport. 

The movie is centered on the figure of the captain, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero that saved everyone on that plane by taking the decision and then executing a bold water landing. In the movie, we go through the investigation of the accident and the struggles that captain Sully faced during that period. The hero is then haunted by doubts about himself and by the perspective of losing his pension after 40 years of service. 

Telling a true story on screen is always tricky, but Sully delivers with power every emotion, overcoming the fact that the viewer already knows the outcome of the story. I've enjoyed the movie, I felt a wide spectrum of emotions and it feels authentic. The actors are amazing and very well directed, the dialogues are powerful, and Aaron Eckhart should be forced to keep that glorious mustache till the end of time. Moreover, the narration of the events is very well designed, not giving us the scenes of big visual impact right away (like in the movie Flight), but rather delivered, one bit at a time, in different moments of the movie. 

The only flaw of the movie itself is a piece of dialogue that gave my nerves. It appears to me that the old Clint wants to remind the viewers that something else about planes crashing on New York happened in the recent past. Therefore, starting from the very first scene, we find images of how worse that accident could have been. At first, I tolerated the choice, since it is fitting with a PSTD of the pilot. Moreover, it could be the way of the director to say "everyone will think about 9/11 anyway, let's just ride the elephant in the room" (although I'm not sure about the first part and now we will never know). I ran out of tolerance when the issue was explicitly addressed with a phrase like "It has been a while since New York had good news, especially involving planes" (not a literal transposition). I found it inappropriate and it doesn't fit well in the movie.

Besides that, it is a very well executed movie, I fully recommend it because it is a good way to spend a couple of hours.

At last, I would like to address a message that the movie made me feel and to which I disagree with. The method used to represent the investigation, as well as the people whose duty (and let me stress duty) is to establish what went wrong and who is responsible, made me take a stand against the investigation itself. This is just wrong. In such accidents, the investigation is mandatory because you have also to decide if giving or not to the pilot (or the plane) the responsibilities for other human lives. It is true that the struggle and the self-analysis of the main character are saying that he trust the necessity of such investigation. However, from the choice of the actors (that always interpret annoying characters) to the dialogues, the feeling is that the investigators are the bad guys. I think this is simply the wrong message and I don't think that an expert director like Clint Eastwood did that by accident.