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Emilia Perez (2024) dir Jaques Audiard A multi award-nominated musical about a Mexican drug baron who always felt they were a woman born in a man's body. She fakes her own death and has gender reassignment, plus a lot of other plastic surgery, to start a new, better, life in a new identify. She is assisted in all this by her lawyer, Rita and tries to re-establish some sort of relationship with her wife Jessi and kids. Emilia is played by Karla Sofia Gascon (a trans woman) and has been nominated for best leading actress in the Oscars and Baftas. But I would say it is Zoe Saldana, as Rita, who is the main character. Both she and Selana Gomez, as Jessi, have picked up (supporting actress) nominations, as has the director, makeup artists, composers, producers, writers and others in technical roles. It could win all of those. I don't think it will, but I haven't seen that many films released last year yet. It seems to be one that you either love or hate. I suspect a lot of the hate is coming from people who are anti-trans and can't see past that aspect of the film. I liked it, the music and cinematography in particular. The acting was good, but I'm not sure if it was award-winningly good. I also think the script could have been better. It's just over 2 hours long but because it has so many musical scenes that, as is usually case in musicals, don't advance the plot the way spoken dialogue would, it felt to me like it ought to have been longer to fill in some missing details. The musical numbers were good though, sort of similar to a Baz Lurhman film, in that the actors singing them do not necessarily have a great singing voice but also with some scenes that just burst into a massive dancing and singing show that then goes back to dialogue afterwards. And a lot of it is not musical at all. There were a couple of cheesy scenes; one in-particular in a Thai gender reassignment clinic that Rita is checking out before finding the right one, did not make much sense to me. Maybe they were trying to say “this is the popular image of a s*x-change clinic, but in reality it's something far more serious”? Another slightly weak plot element is that Jessi does not recognise her former husband after the surgery. Of course that surgery has made some massive physical changes, that was the point, but even so, would you not pick up on some characteristics of a person you have been married to for years and had kids with? I can forgive that though, put it down to artistic license, in the same way I forgive William Shakespeare frequently making his characters unrecognisable to their friends and family just by doing their hair different and wearing a hat! 8 / 10

Take your Sandking down the river, over rocks, water and sand. If you dont already own a classic like this, now is the time to get one. A lap is about 3 min 30 sec. https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/8gFvD-1UXEOD_I-DxxcBEA

What I Watched This Week #162 (Feb 3-9) The Servant dir. Joseph Losey/1963/1h56m James Fox plays rich Tony who is looking to hire a manservant. Enter Hugo Barrett (Dirk Bogarde), who seems perfect for the job. Things get even better when Hugo insists his sister Vera (Sarah Miles) be hired as maid. But things soon get dark as Hugo becomes more and more malevolent towards Tony until finally the servant becomes the master. This is a brilliant slow-burn of a thriller with an incredible central performance from Bogarde as the insidious Hugo, slowly breaking down Tony with scary precision. He is one of the most slimy, scheming pieces of sh*t I've seen on film. There's a strong theme of the class divide being flipped here, with the working class Hugo dominating the upper class Tony. There's also a strong homosexual subtext to their antagonistic relationship, with Hugo using his sexuality like a weapon at times. The direction really adds to the atmosphere, especially in the use of a round mirror which is prominently featured in several shots, distorting and twisting reality. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Ratatouille dir. Brad Bird/2007/1h51m This Paris set film is the second Pixar movie from Brad Bird, after The Incredibles, and stars Patton Oswalt as Remy. Equipped with an almost supernaturally sophisticated palate he dreams of becoming a chef, spurred on by the words of the world famous Gusteau - “anyone can cook”. This is especially meaningful for Remy as he also happens to be a rat. Teaming up with the incompetent Linguini (Lou Romano) the duo become a lean, mean, cooking machine, which they'll need to be in order to impress misanthropic restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole). A big step up from Cars when it comes to story and character, this does however feel overlong, with several plotlines vying for space. I like the central pairing of Remy and Linguini, and the way Remy controls him – sat on his head and pulling his hair like a crane operator – is always funny, and led to one of the best payoffs for a joke in a totally different film from over a decade later, Everything Everywhere all at Once. It should go without saying that the animation is exceptional, and Pixar still has that magic when it comes to sincere emotional moments. Here it's when Ego tastes the titular dish and is transported back to his childhood. 7/10 The Stranger dir. Orson Welles/1946/1h35m The legendary Orson Welles directs and stars in this post war noir thriller about a war crimes investigator, Agent Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), hunting down a n*zi hiding out as a professor in a small American town, Franz Kindler/Charles Rankin (Welles). Only Welles's third film, this is quite different from his first two in that it's fairly straightforward narratively and structurally with none of the formal experimentation of Citizen Kane or The Magnificent Ambersons. But that's not to say that this isn't a masterfully crafted film. The use of shadows really adds to the tension and there are some long takes lasting several minutes that are so well staged you hardly notice that there's not been a cut. Robinson is a good lead as the persistent investigator feeling his way around town, but it's always Welles who steals the show, his commanding presence filling up the frame. Not the masterpiece like Citizen Kane or his later films like Chimes at Midnight and F for Fake, this is still an enjoyable thriller that had me on the edge of my seat at the end. 8.5/10 The Face on the Barroom Floor dir. Charlie Chaplin/1914/12m This very early Chaplin short is quite unique in his filmography in that it's an adaptation of a poem, with the lines of the poem used as the intertitles. He plays a heartbroken artist who has just been dumped by his girlfriend Madeleine (Cecile Arnold), and is now drinking himself to oblivion in the local bar, drawing her portrait on the floor with some chalk. This may be the first time in his career where he focuses more on the melodrama than the gags, though there are some of those here too, mostly involving drunken pratfalls and arguments with the other patrons of the bar. Well made compared to other films of the era, and Chaplin's charm always shines through, this still feels underdeveloped with some polish needed on both the dramatic and comedic elements. I do appreciate the originality though. 5.5/10 Perfect Blue dir. Satoshi Kon/1997/1h22m The debut film from Satoshi Kon – who went on to make the absolutely bonkers Paprika, a major influence on Christopher Nolan's Inception – Perfect Blue is an anime noir thriller about a young popstar, Mima (Junko Iwao), who leaves her famous girl group in order to forge an acting career. But soon she suspects she may have a stalker and the people who have been helping with her new career start turning up dead. This gives off big David Lynch vibes, from the dread-filled atmosphere, the unconventional narrative that at times refuses to give answers or explain things clearly, but especially in the theme of split identities. Mima struggles with the disconnect between her real self and the idealised version that her fans obsess over. The animation is excellent here, with some really effective sequences as Mima spirals further into paranoia. An excellent thriller that feels quite unconventional for an anime film. 9/10 Golden Eighties dir. Chantal Akerman/1986/1h36m The director of Sight and Sound magazines greatest film of all time, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, brings something I wouldn't expect from her, a poppy, pastel-coloured musical centred around a hair salon in that epicentre of 80's social life, the mall. The plot concerns a love triangle between Lili (Fanny Cottencon), the flighty salon manager who's having an affair with the owner, an older married man, Mado (Lio), who works in the salon, and Robert (Nicolas Tronc), the son of the owners of a clothing store across the mall from the salon. Vibrant and full of life and energy, this reminded me of the Jacques Demy musicals of the 60's like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The use of colour and the costuming is amazing, and I love the artificiality of the setting, really matching the vibe and the time period. The music is excellent, though I wouldn't call them songs, it's more like sung dialogue, again like the Demy musicals. The performances are all good, but the standout is Delphine Seyrig who plays Robert's mother and gets a substantial subplot of her own. If you don't like musicals then you won't like this, but I do, and I think that this is a lot of fun. 9/10 The Dark Tower dir. Nikolaj Arcel/2017/1h35m Stephen King's Dark Tower is an epic seven book fantasy saga set in a bizarre world that's a mash up of western, sci-fi, horror and everything in between and tells the story of the last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his quest to find The Dark Tower, a structure that stands at the centre of all worlds, in order to protect it from the embodiment of pure evil, The Man in Black. I've read it and I love it, and this film, which attempts to adapt all of that in a single 90 minute film, is a f*cking abomination. Imagine Lord of the Rings, but it's an hour long and they cut out all of the characters except Frodo, Gandalf and Sauron, got rid of ninety percent of the story and locations, and don't tell it from the perspective of the main character. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey would make a good Roland and Man in Black in a totally different film with different writers and most definitely a different director. I am hopeful for the Dark Tower TV show though, because it's being helmed by Mike Flanagan, who made the much better than it should be sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. One thing this film did do well is that it made me want to re-read the books, so I'm off to find my copy of the first volume, The Gunslinger. 1/10