War on everyone (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: John Michael McDonagh
	Actors: Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Peña, Theo James
	Country: GB
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 24.10.2016, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English with German subtitles
Synopsis: Terry Monroe (Skarsgård) and Bob Bolaño (Peña) are two corrupt cops in New Mexico set out to blackmail and frame every criminal unfortunate enough to cross their path. Things take a sinister turn, however, when they try to intimidate someone (James) who is more powerful than the usual small gangsters.
Review: The talent of the director McDonagh is in the spirit of the movie including a lot of off-the-wall humour, by inverting the roles of cops and gangsters. This way it shows a kind of decadence of gangsters, a kind of latent corruption and misbehaviour of the cops. The story itself is actually quite boring.  The acting is rough and Skarsgård plays as in Tarzan, extremely bad, always walking like a gorilla for no reason for his role.  I hope that McDonagh will stops this evolution and get back to his really good creativity and humour he had shown for Calvary and The guard. For these movies, the actors were excellent and this might be a part of the difference.
Rating: 2 /10

Kubo and the two strings (2016)

	Also Known As: Kubo et l'armure magique, Kubo der tapfere Samurai
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Travis Knight
	Actors: -
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 17.10.2016, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version without subtitle
Synopsis: Kubo lives a quiet life in a small shoreside village with his mother. He plays music in the village and goes back to his mother before sunset. Until two sisters kill his mother and turn his life upside down by re-igniting an age-old vendetta that he does not understand. This causes all sorts of havoc as gods and monsters chase Kubo who, in order to survive, must locate a magical suit of armor once worn by his late father, a legendary Samurai warrior.
Review: The basis of the story, the two strings of the shamisen (three strings Japanese instrument) is what gives all the charm of the movie. Actually it reminds me a Korean band that I discovered this year, Jambinai, playing a similar instrument. The rest is the typical quest like many Hollywood screenplays, have a couple of enemies that are defeated using new weapons or new features. One thing is not Japanese at all. When Kubo is told by the monkey not to make noise by eating his ramen! It is actually a must to make noise.  Otherwise, the story is effective. The humour is classical for Hollywood animation movie and still fine to have. The main originality and beauty of the movie comes from Kubo playing shamisen. And from the origami stories told by Kubo and his mother. This brings a magical atmosphere to these scenes. I would have liked even more of these!
Rating: 7 /10 The three main characters of Kubo, not really in their best matching scene but good enough

ArteKinoFestival 2016

I found information about this Festival by casualty as I was looking for movies in the good ARTE +7 of arte.tv. ARTE proposed 50000 free tickets for 10 movies. All the movies are European productions not focused on France and Germany as the TV channel ARTE is. All the movies are available in streaming from an Amazon server. 

For 10 days (September 30 - October 9), these films were available in four European languages (French, German, English and Spanish) plus the original on the website artekinofestival.com.
The idea being amazing, I had to participate and I did. 
The movies proposed by ArteKinoFestival were:

Bella e perduta (Lost and beautiful) by Pietro Marcello (Italian production, 2015)
Safari by Ulrich Seidl (Austrian/Danish production, 2016)
I tempi felici verranno presto (Happy times will come soon) by Alessandro Comodin (Italian/French production, 2016)
Wild by Nicolette Krebitz (German production, 2016)
La mort de Louis XIV (The death of Louis XIV) by Albert Serra (French/Portuguese/Spanish production, 2016)
John From by João Nicolau (Portuguese/French production, 2015)
Dobra zena (A good wife) by Mirjana Karanović (Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian production, 2016)
La jeune fille sans mains (The girl without hands) by Sébastien Laudenbach (French production, 2016)
Suntan by Argyris Papadimitropoulos (Greek production, 2016)
Fatima by Philippe Faucon (French/Canadian production, 2015)
 

John From (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: João Nicolau
	Actors: Julia Palha, Clara Riedl, Filipe Vargas
	Country: P
	Genre: Drama, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 03.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, Portuguese with French subtitles
Synopsis: Rita (Pahla) is 15 years old and is bored by the summer in the city. She floods the balcony floor and splashes about while soaking up the mighty sun. She has an ever-present best friend (Riedl). When Rita visits the exhibition put on by a new neighbour (Vargas) she falls not only in another world.
Review: I did not expect much from this movie apart from the sweet naivety and torpor of many Portuguese movies. And what a surprise when I saw Nicolau daring magic realism as a movie. While the first part sets us in the realism of a Portuguese city during the Summer school break, actually everything is getting settled and prepared for the magic realism part. I loved this aspect. The reality is quite boring as it is supposed to be for the characters. Only problem is that I got bored a bit as well. By luck I did not miss the heart of the movie. Even if it starts sweet, the love à la Lolita of a young girl for an adult is kind of controversial in a traditional society like the Portuguese one. This was also good to see.  The use of the John From religion from the Vanuatu is also quite interesting as the same process of idealisation of one person appears when Rita falls in love for the neighbour. The acting reflects the typical torpor. The acting of Julia Palha is not naive but quite proud and complex. This makes her character very interesting. The secondary characters are more decoration of her story, but it is fine this way, as it forces to focus on her thoughts and her psychology.  The narrative process builds a realistic world of one character in a very clear way, maybe a bit too long for me, but explodes in a very creative and well controled fantasy part.
Rating: 7 /10

Frantz (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: François Ozon
	Actors: Paula Beer, Pierre Niney, Marie Gruber, Ernst Stötzner, Johann von Bülow
	Country: F, D
	Genre: Drama; Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 19.10.2016, Schauburg, French/German version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Anna (Beer) goes every day to the cemetery of a small German town. Her fiancé Frantz died during the WWI (1914-1918) in France. One day Adrien Rivoire (Niney) is also praying on the tomb of Frantz. Anna and her future parents-in-law (Gruber and Stötzner) see the arrival of this old friend of Frantz from the time when Frantz was studying in Paris as a good sign. From the German town community his presence will awake passion for and against him.
Review: I wanted to see this movie as I expected the friendly encounter inside two enemy countries. The WWI ended by a Treaty of Versailles (Diktat von Versailles in German) leading to Germany hating France, German-Austrians destroyed Empire, re-birth of Poland. And thus the basis of the WWII.  The story is excellently written. Thanks to Adrien character every step goes very deep in the psychology of Anna and Adrien and of the post-war psychology. Thanks to Anna, the story goes forward with a power of resilience that you can feel on the eyes of Paula Beer. The people rather pacifists who want to re-build, the people who want a revenge. Any case of redemption and love that is presented can need lies to survive against hate and envy.  Everyone who has survived a war should watch this movie to feel the need of redemption from person to person even if hate still exists from country to country. When Anna and Adrien force themselves to go on are scenes radiating so much emotion to me and positive energy. It moved me a lot because many ideas, many sentences and thoughts expressed in the movie are known to me in other contexts.  The roles of Paula Beer and Pierre Niney have many aspects and many forces and many emotions to show so that their acting can blossom and it does amazingly. The emotions are tempered, contained or explosive; and always matching perfectly the scene with authenticity of common people and force of the History.  The black and white image is very clean and swaps smoothly to colour only when any of both main characters believes in its future. The focus of the camera and the image composition follow perfectly all the gestures of the two main characters and their feelings. This is a great camera and light job.
Rating: 9 /10

Fatima (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Philippe Faucon
	Actors: Soria Zeroual, Kenza Noah Aïche, Zita Hanrot
	Country: F, CDN
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 03.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, French and Arabic with French subtitles
Synopsis: Fatima (Zeroual) lives alone with her two daughters: Souad (Aïche), 15, a rebellious teenager, and Nesrine (Hanrot), 18, who is starting medical school. Fatima doesn't speak French well, a great frustration to her in her daily relations with her daughters. At the same time, her girls are her motivation and her pride as well as a source of worry to her. In order to give them the best possible future, Fatima works irregular hours as a house cleaner. One day, she falls down the stairs. While she is off work, Fatima starts writing to her daughters in Arabic, telling them everything she hasn't been able to express by talking.
Review: Finally one movie reflecting the reality of many migrants, who left their country and families to give better perspectives to their children. And working like slaves to give everything to their children. For having living in some French suburbs with many migrants, I recognised a lot of that reality. Therefore I felt this movie very authentic and very moving. A bit like the other side of Biutiful. Not the European helping the migrants but the migrant itself. Not the migrant from healthy family but the one who decides to just work with its bare hands because the better jobs are not reachable.  The second generation is confronted to both racism and kindness of people in France in their daily life. Exactly like in real life.  Also the acting gave a lot of authenticity to the apparently boring banlieue landscapes. The mother as well as the two daughers giving life to the streets there and to the bus. This was good from the acting and from the directing.
Rating: 7 /10 In this poster, you can see the complete family, the father living separated from them

La mort de Louis XIV (2016)

	Also Known As: The death of Louis XIV
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Albert Serra
	Actors: Jean-Pierre Léaud
	Country: F, P, E
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 04.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, French version
Synopsis: Death and suffering don’t spare the mighty, not even absolute monarchs: In August 1715, King Louis XIV., the Sun King, suddenly feels a pain in his leg. He spends the next days in his chambers, running the government as best he can as death gradually draws closer. – An opulent costume film as chamber play, a dance of death for a bedridden autocrat, brilliantly depicted by Jean-Pierre Léaud.
Review: The originality of the movie is the detailed agony of Louis XIV. As the guy is almost dead and old and can barely move alone and does not talk much. It is exactly what you see. And therefore it is quite slow, very suspenseless and extremely boring. I don't know whether I learned much from the life of the Roi-Soleil as nothing happens. So I do not know what this movie is good for. If one of you knows and tells me what I missed there, feel free to comment.
Rating: 1 /10

Dobra zena (2016)

	Also Known As: A good wife
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Mirjana Karanovic
	Actors: Mirjana Karanovic, Boris Isakovic
	Country: BIH, HR, SRB
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 02.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, Serbian with French subtitles
Synopsis: Milena (Karanovic) is a mother living a comfortable life in a rather rich neighbourhood of Belgrad. She takes care about her image, cooks for her husband Vlada (Isakovic), receives people properly, sings in a choir. Most of their friends are old war companions of Vlada. When Milena finds a video of her husband committing war crimes, she starts thinking more about all the small details and indices she sees around her.
Review: This co-production by all countries involved in the Balkan war of the 1990s is for me a good symbol. Where the good wife sees the horrors committed not only by her country and for which she does not care any more because the country has to go forward, but also committed by her husband. And to forgive one person is not the same as to forgive one country. The question of justice lived by the counsciousness of common people is for me the main originality of the movie. We go indeed deep in her feelings and her dilemma by seeing the permanent slight force asking to see her environment differently and to question it.  The acting of Karanovic is excellent in subtelty to show this internal questionning behing her naive face.
Rating: 7 /10

Africa (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Katrina Bartlam, Ben Aviss, Nick Easton, Felicity Egerton, Javotte Flatman, Felicity Lanchester
	Narrator: David Attenborough
	Country: GB
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: October 2016, VOD, 10" tablet
Synopsis: A BBC mini-series that focuses on wildlife and their habitats on the African continent.
Review: I haven't watched many Nature Documentaries since the revolutionary BBC Planet Earth (2006), which was one of my motivations to invest in a full-HD Home Cinema system back in 2009. I have started to watch one called Life (2009) and have now completed this Africa mini-series, which five episodes are entitled Kalahari, Savannah, Congo, Cape and Sahara to cover the different environments of the continent. What is interesting in such recent series is how the technique has evolved: they managed to put cameras at incredible locations for taking never-seen-before shots like a travelling inside an ant's nest. The cameras are often in motion, in extreme close-ups and use is also made of extreme slow-motion, like already was in Planet Earth. It is also interesting to see how the series tries to show familiar scenes under a new angle, for example we see for only 20 seconds the usual millions of Wildebeests crossing the crocodile-infested river (scenes I have seen on TV as a child already) to then rather focus on a species of lizards that jump from lion to lion to catch flies. The episode Cape shows for one of the first times the landscapes and wildlife of Mozambique which has been inaccessible for decades because of civil war. One thing that disturbs me however are the sound effects that are synchronized with slow-motion shots (or even normal speed ones). I am often too conscious that none of them were recorded on the spot and that they were added later on in studio. Anyway, such quality Documentaries always amaze me. It is only a pity a couldn't watch this one in HD on a decent size screen.
Rating: 7 /10

The Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre Festival 2016 - Preview

The Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre "Festival internacional de cine de terror, fantástico y bizarro" (its full name) will have its 17th edition from October 27th to November 6th 2016 at the Multiplex Lavalle in the beautiful Argentinian capital. JoRafCinema will be proud to follow it for a couple of days, our first festival outside of Europe, and here is a short preview about the festival. As usual all the movies we see there will be reviewed on this blog and we will post a summary article at the end of the Festival.

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: -
	Actors: David Attenborough
	Country: GB
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 13.09.2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The story of the evolution of life on Earth.
Review: This documentary aims at telling the story of life on Earth, and at the same time explaining the concept of Evolution to finally conclude on the meaning of the term Tree of Life. It does it via a patchwork of extracts of other old or recent documentaries featuring David Attenborough throughout his long career of travelling around the world to document what happens in Nature, the whole thing being wrapped in a narrative by ... the unmissable David Attenborough. Nothing revolutionary but a successful attempt at vulgarizing a complex scientific topic using illustrations found in today's Nature.
Rating: 5 /10

Game of Thrones - Season 6 (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Creators: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, George R. R. Martin
	Actors: Peter Dinklage (X-men: Days of a Future Past), Lena Headey (300, Dredd), Emilia Clarke (Terminator: Genesis), Kit Harington (Pompeii)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: August 2016, VOD & in-flight entertainment, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The battles of Jon, Arya, Sansa, Cercei, Tyrion, Daenerys and others converge in a World were making strong alliances is a key to the ultimate power.
Review: What I liked in this season from its beginning is that we finally see convergence: characters separated since the first season finally meeting, others that had disappeared coming back to tie loose ends, and story-lines that were left in suspend rejoining the main one, promising an end to this saga in two more seasons. Even characters I didn't really like (Sansa, Arya) become more sympathetic to me as their paths now have clearer goals and they know what they want to do with their destiny. Some characters have been gone for so many seasons that I had to look up on Internet to remember where we had left them. On the other hand, story arcs started in season 5 come to a delicious ending in the Episode 10: The Winds of Winter which is much more satisfying than the one of the previous season, and in fact maybe the best of all seasons which influenced my choice of giving that season the highest rating of all. Most episodes deliver answers to six years old questions so it is hard to single one out in particular, although I can mention Episode 9: Battle of the Bastards for its brutal battle scene, much more than any one in The Lord of the Rings trilogy for example. There has definitely been some progress since the first season in which the display of the battle scene was avoided with clever editing and story-telling. In this season we get to see massive action or landscapes in almost all episodes. I had watched the fifth season a second time to have it fresh in memory right before this sixth one, and I will take a great pleasure in watching this one a second time before starting the seventh in ... gulp... maybe a year from now only.
Rating: 8 /10

Supernova (2000)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2000
	Director: Walter Hill (as Thomas Lee) (The Warriors, Red Heat)
	Actors:  James Spader (Stargate, Crash, Avengers: Age of Ultron), Angela Basset (Green Lantern, Olympus & London has Fallen), Robert Forster (Jackie Brown, Dragon Wars, Olympus & London has Fallen), Lou Diamond Phillips (Bats, The 33), Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 14.10.2016, VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: A medical ship on patrol receives a distress call. They respond to it and when arriving on site discover an abandoned wandering moon near a blue giant star.
Review: I never dared watching this movie because of very bad reviews at the time it went out, but today I was in a SF mood after watching the excellent and original Lifeforce. The biggest problem with the production of Supernova was that it was started to be shot by Walter Hill (80's director of The Warriors and Red Heat and recently of Bullet to the Head with Stallone), but after many conflicts with the studio he left the boat and in the end Francis Ford Coppola (nothing less than Dracula, Apocalypse Now or The Godfather) helped finish the thing. Meanwhile there had been many reshoots and changes in the story, the ending, the actors, the general tone and the rating. So there were a lot of expectations around this movie and people could only be disappointed by the result. Watching it like I did 15 years after the fact gives me a different view. For me it is an OK Science Fiction B-movie, and the only thing I find most disturbing is the editing of the death of most characters. It looks very much like those deaths were filmed, but after the movie rating was changed to be seen by a younger audience, the most bloody scenes were cut without any material to fill in the gaps. Otherwise I liked this pure SF story and the characters in it, played by a solid bunch of actors like James Spader (Stargate, Crash, Avengers: Age of Ultron), Angela Basset or Lou Diamond Philips (The 33). It is definitely not a Masterpiece of the genre, but as I always say Space Operas are too rare to be ignored (well in that case it is more of a SF thriller in space).
Rating: 5 /10

Black Book (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: Paul Verhoeven
	Actors: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Derek de Lint
	Country: NL, D, GB, B
	Genre: War, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 16.10.2016, arte.tv, streaming
Synopsis: Rachel (van Houten) remembers her experiences in The Netherlands during WW2. In September 1944, Rachel is in trouble when her and her family's hiding place is bombed by allied troops. They get in contact with a man from the resistance and join a group of Jews who are to be smuggled across the Belgium by boat to the freed South Netherlands. Germans from a patrol boat murder them all however. Only Rachel is able to escape. She is rescued by a resistance group under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers (de Lint). When Kuipers' son is captured after trying to smuggle weapons, he asks Rachel to seduce SS-Hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze (Koch).
Review: As in other movies by Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers), one woman is on focus in a male environment and shows self-confidence in front of adversity. As in these movies, the woman in focus is beautiful (here Carice van Houten after respectively Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Berkley, Denise Richards) and uses her charms. The originality is in the view of the resistance, of the betrayers within the resistance and of the betrayers within the Nazi regime. This shows that the situation was complex and that there was not only Nazis and resistance. You had also people following the one or the other, changing the side for many reason, etc. With very simple and understandable steps, this complexity is transmitted by Paul Verhoeven.  The acting is excellent. Not only the fresh Rachel but also the complex Kuipers. Secondary roles are numerous, the resistance team, the Nazi garnison, and we meet many of them with pertinent dialogues so that we know their goals and situations very fast. This is an excellent work of dialogues, script and directing.
Rating: 8 /10

Suntan (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Argyris Papadimitropoulos
	Actors: Makis Papadimitriou, Elli Tringou, Syllas Tzoumerkas
	Country: GR
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 03.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, Greek version with French subtitles
Synopsis: For middle-aged Kostis (Papadimitriou), life has passed him by. As the newly appointed doctor of a tiny island, Kostis spends a dreary winter alone. By the time summer arrives, though, the island has turned into a thriving, wild vacation spot with nude beaches and crazy parties. When Kostis meets the beautiful and flirty Anna (Tringou), he falls hard for her and goes out of his way to conquer and impress her. Before long, Kostis is spending nearly all of his time getting drunk and partying. What starts as a rediscovery with his lost-long youth, though, slowly turns into an obsession as Kostis is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his Anna.
Review: The mid-life crisis taken very seriously by a Greek doctor. Confronted to sexually very opened young people, he believes finding love. The role is not convincing and many parts of the story are repetitive, especially the acting of the young group. But the acting of the doctor is convincing and therefore it deserves more than 2/10.  Otherwise, one beach, young people naked. Ok, nothing new. Possibly we get clear the boring life of people in these beach island that live only from tourism. This may be the originality of the movie.
Rating: 3 /10

Everyone says I love you (1996)

	Also Known As: Alle sagen: I love you
	Year of first release: 1996
	Director: Woody Allen
	Actors: Drew Barrymore, Edward Norton, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts, Tim Roth, Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Natasha Lyonne
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 05.09.2016, DVD on TV, German version
Synopsis: Holden (Norton) and Skylar (Barrymore) are in love with each other. Skylar lives with a large and extended family on Manhattan. Her parents, Bob (Alda) and Steffi (Hawn) have been married to each other for many years. Joe (Allen), a friend of theirs, who has a daughter, DJ (Lyonne), with Steffi. After yet another relationship, Joe is alone again. He flees to Venice, and meets Von (Roberts), and makes her believe that he is the man of her dreams. However, their happiness is fake all the way, and she returns to her previous husband. Steffi spends her time with charity work, and manages to break up Skylars and Holdens relation when she introduces Skylar to a released jailbird, Charles Ferry (Roth).
Review: The story starts with a lot of dialogues and may seem hectic but it does not stop. Woody Allen builds a story with some music-hall and dancing elements and a very dense series of dialogues. Some of them are really funny but it must be seen in a language that you understand perfectly to enjoy it. The story itself is quite vaudeville à la Georges Feydeau.  The fun is the pace of the dialogues and the dialogues themselves. The acting of Woody Allen and Goldie Hawn is very funny. It is also funny to see Ed Norton dancing in a movie.  The movie is entertaining.
Rating: 5/10

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Anthony & Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)
	Actors: Chris Evans (Fantastic Four 1-2), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 1-3), Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 12.10.2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: When Captain America's old friend Bucky re-surfaces in the middle of the signature of a law placing the Avengers under UN authority, it creates an unsolvable conflict between the super-heroes.
Review: It took me a while to get up-to-date with the Marvel Cinematic Universe by finally watching this Civil War that takes place before the last three episodes of the third season of the TV-series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that I watched already. It is different from the two previous movies in the series because it doesn't revolve exclusively around the super-soldier, but includes many other heroes from the same Universe, usually only seen in cross-overs like Avengers: Age of Ultron. And it is a special movie in that Universe because it goes beyond that and introduces even more characters like (spoilers, highlight to read) Spider-Man, played by yet another actor with yet another story including a young Aunt May that I don't appreciate, and oh surprise the laconic Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, plus some others that I won't reveal. Plenty of known actors are also visible throughout the movie even if sometimes with a minor role: the German Daniel Brühl, Martin Freeman from The Hobbit or William Hurt. Just looking at those guys and digesting their place in the Universe will keep you entertained for a while. We also see a lot of Tony Stark (Iron-Man) usually limited to his own movies but currently without any new one in the pipeline. A bit like the TV-series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., this movie is thus acting like a glue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, linking bits and pieces together. So at this point we really cannot talk anymore about the cinematographic quality of this movie alone (although each one in the Universe has its specifics), but about its place in the Universe. And I found it had a pretty good place. OK the story that the "enhanced humans" have to register to the government which leads to a civil war has been copied in the Comics world for decades, and now in the world of the cinema adaptations as well: see Watchmen, Batman v Superman or any of the X-men movies. But apart from this detail, I found the story interesting (not so much the motivation of the villain) and was mouth-open for the half hour of battle at the center of the movie. Again, not a masterpiece of Cinema, but one has to appreciate what Marvel is currently building.
Rating: 6 /10

Sideways (2004)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2004
	Director: Alexander Payne (About Schmidt)
	Actors: Paul Giamatti (Lady in the Water, John Dies at the End), Thomas Haden Church (Spiderman 3), Virginia Madsen (Candyman)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 02.10.2016, inflight entertainment, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Two friends (Giamatti, Haden Church), travel through California's wine country for a long week-end before one of them is getting married.
Review: Sideways belongs to a register I am not used to watch (real-life Drama), but I was curious, and it stars the actor I like Paul Giamatti (Saving Private Ryan, American Splendor, Lady in the Water, Cosmopolis, John Dies at the End) and Thomas Haden Church that I knew only from Spiderman 3. It can also be seen as a road-trip, a buddy movie or a romance. And a movie revolving about food or wine has to be seen! Its most interesting characteristic is realism. It was very interesting to watch the two friends with different life stories dealing in their own way with them. In fact those lives are driven by their relationship with women: one divorced and badly living it, the other about to be married but questioning this choice. Their stories are realistic, their behavior and the choices they make also, and their looks as well: no effort is made to make the actors look too good. Sideways really felt authentic, with a modern life story to share.
Rating: 7 /10