Triple Frontier (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year)
	Actors: Ben Affleck (Batman V Superman, The Town, Paycheck), Oscar Isaac (Star Wars 7-9), Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim), Pedro Pascal (Narcos TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 23.08.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Loyalties are tested when five friends and former special forces operatives reunite to take down a South American drug lord, unleashing a chain of unintended consequences.
Review: Netflix has put a nice cast together for this movie. Something like The Expendables but with current trendy and beloved actors instead of 80's Action former legends. You can really appreciate the talent of those five guys and in fact nobody else appears for a noticeable amount of time. Their talent saved a movie with an otherwise weak screenplay. Their acting makes you forget about the gaps in the story and weird timing. Except for the scene where those men we have been presented and shown as ultra-professionals neglect basic rules. They are also shown to keep their cool in the whole rest of the movie. At the same time, the unusual story is quite welcome in the modern predictable cinematographic landscape. You brace yourself for the Drama bound to happen in the second act, but it doesn't go the way you would think. That is the kind of risk Netflix takes and it sometimes pays of (not like with Bright). Another great thing about this movie are the landscapes, on both sides and over the South American Andes. They are naturally beautiful and are adequately shot. The journey of those friends through Nature reminds me of Deliverance (also for the way death is depicted), while the mountain crossing could be a nod to Fitzcarraldo (although I have not seen it yet). So I liked it in spite of the weird pace.
Rating: 6 /10

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, The Hateful Eight)
	Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, Inception), Brad Pitt (Snatch, World War Z), Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild, Speed Racer)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 17.08.2019, City Kino Munich
Synopsis: The adventures of fading TV Western actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Pitt) in 1969. Dalton finds out his neighbors are the talented director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife Sharon Tate (Robbie).
Review: It is surprising that Tarantino has waited so long to direct a movie about TV and Cinema, its History and Actors. Cinema is often mentioned in his movies and in Deathproof Kurt Russell plays a stuntman already. This is as much as I could tell from the trailer introducing the two main characters on set. I didn't expect at all a revisitation of history like it ends up being, reminding of what the director already did in Inglorious Basterds. It is somehow difficult to get into the movie if you haven't read anything about it and don't know where it is going. It is even harder if you are not so familiar with the cinematographic landscape of that time period (will you recognize Steve McQueen?). And you will miss a big part of the movie's meaning if you don't know that Sharon Tate was murdered and this is what the movie will end up being about. If you are lost, an explanation of the ending is provided by the YouTube channel NewRockstars. The actor and his double are in the end just distractions to that main story, but the way the movie is built doesn't make it very clear. Pitt plays as usual while DiCaprio overplays even more than usual, but in fact in line with his character. As in all Tarantinos, the movie takes its sweet time (2h40) but I usually enjoy such lengths (even when as slows as The Hateful Eight) because they are the opportunity for crispy dialogs about anything, character introduction or background, or just nice shots. In this movie I didn't have that much fun and was pretty bored most of the time, waiting for a purpose that never came, sometimes apparently on purpose to take the audience by surprise. I liked several moments in the movie, especially the extreme ending, but that was not enough to make me forget the boredom. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is for me at the bottom of the Tarantino movie list, next to Reservoir Dogs. From the beginning of his career Tarantino has said that we would direct only 10 movies, explaining why they are sometimes numbered in their titles. According to my calculations this was the 9th. Will the next in fact be his last one? Was the poorer quality of this one a sign it is time for him to stop? Will his last movie be a Star Trek like announcements suggest? Science Fiction may indeed be the only genre he hasn't touched yet.
Rating: 4 /10

Big, Bigger, Biggest - Seasons 1-3 (2008, 2009, 2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008, 2009, 2011
	Director: -
	Actors: John Michie (narrator)
	Country: GB, USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: January - July 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: A series exploring the engineering breakthroughs that have enabled us to develop the largest structures currently in existence.
Review: I liked watching this series, maybe due to my Engineering background but I guess it can be appreciated by anybody as it is rather simplified. The 20 mega-structures covered by the 20 episodes are impressive in themselves, and it is very interesting to learn about their inner working which is the topic of about half the episodes length. Here is the full list of episodes to give you an idea of which kind of structures we are talking about: Season 1: Skyscraper, Aircraft Carrier, Bridge, Airport. Season 2: Tunnel, Submarine, Aircraft, Oil Rig, Dome, Cruise Liner, Space Station, Dam, Telescope, Sky Wheel. Season 3: Canal, Icebreaker, Metro, Prison, Tower, Train. The other half goes through four to eight landmarks and their special feature that has made it possible over time to reach the capability for human engineers to built that largest one we can see today. Each new technique is clearly identified and simply explained thanks to schematic 3D animation, sometimes with a touch of humor. The episodes officially span 3 seasons but can in fact be watched in any particular order, following you personal tastes. I would say all episodes are of the same quality but the subjects covered were of more or less interest for me. For example at the beginning I was into War documentaries so I started with S1E2 Aircraft Carrier and S2E2 Submarine. Then I moved to transportation with episodes like S1E3 Bridge, S1E4 Airport or S2E1 Tunnel. On the contrary, it took me the longest time to watch S2E10 Sky Wheel, S2E5 Dome and S3E4 Prison because I didn't feel that those structures revolutionize our daily life (for the best or worst). Another important episode to mention is S2E9 Telescope because that's a field I know more than a little about, so I could use it to test the scientific accuracy or the series in general. Indeed the succession of landmarks usually seem to follow logical steps and fill in the required gaps to the next bigger structure. But in that episode I realized how a) the Science is oversimplified which means that the Engineers responsible for all the landmarks mentioned in the series deserve even more credit that the series gives them, and b) crucial engineering discoveries were missed, I am thinking Active Optics in the case of that episode so others probably suffer from the same shortcuts. Those are no big complains, as usually the case in Science series intended for a broad audience. After that episode and once I knew what to believe, I watched S2E7 Space Station. All in all a really interesting Documentary series about engineering in spite of its age.
Rating: 7 /10

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 6 (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Creators: Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly)
	Actors: Clark Gregg (Iron Man 1-3, The Avengers), Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: May-August 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: The team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is split on several fronts, one part looking for a missing member in the vastness of Space, the other fighting a new foe on Earth.
Review: That was a short season with only 13 episodes, maybe because it started late in the year to wait for the release of Avengers: Endgame. The previous seasons were spanning over 22 episodes with a big reveal somewhere in the middle to continue with new stakes. This sixth manages a similar effect at the end of the double S6E9-S6E10 Collision Course. Another reason for this shorter season is that the next will also have only 13 episodes. That seventh season will also be the last. It is sad but in the end I think the story ran its course and went over and beyond to deliver the audience an ever-expanding Universe. Indeed the series kept its promise of exploring new frontiers in every season, in this one going full Space Opera, following the lead of the MCU movies like Guardians of the Galaxy. A final note before I review the quality of the season: even though it waited for the release of Endgame, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is now not anymore canon to the MCU, i.e. although it was running in parallel to the movies since many years, it now ignored what happened in them and runs it own course in a different Universe. A bit of a pity but I guess it would have been logistically hard to do otherwise. This also marks a different with the new series that Marvel will release on the Disney+ streaming service (Falcon and Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Hawkeye...) and that are supposed to be fully integrated to the story of the MCU movies. So how did I like it? I found it is the least good season to date, the main reason being that the Space parts look too cheap and not believable: make-up effects, scale, story... the same nonsense that may look fine in Guardians of the Galaxy here looks cheap and out of place. On the positive side it still is a pleasure to follow the characters that we have been following for so long and the season gets better on its second half once the incredible coincidences are explained and the whole thing starts to make sense. Also one can only praise the series for going for a whole new SF sub-genre at every season, increasing the scope to a point borderline ridiculous, but in fact in line with the comics book spirit from which the series is adapted. The characters themselves make fun of it: "Zombies? Sure we haven't had those yet". As I wrote, I find it nice that the series comes to an end on its terms, it is probably a good time and in those conditions they will manage to deliver something to remember, call-backs to previous seasons, return of old characters...
Rating: 4 /10