The Neon Demon (2016, Nicolas Winding Refn)

Sometimes I ask myself if I should be more selective and not let myself drive too much by curiosity. IF I jad got myself informed before, I might have saved two hours of my life and used it for something worthwhile, for example watching a classic. Now the time is wasted on this stylish crap.
This is about fashion. Just that should have rung my alarm bells. However, it could still have been some sort of "Black Swan" located in the fashion business. It wasn't.
 A young aspiring model, Jesse, is coming to Los Angeles and gets entangled in a world a people-devouring beauty-worshipers. We are told that she has natural beauty. Maybe people who have proper receptors can easier perceive this than I can. To me she looks in the opening like a Barbie Amazon. Whatever, everybody is intrigued by her, including the "older" models. It seems that at the age of 20 they are already veterans in this business. So they also admire her youth. Youth as such is an overrated quality. Just to be alive at the age of 16 is not an achievement in itself. So Jesse is slowly entangled in this world and gets more and more fascinated by herself. Now we learn that her competitors are lesbian vampires. Yes, that is true. And now a spoiler (but what is there to spoil?): Jesse is their next victim.
Nicolas Winding Refn (whose signature is NWR) has stated that he already made enough films about violent women. So he may have felt the urge to become more gender-balanced. But do we really believe that this film has any relation to human existence? Or do we believe that he wants to unmask anything? Neoliberal social Darwinists that eat each other? I don't see anything of that kind. Enter the void. NWR comes with a bluff package that once you remove the stylish wrapping paper mainly contains vomit from unpretentious horror movies. Plot keywords: necrophilia, slasher, cannibalism.
All this is set in a futuristic set. There are some nice visuals. The soundtrack fits the cinematography very well. Because of somewhat attractive scenery I give it a 3/10. I wish I hadn't seen this.

Tea With Mussolini (Franco Zeffirelli, 1999)

Actually I should say good things about Zeffirelli. His Romeo and Juliet from 1969 opened for me the door to literature. I saw tgis movie as a boy and never again after that. I am almost certain that watching it now would ruin the experience. I have, however, enjoyed the wonderful score from the hands of Nino Rota several times.
I have also seen some of his monumental and at times rather vulgar opera productions - and now Tea  with Mussolini.
I learnt today that Zeffirelli is not yet dead, so I am not obliged to say nothing but good about him.
It has been many times that even a superior cast cannot save a bad script. I have many doubts about this script. It seems that it is based on Zeffirelli's childhood memories. And although he obviously didn't have a very happy childhood, the message here seems to be: it wasn't so bad after all. Fascism was cozy, wasn't it? Yeah, there might have been some few incidents here and there, but nothing to be alarmed about. Why worry that you live in a dictatorship when the train run on schedule and the streets are clean.
We se much of fascism in this film, as if it was through the eyes of Lady Hester Random (Maggie Smith - as brilliant as always. I was only a little bit surprised that even then she very old. Same Judi Dench, as if they have been old the last few decades.
This film is supposedly about a boy, Luca, who is brought up by eccentric English ladies after his mother died. His mother never married and the father has no intention of taking care of the boy. These ladies are the focus of the film. There is not much plot, rather an anecdote-driven story line. The boy appears occasionally, but it never becomes a story about coming of age.  It seems that the director relied too much on strong performances of the leading ladies. Every other aspect had been neglected.
I would watch it only, if I needed to kill some time and there was absolutely nothing else to do.
6/10

วันเดอร์ฟูลทาวน์ (Wonderful Town, Aditya Assarat, 2007)

This was shown some years ago on BBC 2. When I saw it first time, I liked it. Now I am not sure, if I understand it. The story line of this film is somewhat elliptical. As always with Asian movies, I am in doubt  if I miss some culture-specific points or if the director just fails to communicate what is going on. It is, however, still a pleasant viewing experience, in spite of mine or the director's failing abilities.
The title "Wonderful Town" - is it meant to be ironical, sarcastic, anachronistic or prophetic? This town is at best a settlement with few to no people in the street. The plot is set after the devastating tsunami in 2004. So that is one explanation for the absence of people in general. The town once thrived on tourism. A new luxury resort is going to be reconstructed while the phantoms of the perished are still around. An architect, Ton,  is sent from Bangkok to supervise. He has not much to, so he hangs around here and there. His company sends him to a small family hotel. It is run by Na, who seems to be owner and only employee. A kind of romance is developing between Ton and Na. All this is very atmospheric, there are lots of delicate pictures and a tender soundtrack are there to please the arthouse audience. But a little demon starts whispering: take care, this is constructed and not genuine, however the director manages to keep me interested what is going on.
Nan has a brother who is a good for nothing. He is involved in crime and he holds the opinion that criminality is going to be his way of living. There are also frustrated youngsters on mopeds. We have heard that "people" (whom we never see) start to gossip about the romance between Ton and Na. And they don't like it. So in the latter part we are confronted with something which I regard as somewhat incoherent. At a point it seems, that the evil brother is approving of the relationship between Ton and Na. But suddenly Ton remembers that he had a girl-friend and that he wants to re-activate their relationship. In addition we have to accept that there is a relation between the evil brother and the local hoodlums.
At this point I started to asked myself if I missed important clues or if the script was messed up. I wish that a Thai arthouse fan could explain the end to me. Ton is beaten up by the hoodlums and then thrown in the river to drift away. And what is the point of this? The external influence gone? The  wonderful town is on its own again? I am lost - and this makes this experience so frustrating, because I started to like it and now I fail to make sense of it.
I wish, an understanding Thai - or any other aficionado - could explain the film to me. Please, anyone?
7/10

Limitless (2011, Neil Burger)

Couldn't it be nice to have superpowers? To learn Chinese during the weekend? To get a master's degrees while riding on a train? To be invincible? To use 100% of one's potential powers? Sure, it would.
Of course this movie is built on a false assumption, as we actually use all of our brain. I have problem to enjoy a film, when I know that the basic assumption of the plot is wrong. But let's for a while assume that we actually can dope our brains and achieve whatever comes to our minds.
Eddie Mora is a writer. He obviously managed to convince a publishing firm of his project and then he contracted a writing blockage. He is drifting around, talking about the masterpiece he cannot beget. Enters the brother of his ex, who gives him a pill to enhance his brain power. And in a jiffy he has written the novel. End of writing career - now he is aiming at other things. Although it is sexy to have a four-digit IQ, it is even more sexy to have money. What he wants to do with that money? No idea.
Now Eddie does something, a guy with superpowers really shouldn't do: he takes a loan from a Russian loan shark. Yes, he is compromised and soon everybody is hunting the pill and Eddie. At the same time he learns, that there are side effects.
However, Eddie outsmarts the criminals and gets a super brain even without the drug. Now he knows what he wants: power. He wants to become a senator.
The script is very sloppy, with holes as big as the deficit of Greece and without aim and direction. At some point it seems to be a demasking of the  financial world's greed. Then it is a thriller like a drug war. At some point it is also a romance - about Eddie, getting back his wife. This hot pot is generally quite entertaining though, as long as you are not looking for substance. Easy to watch - and even easier to forget.
Bradley Cooper plays the slick snot in an enjoyable manner.
I read that director Neil Burger is going to make a remake of Les Intouchables. Sir, this name is there for a reason: you don't rework a masterpiece. You just don't do that.
5/10

बचना ऐ हसीनो [Bachna Ae Haseeno] (Siddarth Anand, 2008)

Laziness has ruled. I am more and more disturbed that I am mixing up the contents of films or that I forget if I really seen a certain film. So this writing exercise will hopefully help me to remember what I have seen.
This "romantic comedy" is starring Ranbir Kapoor who is probably never going to become a mega-star. On IMDb I learned that I saw him in PK as Alien 2 - yes, a minor role, even a negligible one.
 This film plays with the typical Bollywood-template. of course only to confirm it at last. The name Raj Sharma rings a bell in my mind, as a former friend who turned out to be a traitor used this as his nickname. Whatever. Raj is introduced here as stallion who seduces women in an assembly-line manner, The first one is a girl from Punjab, then an aspiring model in Mumbai and at last he meets his fate in Australia. The scenes are colorful, very scenic, but a colorful background can only barely disguise the lack of substance.
Raj is cynical and easily destroys the lives of women, giving hope and destroying destinies. This is shown in the first part, as if this was a joke. Pick up women and dumping them again is shown as a legit hobby.
The insight that this is loathsome comes to Raj by getting the same treatment when he finally meets love, but a unrequited one.  Now he remembers that maybe he has destroyed several lives already and tries to make good what he has ruined. He has to endure some purification, again something that is supposed to be funny. Yes, female revenge is a joke for the Indian macho.
Actually Raj could have skipped the purification, as the woman who rejected him at last runs into the stable on her own.
This could have been good, if the material had not been treated in such an unbearable superficiality.
The music has heavy beats and is orientated towards Western ideals.  Where is the sound of Bollywood? This is like eating Tikka Masala with ketchup.
Altogether: 3/10.