Balaterkidul Rtduapuluh Blog

 “The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” “A Hero,” the new film by the Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi, seems to circle around these lines from T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral,” spinning Eliot’s observation about morality into a squall of questions about ethics and motives. At the center of the movie is what looks like an unambiguous act of decency. A man — the title character, a sign painter named Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi) — arranges for the return of 17 gold coins to their rightful owner. What could be wrong with that? What could go wrong as a consequence? Quite a lot, as it happens. Nothing in this stressful, intricately plotted fable of modern life is as simple as we or the characters might wish. Rahim, who has been imprisoned because of a debt, wants to clear the books and restart his life. We meet him at the beginning of a hectic two-day furlough, as he bounces from one encounter to another, hoping to secure his...

 The classic American Western, a product of the twentieth century, was a fantasy. Verisimilitude was never its goal. Black folks were glaringly absent from those paeans to the society white Americans imagined for their forebears: tough, independent, righteous, and bound by an often quixotic moral code. Regardless, the genre is now revered by all (including Black fans) as the ultimate vehicle through which people declare their freedom, independence, morality and general badassedness. Freedom. Freedom to right wrongs. Freedom to strike back. Freedom to revel in revenge. These are freedoms denied Black people throughout American history. We’re not even allowed to openly contemplate revenge for the centuries of enslavement, brutality, rape and other forms of violence heaped on us. Denying ourselves thoughts of retaliation that would plague any human treated as we have been is just another form of denying our full humanity. The Netflix film The Harder They Fall, as with other recent mov...

 If you’re interested in alien invasions, vivid dreamscapes or adorable cats, this collection of streaming picks may be just right for you. ‘Come True’ At one point in Anthony Scott Burns’s deeply unsettling movie, a character brings up the influential science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick. It’s a daunting reference point to set for yourself, especially because the film explores one of Dick’s favorite subjects — the porous borders of reality. Amazingly, “Come True” lives up to the challenge. The teenage Sarah (the elfin, magnetic Julia Sarah Stone) tries to live a normal life despite being so alienated, for unknown reasons, from her mother that she has chosen to be homeless. Enrolling in a sleep study may help with two of Sarah’s problems at once: finding a bed on a semiregular basis and figuring out why she is plagued by nightmares — the movie’s elaborately designed dreamscapes are absolutely terrifying. “Come True” borrows from sci-fi, psychological drama and horror to send viewe...

 This year’s Sundance Film Festival was always supposed to have a virtual component, but until the first week of 2022, the plan was that the country’s premiere showcase for indies would be happening in person, in Park City, UT, the way it used to. Then the omicron variant put a stop to that, and to all other upcoming events hoping for a return to something closer to normalcy. The good news is that the Sundance slate is accessible to everyone with the means to buy tickets, and the slate is filled with riches — from horror stories with racial undertones to comedies about working bar mitzvahs, documentaries about volcanologists in love and Kanye West, and directorial debuts from familiar figures like Jesse Eisenberg, as well as a slew of new creative voices. Here are 6 movies to look forward to at this year’s festival. Sharp Stick Sharp Stick is Lena Dunham’s first movie since her 2010 Sundance hit Tiny Furniture, meaning it’s bound to generate a lively conversation (if not some light...

 Your gut tells you that the hero of "Shattered" is about to get into trouble when he goes to a supermarket after midnight and the only other customer is a gorgeous young woman, dripping wet from rain, who asks his advice on which wine to buy, accepts his offer of a lift home when her rideshare fails to materialize, and ends up having sex with him. This is a psychosexual thriller, a type of film in which naked bodies are a prelude to a body count.  Indeed, like the high-tech security devices supposedly protecting the hero's palatial mountain home, this film from director Luis Prieto ("Kidnap") and writer David Loughery ("Money Train," "Lakeview Terrace") is a machine that promises to fulfill certain functions. Unfortunately, the craftsmanship is lacking. That's not a knock against the look or sound of the movie, which is appropriately glossy, or the sex, which is pretty boisterous for a film made in the neo-Puritan early 21st century, or ...

 Your gut tells you that the hero of "Shattered" is about to get into trouble when he goes to a supermarket after midnight and the only other customer is a gorgeous young woman, dripping wet from rain, who asks his advice on which wine to buy, accepts his offer of a lift home when her rideshare fails to materialize, and ends up having sex with him. This is a psychosexual thriller, a type of film in which naked bodies are a prelude to a body count.  Indeed, like the high-tech security devices supposedly protecting the hero's palatial mountain home, this film from director Luis Prieto ("Kidnap") and writer David Loughery ("Money Train," "Lakeview Terrace") is a machine that promises to fulfill certain functions. Unfortunately, the craftsmanship is lacking. That's not a knock against the look or sound of the movie, which is appropriately glossy, or the sex, which is pretty boisterous for a film made in the neo-Puritan early 21st century, or ...

 “The House” is an animated anthology with an inspired narrative focus, as it tells the history of one building, across time and species. Written by Enda Walsh and directed by different filmmakers for each one, "The House" hones in on the anxieties that come with a home, whether it’s the control that others have over it, the critters inside the walls, or the attachment that could lead to one's demise. With its rising directors each employing a surreal style, it creates a rich balance of ethereal, existential storytelling with stop-motion animation that’s so detailed and alive you can practically feel it on your fingertips.  The foundation for the anthology is established by the gothic cloth animation of Emma De Swaef & Marc James Roels, who previously orchestrated the colonization mini-anthology short “This Magnificent Cake!” Their eye for towering sets, intricate stark detail, and characters with tiny eyes and mouths continues here, with a slow burn tale about a fami...

 SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — A celebrated Bosnian film director always knew her latest movie, the harrowing drama of a mother trying unsuccessfully to save her husband and two sons from the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, would be panned by Serb nationalists. But the filmmaker, Jasmila Zbanic, was still taken aback when Serbian media invited a convicted war criminal to opine on the movie, “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” for which she recently won Europe’s best director award. The chosen critic? Veselin Sljivancanin, a former Yugoslav army officer sentenced to prison by a tribunal in The Hague for aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners in Croatia in the Vukovar massacre. While asking such a notorious figure to comment on the movie was a surprise, his reaction to it wasn’t: He denounced it as lies that “incite ethnic hatred” and smear all Serbs. “He, a war criminal, wants all Serbs, most of whom had nothing to do with his crimes, to feel attacked for his crimes,” Ms. Zbanic said in a re...

 As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 forces us all back into HPCON Charlie, good viewing material is going to be more essential than the personnel still stuck working in-person. At this point, you’ve no doubt burned through your stockpile of binge-worthy TV shows and all 11 seasons of M*A*S*H, and will surely be looking for new and exciting movies as we enter the third year of this endless pandemic loop. These are our top five military picks, based solely on previews, for 2022. Munich – The Edge of War In ‘Munich,’ Europe is on the brink of a major conflict as Adolf Hitler seeks to invade Czechoslovakia. It’s 1938, and Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain hopes negotiations with Hitler will stave off war. George MacKay (’1917′) plays British diplomat Hugh Legat, and Jannis Niewöhner (’Timeless’ trilogy) is German diplomat Paul von Hartmann. The two former Oxford friends clashed over the Nazi party, but von Hartmann undergoes a change of heart and offers intelligence that may...

 In the age of streaming, the earth is flat — screen-size — with travel to faraway destinations only a monthly subscription and a click away. We’ve journeyed through the world of options and chosen the best new international movies for you to watch. ‘Binti’ It was only after I had laughed, cried and bitten my nails in suspense watching “Binti” that I realized it was tagged in the “kids” category on Amazon. Directed by Frederike Migom, this Belgian film pulls off a feat rarely seen in American children’s cinema: It folds sobering real-life issues of racial inequality and immigration into a feel-good story without ever condescending to its audience. At the beating, bursting heart of this film is the 11-year-old Binti (played by a vivacious Bebel Tshiani Baloji), an undocumented Congolese immigrant who lives in Belgium with her father. She’s a social-media-obsessed tween with a sizable online following, amassed through videos that put a glamorous spin on her precarious life. When a po...

 Colors and hearts explode in “Belle,” and your head might too while watching this gorgeous anime. Set in the undefined future, it envisions a reality that resembles our own, with the same drab institutions and obligations, the same confusing relationships and feelings. Suzu (voiced and sung by Kaho Nakamura), a melancholic high school student, lives with her father (Koji Yakusho) and still mourns her long-dead mother. Suzu exists in a miasma of grief, one she fleetingly escapes by entering a computer simulation. Described as “the ultimate virtual community” and cleverly named U, this other-world is an entertainment but also a refuge. A dazzling phantasmagoria, it allows customers to log out of their reality by slipping into an avatar in the U space. Once inside, users — their real selves obscured by eccentric, sometimes aspirational cartoonish identities — have seemingly unfettered freedom. They can cut loose, bop around like tourists, become someone else or maybe find themselves....

 The Book of Boba Fett depicts the Star Wars universe's iconic Tusken Raiders in a way that's never been done within the franchise, and it might just fix George Lucas' oldest and most glaring mistake in terms of taking inspiration from Frank Herbert's Dune. Out of the different franchises that have borrowed concepts from Dune, Star Wars has the most number of specific elements that can be directly traced back to Herbert's seminal 1965 novel. This includes how Luke Skywalker's journey mirrors the path of Paul Atreides, the Jedi and Sith orders being highly similar to the Bene Gesserit, and the harsh conditions of the desert planet of Tatooine being comparable to that of Arrakis. While most of these borrowed elements have allowed the Star Wars franchise to develop its own unique and compelling narrative, Tatooine's Tusken Raiders in particular have been criticized as a racist mistake that exoticizes West Asian indigenous cultures. However, The Book of Boba Fet...

 How did Los Angeles get so rich and famous? There’s oil, of course; the plundered soil of L.A. once yielded up more than a third of the country’s oil. And aviation and aerospace; we dreamed up and crafted war planes, passenger jets and space capsules. And then the movies, late to the starting gate, in time overtook the others in renown. But L.A. made its first fortune by selling winter — badmouthing other places’ icy, grim months, and hyping our own bland, bright, balmy winter. And we didn’t even bother being nice about it. We straight-up mocked the dopes and losers who chose to stay in the frozen wastes of New England or the Midwest, making snowballs while we plucked oranges from our own backyard trees. As Bill Murray’s character rebuked the demon in “Ghostbusters II,” “If you had Brain One in that huuuge melon on top of your neck, you would be living the sweet life out in Southern California’s beautiful San Fernando Valley.” Our winter versus their winter is a fight L.A. has pic...

 You've heard about the Great Resignation, but quitting your job is just one way that throwing in the towel can be a great way to get ahead. This story is part of a Men's Health series on how real-life quitters became winners—and how you can join them. THERE ARE TWO vivid memories that have come to define my relationship with Star Wars: In one, I’m a kid, running around my house with a wrapping paper cardboard tube, playing lightsaber fights with my dad. In another, I’m getting harassed and threatened by legions of anonymous toxic Star Wars fans on the Internet. This is the strange juxtaposition that Star Wars occupies in my life—where this sci-fi saga has given me moments of joy and also bizarre and disturbing unpleasantness. So earlier this year I decided to quit tuning into whatever might be happening in the latest prequel, sequel, or spin-off from that galaxy far, far away entirely. It was painful, but I went cold turkey. I stopped watching the films, I gave up on the shows...

 The new “West Side Story” is, so far, a box-office flop. Steven Spielberg’s much-anticipated remake of the landmark 1961 musical received rave reviews and has been called a masterpiece. Yet its first weekend theatrical release yielded only $10.5 million, which Variety called “a dismal result for a movie of its scale and scope.” What happened? The entertainment press has offered possible explanations. With new coronavirus variants emerging, people don’t feel comfortable in theaters. The audience for musicals skews older, the demographic with most reason to be timid. It’s the casting: No one’s ever heard of the stars. Ticket prices are too high. People are out shopping. Who wants to see a remake of a classic? Maybe the audience for movie musicals is simply over. There’s probably something to all of these. Two additional thoughts: One is that some who’d be part of the movie’s natural audience might not have gone because they assumed it would be woke because most of what comes out of ...

 Scream 4 was ahead of its time. Which is to say the “reboot” that this week’s “Scream” (aka Scream 5) appears to be was already executed once before by the franchise, and with savage bite. Released about half a decade too early to ride the wave of ‘90s nostalgia that was to come (we were still deep in the throes of ‘80s navel-gazing in 2011), and four years prior to Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens inventing the “legacy sequel” concept as we now know it today, Scream 4 was greeted with mixed reviews and modest box office. Which is a shame, because frankly Scream 4 is better than you remember and certainly the best of the Scream sequels made to date—and that’s pretty cool unto itself since the Scream franchise has been the most consistent slasher series ever to wield a knife. The film, Wes Craven’s last as director, opened at a time when the horror genre was in a different place. Blumhouse Productions (which launched Insidious just one year before Scream 4) and James...

 Rumors about the future of the DCEU hint at how the ending of Andy Muschietti's The Flash will use the multiverse differently than Spider-Man: No Way Home. The concept of the multiverse has existed for several decades in the comics, but it has entered the world of Hollywood blockbusters only until very recently. Avengers: Endgame planted the first seeds with the Avengers' time-traveling mission, which paved the way for alternate timelines and modified realities in Loki, What If...?, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Although the concept of the multiverse offers exciting prospects for every single one of Marvel and DC's characters, it doesn't actually have clear guidelines. Across the comics, movies, and the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths, many alternate realities appear, get destroyed, and sometimes get rebuilt — some of them even merge with others, and others remain shrouded in mystery. So far, the MCU hasn't cleared up exactly how the multiverse works, but...