JohnDeSando
Joined Oct 2001
Welcome to the new profile
We're still working on updating some profile features. To see the badges, ratings breakdowns, and polls for this profile, please go to the previous version.
Reviews2.4K
JohnDeSando's rating
Emilia Perez has arrived-film and character, both feted by the Golden Globe Awards and a certainty for Oscar nominations. Partly comedy, partly musical, and fully thriller set in Mexico by a French director, Jacques Audiard, it is an entertaining hybrid that, like The Crying Game, holds riches while it explores a trans subject with care and sensitivity.
Character Emilia/Manitas (Karla Sofia Gascon-a trans herself), a kingpin drug lord, hires attorney Rita (Zoe Saldana) to help her get a sex change. The thriller aspect is ready made as Manitas' bloody past cannot be expunged even with the change. Attending physician Wasserman (Mark Ivanir) tells Rita he can change the body but not the soul.
Woven into the drama of the trans activity is a series of songs, some unusually light such as gender reallocation patients singing about vaginoplasty and mammoplasty, with a distinct echo of Pedro Almodovor's humor amidst out-there sexuality. Some aud may complain about the abrupt tonal changes such interruptions bring, but that seems to be Audiard's purpose in disrupting our normal lives.
More surprising is to see the change that comes over the trans Emilia, whose life after becomes dedicated to charitably finding lost people, some of whom she was responsible for murdering as Manitas.
Emilia Perez is a cornucopia of motifs celebrating dynamic, diversifying modern life. Watch for it at Oscar time. On Netflix, free with subscription.
Character Emilia/Manitas (Karla Sofia Gascon-a trans herself), a kingpin drug lord, hires attorney Rita (Zoe Saldana) to help her get a sex change. The thriller aspect is ready made as Manitas' bloody past cannot be expunged even with the change. Attending physician Wasserman (Mark Ivanir) tells Rita he can change the body but not the soul.
Woven into the drama of the trans activity is a series of songs, some unusually light such as gender reallocation patients singing about vaginoplasty and mammoplasty, with a distinct echo of Pedro Almodovor's humor amidst out-there sexuality. Some aud may complain about the abrupt tonal changes such interruptions bring, but that seems to be Audiard's purpose in disrupting our normal lives.
More surprising is to see the change that comes over the trans Emilia, whose life after becomes dedicated to charitably finding lost people, some of whom she was responsible for murdering as Manitas.
Emilia Perez is a cornucopia of motifs celebrating dynamic, diversifying modern life. Watch for it at Oscar time. On Netflix, free with subscription.
"So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh." Woody Guthrie (Scott McNairy)
Those of us alive in early '60's could not have known the nasal, raspy-voiced 19-year-old, Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet), would one day change folk music forever. Director James Mangold in the biopic A Complete Unknown, perfectly captures the times changing and Dylan as he takes us from Pete Seeger's traditional folk to Dylan's own brand of folk rock.
The surprise in this solid one-of-the-best of the year, is how much music Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks give the audience. Besides, several of the tunes are played in full by the lead actors, not something I could say even in the wake of Bohemian Rhapsody. Another surprise, Chalamet can sing very well.
Inevitably, a folk star must contend with the attentions of women, either friends or colleagues. The latter are represented in the distractingly attractive Joan Baez (Monia Barbaro), both talented and beautiful. Her biopic, I Am a Noise, explained her ambivalence toward Dylan, who was her opposite with his growing selfish mien.
Lover Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), not as talented or beautiful as Baez, represents the collateral damage from his fame. Despite his growing disaffection, she still influenced him to write such classics as A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall and The Times They are A Changin.
Both women are treated as important parts of Dylan's life, not just weepy or ineffectually forlorn. Baez was never neutralized by his allure, whereas Sylvie shriveled. The film captures this rough spot in his life while it also champions his talent. Let's face it-he was distant, downright enigmatic, and the film doesn't try to explain why. But then, other attempts at understanding him such as Scorsese's No Direction Home and Haynes' I'm Not There failed as well. Dylan's just too interior to be flushed out.
What these and other parts of his life also show is Dylan's insensitivity while he could sing of more loving attitudes to mankind in general. It is commonly known that artists can be abrasive and dismissive but also creative beyond measure. Dylan, however, clashes with the warm and caring Pete Seeger (Edward Norton, waiting I predict for an Oscar nomination) over Dylan's electrifying folk music, one of the intriguing conflicts the film does not sugarcoat.
Besides the splendid period accuracy, A Complete Unknown offers multiple musical sequences to delight even the newest audiences. After seeing this bountiful biopic, audiences witness Dylan becoming better known and his music eternal for even the most conservative audience.
One of the best films of the year and a biopic for the ages.
Those of us alive in early '60's could not have known the nasal, raspy-voiced 19-year-old, Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet), would one day change folk music forever. Director James Mangold in the biopic A Complete Unknown, perfectly captures the times changing and Dylan as he takes us from Pete Seeger's traditional folk to Dylan's own brand of folk rock.
The surprise in this solid one-of-the-best of the year, is how much music Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks give the audience. Besides, several of the tunes are played in full by the lead actors, not something I could say even in the wake of Bohemian Rhapsody. Another surprise, Chalamet can sing very well.
Inevitably, a folk star must contend with the attentions of women, either friends or colleagues. The latter are represented in the distractingly attractive Joan Baez (Monia Barbaro), both talented and beautiful. Her biopic, I Am a Noise, explained her ambivalence toward Dylan, who was her opposite with his growing selfish mien.
Lover Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), not as talented or beautiful as Baez, represents the collateral damage from his fame. Despite his growing disaffection, she still influenced him to write such classics as A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall and The Times They are A Changin.
Both women are treated as important parts of Dylan's life, not just weepy or ineffectually forlorn. Baez was never neutralized by his allure, whereas Sylvie shriveled. The film captures this rough spot in his life while it also champions his talent. Let's face it-he was distant, downright enigmatic, and the film doesn't try to explain why. But then, other attempts at understanding him such as Scorsese's No Direction Home and Haynes' I'm Not There failed as well. Dylan's just too interior to be flushed out.
What these and other parts of his life also show is Dylan's insensitivity while he could sing of more loving attitudes to mankind in general. It is commonly known that artists can be abrasive and dismissive but also creative beyond measure. Dylan, however, clashes with the warm and caring Pete Seeger (Edward Norton, waiting I predict for an Oscar nomination) over Dylan's electrifying folk music, one of the intriguing conflicts the film does not sugarcoat.
Besides the splendid period accuracy, A Complete Unknown offers multiple musical sequences to delight even the newest audiences. After seeing this bountiful biopic, audiences witness Dylan becoming better known and his music eternal for even the most conservative audience.
One of the best films of the year and a biopic for the ages.
"My dreams grow darker." Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp)
Freud and Jung would applaud this most recent adaptation of Brom Stoker's Dracula, directed by Robert Eggers, Nosferatu (2024), because it evidences the rich psychic territory that sexuality and death invade. In this iteration, Ellen has more clearly than ever seen her haunted sexual desires and awareness of death's primacy. She is horrified about her dark mind, like us wondering from where evil can come
Meanwhile, the ultra-desaturated cinematography, helmed by Jarin Blaschke, is as scary as any cinema has ever been. Eggers has restored material illegally taken from Stoker by F W Murnau in 1922 and made it refreshingly and scarily new. The difference between Orlock now and Kinski's and Schreck's then, is his remotely plausible addict not totally foreign to the aud.
Bill Skarsgard's Count Orlock is more fully exposed in his homely visage, much more accessible than most other Nosferatu's. Seeing even his flaccid member while the dialogue, especially Willem Dafoe's Professor von Franz (the new von Helsing) discounts the plague as the answer to the devastating recent population deaths in favor of the evil residing within the melancholy and uncontrollable Ellen, for instance. Fully available is her attraction to the bad-boy Orlock. "We are here encountering the undead plague carrier... the vampyr... Nosferatu." Professor von Franz.
The fact that Orlock is quite homely, not seriously ugly, gives credence to the universal original sin of weak human beings. That we see him frontally naked with his flaccid member is as new as ever seen for a mainstream Gothic gore fest. "Psychosexual" is only one of the many lurid adjectives to describe what's going on here.
This current Nosferatu relies heavily on atmosphere, a persistent fog suggesting pervasive evil yet allowing the aud to see it easily in Orlock and his minions. Nicolas Hoult's Hutter displays a vulnerable youthfulness that's easy prey for the Count. Hutter also has the accessible human quality of being clueless at the wrong times.
This iteration is careful to include the weakness of humans. Consider Ellen's primal attraction to Orlock, whom we see in shadows but understand better than ever-he's hungry for her and her blood. Stoker's mantra is repeated: "The Blood is life." It becomes clear that death, like the Count, is unstoppable, regardless how much blood one may have.
Don't fear the rising sun because it can bring the end of death for the moment. Just ask the Count, or wait for the next variation of Stoker's immortal bringing plague and damnation in around two horrific hours.
"It is the bloody business which informs." Macbeth.
Freud and Jung would applaud this most recent adaptation of Brom Stoker's Dracula, directed by Robert Eggers, Nosferatu (2024), because it evidences the rich psychic territory that sexuality and death invade. In this iteration, Ellen has more clearly than ever seen her haunted sexual desires and awareness of death's primacy. She is horrified about her dark mind, like us wondering from where evil can come
Meanwhile, the ultra-desaturated cinematography, helmed by Jarin Blaschke, is as scary as any cinema has ever been. Eggers has restored material illegally taken from Stoker by F W Murnau in 1922 and made it refreshingly and scarily new. The difference between Orlock now and Kinski's and Schreck's then, is his remotely plausible addict not totally foreign to the aud.
Bill Skarsgard's Count Orlock is more fully exposed in his homely visage, much more accessible than most other Nosferatu's. Seeing even his flaccid member while the dialogue, especially Willem Dafoe's Professor von Franz (the new von Helsing) discounts the plague as the answer to the devastating recent population deaths in favor of the evil residing within the melancholy and uncontrollable Ellen, for instance. Fully available is her attraction to the bad-boy Orlock. "We are here encountering the undead plague carrier... the vampyr... Nosferatu." Professor von Franz.
The fact that Orlock is quite homely, not seriously ugly, gives credence to the universal original sin of weak human beings. That we see him frontally naked with his flaccid member is as new as ever seen for a mainstream Gothic gore fest. "Psychosexual" is only one of the many lurid adjectives to describe what's going on here.
This current Nosferatu relies heavily on atmosphere, a persistent fog suggesting pervasive evil yet allowing the aud to see it easily in Orlock and his minions. Nicolas Hoult's Hutter displays a vulnerable youthfulness that's easy prey for the Count. Hutter also has the accessible human quality of being clueless at the wrong times.
This iteration is careful to include the weakness of humans. Consider Ellen's primal attraction to Orlock, whom we see in shadows but understand better than ever-he's hungry for her and her blood. Stoker's mantra is repeated: "The Blood is life." It becomes clear that death, like the Count, is unstoppable, regardless how much blood one may have.
Don't fear the rising sun because it can bring the end of death for the moment. Just ask the Count, or wait for the next variation of Stoker's immortal bringing plague and damnation in around two horrific hours.
"It is the bloody business which informs." Macbeth.