Welcome to the fifteenth day of Blogmas!
I’ve now watch 15 films by six different actors, taking place in more countries than I can count. It’s been an amazing experience to watch all these films, and to honestly see what I’ve missed for all these years. (For clarity, I’m counting the film that brought them all together as well. I swear.) Let me catch you up to where I am now.
For a recap, I’ve already watched Every Blessed Day (Tutti i santi giorni) with Luca Marinelli, The Italian Job with Charlize Theron, Murder on the Orient Express with Marwan Kenzari, They Call Me Jeeg (Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot) with Luca again, and Far From the Madding Crowd with Matthias Schoenaerts. I talked about my feelings for these films in my post on December 6th.
Now for December 6-14th.
On December 6th, I spent the evening watching The Martian with Chiwetel Ejiofor. I was inspired to read the book thanks to a TOG/Martian fusion fic on Ao3, so it’s only fitting that I watched this film during this month. I absolutely loved it. The film streamlined most the novel, taking out a lot of the extra plot lines that almost seemed to bog down the novel. Chiwetel did well in his role, and really sold it (though his accent kept on trying to break through). I really enjoyed this one.
December 7th was saved for Aladdin, the not-so-needed live action remake. I’m not a total fan of this trend, but this one is still entertaining on my second watch. (And I have a private love for the new song “Speechless.”) Marwan Kenzari plays hot!Jafar, and while he’s perfect, it’s really hard to see him fail at being evil. I’m in love with is heart eyes too much. I did enjoy my rewatch though.
December 8th was another rewatch, this time of The Bigger Splash with Matthias Schoenaerts (because I had a headache, and watching something with subtitles was far out of the question). Matthias is so damn good in this role. Hell, everyone is great, playing characters grounded in reality, but truly flawed. I need to see Matthias do is little smile every day, and that boy cries pretty. I enjoy this film so much, it’s weird.
On December 9th, I ended up watching Fabrizio De Andre: Principe libero with Luca Marinelli, with tells the life of Fabrizio De Andre, a famous Italian singer. It’s not a bad film, and Luca sells it, but the film is also three hours long, which is a total crime. Luca shows off his talent of singing though, and I need to see that for the rest of my life. I ended up breaking up the film into three hour long segments because of the length. But it’s a good film regardless.
Then there’s December 10th. I watched If Beale Street Could Talk starring KiKi Layne. And this film destroyed destroyed me. I was in tears for a good part of the film, and KiKi blew me away. This film has a powerful narrative to tell and a stellar cast to sell it, and they do it in spades. It deserves all the accolades it received, and deserved more. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and it’s been a few days since.
… Can I skip December 11th? Please? No? Ok. I dragged myself through Æon Flux with Charlize Theron. Look, she has nothing to do in this film. It’s a terrible story, with a cast with no chemistry. If I didn’t know that this film actually had a budget, I’d think it was a film student’s attempt at sci-fi. It’s a nightmare. And coming off such a great film didn’t help this one.
December 12, Mom joined me in watching Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle), starring Matthias. This is another film that blew me out of the water. I actually went into this film only knowing a few things. Matthias’ character Gigi is a gangster, he falls in love with Bibi, a race car driver, things go wrong after his final heist, and there’s a twist ending. And yes, that’s all true. But it’s all that and more. And WOW, did it surprise me. We really enjoyed it. So much so that Mom still hasn’t shut up about it.
On December 13th, I watched Ricordi? with Luca. Fun fact, I actually tried to watch this film about a month after I watched The Old Guard for the first time, and I turned it off pretty quickly. I managed to finish it this time, but it just struck me as really odd. I’m not a fan of non-linear films as it is, and this one really did a number on my head. It’s beautiful, but confusing as all get out.
December 14th, I rewatched one of my favorite Marvel films to date, Doctor Strange. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the partner/side kick of the titular character, but has a bit of a change of heart during the final act of the film. Chiwetel does a great job with his role here, really selling Mordo. As an aside, I’m really excited to see his turn as villain in the sequel, whenever it comes out. (2022? I think?)
So yeah. This month has already had some successes, and some absolute bombs. The rest of the month is all movies I have never seen before. For many of them, I’ve just been delaying watching them because of distribution reasons. By that, I mean that most of Luca and Marwan’s filmography (and some of Matthias’ as well) aren’t really available to stream in the United States. Thanks to some oversees friends, I’m able to watch their films, and enjoy them with the people I love. I’m curious to see how these films go. I’ve heard great (and in the case of not so great) things about most of them.
Actually, since I’ve been enjoying this so much, depending on how I’m feeling, I may just continue on past Christmas (when I planned on ending this with a rewatch of The Old Guard for the 100th time) and go on straight until New Years Eve. I have enough films if I decide to do it. I’m just gonna wait until next week or so to make that decision. I don’t want to completely burn out, honestly.
Until next time!
