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Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Probably the best movie of this century so far

It's strange how divided Challengers leave the audience; there are people who consider it awful, and others, like me , who were ecstatic while watching it( for a second time, too). It's not easy to put in words what makes this movie unique. One can mumble about the circulation of the desire and the conditions of pathos, but this is not a film about ideas, this is a ionate film, in a new, innovative way, that makes Guadagnino the most interesting director right now, on my mind.

Having watched The Palace three times by now, and enjoying it immensely all the more each time, I fail to understand the extremely negative reception it has received by the majority of viewers. In my opinion, not only it is the best film of the year, but one of Polanski's best , at least among the ones he has made after Tess ( along with Ghost writer, Frantic and Ninth gate). This "dance of the zombies" reunites him with Scolimowski, 61 years after Knife in the water, and is a certain feast that determines the "end of the world" , not with a bang nor with a whimper, but in a climax of stupidity, greed and bad taste. Never Polanski had been more bitter, pessimistic and dark than in the funny and deeply moving The Palace. An extremely enjoyable movie by one of the greatest directors of all time, marked with his personal style, and full of faces one does not fail to see they have originated from a clan once dedicated to the devil ( in one of the best films ever made), a clan that has overtaken everything ( let's leave devil aside). Still, these images, of an entrance to the "new century", that is by now our century, carry also a poetic overtone, spread through the emptiness that surrounds the Palace , of which the lot of the people who suffocate the place can only take a glimpse.
A masterpiece from a director I adore; judging from the difficulties in distribution maybe his last one? As a farwell, it couldn't be more wholesome! It's a middle finger to it all( among an excellent cast, Oliver Masucci, as the central figure of this circus, is exceptional).

A movie that restores our faith to filmmaking. This is an absolute masterpiece, and one of the best films I have ever seen.

This review may contain spoilers.

Possibly the most beautiful movie I have watched. I had difficulty deciding to rewatch it since I was devastated by its end, but when I did I discovered that its beauty, in of pictures and feelings alike, is unique. A triumph of cinema as a means of connecting us meaningfully with the world.

A serious contender for the best movie of the 21st century

Watched on Thursday November 2, 2023.

He spent so many hours jerking with the camera in front of the mirror...

This best of Welles' films is one of the cases one needs more stars for rating, e.g. 10 out of 5. There's no more to be said.

Forget Godfather, forget ( harder) Once upon a times, ( and throw Titanic in the garbage tin); here's the greatest of them all, the Cimino's masterpiece that ruined his career. We should hate Cinema for that. One of the greatest films ever made!

I rewatched Tess one more time, a few years after the last one, and it seems the distance helped me appreciate under a new light a film I already cherished; it's a sin no-one mentions Tess in the way they mention Barry Lyndon, The Conformist, or Citizen Cane. It's a magnificent work of art, with several layers, of beauty and meanings, that deserves to be classified up there with the greatest ( this holds true for several Polanski films, and Tess stands on top, together with a few more of them).

A film I never can get enough of watching. Literally, my example of cinematic perfection. A case where the five stars seem very few. Just wanted to mention it after watching it for one more time. From the one and only John Carpenter. No less!

Not my usual choices, kind of more experimental, although some of them are usually in every such list of mine

• Sans Soleil
• Route One/USA
• Lost, Lost, Lost
• The Red Shoes
• Cul-de-sac
• Illumination
• The Ceremony
• Kings of the Road
• Inland Empire
• Pierrot le Fou

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Just 10! Expanded to 20 ( 27/06/2024)

• EO
• Alice in the Cities
• Halloween
• Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
• The Fearless Vampire Killers
• Mr. Arkadin
• Cul-de-sac
• Godard's ion
• Assault on Precinct 13
• Ordet

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Fog
• Assault on Precinct 13
• The Fearless Vampire Killers
• Cul-de-sac
• Halloween
• Escape from New York
• Body Double
• The American Friend
• Kings of the Road
• Carrie

...plus 59 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Route One/USA
• Lost, Lost, Lost
• Diary of a Country Priest
• Los Angeles Plays Itself
• Metropolitan
• Mélo
• The Last Days of Disco
• Merry-Go-Round
• The Beautiful Prisoner
• Barcelona

• The French Dispatch
• The Matrix Resurrections
• First Cow
• Annette
• Pig
• The Father
• Cry Macho
• Dune
• The Green Knight
• Memoria

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.