'Oh, Canada', (★★★★✩) the death of Paul Schrader and other premieres of the week

These are the movies that hit theaters this December 25:

Ratings

★★★★★ masterpiece
★★★★✩ very good
★★★✩✩ buena
★★✩✩✩ regular
★✩✩✩✩ mala

Oh, Canada (★★★★✩)
Director: Paul Schrader
Performers: Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman
Production: United States, 2024 (95 min.)
Drama

The death of Paul Schrader

By Philip Engel

At 78 years old, Paul Schrader is thinking about Death. Not only did he publish on social networks the image of a tombstone on which his name already appears along with that of his longed-for brother Leonard, with whom he wrote Mishima: A life in four chapters (1985), a puzzle film like this one, which could be the staging of his own death, as well as a double reunion: as Affliction (1997), is once again the adaptation of a novel by Russell Banks (The Dropouts), an enormous writer who died last year to whom the film is also dedicated, and stars none other than Richard Gere, whom Schrader turned into a star with American Gigolo (1980), which remains the summit of both.

More than forty years after cruising through Los Angeles to the sound of Call Me in his convertible, Gere is a dying filmmaker, specializing in documentaries, who agrees to give one last interview in front of the camera, in search of, of course, that everlasting redemption that It constitutes the backbone of American cinema, classic and modern, white and manly, of which this film could be an exciting epilogue. The former student who interrogates him (Michel Imperioli) wants to push him towards politics, but Gere is only interested in atoning for his sins of abandonment, personified in the past by the lanky Jacob Elordi, a conscientious objector who does not hesitate to pass himself off as homosexual in a pretty hilarious interview with his military recruiter.

Astrid Meseguer

After his prodigious ascetic trilogy (2017/22), made up of The Reverend, The Card Counter y The Master GardenerSchrader once again demonstrates that he is still in top form by changing gears with this device that combines Gere's moving look at the camera and those memories evoked with vaporous classicism, displaying American iconography to the sound of the melancholic melodies of Matthew Houck aka Phosphorescent. It is a bit like an obituary that the interested party himself had written, ready to publish. He is right, because, at least in this country, his admired friend Russell Banks did not receive the honors he deserved. Let's hope that, when the time comes, Schrader will not be remembered as “the screenwriter of Taxi Driver”, almost a sham at this point. Long live Paul Schrader!

Nosferatu (★★✩✩✩)
Director: Robert Eggers
Starring: Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Willem Dafoe
Production: USA, 2024 (132 minutes). Terror

New visit to a classic

By Jordi Batlle Caminal

This “Nosferatu” by Robert Eggers is a bit of a sticker movie. In theory, it is a new version of FW Murnau's century-old masterpiece. It is presented reasonably faithful to the original, but, in its visual formulation, it at the same time refers to Coppola's “Dracula”: a democratic sticker. It does not have, however, an ounce of the dark poetry of Murnau, the summit of German expressionism, nor of the visual inventiveness and unbridled romanticism of Coppola, only brief touches of stylized plastic creativity scattered in more than two hours of footage. The use of candlelight in the deep dark scenes is truly brilliant, and has its greatest moment (the best in the film) in the first meeting between Thomas Hutter, the real estate employee, and Count Orlok, whose face still remains hidden in the shadows.

In the very uneven journey of the story, Eggers includes, in the form of a dream, a fragment with gypsies that is pure “folk horror” and that could be said to be a self-homage to “The Witch”, his first feature film. And also an exorcism reminiscent of the totemic work of William Friedkin and several scares more typical of staid popcorn horror than a supposedly serious revision of a classic of the seventh art. No member of the cast has true prominence, not even the famous Dafoe, determined to compose, with his mile-long pipe, a picturesque character. Even worse, unforgivable, is Skarsgård's absolute lack of charisma in the role of the vampire count.

Murnau and Coppola, but also Herzog, Browning, Fisher and Badham, among others (without going any further, our guerrilla Jesús Franco, author of “Count Dracula”, very faithful to Bram Stoker's text), have gifted our film memory indelible images of a story as timeless as its protagonist. The grain of sand contributed by Eggers has a momentary impact that is not insignificant, but certainly not lasting.

Parthenope (★★★✩✩)
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Performers: Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Silvio Orlando
Production: Italy, 2024. 136 m. Drama.

Treatise on the void

By Salvador Llopart

In essence we are looking at a lascivious look. Why fool ourselves: no matter how much admiration one feels for Sorrentino's cinema since The great beauty (2013), the Neapolitan director has remained on this occasion in the lubricious observation of Parthenopea woman in transit towards her decadence. You can now cover the story of this young woman with an impenetrable smile and unattainable aura (Celeste Dalla Porta), you can now cover Parthenope with metaphors, allegories and sublime moments – and also with shocking moments, like that sex scene with the prelate in charge of liquefaction. of the tears of San Gennaro, patron saint of Naples – that the result is the same: the lustful look – the desire – behind a layer of transcendence. The significance is set, as always, by the city of Naples, all of Italy, and the unforgiving passage of time.

In Parthenope Dream scenes of magical beauty follow one another at the expense of the logic of the story which, except on rare occasions, is conspicuous by its absence. The film, despite everything, is as exuberantly beautiful as always in Sorrentino's films, even a little more so. This reflection/walk on the mystery of a woman (without mystery) is, in short, a treatise on emptiness – Pathenope herself seems empty most of the time – as well as a sublime exercise in style.

Sonic 3: The Movie (★★✩✩✩)
Director: Jeff Fowler
Performers: Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Cristo Fernández
Production: USA, 2024. 110 m. Adventure

It could be worse

By S.Llopart

Freed from the weight of the previous installments -don't expect comparisons-, I am left alone facing the danger of facing the third adaptation for the big screen of a successful video game, such as Sonic. At first, the mixture of drawing and that something similar to reality with which the film is conceived is striking. The drawings interact with flesh and blood characters: human characters, although, to a large extent, they are as two-dimensional as the drawn ones.

With one big exception: Dr. Robotnik, by Jim Carrey, Sonic's archenemy, who here is split into two: two “mad doctors” for the price of one; two crazy wise men who advance a hyperbolic and repetitive story – like a good part of nineties video games, and I think of Mario Bros – thanks to their outbursts and their endless graces. It all starts when Sonic and his friends, Knuckles and Tails, must face their shadow, that is, Shadow, which is the evil name: the mirror image of Sonic, with the same or even better powers. From here, madness is served, at full speed. Without Carrey things could have been worse.

No instructions (★✩✩✩✩)
Director: Marina Seresesky
Performers: Paco León, Maia Zaitegui, Silvia Alonso
Production: Spain, 2024 (100 min).
Comedy drama

The flirt, the girl and the rowing

By P. Engel

There are movies that are like a blast. You know, when one is about to drown, and after having fought hard against the water, he manages to emerge to the surface to catch air, at which point he receives an unexpected blow from the oar in the face, and sinks again to always. And this remake of the Mexican film No Returns Accepted, by Eugenio Derbez, which already had its ineffable French version with Omar Sy (Everything Begins Tomorrow), fits the definition like a glove.

The first part is a Santiago Segura-style white comedy, so sterilized for the entire family that it does not allow for more than half a disgruntled smile. It could be titled Surprise Dad, or A flirt and a baby bottle: they do not need a drawing of the plot, although we do anticipate that it is even painful to see the almost always brilliant Paco León involved in such a role.

Then, as if to punish us for not having laughed, comes the aforementioned punchline, a dramatic turn that could almost be described as emotional blackmail, since it combines a charming girl and a lethal illness to bring tears to our eyes. A flat and cloying overdose of sentimentality that can only be expected to revitalize the Christmas box office a little thanks to the popular pull of its protagonist.