Platzspitzbaby - (Needle Park Baby)

Pierre Monnard’s Platzspitzbaby is based on the bestselling 2013 novel of the same name by Michelle Halbheer and Franziska K. Müller. Platzspitzbaby follows eleven-year-old Mia and her drug-addicted mother Sandrine after the closure of the open drug scene in Zurich. The family of two moves from the city to a more rural town but Sandrine’s drug addiction follows them wherever they go. Mia flees into her own fantasy world with an imaginary friend that helps her cope with her mother’s addiction. Mia soon makes friends with the rebellious Lola and her group of friends and decides to stand up for herself against her demanding mother.

Platzspitzbaby is inspired by true events that occurred in the late ’80s in a small park behind the main station in Zurich, Switzerland. Directly behind the federal state museum was the infamous hotspot for drug addicts and drug dealers. It was called the Platzspitz. The misery of the open drug scene with more than 3000 people gathering there daily was frowned upon by the public and neighboring countries which led to a clearance of the Platzspitz in early 1992. The drug scene had to relocate to the surrounding and less public areas instead. But even those places were eventually closed down by the national crackdown on drugs in 1995. This is where the story of Platzspitzbaby picks up.

Slight spoilers ahead.

Luna Mwezi as Mia and Sarah Spale as Sandrine

Luna Mwezi as Mia and Sarah Spale as Sandrine

Mia, played by Luna Mwezi, is the central character of this film and the story is told entirely through her perspective. Although her performance wasn’t always solid and convincing enough to carry the entire film, it was still impressive to watch her portray a character that’s basically the same age as she is. I would have preferred if her character wasn’t written in such a stiff emotional fashion. Mia basically shifts between sad, angry and disappointed, with the occasional glimpse of hope. That wouldn’t be much of a problem if the character’s moments weren’t repeated over and over again without Mia taking anything away from them. Mia never really becomes an active character, she is always just reacting to other characters’ action and when she finally does something on her own, it is limited to her telling her mom she wants to go home.

Not far into the film, we realize that Luna Mwezi is the best performer out of the otherwise lackluster cast. Sarah Spale’s Sandrine was comically bad at times and did not manage to immerse me into the story at all. I always saw the actress rather than the character on the screen, which really didn’t help. The same goes for Anouk Petri’s Lola.

Anouk Petri as Lola and Luna Mwezi as Mia

Anouk Petri as Lola and Luna Mwezi as Mia

The plot is not short of clichés and tropes clearly inspired by Hollywood films with a similar subject matter. This is yet another attempt of Swiss cinema trying to replicate Hollywood with a Swiss setting. All the plot points ranging from proving yourself to fit in by doing something crazy to being late for a school performance felt incredibly forced and resulted in the direction becoming muddled and unfocused. This problem becomes even more apparent in amateurish camera work. There are several moments in which the camera goes from handheld to static and back to handheld for no reason. Usually, a change in camera movement is motivated by what’s going on in the scene, but that was not the case in Platzspitzbaby and as it continued to happen it became increasingly frustrating to witness such poor direction. I haven’t even mentioned to the terribly inconsistent imaginary friend that pops up whenever convenient, only to over visualize Mia’s struggle.

Should you see this movie? The film is clearly intended to be watched by a Swiss audience that hasn’t seen a lot of similar movies produced in Hollywood. I’d recommend skipping this one, but if you’re interested in the subject matter Requiem of a Dream is a great alternative.

★★☆☆☆

Platzspitzbaby has a strong performance by the lead Luna Mwezi in an otherwise underwhelming Hollywood inspired drug addict story that spends to much time in cliché subplots and adds a weird singing imaginary side character for no plausible reason.

Swiss Release Date: 16.01.2020

Film data: Director: Pierre Monnard - Writers: Michelle Halbheer, André Küttel - Cast: Sarah Spale, Luna Mwezi, Jerry Hoffmann, Micheal Schertenleib, Jorik Wenger - 2020 - Switzerland - 98 min - C-Films AG

Photos and Video Source: © Ascot Elite Entertainment Group. All Rights Reserved.

The Gentlemen

INT. GUY RITCHIE AT HIS MOST GUY RITCHIE - DAY

The Gentlemen is a fun, thrilling and mostly enjoyable 2 hours but, it isn’t without its flaws. After all, it is a Guy Ritchie film. The Gentlemen is a current-day view at British gangsters funnily enough run by an American marijuana kingpin, wow, twisty. Let’s start at the beginning, where most of his films are the weakest. In true Ritchie style, it’s a mess because of the non-linear style. 

We don’t necessarily start at the end or in the middle. What we are treated to is Charlie Hunnam and Hugh Grant bantering and narrating the story but mainly Grant flirting with Hunnam. These two are the main source of context in the film. They explain what’s happening while Grant acts as a slight antagonist, however, the line is blurred between the good and the bad at times.

Colin Farell as Coach and Charlie Hunnam as Ray

While this is happening Grant tells the story. In fact, he’s written it as a script and if Charlie doesn’t buy the script off him, he’s gonna sell off the story to Miramax. Yes, Miramax the company making the movie, maybe I forgot to say this film is slightly meta. 

We follow the story along learning that the big boss Matthew McConaughey wants out. He’s built himself an empire from nothing and now he wants to just live a normal life. This news gains the interest of a number of different rival gangs, after all, he’s the biggest drug lord and marijuana is popping, so everyone wants a piece. 

Matthew McConaughey’s character is similar to Daniel Craig’s character in ‘Knives Out’.  However, instead of putting on the accent, Matthew can just use his natural one and it’s already out of place. His accent throws you off at the start but quickly becomes one of the best components of the film, until Colin Farrel enters the film. So you probably don’t know yet, but there’s a little soft spot in my heart for Colin Farrell. When I say little I mean like my whole heart. Especially when he’s also using his normal accent, it gives me In Bruges memories. 

Each character seems to be an archetype; Colin Farrell’s Coach is a tough softie looking out for his kids, Hugh Grant’s Fletcher is a cocky and confident private investigator and, obviously, McConaughey’s Mickey Pearson is the cool, calm and collective drug lord who’s always two steps ahead. While I’m not usually a fan of characters I’ve seen before, this film has such a complex plot, that it would be too difficult for this twisty story to involve twisty characters so this seemed like a necessary evil.

Henry Golding as Dry Eye and Tom Wu as Lord Gerge

Henry Golding as Dry Eye and Tom Wu as Lord Gerge

Looking at The Gentlemen’s filmmaking techniques, it does use a variety of visual cues but again, it’s Guy Ritchie we’re talking about here. The fast and witty script combined with Ritchie’s visual humor style, keeps the audience entertained even during monologues and exposition. It’s the reminders from Fletcher (Hugh Grant) that the whole story hasn’t actually been told yet and that he’s holding it back that entices you. Ritchie wants you to guess and then when you think you know, he pulls the rug from under you. It’s Michelle Dockey’s character Rosalind Pearson, Mickey’s wife, who puts it perfectly: There’s fuckery afoot.” 

Without getting too much into spoiler territory, the ending is satisfying. Ritchie brings it all together with very little loose ends. It’s not until the last 20 minutes that the confusion stops and you can get a full grasp of everything. I think that this film would have been better when told in order, yet I don’t think anyone else could have pulled off this screenplay than the guy himself, Guy Ritchie, but, that is a benefit of also being the screenwriter and the director I guess. You can do what you want. 

Eddie Marsan as Big Dave, Matthew McConaughey as Micheal Pearson and Charlie Hunnam as Ray

Should you see this film? If you like a crime mystery with a comedic thread holding it together, or if you just want 2 hours of Hugh Grant flirting with Charlie Hunnam, 2 hours of Matthew McConaughey being Matthew McConaughey supreme drug lord and Colin Farrell in a matching jumpsuit, go see this movie.

FADE OUT

★★★☆☆

Swiss Release Date: 27.02.2020

Australian Release Date: 01.01.2020

Film Data: Director: Guy Ritchie - Writers: Guy Ritchie, Marn Davies, Ivan Atkinson - Cast Matthew McConaughey, Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Henry Golding, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong, Brittany Ashworth, Jason Wong - USA - 102’ - Miramax

Gentlemen - Artwork - ov - 01 Teaser OV_700x1000_4f.jpg

To All the Boys I've Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You

To All the Boys I've Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You is the second installment in the Netflix teen romance To All the Boys trilogy, which is based on the novels of Cathy Yan. After the huge success of the first To All the Boys film in 2018, the fans were quickly promised the rest of the trilogy. Principal photography was already finished in 2019. The second installment of the trilogy, P.S. I Still Love You, was directed by Michael Fimognari, who’s best known for his work in cinematography in the drama and thriller genre, for films such as The Haunting of the Hill House (2018) or Doctor Sleep (2019). This marks Fimognari’s debut as a director. 

Spoilers ahead! (Even though, the film’s title will already spoil it for you)

The film follows Lara Jean Covey (Lara Condor) navigating through the milestones and difficulties of a teenage relationship with her boyfriend Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). Instead of the perfect relationship she had always imagined of, Lara Jean is constantly reminded of the past: she worries about Peter’s ex-girlfriend daily and more importantly, she receives a return letter from her middle-school crush John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher, replacing Jordan Burtchett) from Model UN, who was also one of the recipients of Lara Jean’s love letters from the first installment. The rest of the plot is painfully predictable, which can leave the viewer especially underwhelmed. 

Yet, P.S. I Still Love You suffers from more than just a predictable plot. The essential part of Lara Jean’s character, the support system of the three sisters, which is emphasized in the first installment, is now almost non-existent. Lara Jean’s sisters are now replaced by a retirement home resident, played by Holland Taylor. This older lady sure is a fun new addition to the story, yet it seems unfitting as Lara Jean’s beloved sisters are now on the sidelines. One can see even more unfitting character development, when Lara Jean’s current boyfriend Peter is suddenly portrayed as (pardon my language) an asshole, and the returned John Ambrose as an angel. 

The cinematics of the film are fine, it is what you’d expect from a teenage romance on Netflix. What P.S. I Still Love You excels in, is the creation of an idyllic atmosphere, with beautiful use of color, a strong soundtrack and quote-worthy dialogue. The combination of which creates the impression that this film wasn’t intended to be good or award-worthy, but instead, the creators are designing a perfectly repostable facade, appealing to the teenage viewer, which will essentially result in free marketing.

In conclusion, To All the Boys I've Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You underwhelms with a predictable plot, and problematic character development, which allows for the film to be quickly forgotten as just one of those high school romances. The question now is if the last of the trilogy, To All The Boys: Always and Forever, Lara Jean, will manage to revive the story from sequel fatigue and present us with a worthwhile end to the trilogy, or if it will follow down the path of many failed trilogies, such as Divergent, Legally Blonde, 50 Shades and so on...

★★☆☆☆

If you haven’t caught up with the first part of the trilogy, don’t bother. If you are a fan of teenage romance stories, such as The Fault In Our Stars or Five Feet Apart, go ahead, you’ll have a blast.

Netflix Release Date (Global): 12.02.2020

Film Data: Director: Michael Fimognari - Writers: Sofia Alvarez, J. Mills Goodloe - Cast: Lara Condor, Noah Centineo, Jordan Fisher, Anna Cathcart, Janel Parish, Trezzo Mahoro, Emilija Baranac, Holland Taylor, John Corbett - USA - 102’ - Netflix


Photo and Video Source: Netflix Switzerland. All Rights Reserved.

Horse Girl

Horse Girl is Writer and Director Jeff Baena’s fourth feature film and launched on Netflix this Friday after premiering at the Sundance film festival in late January. This is the second collaboration between Baena and lead Alison Brie after 2017’s The Little Hours. Horse Girl tells the story of a socially awkward woman with a fondness for art and crafts, horses and supernatural crime shows who increasingly finds herself in ludic dreams that trickle into her waking life.

Alison Brie mentioned in interviews that she was inspired to write this story because of her personal family history of mental illnesses. She questioned if her relatives' conditions could suddenly spark up in her as well. Brie’s performance comes across as genuine, raw and honest. The film, however, is never able to match her performance and dedication. Most secondary characters are one dimensional and never serve a more important purpose function than illustrating Sarah’s (Alison Brie) social awkwardness and lack of self-awareness.

The movie starts off somewhat grounded and reasonable but shifts gears in the latter half towards a crash of an ending. The introduction of our protagonist Sarah, a saleswoman at a crafts store called Great Lengths also takes a great length to introduce us to her unusual quirks and daily life structure. At that point, it becomes clear that the story is relatively slow and panders in awkward social encounters for the sake of awkwardness and spends time on a love interest subplot that does not lead to a meaningful conclusion.

Throughout the film, there are a few hints of good ideas and concepts, but they either get abandoned or lose focus in the often stagnant plot progression. Horse Girl is a sad movie about loneliness and susceptibility to extremist ideas when one’s own sanity is questioned. The basis for an introspective Indie film about mental health is given. The film, however, panders in boring subplots and a confusing main plot that switches genres from a Drama to a Sci-Fi Thriller out of thin air in the third act.

Debby Ryan as Nikki, Jake Picking as her boyfriend Brian and John Reynolds as Darren were all fine but suffered from bad writing for their characters. Especially Darren was quite inconsistent and just a plot device to show Sarah’s rapidly increasing deliriousness. The rest of the cast is good as well, but no one as captivating as Alison Brie’s performance.

Should I see this film? I would not recommend this film to anyone other than fans of Alison Brie as her performance is the best part of the movie. See these movies instead as they deal with mental illness in a more interesting way: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shutter Island, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or Fight Club.

Horse Girl is a sad movie about loneliness and susceptibility to extremist ideas when one’s own sanity is questioned. The basis for an introspective Indie film about mental health is given, the film, however, panders in boring subplots and concludes in a messy nonsensical open-to-interpretation finale.

★★☆☆☆

Release (Global) 07.02.2020

Film data: Director: Jeff Baena - Writer: Jeff Baena, Alison Brie - Cast Alison Brie, Debby Ryan, Stella Chestnut, John Reynolds, Molly Shannon, John Ortiz, Hazel Armenante, Jay Duplass - USA - 2020 - Netflix

Video and Picture Source: Netflix Switzerland All Right Reserved

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is director Cathy Yan’s first feature-length debut and Margot Robbie’s return to Cupic Of Crime herself, Harley Quinn. The film takes place in the loosely connected DC cinematic universe in which the critical flop Suicide Squad introduced Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. This is really her film and even though the titular team of Birds of Prey was the advertised focus of the movie the majority of the runtime is spent with all of these characters either working against or separate from each other. At this point, it should be mentioned that if you want to go into this film without knowing anything about the plot, be warned, there might be slight spoilers ahead.

Alongside Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, there are the three members of the Birds of Prey with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Dinah Lance/Black Canary and Rosie Perez as Det. Rene Montaya. Although as mentioned before, there’s not a lot of teaming up in this film. It reminded me of Deadpool 2 and that brief fake-out X-Force team-up. X-Force (and the Electrifying Vanishing of a Brad Pitt cameo). Birds of Prey shares quite a few things with the plot and character of the second Deadpool installment. The often unreliable narration with frequent time jumps and freeze frame exposition dumps, a kid being hunted that needs protecting, and a group of misfits teaming up. But at least Harley wasn’t as persistent on the pop culture references.

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Margot Robbie’s charismatic performance and the highly stylized and surprisingly violent fight scenes are the most entertaining aspects of the movie. Even though the overused slow-motion speed ramping does become noticing at times. From Harley Quinn’s psychologically unstable perspective we get an unreliable narrator that jumps back and forth in time as a reflection on Quinn’s incapability to focus on telling a story from beginning to end. Or it might be a way to make this rather simple plot appear to be a bit more than just a dragged out MacGuffin chase featuring one-dimensional secondary characters with motivations like ‘oh no don’t kill the neighbor kid’ or ‘revenge’. Even the most interesting character, which was Winstead’s Helena Bertinelli aka Crossbow Killer aka The Huntress, ended up becoming a comic relief character and wasn’t used up to her true potential.

Birds of Prey left a rather underwhelming impression on me. However, I have to say that Ewan McGregor seemed to have had a blast overacting in every scene he was in. It was honestly the most consistently funny thing for me in the film. When it comes to his character Roman Sionis aka Black Mask there’s not much to mention other than a statement I have previously made about the poking fun at stereotypical movie tropes: just because you acknowledge that your writing is lazy and bad doesn’t make it funny or original.

Child actors are a pet peeve of mine. It wasn’t just the scenes with Ella Jay Basco’s Cassandra Cain that fell flat most of the time. There’s a scene with Ewan McGregor in which his insanity is supposed to be showcased, but all it made me do is cringe and laugh because it was so awkward and misplaced. For Cassandra Cain, the laughable over-the-top acting isn’t an option because her role is to ground Harley and everyone else and be the audiences’ vessel to sanity. But her acting is just straight-up bad and took me out of the story multiple times.

The story goes the way you expect a story like this to go and although I enjoyed the explosion of colors with green and pink everywhere the tonal inconsistencies were too frequent to turn a blind eye.

Should I watch this? If you are been entertained by the likes of Deadpool or got a least a pinch of enjoyment out of Suicide Squad there’s a good chance you are going to enjoy returning to Robbie’s portrayal of Harls. If you, however, disliked the above-mentioned movies I’d suggest skipping this one. It’s fun, dumb and entertaining.

★★☆☆☆

Birds of Prey ranks somewhere in the middle of the post-Nolan Dark Knight trilogy DC movie universe. Most performances are decent at best and the predictable and formulaic plot renders the movie forgettable.

Swiss Release Date: 06.02.2020

Film data: Director: Cathy Yan - Writer: Christina Hodson - Cast: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Derek Wilson, Steven Williams, Chris Messina, Charlene Amoia, Rosie Perez, Ali Wong - USA - 109’

Video and Photo Source: © 2020 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

Dolitte Does Little For Me

Robert Downey Jr. portrays the charismatic children’s book hero Dr. Dolittle, a physician with the ability to talk to animals. In his first role outside the MCU since 2014’s The Judge, RDJ teams up with writer/director Stephen Gaghan instead of the Avengers to bring us a family adventure nobody really asked for.

Dolittle’s production process was reportedly a huge mess in the editing room because of Gaghan's lack of previsualization. Throughout the 100 minute runtime, there are several sequences in which Robert Downey Jr.’s character isn’t even looking at the right spot. It feels like a big chunk of the work was simply handed off to the animators to figure out where animals would end up in shots that weren’t properly blocked and staged for them. All the conversations between the animals and Dolittle are noticeably disjointed and lack chemistry and cohesion between the animated and real-life characters.  There’s a scene between Emma Thompon’s duck and RDJ in which he just stares of into the distance even though the duck is right in front of him. The voice acting cast for the animals is impressive with the likes of Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Najiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, and Ralph Fiennes. However, all of these (mostly) great actors are heavily underutilized in the plot and undercut by the limitations of realistic animal animations. I personally don’t think that the use of talking animals will ever work outside of animated films and silly kids movies, but if definitely does not work in Dolittle.

When it comes to story it is basically an exact copy of Up just with fewer balloons and therefore less fun. We do get John Cena as a cuddly polar bear, but even that can’t prevent this ship from sinking. There’s the reluctant hero, who shuts down after the death of his wife until a young kid comes along and he sneaks onto the journey with him. They run into talking furry creatures and eventually complete the adventure that Dolittle's dead wife wasn’t able to complete.

Dolittle.jpg

This visualization of the relationship between the animals and Doctor Dolittle is a really helpful reminder for the waste of talent on this production. Honestly, I probably would have enjoyed it more if they went full-on Cats and morphed these stars into their animal counterparts. Now that would have been something. Even more of a fever dream, but certainly entertaining.

For anyone still indecisive about whether they should give this a chance or not, I want to highlight a scene in which a tiger named Barry, voiced by Ralph Fiennes, is kicked in his groins and yells “My Barry Berries!”.


★☆☆☆☆

Dolittle falls short on almost every level. It lacks humor, charm, and originality and wastes a star-filled cast in favor of a simple cash-grab

Swiss Release Date: 30.01.2020

Film data: Dolittle - Regie: Stephen Gaghan - Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Harry Collett, Rami Malek, Michael Sheen, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Octavia Spencer, Carmel Laniado, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Jessie Buckley, Jim Broadbent, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, Kasia Smutniak, Selena Gomez - USA - 101 Minuten


Source for Pictures and Trailer: Universal Pictures International Switzerland / COPYRIGHT © 2020 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS and PERFECT UNIVERSE INVESTMENT INC. All Rights Reserved.