STREAMING: FASHION AND THE END OF THE WORLD – Newspapers

Gucci house

It’s easy to lose interest in House of Gucci, a real-life tale of family feuds, corporate betrayals and capitalist intrigue directed by Ridley Scott. Unlike fashion brands, and their expensive offerings, the narrative lines and cuts are neither smooth nor slick.

This almost direct story of the downfall of the House of Gucci takes some getting used to, as someone is thrust into it without a proper introduction to the setting, or the people we have to empathize with.

In fact, there’s little to empathize with at all. House of Gucci is not a rich story (everyone is rich from the start) where the characters achieve certain goals; no purpose at all. What we have, for the most part, are family fights in Italian-accented English.

This film is not the origin story of the man who started the brand — the man is Guccio Gucci. Instead, the emphasis shifts two generations to Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), the co-heir to the Gucci empire, who has no interest in his father’s business (his father, Rodolfo Gucci, played by Jeremy Irons).

Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci swings between mediocrity and effectiveness, when it could otherwise be extraordinary, while Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up is a stunning masterpiece of satire, though its extensive ridicule is also its drawback.

Maurizio fell in love with Patrizia Reggiani, in what would become the loosest definition of the term according to the screenplay adapted by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna (Lady Gaga, now a veritable powerhouse of an actress, played Reggiani).

Young Maurizio, with aspirations of a career in law, rebelled from his father, washed trucks for a while, and returned home to take over half of the Gucci business before his father died. He, however, lacks the drive or wit to carry the brand into a new era (the story moves from 1978 to 1997; decades can often be identified by a changing soundtrack playlist).

The Gucci brand, as far as one can conclude, is handled fairly well by Maurizio’s uncle, Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino), who loves him more than his son Paolo Gucci (the almost unrecognizable Jered Leto). From this point on, the story falls into trickery and intrigue, and loses its audience.

Scott is inundated with Gucci family stories (he has been working on this film since 2006), and his closeness to the subject can be seen firsthand by his familiarity with the characters. Like all directorial passion projects, this intimacy is dangerous for the casual viewer (like me, and probably most others), whose understanding of the brand stops at the Gucci logo and price tag. Reading Wikipedia doesn’t help either.

The cast — Leto, Pacino, Irons, Selma Hayek (who is actually married to the chairman and CEO of the conglomerate that currently owns Gucci) — reduces the hard side of the story as much as they can. Driver and Gaga—the heart of the story—have hypnotizing chemistry, and the film, in the first 30 minutes of their youth, really flies. However, the reasons that led to their separation and eventual divorce feel hollow, as is the narrative.

House of Gucci swings between mediocrity and effectiveness, when it could have been excellent. One can see it in the frame of cinematographer Dariusz Wolski; they immediately remind one how interesting the famous studio films of 20 years ago were. Production, costume design and make-up design are sure to get nominations.

Mapping accounts of famous families is fine fodder for a high-profile award season film, but the story and intrigue never reach the cinematic levels worthy of such an impressive film.

Adapted from Sara Gay Forden’s book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamor, and Greed, House of Gucci is rated R. The film has a lot of screaming, short, strong sex scenes, an Italian-accented show and a two-way run. half an hour.

Don’t Look Up

This official synopsis says it all: “Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy graduate student, and her professor Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) make a surprising discovery about a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem—it was on a direct collision course with Earth. Other problems? It seems like no one really cares. It turns out that warning humanity about a planet killer the size of Mount Everest is a troublesome fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the broadcast of The Daily Rip, a cheerful morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With just six months until the comet makes an impact, managing a 24-hour news cycle and getting the attention of the social media-obsessed public before it’s too late is proving to be hilarious — what does it take to make the world just look up?! ”

What is needed, really? A very timely and relatable slap in the form of satire? Of course, that wasn’t enough, even for the critics; film review aggregation site Metacritic summed up the film’s overall rating to 50 percent at the time of this writing, but that won’t deter people from viewing the film on Netflix—it has all the ingredients of a good film: good shows, good production values, good scares. .

A film about immediate environmental hazards on Earth would be more gruesome and realistic, but a film about a Himalayan-sized rock falling from space – a la Armageddon and Deep Impact – is now less horrific, or realistic, one would think – and the deduction would be true and wrong at the same time.

Adam McKay’s sadistic spoof is a stunning masterpiece. This is as serious as a critical head injury after slipping on a banana peel.

McKay’s brand of satire is still in tip-top shape, though it’s gradually deviating from realistically dramatic (The Big Short) to ultra-realistic (Vice). Still, Don’t Look Up is probably the most enjoyable cinematic pleasure anyone has had with its ‘end of the world’ premise since Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic black comedy Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bombs.

The film is a weirder, perhaps more serious parody, as its two utterly confused central characters, played by Lawrence and DiCaprio, shout their concerns out to the people of the world. We spectators soon realized the futility of their screams; no matter how hard they cried, no one in this world would listen.

McKay’s film pokes fun at everyone in one fell swoop: the people of Earth, whose consciousness is ruled by social media and trending celebrities (Ariana Grande in a minor role); non-serious and intentional media misunderstandings; the greed of tech companies that eats away at money (Mark Rylance, plays the cryptic tech mogul, pissed off, hermit is a hoot)—but above all, the incompetence of governments that put politics and polls over the survival of their planet. voter stay.

Yes, mocking is Don’t Look Up’s main concern, and it may also be its biggest drawback. The problem is, what we see on screen can easily get lost in real life…and that’s what we should be afraid of.

Yes, the actors play some pretty ridiculous caricatures, but take off the glib cover and people will likely see our own propensity to accept misinformation, our whims for the moment, material conveniences, capitalism, and general neglect, staring back at us.

Open your eyes, and look up. The message will hit harder than the asteroid.

Rated R for short sex and adultery scenes

Published at Dawn, ICON, January 9, 2022