Category Archives: 5/5

Film Review “Mirage” a.k.a. “Durante La Tormenta” (2018) #NetflixReview

read the 100 word review here

mind-bending … Beautiful

A foreboding storm is the backdrop to the sad tale of a boy who witnesses a murder and who, in fleeing the scene, is run over and killed. Twenty-five years later, an eerily similar storm forms which seems to create a link to the past. Can Vera (Adriana Ugarte) save the boy? And what consequences will follow from this?

Mirage is a mind-bending mystery crime time-travel film. Beautiful in every way. The ending is shocking and totally satisfying; it doesn’t wipe out our journey as time travel films often do (the “it was only a dream” phenomenon). Despite the fantastic set-up — a storm which acts as a kind of wormhole to the past through which people can communicate via their television sets –. Mirage is wholly believable. Like all great time travel movies, it uses the set-up to explore those “Sliding Doors” moments where your life changed totally, almost as if on the toss of a coin.

In spite of the message that ‘we should be contented with our lot, as it could be worse’, the film never moralises. The focus is the human drama.

The cast could not be better. The acting is thoroughly believable. Ugarte bears a huge weight as our dramatic lead Vera, and she delivers a naturalistic and delicate performance.

Anyone who has ever mused on what would have happened had they not caught that train, forgotten their wallet that time, or decided not to go out after all that night, that is, most people, will love this film.

5/5

© 2020-2021 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/asnozZh17f4Rv9Ro1rETAEEAFOt.jpg

Netflix Film Review “Mirage” a.k.a. “Durante La Tormenta” (2018) #100WordReview #NetflixReview

check out the full-length review here

mind-bending … Beautiful

A foreboding storm is the backdrop to the sad tale of a boy who witnesses a murder and who in fleeing the scene is run over and killed. Twenty-five years later, an eerily similar storm forms which seems to create a link to the past. Can Vera save the boy? And what consequences will follow from this?

Mirage is a mind-bending mystery crime time-travel film. Beautiful in every way. The ending is shocking and totally satisfying; it doesn’t wipe out our journey as time travel films often do.

5/5

© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/asnozZh17f4Rv9Ro1rETAEEAFOt.jpg

Netflix Film Review: Annihilation (2018) #200WordReview @Netflix #Annihilation @AnnihilationMov @AlexGarland

A nightmarish hallucination … utterly unlike anything you’ve seen before

An isolated area of countryside is cut off from the world by an eerie shimmering light which surrounds it; no one who enters “the shimmer” is heard from again. Communication in and out of the shimmer is impossible. And with the shimmer slowly growing in size daily, engulfing the surrounding area, the government is called in to carry out a classified investigation under the guise of a chemical clean-up operation.

An all-female team, led by a biology professor (Natalie Portman) and a psychologist (Jennifer Jason) Leigh, each with their own agendas and ulterior motives, are the latest to enter. The world they find within the shimmer is an Alice-in-Wonderland, LSD trip gone wrong. A nightmarish hallucination, which is both utterly unlike anything you’ve seen before, and completely convincing.

The film is a genre-defying science fiction-horror-thriller-psychological thriller-creature feature which shares genetic strands with Sphere (1998), Event Horizon (1997), Contact (1997), and Cloverfield (2008). But this is all par for the course for writer-director, Alex Garland, whose previous accomplishments include Ex Machina and 28 Days Later.

This film is tense and, yes, genuinely scary. A horrifying slow-burn with some first rate acting.

5/5

© 2018 Bryan A. J. Parry

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