Have you ever experienced a job burnout? However motivated you might be entering a profession, after a while, after months and months of problems, conflicts, or simple overwork, you start to lose the sense of your vocation. What if your job is playing in a science fiction TV series which has been dragging for some time and even fan meetings started to be tiresome? Looks like a long way down? But what if the fiction was far closer to reality than you thought? Maybe your job had an actual purpose to save the galaxy from perishing? Fun to watch, Galaxy Quest. Enjoy.
Sometimes you have to lose something to appreciate it. And often it means losing your best friend. But when emotions are running high and you are stuck in the world of professional expectations, loveless relationships, peer pressure, and a situation when the only person you care about is about to leave, you might lose it altogether. Equally hard is to deal with your troublesome family and decide to move countries to fight for yourself. But the more you set off and abandon the more you appreciate what you already have. A crisis is to put us in the right place and find our true selves. But do you have the guts to admit to your weaknesses and follow your heart? A love story on the verge of separation: Matthias & Maxime.
We all are aware of it now. More relationships break up than last until the time when our wrinkled bodies and grey hair announce the arrival of old age. But once you have been in a relationship for some time it's not that easy to separate, even though you definitely grew apart. And if there are children that connect both of you it seems to be a never-ending battle with coordination, logistics, compromises, and lawyers. How does it look like to get a divorce? Why is it one of the most traumatizing experiences of modern life? How humiliated can you be and how unscrupulous you can get to achieve your goals? And finally, weren't divorces created to get us out of the hell of marriage and is there a chance for a happy ending? Marriage Story.
Life puts us in situations which measure the strength of our relationships. What a better way to test yourself than to change the safe environment and try something new to break a routine? Maybe this way you will realize that your bonds bind you to the wrong people and the causes of your frustrations are in reality more understanding and closer to heart. Leave the university coziness and jump to weekend adventure! Can a day in a big city be a realization of more than one living lie? A Rainy Day in New York.
Almost all of us fell for it. The magic of Hollywood, the purchase of the illusion, the dream. I used to kiss farewell the screen of a TV set after each memorable film ended, hoping to see it again, a five-year-old's tribute to the hard work of fantasy makers. But the film is not just the 2-hour story cut by advertisements for us to watch, devouring on popcorn. It's the outcome of hundreds of hours of work, rehearsals, break-downs, tabloid registered ups and downs, scandals, the pain of being forgotten and a whole lot of personal drama going on in the meantime.
In 1969 the wife of our Polish Roman Polanski, the actress Sharon Tate, and her friends were murdered by Charles Manson's gang, creating for eternity a trauma in Hollywood's history, a myth equaled with Marylin Monroe's death. This is the compilation of events that led to this tragedy. Or is it? Hilarious, action-filled, and entertaining on so many levels. Can it get any better? Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
There are some love stories that shaped your life irreversibly. They caused heartache, the change of plans, they caused pain. You know this feeling, you fell in love with the wrong person, the wife of another man, the object of adoration of someone rich and powerful. In such cases, it's difficult to expect a happy ending. But once crashed with the burden of events, can you come to terms with the past? Can you forget the biggest loves of your life: a woman, a film, a vision, beauty, and happiness? Can you deal with the fact that your everything is also everything for someone else? Los abrazos rotos.
Open the photo album with old pictures from your childhood. Look at your chocolate-smeared face, your awkward glance or beaming smile. Look through your teenage years. Pass kindergarten and primary school. Then cover your teenage years. See how your parents have changed, how time didn't wait for anyone to catch up or save the last glimpses of youth and beauty. See how from the bubbling infant you shifted into a grown person and how much effort it took, how much time, space.
We discovered camera to catch moments and preserve memories in time, we created movies to make our legends and stories infinite, to spread the adaptation of the written word, to close happiness and pain in the jar of indestructible. Some pushed this possibility to another level. Imagine a film which leads you through the whole process of upbringing, allows you to see children grow, people age and change, circumstances shift, political systems and pop-culture obsessions turn around and take over. Imagine that it can be seen just like an old photo album, picture by picture, years after years. Boyhood. Maybe it's also your life preserved within the frames of a film. Enjoy.
We live in times when the discussion of whether or not to have children, (if yes how to raise them, what to buy them, how to protect their privacy, and how to lose the postpartum weight) seems to be on the mouth of everybody. A generation of perfect Instagram parents has been built. Parenthood is hard enough, revolutionizing the lives of everybody to the extent of 3rd world war. But for some, being at the corner of their career, relationship or life situation, it proves to be the greatest gift. What if the life of a party-goer, ladies man, and irresponsible Peter Pan was enriched by the presence of a child? Is it easy to lose something which at first frightened you, but then won your heart? Why one parent cannot play the role of both? Why mother and father relations are often stereotypical and so many courts tend to take the mother's side in the divorce trials? Heart-warming and surprisingly real in its improbability, Two Is a Family.
The pursuit of dreams is not such an easy matter. It's great when you have the support of your family and friends but when their reaction to your 'I will get an Oscar!', 'I will have my own company!', 'I will be a singer!', is a cynical 'Yes, you will...', you might have your wings trimmed. Go to a fortune teller and if she tells you that nothing of the sort will happen, you might end up hopeless. But friends can be blinded by jealousy, fortune tellers blurred by their cunning ways, and people who can actually give you the chance temporarily besotted with someone else's rise to stardom. The art is not to give up, bite your lips and persevere. A modern story of putting dreams into practice and whether the price of these dreams doesn't mess your private life just a bit. Hollywood dream come true with a pinch of salt, La La Land.
Prince charming of the ordinary world of bankers, businessmen, and blue-collar workers seems to appear from the world of muses: art, literature, music, film, and dance. All that glitters is not gold, and it's difficult to live with an artist, especially when his views clash with the so-called normal and universally accepted. It's challenging enough to be married to one who puts revolution on top of his life priorities. But being married to a renowned director, who seems to oppose the whole world, when you're in the prime of your youth? Jean-Luc Goddard and an interesting relationship with the French intellectual revolution in the background in the eyes of his young wife. Enjoy.
When I was growing up it was Gemma Ward, Lily Cole and Natalia Vodianova whom we admired for beauty and figure. All of them grew up, some devoted their lives to motherhood others can be still seen in the spotlight. The next generation came with Instagram sensations: Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, plus size beauties and Disney stars. Let's wait ten years and see what other young beautiful women we will admire and what type of beauty will be in fashion. Even Calvin Klein decided to reuse the image of blissfully young Kate Moss for his perfume campaign as if her youth was eternal and current Kate Moss was just an older sister of her previous self. We are all obsessed with beauty and youth. Yet, we will all grow old, have our faces covered in wrinkles, have our asses and breasts drop a few inches, have our teeth fall and, even having all the money in the world, we won't stop the passing of time. But if there was a magic potion for stopping time and aging process? Can something go wrong once you want to live forever? A still relevant film with so much younger Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis. Isn't it a little bit ridiculous to be young at all cost and shouldn't we grow old with grace? Death Becomes Her.
Circumstances force you to perform actions which you would normally never have thought about plunging into. Sometimes, due to financial difficulties or personal situation, you join a venture, which is below your expectations or out of your comfort zone. You can be a woman trying to save a relationship, an actor short of roles, a writer trying to deal with past traumas. For some, it might be a chance, for others a comical flattery of their raw talent. Life is not always about happy endings, happy relationships, sweet kisses under the mistletoe. But it has some sort of plan for you, a perfect plan to squeeze the best out of you, teach you lessons and make you suffer just enough to allow you to survive the greatest pain. War was a great time for a group of talented individuals to console millions that after each conflict, mass executions and destruction there is light at the end of the tunnel and good will always win the battle with evil. Their Finest.









