hilaryjrp

I can't remember ever turning off a cable tv Saturday matinee out of boredom, but then looking for it on IMDB, streaming it, and finding it brilliant. "Blood and Money" is about old age, poverty, and a hostile, and in this case, snowy world. I am familiar with northern Maine; it's the perfect setting for a man-against-nature film.

"Blood and Money" attains a spellbinding loneliness almost as painful as "The Martian" because of the Allagash, yes, but foremost because of Jim Reed's (Tom Berenger's) forlorn life. The film made me think of "All is Lost" more than once, the snowbound setting is *that* desolate.

The most courageous decision by the screenwriter was not to start the plot until halfway through. It's a brilliant character study before that. Once you get to know Jim, you keep asking if he's a killer-and you can't be sure. It's because of the spot-on successful way Berenger plays the role as a quixotic Everyman. He smokes and spits up blood; he shoots deer badly; he breaks his AA faith.

But more than anything, he suffers-poverty, loneliness, and cold. One scene near the end of the film has him in a cave, freezing to death. I never felt as convinced by any other actor of what that sort of death is like.

I know I'll watch this again.

I rely on Amazon Prime to introduce overlooked, under-publicized, and generally, darn fascinating true crime documentaries. At the conclusion of "Missing Mom," I couldn't have cared less about the things that seem to bother other reviewers here.

In fact, I was so sure that this was not a documentary, but rather a found-footage film, that I came to IMDB to see if I was right. It's a documentary all right--and, dang, do I give credit to these two brothers for undertaking the mission that they did.

What surprised me wasn't the question asked of Rob at the end: "Do you think this might create some disturbances you didn't anticipate when you set out?" It didn't surprise me because the ending kind of reveals who the judgmental souls were. And *that*, of course, will cause disturbances.

God bless Rob and Chris, and their new life.

Dang, but did this film grab me. Lambert Wilson as De Gaulle--is he, as Churchill asks him at one point, a genius or a madman? There are SO many brilliant things about this film that I'll overlook the one other reviews seem to point out: the annoying concentration on the young daughter with Down's Syndrome. Nothing in the script establishes the influence such a child *must* have played on her father's will to save an entire nation; we must infer it.

Much, much more importantly to me as an American, the reason I cried so often during the film wasn't always because of how shoddily De Gaulle was treated by frikkin' everyone except his wife and family. Rather, this explains more than just emotions: the French simply don't make "manly man" films. The result is that other countries, no matter their language, often deride not only French cinema, but the French themselves for the testosterone-free movie reels.

"De Gaulle" mirrors "The Darkest Hour." Charles De Gaulle is as bull-headed and alpha male as Churchill. AND I LOVED IT. It was... real. Real French men are like this. The bad and hurtful jokes aimed the Hexagon's way are as hurtful as they are because they're not true--and yet France cinema seems to take pride in a neglect of manliness, old-school manliness.

Art direction is A+++. Pacing, the same. The problem is that Winston Churchill had at least five major films about him in the 90s and this century alone, and De Gaulle needs as many. Charles De Gaulle was not effete. He turned out to be his nation's savior. Maybe there's a connection between the two, making his life worth more manly-man film.

Superb.