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To those looking for a captivating mini-series for the end of summer, I recommend 'The Serpent', an international co-production with the participation of BBC studios, released in 2021. The story is inspired by a series of crimes that took place 50 years ago, in 1975 and 1976, in Asian countries that were at that time part of the track of young hippies in search of themselves, sensations and experiences that did not avoid use of drugs. It is a 'true crime' case or rather 'true criminal' that follows the corpse-strewn trail of a serial killer named Charles Sobhraj, who with the help of his girlfriend and another accomplice lured, drugged, robbed and killed young Westerners naive enough to fall into his nets. We know from the beginning who the criminals are and the fact that they were caught and punished for at least some of their crimes. They committed at least 12 murders, but were only convicted of two. What the eight episodes of the miniseries tell is how they were captured and how their crimes were put to an end in a time when there were no biometric passports, video cameras on every street corner, electronic records of border crossings, social networks and Internet messaging that today allow the location of anyone and anywhere. The three grim criminals are opposed by a couple of young Dutch diplomats who, starting from the disappearance of two of their compatriots, investigated fiercely and eventually managed to overcome the indifference of bureaucrats in Western diplomacy and the corruption of local police, not without endangering their own careers and even more.

I liked the way the narrative was built, managing to catch and keep the attention of viewers, especially in the first 3-4 episodes, alternating between the investigation of the diplomats turned amateur detectives in the conditions of a foreign country and the crimes that succeed one another, gradually revealing the psychological profile of the criminals and their backgrounds. Repetitions appear in episodes 4-6, but the pace of the action accelerates again in the final two episodes. There are three groups of characters: the criminals, those who chase them and the victims. The fact that viewers have the opportunity to get to know some of the victims, young people who went on a trip in search of spiritual or action adventures, whose lives and dreams are cut short by the assassins, puts the cruelty of the crimes into true light, compensating for the initial attraction caused by the encounter with the two criminals, played by two actors with charisma and remarkable physical presence: Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman. The role of the young Dutch diplomat who risked his career to track down and capture the criminals is played by Billy Howle, who expressively portrays the hero's anxieties and doubts, despite some unnecessary theatrical exaggerations. The cinematography is spectacular and allows those who did not live through the hippie era and the times when the mirage of Asia much less corrupted by mass tourism was still strong to imagine the continent, and those who did catch those times to remember them. 'The Serpent' is an interesting and captivating series, quality entertainment.

Born in Korea, raised and educated in Canada where her parents settled when she was a child, Celine Song now lives and works in New York as a theatre and film director. She is, in my opinion, one of the most ambitious and interesting filmmakers in North America right now. She writes her own scripts, has a lot to say and share, and does it in an interesting way. But she doesn't succeed in everything. I really liked her debut film, 'Past Lives', and I was waiting with hope that 'Materialists', her second film, would be as good as it or better. Unfortunately, this second film of hers was a disappointment for me. However, there is a lot to discuss and argue about it. Even in a relative (and hopefully temporary) failure, Celine Song is an interesting filmmaker.

I didn't know that the job of 'matchmaker' was still in fashion. It seems so, because the film is inspired by the life experience of the screenwriter-director, who for a while worked at an agency like the 'Adore' the firm that Lucy, the heroine of the film 'Materialists', works for. Today, matchmakers are, of course, no longer the some old village women but workers in a corporate environment, who use psychological and socio-economic profiling, forms and digital methods, to find and recommend the most suitable partner to clients (women and men). A meeting follows, if all goes well a second one, and in the happiest cases it leads to a wedding. But a lot happens along the way and rarely does one reach the celebrations that mark successes. Lucy is one of those who has had the most successes in her career - 9 weddings! -, but she herself might need matchmaking. She is an elegant and beautiful woman, but she is about 35 years old and her annual income of only five figures is barely enough for her to survive in New York. A client's wedding brings her to meet two very different men. One is super-rich and physically attractive, the other is her childhood sweetheart, just as poor and in love as she left him a decade ago. How do matchmaking technologies work in her case? One of Lucy's clients is assaulted on a date by a man she (actually the algorithms!) had recommended as a suitable match. How will this incident affect her personal life? What decisions will she make?

In her previous film, Celine Song also dealt with a love triangle formed by a woman and two men. As there, there is no dramatic or violent conflict in 'Materialists'. Two men love the same woman, it has been happening for ages. Both deserve her, each in their own way. Could she be happy with either one when a decision means a permanent separation from the other? The same question, but what a difference in style and approach! The cinematic quality and psychological depth of the relationships in 'Past Lives' lie precisely in the characters' silences, in what they say to each other with their eyes and not with words. 'Materialists' is excessively verbose, and the text in its worst moments borders on the ridiculous. The cast doesn't help. Dakota Johnson has all the physical qualities and too few of the acting qualities to make us care about the character and her fate, and her partners didn't help her much. The result is paradoxical: a romantic comedy in which the most interesting part is the intellectual game of comparing the results of the matching algorithms with the realities of the relationships, an original idea that ends in a denouement like those we've seen in countless productions of the century of American romantic films, dialogues with unintentional humor alternating with cinematic pearls that remind us of what we expect director Celine Song to become. The prologue and epilogue, for example, as well as some of the scenes shot in New York reminded me of Woody Allen's films from his heyday. I still think Celine Song will be a great director once she gets over this setback.

My problem with 'Midas Man', released in 2024 and directed by Joe Stephenson, is that - starting with the posters - it is marketed as 'a MUST watch for Beatles fans'. Those Beatles fans who will come to see it because of this advertising will be disappointed, because they will not learn anything they did not know about the Beatles and they will not even be able to hear the sound of their favorite group because the film producers did not have the rights to use the original music. This film is a cinematic biography of a musical personality, but this is not one of the Big 4 but Brian Epstein - the man who discovered them and became their agent and promoter during their years of ascension. The Beatles are not the heroes of the film but the background against which Brian Epstein's biography is told to us. 'Midas Man' is the biographical film dedicated to Epstein's personality and to his short life full of contradictions. Nothing more, nothing less.

The meeting that changed the destiny of Brian Epstein and the four boys from Liverpool took place in a club in the basement of a building in Liverpool in 1961, but the story begins a few years earlier, when the young man who worked in his father's furniture store convinced him to diversify his business and also sell music records. When he discovered the sound of the group that already called itself the Beatles and understood the effect it had on the young audience, Epstein decided to become their manager and promoter. The film follows the young people's struggle to be noticed by the major record companies, their rise to the British and then American charts, concerts and tours in America. Four years later, the Beatles were at their peak. Like King Midas in legend, Brian Epstein had turned them and everything around them into gold. But he was the one who paid the personal price.

A few episodes known to all fans of the band are mentioned, but these are not the focus of the authors of the script and the director. The main character is Brian Epstein and the filmmakers have emphasized two main important threads in his biography: his Jewish origin and his sexual orientation. The cast is excellent. Epstein is acted with drama but also with sensitivity by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd. The five actors chosen to embody the band members are very well matched in physiognomy and it is clear that they have seen many documentaries of the Beatles studio recordings. Watching Emily Watson is always a pleasure, and the appearance of Jay Leno as Ed Sullivan, his predecessor on American television, is a nice gig. More a document of the early days than a film ABOUT the Beatles, 'Midas Man', despite its shortcomings, is quite interesting even for those who are not necessarily fascinated by their music. It could have been much more.