The heart Stone, 2023

Rachel Stone is an intelligence operative, the only woman who stands between her powerful global peacekeeping organization and the loss of its most valuable -- and dangerous -- asset.

The film stars Gal Gadot, Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt (in her Hollywood debut), Sophie Okonedo, and Matthias Schweighöfer.

Rating: 10 Stars

Paradise, Sci-fi, Mystery & thriller 2023

 

Trade years of your life for money!

We’re in Berlin, in the not-too-distant future, where a method of transferring years of your life from one person to another has changed aging completely.

For those who can afford the procedure and have a match willing to donate years. If they donate years of their life, they are compensated rather generously. However, these DNA matches also tend to be found within communities where people are already in dire need of money.

The biotech start-up AEON is a billion-dollar pharmaceutical company at the forefront of this technology, but the CEO has yet to find her own DNA match. As a rule, you can no longer look at someone and know how old they are.

Someone can be 18 years old (the age when one can start donating years), but look 20 years older because they’ve donated two decades to afford the life of their dreams. Another may look 25, but really be 60 years old and have simply received (or bought) extra years from their match.

Age is now “chronological age” or your practical age based on whether you’ve given or received years.

It truly is a brilliant setting and right off the bat, there’s a focus on both the good and the bad. Or rather, the possibilities for humans and the danger in how humans can misuse this new technology.

The Portable Door, 2023

 The Portable Door is a 2023 Australian fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Jeffrey Walker and starring Patrick Gibson, Sophie Wilde, Sam Neill, and Christoph Waltz. The screenplay by Leon Ford is based on the 2003 novel of the same name, the first in Tom Holt's J.W. Wells & Co. series. A co-production between The Jim Henson Company and Story Bridge Films, the film was released theatrically in Australia on 23 March 2023 by Madman Entertainment, before streaming on Stan from 7 April 2023.

Paul Carpenter and Sophie Pettingel are lowly, put-upon interns who begin working at the mysterious London firm J.W. Wells & Co., and become increasingly aware that their employers are anything but conventional. Charismatic villains Humphrey Wells, the CEO of the company, and middle manager Dennis Tanner are disrupting the world of magic by bringing modern corporate strategy to ancient magical practices, and Paul and Sophie discover the vast corporation's true agenda.

War of the Worlds, 2005

War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, based on H. G. Wells' 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise stars in the main role alongside Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, and Tim Robbins, with narration by Morgan Freeman. It follows an American dock worker who must look after his children, from whom he lives separately, as he struggles to protect them and reunite them with their mother.

Rating: 10 Stars

Eternals, 2021

Eternals is a 2021 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics race of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Chloé Zhao, who wrote the screenplay with Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, and Kaz Firpo. It stars an ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie. In the film, the Eternals, immortal alien beings, emerge from hiding after thousands of years to protect Earth from their ancient counterparts, the Deviants.

TRAILER

PLOT

In 5000 BC, ten superpowered beings known as Eternals—Ajak, Sersi, Ikaris, Kingo, Sprite, Phastos, Makkari, Druig, Gilgamesh, and Thena—are sent to Earth by Arishem, a Celestial, on the starship Domo. They are charged with exterminating invasive entities known as the Deviants. The last Deviant is killed in 1521 when the group's opinions differ over their continued relationship with humankind. Over the next 500 years, they mostly live apart, waiting for Arishem's orders.

In the present day, Sersi and Sprite live together in London. After Sersi's partner Ikaris left her without explanation centuries earlier, she is now in a relationship with human Dane Whitman who works at the Natural History Museum. When the trio is attacked by the Deviant Kro, Ikaris arrives and chases the creature away. The three Eternals travel to South Dakota to reunite with their leader, Ajak, only to find her dead. Sersi is posthumously chosen by Ajak as her successor, granting her the ability to communicate with Arishem.

Sersi learns that the Eternals' mission was actually to prepare Earth for the Emergence of a new Celestial. Arishem explains that, for millions of years, he has been planting Celestial seeds inside planets where the energy from large populations allows new Celestials to be born. The Deviants were sent to destroy the apex predators of each planet to ensure the development of intelligent life, but when they evolved and began hunting the planets' native populations, Arishem created the Eternals to counter them. With the recent end of the Blip restoring Earth's population, humankind has reached the necessary size to allow the Celestial Tiamut to be born, which will result in Earth's destruction.

Hoping to delay the Emergence, the Eternals reunite. At Druig's residence in the Amazon rainforest, they are attacked by the Deviants. They kill them all except for Kro, who kills Gilgamesh before fleeing. Phastos proposes they use the Uni-Mind, a connection between all the Eternals that would give Druig enough power to put Tiamut to sleep with his mind-control abilities. However, Ikaris is loyal to Arishem and refuses to help stop the Emergence. He reveals that Ajak wanted to stop the Emergence and save humanity, so he led her to the Deviants and allowed them to kill her. Sprite joins Ikaris due to her unrequited love for him while Kingo chooses to leave.

Makkari locates the place of the Emergence, an active volcano in the Indian Ocean, where Ikaris and Sprite attempt to stop them. Druig knocks out Sprite, and Phastos restrains Ikaris. Kro arrives and is killed by Thena. Druig is unable to put Tiamut to sleep, and Sersi instead attempts to turn him into marble. Ikaris breaks free of his restraints and goes to kill Sersi, but is unable to due to his love for her. Both he and Sprite join with the others in the Uni-Mind, and Sersi gains enough power to turn Tiamut into marble. Guilt-ridden, Ikaris flies into the Sun. Sersi uses the remaining Uni-Mind energy to turn Sprite into a human, ending her permanent childlike state.

Thena, Druig, and Makkari depart on the Domo to warn Eternals on other planets of the Emergences. Whitman professes his love for Sersi and is about to reveal a secret about his family history when she, Phastos, and Kingo are lifted into space by Arishem. Displeased with their treason, Arishem says he will spare humanity if the Eternals' memories show that humans are worthy of living. He vows to return for judgment and takes the trio into a singularity.

In a mid-credits scene, Thena, Makkari, and Druig meet the Eternal Eros and his assistant Pip the Troll. In a post-credits scene, an unseen person questions whether Whitman is ready to wield the Ebony Blade.

Rating: 8 Stars. 

Stella in love, 2022

 

Stella discovers the famous Parisian club, the Bains Douches, the 80s and its crazy nights. Her friends are just studying, her father has left with another woman and her mother is depressed. She works, she studies and she fell in love. This year will decide her life. 

Rating: 10 Stars

Heaven will wait/ Le Cielo attendra, 2016

Heaven Will Wait (French: Le Ciel attendra) is a 2016 French drama film directed by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar. It was selected to be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.

TRAILER

Crosscutting between three storylines that come together in the final act, Mention-Schaar and co-writer Emilie Freche (The Jews) follow two young protagonists who experience the call to Jihad in mirroring narrative strands. On one side we follow Sonia (Noemie Merlant), a born-again Muslim arrested for trying to pull off an attack in France, after which she goes through a long detox process that slowly transforms her into the girl she once was. And on the other hand there’s Melanie (Naomi Amarger), a studious cello player, 16 years old, lives with her mother who meets a Islam recruiter online and gradually falls into his clutches. The movie shows their tactics to kidnap these girls to their country.

These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?

Rating: 10 Stars 

The movie is super interesting, even in France with a high level of education, young girls can be trapped in the terrorism recruitment. An alert to parents.