A movie so bad it had me begging for mercy - The Great Beauty

5/5/14 The Great Beauty Best Foreign Film, 2013

 What.A.Piece.Of.Crap. I have no idea, none, zero, nada, of how this movie won the Best Foreign Film this year. Unless 1) the voters didn't watch all the movies and it was like a mid-term election 2) the people who watched it were so confused and perplexed they thought it must be brilliant. THEY WERE WRONG. Seriously, it just seemed like a lot of nothing, supposedly all connected to the main character hitting a milestone birthday. This may have been worse than The Tree of Life, which was at least visually beautiful. There was some good music in the score, otherwise, it just seemed self-indulgent, pretentious and pompous. At least with Broken Circle Breakdown and The Hunt there was some kind of story and characters that you could care about, unlike here. I'm not sure if it was surrealistic with a splash of nihilism thrown in, but I don't care. The thing that REALLY annoys me is that I had that dumb movie sitting in my house for over a month and a half, totally messing up my rotation.

I have tried to convince people to see foreign films, but stay away from this one. If you are looking for a good or even great foreign film, here are a few:

Departures, Japan, 2008, Best Foreign Film
Nowhere in Africa, Germany, 2001, Best Foreign Film
The Grandmaster, Hong Kong, 2013 nominee for Cinematography (the action is great and the film is beautiful)
Monsieur Lazhar, Canada, 2011, nominee for Best Foreign Film
Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico/Spain, 2006, Best Makeup, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography - great fantasy and story
My Life as a Dog, Sweden, 1985, nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay - I saw this movie seven times in the first year it was released if that gives you any indication of much I loved this movie. Lasse Hallstrom directed.

There's more, but I think these are pretty accessible and these are all WAY better than The Great Beauty.