Sandman
FANTASY (2022)
Creative: Neil Gaiman, Alan Heinberg
Interpretations: Tom Sturridge, Boyd Holbrook, Patton Oswalt

The fantasy series from Netflix combines the world of fairy tales with modern reality, while also keeping a humor card handy so you don’t take yourself more seriously than you need to. Sometime around the turn of the last century, a mortal wizard (Bill Nye) succeeds in capturing Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), the god of dreams, providing him with wealth and longevity, but plunging millions of people around the world into eternal sleep. When, almost a century later, Morpheus manages to escape, he begins a new struggle for the return of his “tools”, which, meanwhile, were scattered between earth, sky and … hell.

Visually impressive, with well thought out special effects, the 10-episode series draws attention, mainly due to its interesting storylines (such as an adapted version of the myth of Cain and Abel) as well as a stylish protagonist. British Tom Sturridge, rather taciturn, snobbish and dressed in black, looks like a rock star with superpowers. This, of course, has to do with dreams and the unconscious imagination of people in general, which makes it all the more charming and unpredictable compared to similar series of the past.

French expedition ★★★
DRAMA (2021)
Producer: Wes Anderson
Interpretations: Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton

On the Disney+ platform, we’re picking the latest film from the one and only Wes Anderson. With the most impressive cast of his filmography to date, the American filmmaker attempts to address a “love letter” to a journalism that no longer exists but is certainly mesmerizing as… a museum piece. Its main characters are the editors of the fictional American magazine The French Dispatch, set in a fictional city in 20th-century France. In a special issue commemorating their editor’s death, the journalists decide to include four stories that testify to the magazine’s identity.

As viewers, we follow these four reports that start in the slums of the city, reach the prisons where a very special artist lives, and then go through the trenches of the student uprising to end with the story of some police officers with a very sensitive sky. As usual, Anderson is equally, if not more, focused on the aesthetics and content of his storytelling, pairing vibrant colors with dramatic black and white.