X2 or Xmen 2 (2003)

One thing I learned from this film: even in the year the action takes places, even in a school for (presumably progressive) mutants...well... bier is NOT allowed in school. Meaning in the kitchen. - Logan (the guy with special steel claws coming out from the back of his hands) asks for a bier and a student (able the cool-freeze stuff) is utterly surprised, This is a school, said he implying 'you won't find bier miles around, and I realize neither the school nor the teenager are European. I liked the transformations and the fights, as well as the way various 'powers' combined. Most of all, the Magneto demonstration as well as his assistant transformations. PS: Is it possible that Jean simply died? This smells like a followup. Indeed...in 2006

Borat! (2006)

"Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". I have something against slapstick comedies but this one is particularly brainless. There is nothing funny in it except for drunken high school teens or people remembering that mindless period of their life. I could not find any line or situation worth mentioning. I am not especially against Jews jokes unless they are really tasteless and completely predictable like the rest of the 'jokes' in the movie. It definitely was a waste of time to watch it.

Hartia va fi albastra (2006)

"Yeah, another movie about the '89 Revolution, what else is there left to say?" i've been told. Actually there is. And it's not a matter of historical facts but of human emotions, of the impact the revolution, as well as the communist era had on people. It's abou the confusion, the hope, the uncertainty and the enthusiasm of those days. I simply loved it, especially the dialogue which, in my opinion used to be one of the greatest drawbacks of Romanian films. Unlike other similar movies (where characters talked either too formally or too slangy), the dialogue in this movie is very realistic. One small comment on the set design: the shabbiness of Dr. Andronescu's house is not at all plausible, even (or better, especially) for communist Romania.

Underworld (2003)

There is a war between vampires and werewolves, there are beautiful women between vampires (it seems women, or beautiful women cannot be werewolves) and they are all immortal. Relatively immortal. Do you know what kills vampires? Light? Well, it is actually the UV rays in the light. I know this because the Lycans (Werewolves) developed some UV bullets to kill vampires. The 'treatment' for werewolves is silver - so you know, just in case. The movie doesn't have an unbelievable plot or anything but it is clean and it has a nice mystery atmosphere. I also liked the nice cars, the empty, sort of medieval city - generally the mixing of modern technique and ancient books in wood-and-silver covering. The movie successfully ignored humans - it made me believe that, even if there might be humans around, a completely parallel history with that specific rhythm and problems, where days (as daylight) are negligible and where full moon is a significant thing. Talking about 'possible worlds' - I found this believable.

I, Robot (2004)

Read the user comment at http://imdb.com/title/tt0343818/ for this one. It's revealing. For my part - get to read Asimov (the movie is supposed to be 'inspired' by his writings). Not necessarily the short stories that are said to have sparkled this movie...Asimov is really good and he helped me develop in my head much, much, better movies than this one.

Chaos (2006)

The one thing I thought would be interesting to study closer (not in this movie though) is the shifting of heroes. The way that a guy is established as a hero at the beginning only to have someone else gradually take the focus. I can imagine a number of ways to do this and I've seen something like this in several films. In this one it is so disappointingly obvious that one should think of how to avoid doing it like this. The blueprint for this movies goes something like this: the initial policeman-hero, naturally blamed by the whole world, is called back to duty one more time for an extraordinary case - a bank robbery where the robbers asked specifically for him as a negociator. We know he is the hero because everybody gives him lots of attention and he is openly blamed only by people we don't like. Coincidentally a new guy, with pedigree, enters the police force as his partner. In the end the initial hero turns out to be the bad guy and the new guy turns out to be smart enough to find that out. Oh...and it looks like Lorentz's Chaos Theory is very popular with the American police right now.

Behind Enemy Lines (2001)

Interesting for me: it's about the war in former Yugoslavia. Oh..no...That is not accurate: the movie is about how happy should we be that Americans go to rescue other people with the risk of their own lives. And also how smart they are and how good will, eventually prevail. I know better movies about such things that this one could possible be - I watched it just because they decided to have that specific conflict as a background - but the reference to it is nothing more than superficial. Cheap propaganda.

The Guardian (2006)

Another Kevin Costner 'hero' movie. This time as Coast Guard and Coast Guard teacher. I think the best would be that Mr Costner makes a complete 'hero' type in every possible field of life so we can watch it or screen it when we ask for funds. I'm curious about any sort of intellectual type jobs since it seems to me this type is under-represented; or try 'The Writer', 'The Watch Maker' and my possible favourite - "The Lazy". I would love to see how sitting around and wasting time can become thrilling. In fact, I think I would try myself to do that one.

The Lake House (2006)

This one it's a love story between Sandra Bullock (MD) and Keanu Reeves (Architect). They are in love with each other but also have quite a problem on their hands: They are apart 2 years in time. Try to manage that one. Around here distance relationships are not easy but what do you think about a 2 years distance 'in time'? So trying to set up a meeting work for her "tomorrow" and for him "two years from now, tomorrow". Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' and an old mail box help. You'd better believe it. It's definitely not a great film but my heart melts when so many relationship myths are touched.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

It's what I call a popcorn movie (not worth seeing if you don't have a big bag of popcorn). An easy job for Meryl Streep, a clichéd story and a dull happy ending. If you watch it in the cinema, it's a waste of money. If you watch it at home, you might run out of patience before it ends.

Zelig (1983) --Woody Allen

Mmhm, I'm sure you've seen this movie because it's so cool. I did yesterday in the process of watching myself through what Luci left on the hard drive.

I found it hilarious how the movie plays with one's expextations of and reverence for the serious ambiance of "real documents" (it pretends to be a documentary but isn't - it tricked me for quite a while!:) and of interviews with the affected people grown old, and saying in all earnest the most outrageous things (earnest because it's a documentary, of course). And I still catch myself thinking "wow, so even in the twentys they had this amusement-vocab? well That says something about America!" Somehow everything (the winner-tone of the narrator, the scenes themselves) has lots of self-irony this way.

But at the same time, it has this whole Baudolino-athmosphere of how you can make believe anything, as long as You are serious about it...

Open Season (2006)

It's a lame movie. I couldn't find a line or an idea worth mentioning. How it makes all this money (~23M$) I don't know. Don't see it, it's a waste of time.

Flyboys (2006)

This movie almost doesn't worth write about. It seems inspired by a real story but even if the actual story could be interesting what it came out in this movie is the pure boredom of life. The 'tensed' scenes are not almost ridiculous, the story is plain boring and the form it got cries 'cliche'. I figured it doesn't pay the effort to put a picture in this post but I actually liked the girl in this boy's movie. She is a teenage French and learns English - charming. So here is her picture. Ha!

Jackass Number Two (2006)

This movie made 29M this weekend. I don't know whether Freud would have dealt with this decently. I know I cannot - I could only skip through some of it always close to vomit. I thought it is decadence but it's quite a lot beyond that. It shows so many things at the same time that I won't even bother to analyse it. If you get a chance to see this give it a look - it's bound to be puzzling trying to figure out why would a 'normal' guy drink some fresh sperm coming from a horse he just masturbated...I'll tell you why - it's fun. I wouldn't pay to actually go to the cinema to see this movie because I have a weak heart and I would be out very early in the screening. But I see how I would watch it, with moderation, in certain situations in life. Let me put in some more info: you'll empathize with people stuck in a limo with a bunch of crazy bees or how it feels to have ice-testicles. Not to mention some of the snakes and the fart-mask and planty of other pranks. I'm not sure you can get a kick out of it but...

Crank (2006)

This movie is really superficial. You can find plenty of action in it driven by the most flimsy excuses in what I would call action for the sake of itself. This movie is supposed to give you adrenaline and it tries hard to force it on you. Nevertheless, it seems interesting that the problem that moves the plot forward is genuinely superficial: a guy needs to keep his adrenaline circulating such that he does whatever he can to keep it flowing. As he is a professional killer - that is what happens. The very idea of the plot makes me think that the way the movie is done, could, after all, be appropriate to what the movie is doing anyway. It seems now that the movie takes a stand on the usual cheap adrenaline-injecting strategies and makes a bit of a mockery of them: You want adrenaline - here it is how you can have it, as ridiculous as that might be. And believe me, it is so ridiculous that it could not be unintentional. Especially with that ending.

Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda (2004) Directed by Terry George

I must say i wasn`t very impressed.

I guess I expected more than just a story from rwanda`s violent history.

It probably has a strong impact on people who don`t really know what happened there but it was not the case with me.

And the story itself, touching as it may be, sounds too much like schindler`s list.

So what I`m saying is that it didn`t make too much sense to me as a film.

I liked more Fernando Meirelles film, Constant Gardener.

Dune (1984)

Me and Fredi watched this movie today and we didn't like it in spite of the beemer and nice sound system we had. I would probably wouldn't watch it if I wouldn't know the book and Fredi does not see the motivation for doing such a movie in any case. I have to say though that I loved the book for its atmosphere, since you get to imagine what the 'blue-in-blue eyes' mean, how a desert can be charming and how a scary worm can become friendly. There is nothing like that in the movie since you see everything and everything is therefore disappointing. The human link with the nature is so concrete and 'vorgekaut' ( finished, already done for you) that you don't get the chance to immerse yourself in that world.