Lucky Number Slevin

I love stories where things are happening and you don´t know how everything fits together, but in the end the circle closes. So of course you watch the movie a second time to look for hints and to find out if you could have known before. Lucky Number Slevin is such a movie, probably the first one in which i like Josh Hartnett, who plays really funny with dry humor. Bruce Willis alias Cold Cat is a cool murderer as we know and love him, with a good side, what is almoust unnecessary to mention. So there is this sweet guy called Slevin (Josh Harnett)who gets into this circle of bad luck. He loses his job, his grilfriend betrayes him, he goes to visit an old friend Nick. On the way his portmonai gets robbed by a thief who brakes his nose. And then he is in the appartment of his friend, who somehow doesn´t appear. Suddenly he (actually Nick) ows a lot of money to two powerful figures (called the Boss and the Rabbi), and he can´t prove that he isn´t Nick, because his portmonai got stolen. And of course he is not able to pay back the imense amount of money. It is too funny how Josh Hartnett alias Slevin walkes only dressed in a purple towel through the black dark building and even though (or maybe because) the movie is quite brutal it is filled with dry and absurd humor. Nice one.

Animatrix

The Animatrix DVD is a collection of nine short stories about the Matrix, which I am a big fan of, espacially of the first movie, even though I don´t like Keanau Reeves too much. The DVD a mixture of comic and computeranimation. The stories are made by famous japanese anime producers. It is a real pleasure to watch, you get a lot more detailed information how the matrix arised, about unknown characteres living in the matrix and so on. The drawings are nice and obviously made by japanese, who have a very specific style. It is just fun get a different, well overthought view what I was missing in the last two movies. Enjoy.

Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken

I couldn´t find the translation for this movie, maybe something like "What ist the use of love only in thoughts". Well, I know there are famous german actors taking part like Daniel Brühl, August Diel and Jana Pallaske, but somehow it didn´t catch me. The pictures are slow, beautiful and clean, the people young and everything is lulled into a summer atmosphere. The main topic love is discussed in a very superficial way, actually the main reason why I was disapointed. The story: Two young men say they want to kill themselves when they couldn´t feel love anymore and the people who are the reason for this. The movie is based on a real story and starts with the end. The one friend has killed himself and his lover, the other friend is still alive. Daniel Brühl alias Paul Krantz tells the police what happened. But to my surprise i liked the movie when I just smoked a joint. Maybe a drug movie, so I wouldn´t recomend it to children.

Das Leben der Anderen (2006)

Tanja reminded me that I wanted for a long time to write about several German movies. 'The life of others' (I assume this would be an acceptable translation - if not, German friends, bitte, hilfe) won the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year and it is arguably a better film than The Departed. I also liked it very much. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is the director and the writer of this East-German story and he does it all quite well. I like how the moments develop in measured military step to a culminating double-beat ending and I love the fact that the tension is never (not even at the very end) completely released. Fact which probably makes the Film stay with you as well as the clear lines that shape de characters. Most of all I love the way characters shift. For this I have to thank also to Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch and especially Ulrich Mühe. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler is a complex part and U. Mühe does it with the right tension. It almost appears that the character is always surprised by his own change but this surprise stays well inside the part of STASI officer who deals with it...professionally. Thanks to Kaspar for recommending it.

Pulse (2006)

A 'horror' one this time. Or in any case terrible. I am not so sure how the green hue that pervades the film is supposed to make it scary or technical or smth. I noticed that some of the sci-fi/computer/electricity centered pieces tend to be greenish. Why is that? Is electricity supposed to be green, does one feel green when electrocuted? I never did and I had my share but the colour is always indeterminate. There might be a taste but it wouldn't be green. In any case, the movie electrocuted me into boredom which might as well be of that tone of green. I disliked the acting a lot. It's not that the people are not good actors (I have no idea about that) it's just this movie and the parts they did in general. Some of the scenes were terribly stereotypical..you have to be a genius to get out of there in one piece. I found the directing (or the editing-who knows which is which) not only wrongly paced but also simply mistaken. I call mistakes things that do not amount to something appear to be in contradiction with the 'whole' in that they disturb what appears to 'support' the 'whole'. An example here would be the number of times when a tension was broken a bit too early or could not be build because of the 'noise' around. As about the 'whole'- don't bother. Unless you want to comment me.

Nightwatch

Actually this movie is an old one from 1994, but there is also a new version from 1995 with Even McGregor. I liked the old one better. When I watched it the first time I had to switch channels in between because I could´t stand the tension. Maybe this movie is boring for the fans of the horror genre, but I love how it starts very slowly, takes time for the main characters. And then somehow one thing after the other is happenig. The story is quite simple. It´s about the student Martin who starts to work as a nightwatcher in a mortuary. First he is scared of all the corps lying in this building but he is getting used to it. And the strange things start to happen. As the one watching the movie you know already that something is wrong in this uncomfortable and cold mortuary. Has it something to do with this strange bet with his friend, to go to the limit, he was ok with? What about the murderer going around in the media, who takes the skill of his female victims? I couldn´t remember the full movie, so only in the end it gets clear who the guilty guy is. I won´t tell, just in case you will watch it.

Hoodwinked/Die Rotkäppchen-Verschwörung

We all know the famous farytale of the little girl with the red head that goes through the dark forest to her grandmother, to bring her wine and cake. The big, dangerous wolf wants to eat the innocent girl. He observes her in the forest, but she runs away. So he disguises as grandmother and is placing himself in her bed. So far everything is the same. But then the chained grandmother falls out of the cupboard while the wolf is trying to deceive the girl, directly after this a strong man with an axe jumps through the window into the room. The police arrives, a special agent is talking to everybody to find out what really happened and if someone of them is the thief of the recipts, that are stolen everywhere. Because of this crime all the bakeries have to close. Is the lovely grandmother as lovely as it seems at first sight? Is the wolf as frightening as we know him? Why did the girl come to the house of her grandmother? And what is the role of the guy with the axe? I liked this movie, many new and entertaining ideas, but in the end it is becoming too long and i was a little bored. Anyway, it is worth to watch at home with some Haribo and beer. Cheers.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

     Here is one that I have long avoided...I don't know, it might have been the long title, the enthusiasm of people I knew to be romantic or something like that. Well...indeed, it has a sweetly romantic beginning, it shows good romantic the-whole-world-is-a-mess when a tragedy has befollen me, it ends with a romantic touch. But it has a jumpy narrative line (the movie might be worth watching only for this) with almost as nice side story.      Let me tell you what happens:(Spoiler Spoiler) two people meet (in this case Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet - both doing a good job). And fall in love, have a relationship which feels like 'not the right thing for me at this moment'. And, what do you know, they can go through a funny little medical procedure to 'move over' erasing completely the other from memory. And they do it. [But], it just happens that they meet again and, what do you know, fall in love again and do the whole thing over and over for a while. Finaly they learn at some point that they did that and,w d y k, this time decide to try and go through it again. It is not a big fancy well thought decision but it makes me think that, why not, it may just be that normality and healthy realtion is exactly this one: meet, love, erase and do it again. We're doing this already so...why not. It may not seem like all the happiness in the world but think of it this way: even if we are erasing everything we would still like to go through it again. Could it be? What in the world am I saying? Naturly it could not. Needless to say that the movie has a lot of success among people with a special someone whom they would never erase.

Freedomland (2006)

     I hear this movie is advertised as a thriller and the tag line going with is "His streets. His rules." There is nothing more misleading than these labels. The movie is 'thrilling' but it is marginal to what I understand to be that genre - not much action, not enough explosions of all sorts...raising definitely not the same kind of emotions.      I mostly liked Julianne Moore who does a great job at creating tensions: there is even a surprisingly long monologue that she sustains brilliantly. I read a review saying she does not fit the character in the book (there seems to be a book about this) because she is too week when she should have been stronger because 'she lived in that neighbourhood'. There is a point there but I can also go for the crashed, bordering insane mother who lost her child. Bottom line - I liked what she did. I would also mention Edie Falco. She acts the rough women, very close to vigilante type. I find her a bit inflexible but I can see her as type of Brenda (Julianne Moore) ten years later.     The story is of some interest to me also because it touches upon issues like racism and justice. This secondary line has enough power to come through and it almost feels like the emotional release from the tension that J. Moore and Samuel L. Jackson create.... which I find particularly interesting since it is a tensed situation in itself. The plot is nicely interwoven such that connections appear when you least expected and (some) things are fused together which gives more weight to individual threads.      Yeap...I'd watch it again.

Babel (2006)

      Alejandro González Iñárritu is also the director of 2003 movie '21 Grams' (which I could not bring myself to watch yet, even if I hear good things about it). I liked Babel. It is clean and it has great pacing. I liked most of all the way the stories move in the plot, the fact that even if loosely connected the three stories are given different weight. There is some sort of a central story (with Brad Pitt in it) but I watched with even more interest the story from Japan which is almost not connected by solid links to the rest but mainly by a whole atmosphere. The characters in all the story share something else than things and family or social relationships.      The moral of the whole thing has been criticised to be a little too obvious but the movie is done so well that I couldn't care less. One issue that can be discussed is why would you cast known actors in a movie where they can hinder the message if the moral is supposed to be the one stated above. Surely, I can perfectly imagine this film completely with unknown actors. On the other hand, one can say that this is exactly the point: (film)stars are connected to the rest in the same way. And 'American citizens' are in any case a type of star nowadays so it might be that Americans as a people are connected to Muslims and Japanese. In any case, this movie is much more about the whole world then about particular actors.      When you watch this one also listen to its music. Gustavo Santaolalla wrote the music as well for 21 Grams and for Amores perros (2000) and this would probably be another good reason to check out these movies.

Touch of Evil (1958)

An Orson Welles film-noir (people say one of the last of this genre) which did not impress me much. The movie is noir indeed, so much so that it seems the screen is tuned up to maximum contrast: no soft tones only cutting shadows, the day light has nothing smooth in it, there is almost no transition from light to dark. I did watch again the seemingly famous tracking shot at the beginning and I do think it pays to see it but the rest I would not watch another time. Charlton Heston is not doing a good job in his acting a Mexican(does he look Mexican at all to you?!) policeman. I only became aware of his resemblance to Sergiu Nicolaescu(S.N. is a dinosaur of Romanian cinema). Orson Welles himself does a much better job impersonating the corrupt and generally finished cop. He drinks, he smokes continuously and does not seen the ever shower. In a word he is disgustingly ugly. When the camera looks up at him, which happens almost always, I feel he is invading my personal space - always too close.

Any Given Sunday (1999)

      I have no idea what american football is but I am sure it could not be as great as this movie shows it. I watched it a few years ago for the first time and many times after that and always my  hair will get up ... the music, the crazy editting, the cast  (except the girls) are just fantastic.       Here's some names: Oliver Stone is directing, Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, James Woods,  Jammie Fox.  It is clearly one of the most energetic movies I have ever seen and it attempts to extract great things out of football. Overall it is a great experience and if you do not know the movie yet - go get it and watch it twice. It worths mach more than many of the movies on this list.

Pan´s Labyrinth

This sad, brutal and mystical story is taking place 1944 in the north of spain, directly after Francos victory. Ofélia, a littel girl, arrives with her pregnant mother at the place where her stepfather got the order to fight the republic rebellions. She starts to dream herself away from the unbearable reality into a world, where fantastic creatures are searching for the lost soul of the princess, Ofélia. But she has to prove that she didn´t change after the long time she was living among the human beings. Ofélia has to go through three tests. So while the horror of war goes on for the girl the fantasy becomes more and more part of her real life. This movie is a dark and powerful. Somehow it is very close to the characters, to their fears, wishes, or hopes. The stepfather that punishes rebellions with a cold satisfaction, the mother that suffers because of the pregnancy, the brave servant Mercedes. Watch it.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)

This movie is Mary McGuckian's adaptation of Thornton Wilder's novel ( I noticed I have so if you want to read it...). Cast includes impressive names: F. Murray Abraham, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel. This time the names do not help: the movie is not a thrilling experience, I would argue also because of the great actors. The movie gave me the impression that it could be good but I find this version wrongly paced and the acting out of rhythm. The 2004 version is the last one with the first made in 1929. I would be curious to see the other versions as the story has static...dynamism hard to find around these days and full of unexplored resources. 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey' won the Goya award in 2005 for the Best Costum Design.