The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Surprisingly another good one for the Oscars. Brad Pitt is good but Casey Affleck is fantastic. The image is great as the number of 'tricks' that it plays on us. There's more to say about colours and camera movement but you should just watch it. This may be a western but it is not what it sounds like. Gunshots and robberies amount to meditative states. The plot is discovered in a nice painful pace. Yeap - another one to watch. The weak trailer:

Atonement (2007)

Finally a movie that deserves the Oscar nomination. I liked most things about it - from the sound to the camera, to acting and plot. Joe Wright (the 35yo director) puts together an new type of non-linear epic story that poses problems close to me. We'll probably see his name again. The image is fantastic - and I don't have in mind only the long shoot in the middle of the movie but the many little elegant camera movements and framings that are also meaningful. I have to mention the typewriter in the soundtrack and the way it stresses characters and situation but also as a meta-comment on the power of words. I liked the acting of Saoirse Ronan who can be wonderfully senseless. I will watch this movie again for sure. Let's see if it also ages well but for now I totally recommend it.

Juno (2007)

It's Oscar time and this is one of the nominated movies. This is just another American teen movie. However, I had the patience to watch it to the end and for somewhat of a good reason - it is better. The main character is much stronger, stronger out of its context, out of any expected proportion. Juno is stylized to a such a degree that she resembles the ideal 21st century women - cynical but sensitive, kind of stupid but learning, glacial but on fire. Ellen Page (I love her act) is and does everything-the bad and the ugly included, she is the undisputed center of attention. Trying to escape the attraction of the Juno sun I was happy to see Jennifer Garner the future mommy doing an exceptionally tensed role. I like the idea - she is this 20th century women with work, position and seemingly independent but also incapable of having her own children. I enjoyed this parallel enough to make the movie worth watching and the music also helped a bit. Ok - it is not the regular teen movie, it is even good, but is it really worth a nomination for the best movie? I would watch it again but not many times. Here's a trailer mixed with the song that I actually like >

Michael Clayton (2007)

Another nominated for this year's Oscars. Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is 'mr. fix it' in a law firm. We do not get to see how Michael fixes things but we do see how he doesn't - he is in a middle of a too-obvious-to-be-real moral dilemma out of which he is lucky enough to get out. Mr Clooney does an normal job at acting - which in some contexts is praised as masterful. I find much better Tom Wilkinson who has fewer but poignant scenes. Also Tilda Swinton is great at creating tensions while all the tensions are only economically pointed at. The plot wants to be intricate but it ends up being just a bit convoluted. Another OK movie that makes me think there were better years in the life of cinema.

My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Eventually we went to the movies! My Blueberry Nights it was. Personally, I adore blueberries and I would never leave a blueberry pie untouched if Jude Law's café happened to be in my neighbourhood. Typically for Kai War Wong movies (Ulli says - I haven't seen it but "In the mood for love" is very nice she says), the images are strong. He plays a lot with colours the scenes are bathed in and he's not shy to make it fully orange or blue, with mirrors and café windows through which you watch everyday phrases gain deeper meaning, and his style is very slow. I liked for instance how the whole first part is set only in the café where Elizabeth (Norah Jones) tells Jude Law about her unfaithful boyfriend. We never get to see the boyfriend except once when she watches him through a window. There's a cheesy bit about keys that people left at his café and never pick up, and the love-on-first-sight way Norah Jones and Jude Law get in touch ("I need to talk to some one. Can I come in?") is also a bit unusual for a regular NYC café I'd say. But then it gives a nice frame for the road trip she's taking and she can write him postcards from everywhere ("I always had the feeling I could tell you everything"). - There's a strange contrast between the slowness of the images and numerous observation scenes, and the fact that there is No development of the relationship whatsoever. Really - if the love on first sight thing didn't work, it'd be pretty tough for them to get together. Norah Jones as an actress.. hm. It always seems she is watching very attentively something on the far horizon. But the song in which she sings "I don't know how to tell the story, it's all been told before" at the beginning and end of the movie is nice.

Merlin I and II

Merlin is a TV production, but nevertheless a very good one. The saga of Arthus is told from Merlins (Sam Neil) point of view. Merlin is the creation of Map (Miranda Richardson), the dark queen of the old way. She wants him to bring the humans back to the old way and she fears the Christianity. Because she will vanish if nobody believes in her. Merlin grows up at the nurse Ambrosia. When he becomes eighteen Map comes to take Merlin to teach him magic. But he can olny think of the girl whose life he saved, Nimue (Isabella Rossellini. When Map kills his nurse Ambrosia Merlin averts from her and never wants to use magic again. he becomes involed in the rising and falling of kings and he is the teacher of Arthus, who builts Camelot. But he can never forget Nimue. The special effects are really not worth to mention, but the actors are fantastic. Sometimes you are reminded to a theatre, which I find very good.

Darjeeling Limited

This is the name of the train in india where the three brothers Francis, Peter and Jack start their spiritual search. They haven´t senn each other for one year, since the funeral of their father. The chaotic trip developes not quite how they imagended it, so they get kicked out of the train, decide to meet their mother and do some sidseeing in between. Tragic and funny at the same time. I love it.

Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995)

To prepare for my trip to St. Andrews and Scottish especially, I decided to watch Scottish movies. I thought it might be a good idea to start with the one about Scotland's "independence": Braveheart. - Scotland, around 1300. Lots of warriors. - I liked Mel Gibson's Scottish accent, I thought it wasn't bad. Some other people sound quite American, that's funny... but then I remembered how much English itself changed from earlier (Shakespeare let's say, or think of medieval German literature) to now and I realize probably it doesn't matter anyway. For instance William Wallace (Gibson) telling the French princess "I don't know why I tell you this, probably because your looks remind me of my wife whose killing by the English is the whole reason for this combat" made me laugh. - In general I liked the movie, though. Actually this medieval kind of raging and killing I enjoy. Usually I get disgusted by fights, but all this beating, slicing and stabbing I found quite well-done. Maybe modern technologies are just too complicated for me, or it's that I long for the uncivilized life. - Another thing: this freedom babble. How does it work, can you imagine they were all shouting "freedom!" when they rushed into battle? And what did they mean by it? Unfortunately That we don't get to see because after Wallace dies there is only 90 seconds left to the three hour movie, in which the Scots overthrow the English and gain it. Happy-go-lucky toys...-----ok I have a have a problem uploading the pic. Imagine a long-haired dirty guy with a sword walking towards you, and everything behind him burning, but the cool way.

The Orphanage/El Orfanato

A child disapears and his mother tries to find her adopted son til the end. He had seen children that died a long time ago, his new friends, but his parents thought it was a only childrens game. Then he disapears and to find out the truth his mother has to leave all her fears snd doubts behind. This movie is thrilling, it´s so scary if I had been alone to watch it I would have left the room. And still there is a fairy tale hinding inside. The soundtrack is awesome, it cerates this whole dark and mysteries atmosphere that surounds the story. The actors are brilliant, especially Belén Rueda. Do I have to say more?

The Notebook

Yes I know I am fully into love stories right now, but sometimes is just has to be...So here we go. An old man reads out of a notebook to an old lady. He is reading the love story of a young couple that meets in the summer holidays. She is rich and he is poor, to say it in short terms. And after the summer they split but, good luck, they can´t forget each other. But the mother of the girl doesn´t agree with her choice. We find out during the movie that the love story is the story of the two old people. The old man reads the sory again and again because she doesn´t know who she is and who he is anymore. But sometimes, in very short moments she remembers, that´s why he is with her. I know I know it is helpless unrealistic but soooooo sad and touching. Girls, take some chocolate and some papers to blow your nose. Enjoy.