Chasing Rabbits 101 .. (?)

As a final entry for the year, I was planning to write a post about "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy ?". A sort of animated documentary directed by Michel Gondry, which covers a series of discussions with Noam Chomsky (check out Wikipedia if the name doesn't sound familiar). But somewhere at the half of it I got sleepy. Overall, it's an interesting amalgam of ideas, but too chaotic to follow carefully if your brain didn't have enough rest before. I have to admit though that the 2nd half was slightly more coherent. In particular, the string of short (more or less) philosophic sequences includes some notable opinions on the human learning process, and also one of the most rational or logical argumentation on the need for religion I've heard by now. But even so, this doesn't change my disappointment that what I've seen is pretty far from what I intended to have as "catchy final entry for 2013". Therefore ..

I'm doing something that I .. let's say discreetly avoided before. Which is to try catching up with a series of "off-topic" entries on my "native" .ro blog version, series that started somewhere in 2007 and continued at the "impressive" rate of one/year. Even so, I'm not in the proper mood now to search, translate, adapt, and so on and so forth, for all the posts. In short, it's about rabbits :) More exactly it started with an old saying, that I don't know where did originate, but in Romanian goes something like: "Who runs after two rabbits doesn't catch any of them." Well, let's just say that I totally, completely, and strongly disagree with that. And through those entries that I wrote during the years I tried (usually at very late hours when my mind gets in a sort of "lucid drunkenness" state of spirit) to develop various chase tactics, hunting grounds analysis, etc, that would prove "the theorem" wrong. Now ... I'm not considering my crazy random ramblings as an equivalent subject to a Noam Chomsky interview, but I'm really too lazy at the moment to get into details with the thing in the first paragraph. Actually I'm quite lazy for any long entry, so I'll try to wrap up my "rabbits" thing quickly ;) ...

Let's say that I strongly believe that there are ways, maybe very complicated, to somehow steer the running rabbits towards the same destination. Consequently, and ideally, at some point you'll chase "one" and not two. Or another way to look at it, you'll chase two (or more) rabbit-halves that complete each other. But, that's the simple version to state a potential solution which includes that "very complicated" part :) You can gradually add up to the equation lots of stuff. For instance there's the time to get them running on the same path. Time which might be so long that you can compare it with a pyramid construction. And pyramids are nice, but you know what's the final purpose of that building, don't you ? :) So .. although a beautiful achievement for posterity, the whole thing might get ironically grim in respect to you ;) And actually, constructing the pyramid = getting the rabbits on the common path, is unfortunately not exactly the same with finally catching them. So, how do you build a pyramid and catch the rabbits at the same time ? Well, typically you can find pyramids in the desert (especially this kind, since they're very often more a mirage .. a Fata Morgana, than an actual pyramid). Ergo, the hunting ground might be a desert. It might look easier to hunt rabbits in a desert, but it's actually not. No water, wind storms erasing tracks, you can get lost .. So what to do ? Well, the rabbits probably try instinctively anyway to run out of the desert (they also need water). So the desert must have an end. How to get there ? Let's think a bit out of the box. Shrink the desert surface. How ? Stop the global warming :D

Is that all ? Well, no :) Obviously it's not that easy to stop the global warming :P What's above is a summary of some of my ramblings written years ago (at least a couple that I had the patience to quickly re-read now), just to give an idea of "the topic". What's new this year ? Well, I got to the point where I'm thinking that I might after all need an introductory manual to "learn the basics" .. despite my previous five years "advanced expertise" accumulated on "hunting techniques". That's because I'm either getting old (and well .. the rabbits are forever young), or I have some major flaws in my "strategic planning" that keep the "hunter - rabbits" distance constant (not to destroy completely my morale now and say that's increasing). Well .. maybe there's the external factor = the fate. But to discuss about this, and how much of the "global warming" is caused by kismet would require another entry ;) So I'll stop for the moment with a question mark. I'm too tired now to try an answer to that (plus the doctor told me to stop drinking and I didn't chew enough poppy pretzels to get the opium concentration in blood sufficiently high to trigger an inspiration boost). I'm still not tired enough though to give up on the idea that the rabbits can be "modeled" somehow such that somewhere, sometime, to get an acceptable convergence and catch more than one.

I'll end this with a short film I remembered about which says more than many words ( it's a movie blog after all :) ) .. + a warm "Happy New Year !" and a wish for a .. let's say nicer 2014 than the (still) current year ;)



PS 1 : I've been gradually trying on my .ro blog version to switch my "chasing rabbits" annual entry to a "let me tell you a story" entry. Unsuccessful by now because I didn't have time to catch the story "rabbit", but I'm slowly progressing. And it's not the 1st time anyway, but I didn't write any since 2009 so it's been a while. Who knows, maybe next year ;)

PS 2 : For who's interested in the Chomsky talks from "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy ?", that's the trailer. Enjoy!

Hogfather (2006)

Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom.

Somehow I've barely managed to finish watching "Hogfather", still in due time for a "season entry". Which I'm gonna try to make it short, short ;) since I don't think there's anybody in the mood for long reads these days :)

We're talking about a two-part mini-series based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld universe. A parallel world, relatively similar to Earth as inhabiting population, placed somewhere in space, on which life is mostly concentrated in the Ankh-Morpork metropolis, a sort of city-state bearing some scent of a Victorian London. We don't have Christmas on Discworld, but we have something very similar called Hogwatch, the equivalent of Santa being Hogfather, who leads a sleigh carried by wild hogs instead reindeer. During a certain eve of the event a problem rises. Somebody hires an assassin to murder the mythical Hogfather, contract which is accepted despite the apparent impossibility of locating the victim, who even in Discworld it's supposed to be an imaginary being. And like that we get into a story that involves also the Tooth Fairy or even Death (yup, the one with the scythe and a black cloak), who eventually has to take the job of delivering presents given the crisis situation. And by chance Death has a granddaughter, half-human, having the advantage to be present in both worlds, so also able to try solving the ongoing catastrophe which seems to have potential apocalyptic consequences. What are these and how they're dealt with, in the movie ;) ...

I haven't read anything by Terry Pratchett. As a reference, after watching the movie, if it's of some help I could say he's somewhere between Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman, with a consistent extra-dose of dark humor. The story itself gets slightly chaotic, and maybe a bit hard to follow at some points (especially if you're struck by a cold and continuously sleepy). Not to say that, ironically, the "boredom" part in the start quote can be successfully applied on certain parts. Overall, the movie could be easily classified as a children Christmas tale. However, the dialogue sort of contradicts this frequently, and probably that's the best part in it. From funny references to the socioeconomic implications of giving presents compared to the expressed wishes, up to a philosophy on the impact of belief in fairy tales towards moral values (which despite the light-spoiler, I've chosen below instead of a trailer, that I couldn't find anyway), there's a wide range of "food for thought" in this movie. Clearly more than what you would expect from a kids story, which far from perfect, it's still probably the most interesting "Christmas production" I've seen by now ;) Happy holidays to everybody !

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

My expectations for the second part of "The Hobbit" were so low that I actually thought on and found an interesting alternative for this time of year (which I still hope it will get a blog entry), but I didn't manage to find the time to watch it. Therefore it seems I got stuck with Tolkien for this week's entry, and surprisingly for me it's not that bad in the end.

I still think that this is an apex of cinema industry cash-in opportunism which tries to squeeze three movies out of a book shorter than any of the volumes composing LotR. I have to admit though a significant improvement over the endless scenes of dwarfen-orcish kickboxing in the first part. I don't want to reveal much from the story in case it's not already known. The group of dwarfs+Bilbo+Gandalf continue their travel towards the Lonely Mountain, where they're supposed to face Smaug, the Dragon. Obviously, the path is still long, twisted and filled with dangers as it was up to the point where the first part left it. Following that, we keep getting some preposterous stunts, or cliche lines which are so "epic" that might cause you muscle strains due to eye-rolling. And still ... I think it's the first Peter Jackson movie since "Fellowship of the Ring" (= LotR 1) which .. how to put it shortly: doesn't drag. It's way less superficial than the previous part, and has fewer lengths than any of the last three movies set in the Tolkien universe. Probably the story helps a bit, because it gets on the closure path (a bit too much I would say = I'm afraid that the last part might get again overfilled with testing blacksmith products on the Middle-Earth inhabitants' skins). The script though is a good adaptation of the book (ignoring the cliche lines), sufficiently well done to give even more depth to a kids story than I remember it has in the original material. Unfortunately, for me at least, the directing brings down the production level ...

That's something that I noticed since quite a while on Peter Jackson, more precisely from "Return of the King" onward, confirmed in "King Kong", in the first part of "The Hobbit", etc. The parts in the script which have the max on the emotional impact are sort of handled no different from the rest, or, even worse, given excessive length. I don't know why. Probably considering that longer scenes make the feelings more intense .. Not true. The perfect example is the ending in LotR which lasts more than half an hour after the ring gets melted, enough that all the impression the movie built up on you until that point to suffer the same meltdown and vanishing faith. Well, sometimes he manages to get it right, and the current "Hobbit" is more or less the case. Ironically, probably because we don't have something of major impact in this part of the story. It's just a preparation for the ending, and it's decently built up in that sense. Only decently and not more than that since we still have enough exaggerations. It's been a long time since I've read "The Hobbit" and I needed a quick look on Wikipedia to remember some stuff. (light spoiler) For instance, in the book there's indeed an escape in barrels carried by a river. No problem with that, but I doubt we also have an elf there to try something close to Van Damme's Volvo split on two barrels, and simultaneously to shoot arrows into the orcish horde on the shore. And the examples can continue. However, some quite stupid perfect syncs, as in a start action sequence, let you know relatively early that you have to quickly adjust your tolerance standards.

As I said, the script (the same Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens as main authors) is ok though, with all the additions I was mocking not so long ago in a preview entry. Indeed, placing Legolas among the elfs in the story is quite unnecessary. Anyway, since he's coming as a composed elf package including also .. Tauriel (who I don't even know to be part of any Tolkien book), I won't complain anymore. And it's not because I prefer Evangeline Lilly to Liv Tyler (although .. :P), but it adds a sort of romance thread to the tale. No, I'm definitely not into love stories which I usually avoid. However, although the addition might look artificially to some, given the "complexity" of "The Hobbit" material, any extra decent subplot is actually helping. And even leaving apart what's extra, the original material is better treated than it was by now. Especially the character modelling in two cases(spoiler free): Thorin, the dwarf leader for whom we're given discrete signs of what's coming, and Bard, a human on which I can't tell much more but who's excellently introduced by the script through his friendly and then antagonistic relation with Thorin.

I don't want to get too long on the technical side which seems very good, as for the rest of the movies in the series. Especially the cinematography. I really liked for instance the traversing of Mirkwood (minor spoiler) despite my arachnophobia. We have a very nice alternation between cold filters on gray/blue with some very warm used for a sunset, alternation that implicitly connects to the "nuances" of the ongoing action.

I've been asking myself if I'm not overrating (again) the movie based on my low expectancy and the difference I encountered. But if I think again, I had the same low expectancy for the first part too, unfortunately confirmed, so I guess this time I'm relatively objective on it. I'll stubbornly stick to the opinion that "The Hobbit" can't get to the LotR level, but if the third part manages to be at least at the level of the current one, we have good chances for an excellent fantasy, and forget the first "Hobbit" as a sort of "Phantom Menace" accident (= worst Star Wars) in the Tolkienish world.

Rating: 4 out of 5

La Migliore Offerta (2013)

"Lambert are you married ?"
"Yes. Nearly 30 years."
"What's it like, living with a woman?"
"Like taking part in an auction. You never know if yours will be the best offer."

I've reached again Friday without any options available for a blog entry. Therefore, I decided to throw a look on the European Film Awards given last week, to see if I can find something interesting. Since the main winner, "La grande bellezza", seemed dangerous enough to completely bury my already lately awful mood, I picked another Italian production among the nominees - "La migliore offerta". Horrible error ... beautiful movie ...

I don't really know how to start this, at the current impossible hour, after a "sleep-cutting" movie ... and topping all with some dizziness (no, I didn't get my hands on any bottle yet, although I'm quite tempted). I'll try a more ... lighthearted approach, although it's not that easy = I don't know what follows. But let's try to be pragmatic for starters ... As the beginning quote suggests, the movie is a coproduction, the dialogue being in English. The main character in the story is Virgil Oldman, the owner and lead manager of a successful auction house, a guy that passed his youth, expert evaluator in paintings and antiques, quite lonely, eccentric, and with a consistent fortune gathered through the business he's leading. One day he's getting a request from a young woman, Claire Ibbetson, to evaluate the goods she inherited from her late parents, objects stacked somewhere in an old villa. Although reluctant, he finally accepts but .. ends up waiting in the rain for 40 minutes in front of a closed gate (don't worry, in movie minutes is a shorter time). The client calls again though, and after complicated excuses and tearful insistence she manages to get a second meeting appointment. Surprise again, the young lady is not present at the place .. again. However, the gate is opened by a guy employed to take care of the house, who's instructed to give details to our auctioneer. Point where mister Oldman discovers two things: 1) his client was not seen by anybody for years, apparently suffering of agoraphobia and 2) in the basement of the building are lying around some contraptions which are apparently pieces of an old, unique and expensive humanoid automaton.

That's enough. I shouldn't tell more from the subject. The movie is .. painfully predictable, where "painfully" doesn't refer to the fact of being predictable, but to what you don't want to happen and you know it will. As suggested between the lines by the opening quote, the story takes at some point a turn to a romance .. between a sort of weird guy who meets an apparently even weirder girl. I'm not really in the mood now (and I think I didn't have a proper mood for that in years, so it won't happen soon) to get into details about the potential complicated twists arising in such context, either in the movie (which anyway would generate a flood of spoilers) or situation-wise by itself. What can I do is to get back to the script. I doubt the writing has much purpose in not disclosing the ending. However, it manages to discreetly hide many many other aspects, which if discovered, considerably amplify the impact of the final part. I could start with the automaton construction, that progresses in parallel with the main character "deconstruction", and I could go down to minor stuff like the allegory in choosing the character names - Virgil + Oldman vs. Claire + Ibbetson. I might be rambling without any accuracy here, but give a thought on it after seeing the movie (before it doesn't tell you anything anyway), and if you only have the last name for which you still don't find an allegoric sense just google for "Peter Ibbetson".

Let me get a bit into the production part. Practically the movie has Giuseppe Tornatore written all over it in big letters. For me he's still the best Italian director at the moment, although I seldom see Italian movies. The script is also written by him, and I'll just add that, besides the recently watched "Prisoners" (on a total different niche though), it's probably one of the most intelligent I've seen in the last years (although it's not plothole free). About the actors .. well, good and bad - Geoffrey Rush makes a good role, but he seemed a bit too theatrical for me in some scenes. An interesting surprise was Sylvia Hoeks who initially seemed to be amateurishly inexpressive, but the story gradually explains a lot ... Technically, the cinematography (Fabio Zamarion) is probably the best I've seen this year in a non-action movie (by the way, talking about "Prisoners", what Roger Deakins did there is left behind by far, at least on framing and chromatic-wise, because on the visual space of expression the movies are not the same). The score, probably the best Morricone product since "Untouchables", follows a pretty calm theme, but it has also some vocal nuances which make it feel uneasy at some points (as a positive remark).

I'll get back to the opening quote ... It's just an out-of-context discussion with a secondary character in the movie, apparently unrelated to the main action. However, you can get some sense of it at some point after the credits end, if you take a minute to reflect on "the best offer". Maybe you don't know if it's the best, but what does it mean to be the best ? Is it too low, or too high ? Do you need the object after all, or not ? Do you know for sure if you bid for an original, or maybe for a fake ? Finally though .. "There's something authentic in every forgery." And how bitter it might be, maybe sometimes it's better if you managed to bid "the best offer" and won that small something ;) Just pay attention it's not getting too expensive, because it can ...

Rating: 4 out of 5

Winter-Spring 2013-2014 Movie Preview - Part 2

As usual, I don't have many options for the 2nd preview part. Mostly due to the lack of trailers at 3+ months before the release dates. Well, let's see what we can pick from the existing pool for the next Spring ...

In March we have a potential alternative to "Fast & Furious" (which anyway, in the light of recent events, has chances to stop at episode 7). However, to bring to the screen a game like "Need for Speed" is probably as "promising" as a "PacMan" movie. So I guess it would've been more interesting to look up for a automotive industry documentary instead of the trailer below ...
"Divergent" looks like a remix on "Hunger Games", despite people saying it isn't so. The only part that gives some hope is the director, Neil Burger, who's responsible for two pretty good movies, both including tiny elements of fantasy or SciFi: "The Illusionist" and "Limitless". But anyway, the story shown in the trailer seems to state quite clearly that this is not much more than "yet another teen SciFi romance" ...
Last week I managed somehow to (incredibly) escape superhero movies. This time we have a bunch of them. April starts with "Captain America 2". Considering how much I "like" the genre, I can say that the first part was actually quite ok. Although I think this was mostly caused by the action placement during WW2. So, I don't know what to say about the new episode. Well, one good thing - it has Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in it :P
Probably the most solid part Schwarzenegger had since he returned to acting is in "Sabotage". The direction + the script belong to David Ayer ("Training Day", "Harsh Times", "Street Kings", "End of Watch"). I think it's not hard to anticipate that the movie will be a rough action thriller without many comic nuances (we'll see how well gets Arnie into the role in this context).
In May we return to the Marvel universe in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2". I'm too bored by the genre to add more comments (and no Black Widow here).
Tricky question: what's more annoying than a superhero movie ? Answer: a movie with many superheroes. No, we didn't get yet to "Avengers 2". For the moment we have the light version = the latest "X-Men" sequel ( still, no Black Widow here :( ).
At the end of May we have probably the most interesting title in this entry - "Maleficent" - or "Sleeping Beauty" told from the perspective of the wicked fairy. As a fantasy subject sounds very promising, but (it had to be something ...) I don't remember any successful directorial debut by somebody with a career in VFX (Robert Stromberg in this case). Maybe I'll be contradicted, although the trailer looks already a bit too focused on CGI ...
That's it for the preview round. Next week, back with a movie review ...

Winter-Spring 2013-2014 Movie Preview - Part 1

Since I didn't manage to see anything this week that's worth spending a blog entry time, I find myself in sync again with the end of November and with the usual preview list for the next six months. So, let's kick it ...

In the beginning of December we have "Out of the Furnace". A drama that reminds me a bit of "Winter's Bone". We'll see if it also confirms at the same level. The trailer seems relatively promising ...
I had some second thoughts before including "The Hobbit II" in the enumeration. I'm wondering what else can be squeezed out of this franchise, after making three movies out of a short children's book: the 1st consistently filled with dwarf-orcish martial arts to justify its length, and the 2nd apparently teleporting Legolas in the story due to lack of ideas. Just to raise more the box office by dragging in Orlando Bloom's teengirl fans (I actually considered re-reading the book to convince myself he's not there, but a quick look on Wikipedia confirmed it). But well .. I can still hope for a miracle = that the adaptation gets the kids story a bit closer to the much more complex subject of LotR ...
The end of December brings something that some already consider to be the worst movie of the year: "47 Ronin". To be fair, neither the directing, nor the screenwriting credits recommend this. But after past experiences like "Ninja Assassin" or "The Warrior's Way", unjustly buried by some U.S. critics, who knows ? Maybe we'll have another surprise ...
January seems quite scarce in announced releases, so forgive me but I'll switch to some horrors (I'm anyway writing this entry late into St. Andrew's night so the "atmosphere" fits :P). Let's start with "Open Grave", an indie with a sufficiently catchy subject. You're waking up with amnesia in a ground hole filled with corpses. Who are you and how did this happen ? (unfortunately the trailer cuts a bit from the mistery ...)
"Devil's Due" seems more hardcore. Again I thought a bit if to add it or not in the enumeration, not as much due to the bloody disgusting stuff which I can get over with, but more because I'm fed up with lame reused stories ("Rosemary's Baby" meets "The Omen"). Even more, the movie's done in the overused and already annoying mockumentary style. But if 20th Century Fox financed this, maybe there's something I don't see yet ...
I'm closing January with something that I didn't do before in the preview entries. An anti-recommendation. Which is not a horror (although when you hear "I, Frankenstein" probably that's what's coming into your mind). And not being a horror is probably the only part it has in common with "Frankenstein" - the classic novel, which is actually a drama with some SciFi and romance nuances. A drama with so many senses hidden there that a blasphemy as what's shown in the trailer doesn't deserve any single extra comment ...
In February, after some delays, we finally get "RoboCop", the remake. I've heard many doubts about this movie. I still prefer to give it some credit, and I hope at something at least as decent as the "Total Recall" remake. After all, the original story was a good one, and the director is Jose Padilha ("Tropa de Elite"), so he's not exactly a randomly picked no-name ...
Ok, if there is to be a comedy in the today's list, let it be a guilty pleasure :P : "Vampire Academy". Maybe unbelievable, but the movie is actually based on a novel. And to raise a bit more the expectancy the directing belongs to Mark Waters who was responsible for "The Spiderwick Chronicles", one of the few fantasies from the flood following LotR that managed to be less ridiculous and more heart-warming ...
At the end of February Liam Neeson returns in "Non-Stop". Under the same director as in "Unknown" and with the same attitude as in "Taken". Should I say more ? ...
That's it for the winter. Next time, the spring ...

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)

"That we find out the cause of this effect, or rather say, the cause of this defect. For this effect defective, comes by cause: Thus it remains, and the remainder thus." ... I think I got old, or I'm too tired, or both. To which I can add that I've never been too much into Shakespeare or into lines in iambic pentameter as the intro above (although they have their charm here and there). Enough premises not to be able probably to fully appreciate "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". Even though it's not exactly Shakespeare, but a bit more close to present = Tom Stoppard. Maybe it's better to start with a more clear description of who bears the exotic names in the title. Shall we begin, therefore ...

The movie is the adaptation of a theater play, directed by the play's author named above. The subject is centered on the ephemeral existence of two secondary characters from "Hamlet": Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In the original Shakespearean version, the two in the title are sort of .. Hamlet's buddies let's say, but under the influence of the usurper king of Denmark. Who asks them to observe and report on the mad prince. There's also a follow up on that, but I would spoil too much from the movie, which naturally intersects with the original play. More important is that in Shakespeare's version Rosencrantz and Guildenstern don't have much action space given (if my memory is not completely failing). Concise, what we have here is an absurd comedy. Which gives us a story of their own, or otherwise said, builds up on the idea: where and what are doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when they're not present on the stage. Which ranges from absurd philosophy, existential theories, discovering the hamburger, the gravity or a perpetuum mobile .. and others, coming back into the original subject in the parts where they have a role to play. A role that isn't though very clear for them, getting so confused that they don't even know anymore who's Rosencrantz and who's Guildenstern. I don't remember "Hamlet" very well, but at least the current movie puts them in a more neutral light than a negative one. Sort of like the improper persons placed by who can influence them at the supposedly proper place.

In case Tom Stoppard doesn't sound very known, he's the screenwriter of "Shakespeare in Love". But as a better reference for what we have here he also co-authored the script of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil". Which for me was easier to grasp. Here we have a bit too much depth in the comic absurdity, or at least I don't have the patience anymore to unwrap all the hidden threads that are supposed to be there between the lines. Normally I appreciate this kind of stuff, but this script is too dense and becomes exhausting to follow. Plus that, I repeat myself, you have to like Shakespeare. On the good side, since I've mentioned Gilliam, I can positively notice the nuance of surrealism (although clearly isn't at the same level as "Brazil"). But the best part of the movie are are the excellent roles made by Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. Which makes me think that the play in a theater, where the acting has a much bigger impact, can be better appreciated than on film. And that shall be all for now ...

Rating: 3 out of 5

3y & Odd Thomas (2013)

Incredibly enough, it seems that I managed somehow to catch up with the original .ro blog thread, where I write my entries first, and which was somewhat like a month ahead this one. It's already 3 years and a few days since I've started an English version for what I write, so bear with me for a couple lines for the sake of the "event" :). I have to admit that it was a pain to find time to translate, doing it typically at weird hours when I can barely keep my eyes open. That's probably one of the reasons why my English sucks, and the quality of the entries is therefore at least questionable grammar-wise if not more than that. But I managed somehow to keep doing it for 3 years now, and I'll do my best to continue .. no guarantees given though for how long. So, let's cut the blah-blah short and get to something more interesting = a movie = "Odd Thomas", which hopefully is good enough to fit the occasion ...

The movie is based on a book by Dean R. Koontz. My memory doesn't help me now to quote more from his work, but as genre is let's say somewhere between SciFi, thriller and a bit of horror (or at least showing some dark nuances from time to time). To give a hint, if you like Stephen King, probably you won't dislike Dean Koontz. Getting back to the topic though = "Odd Thomas", the movie is from what I heard, the only adaptation which the author liked (and seeing some of the others I can tell why). The story goes like this: Odd Thomas is one of the inhabitants of a tiny town (by name too = Pico Mundo), but with a police force and apparently a crime level a bit above what you would expect from a quiet country settlement. The guy, around the nice age of ~20, works as cook at a local diner, is still faithful to his childhood girlfriend, and lives an apparently simple life without many obligations, but he's gifted with a secret talent. He can see dead people :) And to make the "experience" more intense, in particular he intersects with victims of a violent life ending event. For who he feels the need to bring peace - that's why the poster tagline says: "I might see dead people ... but then, by God, I do something about it."

Fortunately the story is not just a variation of "The 6th Sense". Odd Thomas has also some derived abilities, like a sense to foresee situations which will increase the number of inhabitants in the netherworld. To close the summary, Odd's secrets are not just his, but known also by a small group of close friends like the local chief of police, or Stormy - his girlfriend. Friends who seem to have accepted during time Odd's oddness, especially since life seems a bit more safe with him around. The things get complicated though, when the regular "normal" solving of a new murder in town, is replaced by events which seemingly will bring the hell on earth. Or at least to Pico Mundo. How's this happening, you can see in the movie ;) ...

The production is directed by Stephen Sommers ("Deep Rising", "The Mummy", "The Mummy Returns", "Van Helsing", "G.I. Joe"). It might not sound very promising, looking at the last titles especially. Who has seen the first though, and is able to appreciate a movie which, as "Lone Ranger" as I was saying last time, is sufficiently fun and catchy, knows that this guy can produce something capable to drag you in a story. And I was expecting this since I've seen the "Mummy". Well, it's not exactly the same thing (the lack of success in time = lack of cash) but is probably the best movie since then made by him. It shows that's on a tight budget. The actors are generally quite unknown, and from what you see without much experience, except Anton Yelchin as lead and Willem Dafoe in a secondary role. The effects look nice, but you can feel that it could've been more. And still it doesn't really matter .. Because the movie's catchy. Especially if you're somewhere between 30 and 40 years old and you were spending time in cinemas on a regular basis in the 90s = if you're left with some nostalgia for the period :) It's true that the book contributes a lot, but the charm comes from elsewhere. Let's take the air of the little town under pressure + "the teen movie flavor" from Wes Craven's "Scream", the witty lines and the superb chemistry of the couple from "The Mummy" + the dark comedy nuance from Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" (when he wasn't as known as now and wasn't exaggerating with the movies length as in LotR). How does all this sound stacked together ? Enjoy ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5

PS: By the way, if you didn't see "The Frighteners" and you like "Odd Thomas", check the first out - you'll love it. The subject is very similar and the movie's I guess a bit better than what we have here + Michael J. Fox probably makes his best role in a SciFi/action outside the "Back to the Future" series.

The Lone Ranger (2013)

I don't even know where to start. I could do it with the five negative reviews I've read to find out why the bashing for this movie, asking myself if it's sabotage against Disney's superproductions that try something else than what already worked with the public (= pirates series and reboot to pirates series), or is just pure dumbness and flock behavior from the critics. Getting more into this would transform though this entry in one directly attacking others, by taking line by line what's written here and there and proving how shallow or hypocrite it is, and the result would be probably extremely boring and won't make any justice for "The Lone Ranger".

Don't take it the wrong way. If I'm looking at my entries, is most often the case that I'm in the line with the ranking on pretty much every site. So, it's not a general opinion, but I see that I'm stumbling more and more often on cases (as "Gravity" recently) when I'm actually astonished by how consistently is either appreciated or bashed a movie which is clearly far from the pole of value where the "experts" placed it. Ok, I'm outraged, I assume it's already clear :) .. Let me try to say something more useful for the de facto subject of the current entry ... First, this is not a movie to be taken as a standard western. Gore Verbinski's option for "Lone Ranger" is so "westernish" in the classic sense as it's "Rango" to "quote" from the same director's CV. It's clear from the first minutes that this movie doesn't take itself seriously, even more that's actually trying at least a bit some irony or satire on the genre. And it's probably sufficiently stylish and discrete to be completely missed by who was waiting a product that mandatory should've been a mix between John Ford and Sergio Leone and nothing else.

The story is simple. I don't want to give too much. The Lone Ranger, a pacifist attorney disappointed by the helpless attempts to enforce justice by the book in the wild west, and .. let's say his pal, Tonto, an indian who's a bit "gone" in this version, have some score to settle with a series of bad guys, more bad guys and very bad guys. That's one of the major issues of the movie by some. If there is more than a villain, already the critics' neurons start to get confused. Even worse, if the bad guys are gradually introduced instead of having a simple long fight from start to end with a precise target, it's already too much story (although honestly, you have to be naive not to get from start who's the mastermind, but well, those neurons ...). Yup, the movie is long. It has two hours and a half. And yes, the story is short. But wow, there is a story, not just some 10 minutes long explosions linked by dumb scripted lines a la Michael Bay. Ok, we have some secondary threads which are a bit more than necessary, but they still connect somehow with the story. The script is, again, quite discrete in some nuances, with a dark to grim tone here and there to tell you that "life in the wild west was wild indeed", and some surreal scenes thrown from time to time (very nicely integrated, but that's more a matter of taste). All these aren't doing anything else than underlining again, clearly, for who has eyes to see, that what's given to the viewer is a story, a fairytale, not a western.

Technically, the movie is superb. I hope I'm not mistaking and there's a version I don't know about, but what I've seen is the perfect example that you can live without 3D (I'm wondering if this is one of the hidden reasons for which it took the bashing, but I already start to feel that I'm generating a conspiracy theory). The camera work is above everything I've seen in a movie with some solid action since long ago. I don't even know what other comparable example to give. The scenes are shot in such a way that, in 2D, to give you an intense feeling of movement in space. I'm not even getting into filters and light, but that's something I'm used with from Verbinski since I've seen "The Ring". I don't know though how much is his touch or the cinematographer's, Bojan Bazelli. Getting to the audio area, I'm trying to convince myself lately that Hans Zimmer starts to get overrated for the last scores he did, but apparently I'm again wrong. It's indeed a soundtrack that reuses stuff, with clear influences from Morricone, and of course an arrangement for the Wilhelm Tell overture, but it fits so well the scenes where it's played that I can't say anything bad about it.

To give an example of another movie that gets slightly closer as feeling, probably the best one is "The Mask of Zorro" from '98 with Banderas. Not that much because it's another masked hero, but more for the comical element and the deviation from the standard western. Something else .. it's the type of movie that you should take as an exit from the real life, and enjoy the story as much as you can = a reason for I really don't see a problem with the length. It's not a story to put your mind at work, but also not one to make you roll your eyes at each overly dumb line you hear, or to give you ideas to check your watch for timing the action scenes because you're anyway bored of them and that's the best option you have. It is though a story witty and nice enough to keep you there. Maybe it's not "Star Wars", "Indiana Jones", "Back to the Future" or "Neverending Story". Neither "Prince of Persia" or "John Carter" didn't get there, but I hope that Disney will keep releasing such critic failures, even though it ends up losing money with them. Because besides these, the surprising exception "Pacific Rim", and obviously "Star Trek", I don't remember any other blockbuster in the last years to leave me at the end with the same feeling of "my brain got trapped in a story for the last hours, and it was nice ;)".

Rating: 5 out of 5 (to make some justice that I let myself influenced by the rating and I didn't see the movie in cinema, and it deserves that)

Ravenous (1999)

Considering that I'm writing about the movie based on some far memories, I don't know how much I'll miss or not, and forgive please the (probably) chaotic order of the following. I hope I'll catch the essence though, since I've seen the movie around seven times throughout the last 13 years. Also, during this time I reached the conclusion that's a movie which either you like a lot, or not at all. I don't know if I've met somebody to tell me that it was "so and so", and if I would count the opinions for the plus and minus sides, they're probably evenly split. It's a horror, but with a less touched subject - cannibalism - handled in a context and in a way which maybe surprisingly make the topic more "digestible" :) (no pun intended). Because the movie goes a bit more far in essence getting beyond the surface theme. It starts that with the intro taken from Nietzsche "He who fights with monsters must be careful not to become one" which, ironically, probably remains the only part connected to his philosophical ideas that's not attacked by the movie. I actually should give credit for this insight to some blog entry I've read once, I don't know where, that was debating in detail the subject "Nietzsche vs. Ravenous" :). Because the movie, besides the horror nuance it's a fine satire on the human condition, and more specifically targeting the importance of life. Probably it doesn't say much what I've written until now, but I hope at least I managed to generate some curiosity to who's reading, so let me drop a couple words also on the subject itself ;) ...

The action is set at some point in the middle of the 19th century. Following the "bravery" shown during the Mexican-American war - to be read: hiding under a pile of corpses, and managing to victoriously survive an impossible situation - John Boyd (Guy Pearce) avoids getting sentenced for deserting by being advanced to captain and getting sent to fill up the army personnel detached on an isolated fort, somewhere in the mountains before a passage to California. So, with a moral like it would've been better to get killed in battle, he joins the group of seven inhabitants at the place - 5 army members and 2 civilians, each weirder than the other. During a cold winter night the fort's "calmness" is disturbed by a guy who's more dead than alive (Robert Carlyle), frozen, who after getting on his feet starts telling a grim story. So, we find out about a trip to California ended badly by getting lost in mountains, and topped by the hunger effects on the travelers group. Our frozen guy apparently escaped before getting to be the main course during the next dinner. The rest of the story, in the movie ;) ...

Besides the acting, which is superb in building up the characters, something to be noticed in the movie is the soundtrack - Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, which is probably one of the best and in the same time interesting scores ever made for a horror. I would even say it's on par with the masterpiece you can hear in Hitchcock's "Psycho", although the effect it creates is totally different. Hard to describe, you need to see and hear it.

The horror nuance is probably given, besides the general dark theme, by the bloody scenes, which are plenty, but we don't have anything extreme (as in "Saw" to give the "classic" example). At least for me it's not a movie to generate nightmares or to make you jump from the chair. More, the satire and the comic (even dark and grim as it is) relax the movie almost completely in respect to the "terror effect". Besides that, as I was saying, the movie's idea is a bit deeper and revolves around the motivation for living (or the lack of it), the price for that, and why paying it. I'll refrain from getting into philosophy right now, especially since I don't have the movie very fresh in my head, but it's not a title to take easy just as entertainment. In particular, there are plenty of details, from the used symbolism to lines lost in the context when you see it first, but which you might discover at a second view. As example, the fort commander breaks nuts with some books (I guess) in the beginning of the movie and with his bare hands in the end. This is just something going on in parallel with some conversation carried. The sense connects with the character state and also with some lines at those given points in the timeline, and I don't think you'll normally get the nuts detail from the 1st viewing. There are more like this one. I don't know how much is from the script (Ted Griffin) but the directing by Antonia Bird was flawless. It's the only movie I've seen by her, and since I've found out that she recently passed away, I felt the need to give some credit for who, at least for me, gave the best horror of the '90s. For the reader .. you might hate it, you might love it, I don't know ;)

Rating: 5 out of 5

A soundtrack sample, on movie scenes ( or 4 minutes compressing all the bloody moments :) ) ..
The final scene (Warning ! = major spoiler, but it's the best clip quality wise that I found, although it doesn't catch much from the merits of this movie) ..
And a perspective on the movie from when was done by the people involved (unfortunately embedding disabled, so you need one more click) ..

Gravity (2013)

I had high expectations for "Gravity". Probably too high, and probably that's what generated the final verdict. To which I want to get as fast as possible, so ...

What you see in the trailer is already something like a third of the movie. I'll try to refrain from telling the ending, but I cannot keep out the fact that the movie is not a SciFi. Or at least the Fi in SciFi is missing. It's a "disaster-movie", as "Volcano", "Daylight", "The Day After Tomorrow", etc, .. although I guess some of these are actually "SciFi" compared to "Gravity" (not in the good sense if the quotes aren't clear enough). What's ok in "Gravity" is that it has a very original idea for a disaster movie. What's not ok is that's not clear at all about what it is and that it wants to be more. Let's start with the not clear part. To be fair, the trailer doesn't promise anything extra besides an accident is space, with two surviving astronauts who (probably) will try to find a way back to Earth. But it definitely leaves you hope for more than that. If you also do a quick check-up on IMDb, you avoid to read the full plot when you notice the gigantic rating (because well .. you don't want a spoiler for the "best movie of the year") but you see by chance a character named Aningaaq, and obviously the genre listed as SciFi, you really get to expect something more than just "survive in space". Well, let's say that I'm just subjective and I shouldn't judge the movie based on getting frustrated for not receiving what I hoped for. Fair enough. But it was something more - the movie wants to be more than it is ...

Let's say that if it would have been somewhere close to the level it attempts, I could look at it as to "Life of Pi" in space. After all, "Life of Pi" is still sort of a disaster-movie if we strictly consider the topic. But it's impossible to look at it like this considering the depth and complexity of the story. Another "spoiler" - in "Gravity" we don't have a "tiger". I'll let this to be read between the lines, who's not able to get it probably was profoundly impressed by the depth of space thinking that's it's something else than just the depth of space. Because it's not, not in this movie. Everything's at the surface. I'm fine with a dumb action movie which doesn't try to seem intelligent and is just meant to relax your brain, I'm fine with a thriller or a well built drama which doesn't want to give birth to some existential questions but it's still clever enough to appreciate it, I'm fine with a SciFi that wants to be deep and manages to get there leaving you to find something in it that's outside the written script. I can appreciate a movie that fits anywhere in these areas and even more. What's annoying is a production that throws frequently in my face a message of "look what (else) I want to tell you; it's right here between these two lines; let me draw another line for you just to be sure you see it; the same color as the other two ? sorry I don't have another pen" - you get sacrifice, you get the desperation of solitude, the will to move forward, you get many others .. So what ? It has the same effect as the line that I've just written. Zero = a simple enumeration that I have in front of me, from which I can't choose something specifically because everything is on par with everything. You want to impress, let me discover something on my own, and not too many at once, otherwise it transforms into a soap bubble meant to generate a storm of feelings for somebody easily impressed. But who, after probably no more than a day, won't remember exactly what was so impressive.

Maybe I'm too harsh, but I'm really in the "right mood" for it. Let me try ending though in a positive note. The effects and the cinematography are gorgeous. It confirms me again, after "Tree of Life", that Emmanuel Lubezki is probably too under appreciated, being clearly in the range of the top cinematographers in Hollywood, with a pretty well defined style, after Richardson, Deakins, Kaminski and others. Again, the subject is an original one for this genre (where genre, again = "disaster-movie" and not SciFi), and for this genre it also has a proper length. It's short enough to avoid getting you bored, although it's a movie without much content (I'm afraid though that keeping you connected is also due to the wait to get something that doesn't come). The soundtrack is nice, though not very impressive. Something else .. I don't know. For a SciFi in the "lost in space" range, which is actually a SciFi, and also carries a more .. decided message, covered by a thriller nuance, to get your neurons working a bit to find it, I'll stick to "Sunshine" by Danny Boyle. Which I, warmly, recommend ;)

Rating: 3 out of 5

Prisoners (2013)

It seems that the season of releases targeting next year's awards has started. Maybe it would be better not to provoke though "the cinema karma", or whatever sets the chance to get a good movie more often then once every two months. So, getting to the point, "Prisoners" enters the same set of recommendations I can make for what this fall has brought, after "Blue Jasmine" and "Rush". Let's see why ...

I can place the movie in the "serial killer thrillers" niche, with the difference that instead of killer we have a kidnapper .. or at least this is what the trailer gives to you. Trailer which probably contributed a lot (by contrast) to my final opinion. It's made in such a way that seems to serve you the full story and it doesn't promise much else in the movie = my expectations were so reduced that I almost skipped it. Well .. eventually I've been convinced to watch the movie by the surprisingly high ratings I noticed in some reviews. So, what's "advertised" shows us two families living in some US town suburbs who end celebrating Thanksgiving with less members than when started. More precisely the youngest daughters disappear. The police captures quite fast a presumed suspect seen wandering around in a RV, but no trace of the two girls is found in the vehicle, and as an extra bonus for the investigation the guy is a young retarded individual who is not able to communicate much. So, he eventually is released, fact that leads one of the parents to take charge and make his own law. And like this we're getting into another kidnapping, the presumed suspect being sequestrated for "proper interrogation". The other father is also brought into this, although more reluctant but in the end cooperating under the pressure of time passing + no info about the kids. That's pretty much what you get in the trailer. The movie is long though - two hours and a half - so it must be something extra there :) ...

I have to admit that the first half has some lengths, and the development is overall pretty slow. However, when you reach the conclusion that: ok, I'm looking at a decent movie but the story was clear before the first frame, a scene or even a single line hits you. In such way that you don't know what to think anymore. Probably not strong enough to change what you expect, especially since the movie tends to get back to the same story line. But is still enough to realize afterwards that "everything makes sense" and probably you're far from being a contemporary Sherlock Holmes since you ignored a ton of details given to you, choosing instead the ending before it happened. I'll limit myself to a "light spoiler": in the first phase of the investigation, a series of guys with some background in children molesting are questioned. In the case of an alcoholic priest the things get a bit more far, his basement holding the remains of a corpse rotten there years ago. The quick way of how all this is delivered to the viewer, makes you take it as a secondary thread which seems to be there just to show how creepy can be the neighbor across the road. Well ... (trust me, is just a light spoiler, I didn't even get into the heavy stuff).

What I want to say, and I don't know if I was clear enough, is that the movie plays with your mind. And it does it in a way that, at least in my case, made me to consider the script as one of the most clever written I've seen for a thriller since long ago. If you just analyze a bit the title - "Prisoners" - after the movie, it gets a newer sense than in the beginning, or in the middle. I don't know what other movie I could reference as comparable. I could say "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" but there is more the "exotic" character as effect than the story twists. "Seven" would be another example, but I barely remember it. Well ..

Since I referenced the above titles, I should say something about the rough scenes in the movie. You have to expect some, visually, but mostly psychologically. Honestly, the bloodiest scene seemed more tolerable than others where you don't have any red in your sight. It's not violence for free though. It has its place in the context (I don't want to imagine an Asian version of the story, especially considering that not so long ago I wrote about "I Saw the Devil"). It is however well fragmented to make it bearable. Even more, sometimes it actually gets slightly hilarious = at the end you can conclude that if you spend some time in the American suburbs you'll become "basementophobic", considering how often you get to see at least weird if not grim purposes of usage for any subterranean place in this movie.

I'm slowly getting as long as the movie is. Let me try wrapping this up. I heard appreciations for the cinematography. It's ok, but for me Roger Deakins did a better job in other productions (e.g., "True Grit" or "The Reader"). I guess the main merit for the movie feeling belongs to the director Denis Villeneuve, but again the original script (= it's not an adapted material) is the strong point here - where we have a name that doesn't say much, Aaron Guzikowski (I see he's credited for "Contraband" which now I'm convinced to watch). I should also say that's the best role probably in which I've ever seen Jake Gyllenhaal, as the detective handling the case, although pretty much all reviews praise Hugh Jackman, already nominating him for next years Oscars. Where I guess we'll hear again about "Prisoners" also in other categories ...

Rating: 4 out of 5 (because technically it could've been better and is slightly too "grim" for my taste)

Rush (2013)

I don't really know what to start with ... I don't know if "Rush" can be named a movie about Formula 1. And I don't think it's addressed only to the Formula 1 fans. I guess is more a movie about a real and unique episode, which from a personal point of view exceeds the boundaries of the sport itself. Honestly, I don't know how this movie wasn't made by now since the story is quite old and spectacular enough to fit a screen version. Anyway, let me detail a bit the subject ...

The focus of the movie is on the 1976 season, but first we have some background to see how it got there. Background which explains how the rivalry grew between two pilots: James Hunt and Niki Lauda, some saying it was the fiercest in the Formula 1 history (I would put it after the Prost - Senna duel as far as I know, although I'm not old enough to have witnessed any of them). Well, to get back to '76 ("spoilers" starting), that's when the rivalry got to the climax, both pilots rolling on close cars as performance, Lauda on Ferrari and Hunt on McLaren. Lauda did catch though a consistent lead on points in the first season half. Up to the race in Germany, where we probably have one of the few, if not only, examples of tragic F1 accidents with a happy ending .. well, sort of .. Lauda's car got burning with him inside, being saved eventually with very bad wounds. The happy ending .. the guy survived. Even more, as unlikely it may sound, he returned to driving in less than two months with bandages on his head and his lungs wrecked, decided to defend the title which seemed stolen by Hunt. And the story continues .. with what happened in the last race, but let me keep a bit of mystery for who doesn't now the full history ;)

I started watching Formula 1 long ago, when I was a kid, in 1994, probably the worst season in the history when you could've got into this. It's the year when Senna died (and I guess is also the last fatal accident happened during a race), and from what I've seen had one of the ugliest season finale, with Schumacher winning at one point difference after a hit with Hill's car. Yup, I still remember ( not very clear though :) ) because this was the reason why I never liked the German driver, and I ended up supporting either McLaren or Williams or more precisely I was anti-Ferrari :). To cut it short, from 2006 if I'm correct, I gave up on watching the races. I don't know exactly why, I never thought about it .. Anyway, seems I'm left with some nostalgia, since I just wrote this paragraph that doesn't have anything to do with the movie ...

Where I wanted to get is that I don't know if I can express any objective opinion about the movie's message, which keeps itself neutral enough despite some typical Hollywood nuances here and there. But I also can't limit myself only on a fan view over this sport, because I'm not in that position anymore. I could discuss the production's technical parts, where I've probably seen the best editing, both video & sound, of the year (which effectively gives you chills from time to time even if you know what's coming). I'm really not in the mood though to get too long analyzing this now. Maybe I'm digging too deep, but as I started, I guess the conclusion is beyond a simple report of what happened, once, at the end of '76 on a rainy day in Japan. Where, as the main track of the movie score says it was a situation of "lost but won", but which I guess it applied to two pilots, and not only one. It's a life moral, which says that the line "no risk, no win" is a non-sense, either because knowing when not to risk might be a winning even if you lose, either because risking and winning might be a loss.

Rating: 4 out of 5

To the Ends of the Earth (2005)

I had to choose between "2 Guns" and "To the Ends of the Earth" for this entry. The first, a recent action movie, the second, an eight years old BBC mini series which probably can be qualified as a drama. I finally went for the latter, because at least has the quality of being usable as sleeping pill compared to the first which is way too noisy for that purpose ...

The movie follows a voyage done in 1812 by a ship traveling from England to Australia, trip seen through the eyes of a young aristocrat boarded as a passenger who at destination is supposed to be appointed in the dominion's province government. There are three parts of the story: "The Rites of Passage", "Close Quarters" and "Fire Down Below", each corresponding to a distinct volume in a trilogy written by William Golding (probably much better known for "Lord of the Flies"). I can't express opinions on the books themselves, but I honestly think they're much more appropriate for theatrical adaptation - a shortened one - compared to four hours and a half of movie in which the action takes place in a confined environment which is the ship. The story revolves around the relations between the passengers and the crew members, and the effect of the issues that emerge during the long voyage. In some parts is an interesting analysis of the human behavior, although this seems a bit lost in the context of XIXth century early years and the theatrical dialogue apparently specific to the period. The movie doesn't lack scenes and situations which are pretty hard to swallow getting quite shocking at some points, which totally contradict with the otherwise slow and relatively calm story development close to something like a "naval soap-opera". I could actually say that the first part reminded me, more or less, of "Deliverance", in total contrast with the second which is mostly focused on one of the dumbest and hard to believe romance portrayals that I've ever seen.

Cinematic-wise I don't have much to appreciate. Probably contributes to my feeling that a theater play is more appropriate than a movie script. I have to acknowledge though, again, the top acting of the British cast which keeps the movie watchable from start to the end, because without this ...

Rating: 3 out of 5 (at the limit)

Blue Jasmine (2013)

I don't like Woody Allen. I always found him over-appreciated, especially since every year (I actually don't remember when was a break) the "new" released movie is not much more than a mix of situations from other 5 previous productions. So I don't how I ended up seeing "Blue Jasmine". Especially given that the summary, the trailer and the expectancies from Woody Allen pretty much label the production as a "girls movie" (no matter how stereotypical this may sound) ...

Actually I know how it happened. I had something like three reasons. One: probably it will get (as in most of the years) some nods for the upcoming Oscars and since I'm struggling to do a sort of coverage of the event ... Two: it was a good opportunity to catch Sally Hawkins in a more consistent role (don't ask). Three: in the area where I reside, the last weekend of September is dedicated to a regional wine fest (to be read: in the evening the town center resembles more or less a packed sardine can, to analyze the atmospheric composition you need a breathalyzer and the noise level makes me thank the Heaven for how lucky I was to catch a rent closer to the suburbs) .. anyway, since it was probably the last year when I have the opportunity to attend the most important public social event from the town's life I decided not to close myself in my cave anymore but I still needed a escape route from all the fuss + an additional motivation to move my legs downtown. That's how I ended up watching "Blue Jasmine".

I made a double intro because I'm not in the mood to write about the movie. Without thinking too much, is probably the best I've ever seen from Woody Allen (definitely above "Midnight in Paris" to take a recent comparison). I don't know if this impression is very objective. The description of the start situation sounds like this: A woman from the New York's upper class (Cate Blanchett) gets broke after her husband is uncovered as a big time financial crook, and ends up killing himself in the prison. Following that, the widow is forced to move temporarily with her step sister (Sally Hawkins), a saleswoman in a San Francisco supermarket. As any Woody Allen script this one also revolves around the problems and relations in a couple, between couples, between couples friends, anyway in a sort of 10 people limited circle. Nothing new in that. What's new, at least in what I've seen (maybe excepting "Match Point" to be fair) is that despite a comedy label shown on IMDb, the movie is much more deep and categorizing it as drama (and just drama) would probably be much more appropriate.

I don't know how objective am I, probably I'm not, because instead of what I expected to be a light flick as "Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona", "Midnight in Paris" or others, I found myself watching something that started to relate to some more or less real life facts. I'm not in the mood to elaborate on that and that's the reason why I also don't want to write about the movie too much. I'll resume on appreciating the role made by Cate Blanchett who leaves behind pretty much every other cast member ( with all my 2nd reason stated somewhere above :) )

As subjective I would be, I guess the movie's ending gives me reason for crediting it, almost exclusively, as a drama. I had a sort of "surreal" sentiment ... to say so when I left the cinema, augmented by the surrounding euphoric context. I felt a real need to find an empty street in my way home to digest the way the movie ended (which normally is quite easy to get where I live at 22:30, but in this case was impossible). I wanted another ending. At least a more complete one, any, but more complete ... I really feared that the last scene will be the last.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012)

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is a pretty heavy movie. And I think not only figuratively speaking, or at least in more than one way. In any case, quite different from the impression left by the trailer ...

The production follows a novel with quite some success apparently, describing the path of a young Pakistani from ascending to a high analyst position in an investment company in New York to the return in his home country where he ends up giving apparently nationalistic speeches while teaching in a state university. The story is shown in flashbacks during an interview taken from the main character. Interview that ends up just as reason for questioning on the kidnapping of an American professor, the reporter being a direct collaborator of CIA. Of course, at some point we get the 9.11 attacks in this story and the following enhancements of racial discrimination. As a pretty neutral viewer on the exposed themes, I don't have much to say, and anyway it's a bit complicated to emit opinions ... What's to be appreciated is that the movie, if you take it as a whole (and not just any piece of the ending, middle or beginning) manages to keep a balance and not to put all the blame on one side.

I didn't like the directing starting with the first frames. You have a complete mess in which there are some people singing, while the kidnapping scene which triggers all the following action is presented. If you want to pay attention to some details it's damn hard. The bad part is that there are other portions in the movie in which the directing is flawed = unnecessary fragmented action, dragging scenes, etc . The cast on the other hand is ok, the lead actor being actually very convincing in the role of a guy living the American dream woken afterwards by nationalist ideals but still .. "reluctant" as the title says.

The rest, as I said, heavy even in the way it flows = do not expect an action movie, it's much closer to a biopic. Actually it's a drama with enough life issues mixed together ( a bit too many I would say ). I some sense reminded me of "Spy Game" and of "The Quiet American". But to connect the movie with one of these in a way .. I don't know, maybe with a combination between the two ...

Rating: 3 out of 5

I Saw the Devil (2010)

Still looking for a movie that would make me raise a bit the average rating I went again towards the East = Korea. It seems I'm still unlucky. More, I guess I'm convinced that I should find time to see at least two movies in a week, because I don't know if "I Saw the Devil" is the best option to discuss ...

Why I wanted to avoid this entry ? Not because it's a bad movie, but I guess it's one that you don't want to see twice. Or at least to forget rapidly. I had the luck to see the "censored" version. Just to make sure from start that the violence level of the movie is well understood, and it's a violence that .. you can fell = it's a bit hard to overpass as in, I don't know, "Saw" or other productions made in Hollywood, which surpass as graphic level what I've seen here but most often is just dumb excess of gore. It means that given the subject of the current movie it somehow makes sense, but you still don't want to see that on screen ...

The story is relatively simple and linear. We have a serial killer who makes the error to pick as victim the wife of an agent in the Korean intelligence, and altogether the daughter of a former police chief. After the victim's head is found (and I'll limit the "graphic" description to this but I felt the need for a "warning") the grieving husband takes two weeks of vacation. Which vacation transforms into a hunt for the killer. The agent finds the target relatively fast, but instead finishing him quickly, decides that it's not enough to kill him and starts a cat and mouse game in which beats him badly and releases him just to catch him again and start the following punishment round.

Usually, pretty much every complex "revenge story" is quite catchy. In the current case the murder is so horrible that maybe you won't want to finish with the killer immediatly. Or at least, to reference another Korean series with a similar background - "The Vengeance Trilogy", but by another director, you would like an explanation, however dark it might be as in "Oldboy". Light spoiler - this doesn't happen, or as the title suggests is just "pure evil" up to the end. Consequently, at least for a part of the movie you're tempted to take the side of the agent who's in the mood for an "eye for an eye" revenge, especially since (another light spoiler) "the evil" starts getting more grotesque ramifications. The final though transforms the movie from a revenge story into an anti-revenge story. But I've said already too much from the story ... so I'll stop here with that.

In a way, besides "Oldboy" or "Lady Vengeance" from the Korean area, it reminded me of "Silence of the Lambs", but at a more gruesome level. The difference is again, the feeling that's left in the end. The conclusion is that I doubt this is a movie that can be liked, subjectively speaking. More than getting over the violence and sadism, it's about being fine with the outcome, because you start normally by sympathizing in a way with the one who wants payback .. but if this is in the beginning about the need for revenge, in the end it gets more towards the need of inner comfort, and apparently this is quite far from the Talion law ...

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (2001)

Since this year I was not convinced yet to give a maximum rating to anything I've seen, I started looking in less mainstream areas. Unfortunately it's still not the case. Actually I could say that I'm pretty much as disappointed as for the last entry. The difference is that we're talking about a 3-movie-length miniseries, so theoretically it could be even worse. Still, from "The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells" some "worlds" deserve the time ...

I'm not in the mood to start a bio description for H.G. Wells. A Wikipedia search and it's done. The movie romanticizes quite a lot a part of the life of the guy who was one of the first SciFi authors sold at a large scale ("The Invisible Man", "The War of the Worlds", "The Time Machine"). This is done through six stories adapted after some of his short writings. These are integrated as real events intersecting with the author's live along one of his best friends, later wife = we get some romance discretely integrated between the lines.

It would be useless to start detailing what's being shown. If somebody remembers "The Outer Limits", what we get here is like a short similar series, but with location fixed in late XIXth century England, and with the episodes connected through the narrator who takes more or less active part in them. To continue the comparison, as in "The Outer Limits", the stories vary from good to mediocre. Unfortunately, at least for me, the part that I liked covers the first two tales (light spoiler - maybe also because these touch subjects dealing with "time travel"). What followed was mostly somewhere between boring and eyes rolling. To be fair, in the conditions of seeing the movie split in pieces, at late hours usually, before getting to sleep (for which it actually helped a couple of times).

As production is a TV series, more than 10 years old, so you shouldn't expect much - although for 2001 is not actually bad. Still the VFX are pretty lame and a bit too much close-ups in framing. I'd like to close though with a positive note, and there would be three things to point out. One - the British cast is beyond the smallest negative comment, although I think I barely recognized one actor. Two - a theme from the soundtrack (Stanislas Syrewicz) that I couldn't find (and I don't think it's possible since it's quite short) which, maybe as a personal feeling, gives a very pleasant sentiment of calm being placed usually in the pauses between the stories. Three - if you like short SciFi, and if you had attempts to write some, is quite a motivating series (at least for reading, if not for writing).

Rating: 3 out of 5

Warm Bodies (2013)

I expected more from "Warm Bodies". To start with the most powerful impression left by the movie = disspointment. Since I don't have a better subject, though ...

We're talking about a zombie movie. A bit different from the usual productions like Romero's " .. of the Dead" series, "I Am Legend", or (probably) the newer "World War Z" which I didn't see yet. It's something that wants to be a zombie romantic comedy. How do you get to that ? Well, easy, we have three categories of Earth inhabitants: the "apocalypse" survivors, zombies, and advanced zombies = skeletons (let's just say that the middle group is the intermediate phase between the other two). Obviously, the survivors are camped in sort of fortified perimeter, from where they go out from time to time to get medicines and other supplies. During such an exit they get attacked by a zombie group, and by chance one of the youngest heartless creatures gets for lunch the brain of a living guy of pretty much the same age. Spoiler (and I don't feel bad for it): that's the way to "digest" the victim's memories, the result being a love at first sight towards the poor dead's ex-girlfriend. Which ex-girlfriend is actually present in the attacked group, and our zombie struck by Cupid manages to save before she's getting on the others undead daily menu. Further, as the trailer says "love conquers all" or different put, slowly the brain eater's heart starts to beat again (although his diet is kept the same for quite a while).

Sounds gross ? Well, it is. I don't have a problem with zombies devouring human people, seen that in countless movies, in much more graphical scenes than here. What I found disgusting is the way the subject is approached = it seems that nobody cares throughout the movie that the main hero in this story finds his lost humanity by chewing neurons at breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that's going past the absurdity of the idea itself which just shows how childish is the movie. The comedy side left me impassible. I don't remember anything from "Shaun of the Dead" except .. laughing with tears. Here, I don't know if I got past barely smiling, and probably not even that to frequent. The romance side I won't comment, maybe because I'm myself to zombie to be touched, or I'm way too far from the right mood to do it.

I was expecting more as I said, so maybe I'm a bit too acid. But the positive ratings that convinced me to see the movie are totally unjustified. There are probably two aspects to appreciate in this production: 1. that's the first time when I see as idea a phase of intermediate "zombies" in a post-apocalyptic front, which gives the possibility to have some nice turns in the battling forces 2. that the production doesn't take itself too seriously, as it happens with "Twilight" for instance, but that unfortunately doesn't save it from a main target: 12-16 + choose from: at most medium IQ or a sufficiently big alcohol intake.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Now You See Me (2013)

It's weird how after "Red Lights" I've got in a short while to watch "Now You See Me". There's no direct connection between the two but somewhere deep down below there are some common points. Anyway, I don't think I'm gonna dig them up now. After all "Now You See Me" is not actually a title inviting you to "dig", but more oriented to provide doar pure entertainment.

The story goes like this: a group of four illusionist "specialized" more or less in different "areas" of the branch, are drawn together by a mysterious person to get a plan running. Which plan starts by robbing a bank on the other side of the Earth as main attraction of a live show. Of course, the cops are immediately on the case but they seem helpless and can't do much more than trying to prevent future "tricks" like that. In parallel we have a guy who earns a living by exposing magicians, who sees a good opportunity to improve his TV ratings. That's pretty much what the trailer gives you, and as usual I'll try to limit the spoilers. As extra, I can say that in the end the movie is a "revenge story" and as pretty much every "revenge story" is quite catchy, although ...

There are many, many aspects who drive back what could have been maybe one of the best thrillers of the year. What's getting obvious quite fast is that the plot is about revenge, which is not such a big deal after all. It's not even a big deal that you have a set of "suspects", one of whom you expect to be the "shadow man". The problem is that the final twist about that is so far from believable that it was better to not exist = I really would have preferred the lack of surprise. To supplement (somehow) the effect, we also have some action threads from which you would have expected a feedback in the end, but is either missing or is completely unrelated with the rest of the movie (one example: the "classic" romance that has nothing to do with the subject, especially since is almost as "invisible" throughout the movie as the rabbit from the hat, until the end of the trick).

I won't say anything about actors because I can't without giving too much = the acting relates with the final surprise. The directing belongs to Louis Leterrier - known for "Transporter" and "Clash of the Titans", and I guess here's where it lies most of the problem. The script could have been better, but even as it is, it still was possible to get a superiors result if, I don't know .. some role was less overacted throughout the movie, or it had less emphasis on some action points. Anyway, even if I have been disappointed for what it could have been, the story is catchy and the subject is sufficiently original not to get boring and to deserve watching.

Rating: 3 out of 5