Another Ghibli masterpiece. They are ambitious and go the extra mile. A right kind of mix of fantasy and detailed realism. I'd explain more but I'd just spoil, well I can give one example: the throttle rod in the piston engined aircraft has a locking lever that has to be pushed so the lever moves. This is shown. I can't imagine anyone but the Japanese actually having the work ethic and appreciation of the viewer to do this. Or just having and showing the appreciation and wonder of free flight, in a way that's not extremely dumbed.

To mention technical things, there are a few places with nice 3 D changes of view, some drawn with high count of frames that is just so pleasing to the eye. Although there are a couple of places where they've skimped on the animation like sometimes in level cruise flight where the same plane slide without attitude animation is just moved linearly above the background.

But overall, a damn inspiring film, in so many ways. The environments and the actions and the motivations are just so fascinating and right and the whole atmosphere is pure beauty, magic and awesome. The hero is perhaps the most symphatetic ever.

Of course, most people think cartoons are for kids only. Judging from the ads too.

I don't go to movies anymore, I've sworn enough times after lousy waste of time...

This was using a ticket I had had since last summer that was going to expire in April. The old Ghibli stuff is the only worthwhile thing, it's a good idea that they show them in major theaters nowadays. Totoro was the rerun last year, and they've shown the newer stuff too. 

Screamers (1995)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114367/

Cheesy clichee dialogs, some not so great actors, awesome environmentals and buildings, nice dark soundtrack, nice story (based on a book by Philip K. Dick, guess I will read that). The start is rather weak and cheap, it gets much better when they are "showing less" and the story sinks in. For me the ending ruined the good impression of the second half again though, like so often.

The environments alone are worth watch this if you like post-nuclear dystopian snowy AWESOMENESS.
http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/screamers.jpg 

Screenshot looks interesting, I will have to have a look at that! 

what's it with these shitty scripts & creature designs lately?
http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=daysnightsye3.jpg i loled

Also, the director eneds to learn about subtlety, cutting and making your actors use some other expression than "blank stare" or "evile stare" :( 

check out luet's other stuff if you liked thta, Dog Day Afternoon and Network. 

I've seen Failsafe (however you spell it). Twice actually.

The same friend originally recommended Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico. So that's on my list. 

The Winslow Boy (1999) - pretty effective period piece from David Mamet about a famous old english legal case (essentially a variation on the david v goliath theme).

Its fairly predictable plot wise but the writing is good, the acting is good and it interestingly makes some of the big scenes in this type of movie (ie trial etc) happen off screen with the focus on the consequences and effects ont he characters.

6.5/10


Fists in the Pocket (1965) - Quite an impressive look at a young mind that is slowly but surely disintegrating.

Filled with anger and tortured by frustration at having family members that are either physically or mentally incapacitated, the main character in Mario Bellochio's debut film resorts to the only way he sees out - to get rid of them all.

It's a dark and disturbing look at the downward spiral of a young outcast epilectic's sanity and is aided by a tremendous performance by Lou Castel in the main role.

Ultimately though, the singular one note nature of the film renders it a very dour and downbeat affair.

7/10


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - I was quite disappointed by Andrew Dominik's meditation on celebrity and identity in the form of a western.

It's a pity because its beautifully shot and scored, has two excellent performances by Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt and the last 30 min or so, plus two dinner table conversations in the middle of the film, are great cinema.

But the rest of it is unfortunately very disjointed and unfocused, resulting in an overdrawn and muddled movie that never meets its ambitions.

5.5/10


Lust Caution - Before going away I made some comments about Black Book, an exciting, fun but substanceless action blockbuster from Paul Verhoeven. This has almost exactly the same general plot but Ang Lee's movie is a more complex, layered, subtle, spectacular and also frustrating work.

The movie is set in japanese occupied China during WWII and focuses on the actions of a resistance group, particularly those of a young, naive girl played spectacularly by newcomer Tang Wei. The relationship between her and Tony Leung's character, an officer in the chinese collaboration, forms the centre of the film.

The acting and writing are of a very high quality, the look and mood is perfect and the plot compelling.

However, the pacing does leave a lot to be desired which is a shame because it would have otherwise made this excellent film into a great one.

7.5/10


White Heat (1949) - tightly written and acted old fashioned gangster film with an intrgiuing mother-son relationship at its core.

The relationship between James Cagney's gangster boss and his 'Ma' turns what would have been well made but routine fare into something a lot more impressive and also allows the scrip to come with some memorable and quotable dialogue.

7.5/10 

Run, Fat Boy, Run (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425413/
A generic clichee boring funny long tragecomedy (is that word used in english too?) that not even Simon Pegg can rescue from mediocrity. Not bad, not good, just non-exciting popcorn movie with some good laughs. 

What a piece of shit. Well deserved being a flop in cinema (no idea about Planet Terror, that one is prolly much better). It's boring, the story is stupid, the "omg old movie effect" effects are bad, the girls are ugly, Tarantino is a massive wanker or what? Does he think if he, the god, makes a bad movie it automatically becomes good? Bah, big disappointment. 

everything after Pulp Fiction has been a let down. 

A tour de france! Even better than the first film, showcasing a realistic interpretation of the turmoil and gritty reality of life on the streets while dancing to average hip hop in slow-motion. The screenwriters cleverly decided to only use lines of dialogue that had previously appeared more than a dozen times in other films, in a satire on the mainstream nature of modern pop culture. This also allowed the focus of the viewer to remain firmly on the slow motion dancing, and trying to ignore the racist undertones which underpin most of the scenes.
OH DEAR/10 

i saw cloverfield the other night

it could have been a very average godzilla-esque monster flick, but the blair witch style filming made it enjoyable. some very tense moments & good overall atmosphere, even if some of the characters were a little annoying 

I quite liked the first half but found the second half to be trash.

Shortish reviews of some that I saw on the weekend plus one last night :

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - easily Sidney Lumet's best film in 25 years (after all his last one was a courtroom 'comedy' starring Vin Diesel) but while it's a return to form, it falls short of the great stuff he made during the 70's.

It�s a well made but predictable movie with good acting, good writing and a permeating mood of despair throughout. Philip Seymour Hoffman continues to demonstrate that he can pretty much do anything and he gets good support from Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei (and to a lesser extent Ethan Hawke who tends to overact everything but is still effective).

7-7.5/10


Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) - the fourth great film from Woody Allen and I really can�t fault it despite the score I give it. Everything works, the ensemble cast of Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Dianne Weist, Max Von Sydow and Allen himself is perfect, the writing and characterisations are of a very high standard, there's no scene that is out of place and it ends well.

8/10


Mirror (1975) - probably Andrei Tarkovsky's most difficult film, and that's a big statement in itself, this autobiographical version of his life requires you to know a fair bit about Tarkovsky himself and/or russian history to fully appreciate it. Its no normal biopic though, it�s the film equivalent of the stream of consciousness technique in writing with no concept of time and space and pretty much a visual depiction of how memory is, a collection of events from different periods that seem to segue into each other over time.

But even if you don�t fully understand it, and I certainly didn�t, it's quite easy to appreciate the filmmaking skill on display. Most of the individual segments work well on their own and as is usual with Tarkovsky, the imagery is hypnotic.

6/10


In the Valley of Elah - Tommy Lee Jones seems to be recently perfecting the character of the disillusioned and bitter old man and his work here is probably the best incarnation of that character.

Paul Haggis' iraq themed film suffers from his usual heavy handed and contrived writing but is rescued by the performances of Jones and Charlize Theron in the main roles and by the camerawork of the great Roger Deakins.

7/10 

is it true the camerawork here is more vomit inducing thann in the recent bourne films? 

Cloverfield is fucking awesome. End of story.

It's shot via camcorder so if you easily get motion sick, you might not like it. But the thing is, it needs to be shot that way to work. The shots of the monster are so pants tightening it overrides my desire to complain about the camera work. 

Movie is ok, but no nitin, it's nowhere near vomit inducing as the 2 last Bourne films, those were friggin horrible, way to go for making the shots cheaper to produce by cutting them every 5 milliseconds. 

Bonnie & Clyde (1967) - not too sure about the score but otherwise its hard to fault this great great film. Although the shifts in tone are rapid, they are never jarring and always flow well despite the movie switching from a light hearted tone to a more darker one quite frequently.

The performances are uniformly excellent from Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons and it really is unfair to single one out but Dunaway's melancholic portrayal of Bonnie was the most impressive in my eyes.

There is a great attention to character and unlike most movies which rely heavily on background and events to build character, this one seems to do it by focusing on small actions and gestures that reveal a lot.

9/10 

I don't know what dictates that if you are doing movies, only crappy scifi will do. It must be some film director conspiracy.

This one was a nice movie in many instances and quite well and detailedly done but as a whole just didn't work.

From New Zealand by the way. So much potential, but the script is just so bad. There were some nice points in it but the badness overcame. 

,.mkl 

Watched this in UK, I dont know if would have the same title in oher countries...

Christian Bale plays a US pilot back in the Vietnam war, who crashes in Laos and is a POW.

I liked this film, it was gripping but not too gritty, reasonably well acted and made me laugh a few times near the end. Quite long, but not too long.

Good! :-D

7-8/10 

yep, pretty good, bale cant do any wrong at the moment.

if you liked the story, check out the doco Little Dieter needs to Fly, by the same director and quite interesting (and different). 

Joaquin Phoenix (sp?) plays a New York club manager who get caught up in the war against drugs with his brother and father both high-ranking police officers, and his friends/colleagues being various gang members...

This film pretty much blew me away. Phoenix gives a truly stunning performance as a man under unbelievable stress who makes the transformation from being 'on the fence' to having taken his side, and defending his family.

The film is beautifully shot and the screenplay plays out in a manor which gives an unbelievable feeling of tension/unease, it was truly gripping. The action sequences pull no punches in displaying the horrors of what has to go on in a war against drug dealers, and it is this shock value which I believe gave this film a real edge. Outstanding!

8.5/10 

Odd film about a serial killer. Could have been a lot more interesting than it was, 6/10? 

phoenix was very good and the rainstorm car chase was brilliant, but I didnt care for the rest of it as I found it to be a poor imitation of other better movies. 

http://imdb.com/title/tt0953318/

is one of the best movies i've seen in the last two years.