POMO

This reconstruction of an adolescent tragedy is similar to Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, but filmed in a traditional manner and relying on emotion and sentiment (that’s Nick Cassavetes for you). The most important thing is the actors – Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster are excellent, while Justin Timberlake and the kidnapped Anton Yelchin don’t do the film any harm. What does harm the film, however, is the final conversations with “real” parents, as they degrade its authenticity and believability (especially the overweight and overacting Sharon Stone is terrible!).

Australia is a theatrical, affected overly sweet monstrosity that decides anew what it is about every half an hour. In order to hold itself together, it relies on the relationship of the central couple, which is, however, drier than Australian desert. I haven’t suffered like this in a theater for a long time and I can’t believe that this suffering was brought by the same Baz Luhrmann whose beautiful, emotional and complex Moulin Rouge! I love with all my heart. I’m giving this the second star only for the poetic story line with the little Aboriginal boy and the only really nice scene in the film, which is connected to him (stopping the cattle just before the abyss). Australia deserved its fate as a box-office bomb.

Though it has a traditional concept and is a more than decently filmed spy thriller, Body of Lies does not have enough of the exotic atmosphere of Spy Game or the high-tech coolness of Enemy of the State to become a hit. It goes straight to the epicenter of the issue of contemporary Islamic terrorism and does so with perfect action scenes. But even though it keeps switching between different locations and the plot moves forward at a decent pace, I still feel like it’s actually stuck in one place. That is probably because everything apart from spy machinations seems both superfluous and half- baked (the attempt to depict the background of Crowe’s character, or DiCaprio’s relationship with the local girl). And it needs a different kind of ending.

Even though this film’s creators don’t bring anything new to the table, instead just combining the technique from The Blair Witch Project with the final exposition of The Silence of the Lambs (the green night-vision mode, similar setting), their low-budget result still managed to raise my adrenalin level and in places I was scared so much that I wanted to avert my eyes from the screen (which hasn’t happened to me in some fifteen years). The climax is truly BADASS, because it doesn’t stay in the realm of pure film entertainment, but throws in an unsettling this-could-actually-happen feeling. Brrr!

The Day the Earth Stood Still neither offends nor enraptures, and it definitely doesn’t satisfy, be it in terms of plot or the technical aspect. Derrickson alternates nice thought-provoking and emotional moments with purely visual ones, but the first type is scarce and the second one is clichéd and unoriginal. And the rest is just filler held afloat only by the performances of Jennifer Connelly and Keanu Reeves. Even though these two have little to do here, you’ll root for Jennifer from the start and as for Keanu, you’d believe him even as an alien, in spite of the fact that his facial expressions are the same as in all his other movies. The young Jaden Smith is terrible, just like the young Dakota Fanning a few years earlier. As an intimate director, Scott Derrickson was not the best choice (the character of an army general, who acts more like a redneck carpenter posturing in a garage, is a failed attempt at irony). The film has a pleasant “sci-fi charm”, but it is overly cautious and bland. It comes up short in the inevitable comparison with Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, which was a far more exciting experience despite all its faults.

A contagiously seductive and fragrant combination of classic horror elements, an innocent concept of platonic love, hackneyed plot clichés, Matrix visuals, beautiful natural locations, a Volvo C30 and metrosexuality. How can you resist something like that, especially when it tries to look deadly serious in all its childish naivety? The film is an embodiment of everything that the teenagers of today consider “in” and that sells well. If it hadn’t taken the central couple so long to get together, I might have even condescended to give this a higher rating. A guilty pleasure.

I feel a little sorry when I am (almost) the only one to see the exceptionality and perfection of a certain film. It means that its creators won’t get the credit they deserve... Elegy is an incredibly mature, sensitive and psychologically complex movie that is creative in its filmmaking details (from the screenplay to the brilliant editing, which masterfully escalates all of the key scenes). The director depicts the fifty-year-old man in love more precisely and more comprehensibly for younger viewers than any male director could, which just confirms a theory that women can understand men better than men can understand them. She intentionally cast the seemingly incongruous pair of Ben Kingsley and Penélope Cruz so that she could let them reach perfect harmony only in the unexpected final twist. I also cannot imagine better and more original casting of the role of Kingsley’s old friend than Dennis Hopper. As for the central pair, Kingsley is the heart and soul of the film and it’s hard to see where his acting genius ends and the director’s genius in guiding the actors begins – the true genius probably lies in their mutual understanding and the synergy of their talents. After one weekend (when I randomly chose to watch Elegy and Vicky Cristina Barcelona), I finally learned to appreciate Penélope Cruz. She is a treasure, and not only as an actress. And let’s not forget the cold yet passionate realist played by Patricia Clarkson, in whom Kingsley’s character finds his only stable sanctuary. When I turned on Elegy, I just wanted to fill up my Sunday evening, and what I got was absolute emotional and spiritual film satisfaction. Why couldn’t the final static beach shot last until the end of end credits?

It’s like eating a Funny Games USA popsicle – the stick you’re left with is The Strangers. It recycles hackneyed clichés and has an undeveloped plot with absolutely zero catharsis plus major lapses in logic and plausibility. Bryan Bertino doesn’t even know what a shot of a candle with an inclined flame is supposed to convey. This film is worthless in terms of both screenplay and direction. It has nothing to make it memorable, but it’s cleverly marketed with an appealing trailer and a stellar cast.

At sound of familiar “underwater” music, an army of Creatures from the Black Lagoon (see the eponymous movie from 1954) attacks the redneck inhabitants of a small harbor town (there’s even a pub brawl) and violates hot, nubile babes (a lot of flashed nipples), who then give birth to their descendants Alien style. And there are also bloody gore effects, dead dogs and a toddler in a crib in danger. Had the town been enveloped by a thick fog, it would have been perfect.

Trade offers one powerful moment (the jump) and the well-captured atmosphere of the dark side of Mexico. Otherwise, however, it is bland, with a lamely overacting youth in the leading role (Cesar Ramos), a stupid climax and a clichéd postscript, in which the director dramaturgically undermines his own film.