DaViD´82

Can a hundred twenty minute Samurai chamber piece that takes place in no more than three or four rooms possibly be good? The answer is that it can and it can even be more than just good or above-average. It’s all about weaving intrigue, the Samurai sense of responsibility, being a vassal, belonging to a family clan and, primarily, about love. Although it all looks like a recording of a theatre performance, it doesn’t matter at all because, thanks to the actors, you really care about the individual characters. The icing on the cake is of course Toshiro Mifune, who radiates charisma on all sides literally every time he appears on screen.

A remake of a movie with the same title that was also in the meantime remade in Britain, but involving what I would call “real" football, in other words, soccer. This version with Sandler works quite well, while not being as good as the British Mean Machine, but thanks to the classic “MTV look" it is pleasant to look at and the picture’s pace is pretty solid, despite being on the long side. However, the movie lacks somebody with charisma, primarily Monk as played by Jason Statham. Without him, this really doesn’t work.

Luckily the Nolan brothers played about sufficiently with the screenplay, so the result isn’t just a set of illustrations for the original book, but a self-standing creation. Not all the changes from the book are for the best (for instance, setting the story in the present day and its almost horror feel would have looked good in the movie too), but as a whole it holds together well and works without having to have read the book. Nolan plays an intelligent game with the viewer, asking a lot of questions, but also offering some answers. In terms of directing, he handles the movie with his own inimitable style and uses a similar storytelling method that he tried out in his debut movie, Following. The only more serious shortcoming is the pretty annoying partial happy ending; they should have left the ending the same as in the book.

Although the makers if this tried to remain on the brink of bearable and laughably bombastic kitsch soft porn, all too often this slips into a stupid, noisy (I don’t think there is one second of silence here or no scenes where someone isn’t jumping around, screaming, whistling etc.) patchwork full of cuts, certainly worthy of an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. However, once in a while it calms down and looks good, and so for instance during the tango or the live scene with Satine and Krystian, all of these criticisms move aside, because at these times Moulin Rouge is simply flawless. A shame that there aren’t more similarly powerful moments in this movie, but on the other hand there aren’t that few of them really.

The most balanced and the best del Toro movie I’ve seen. And it has the same theme music as in Circus Humberto. A chamber price about war with a big pinch of gloomy, fairytale fantasy. The problem is the length, because especially in the first hour the pace is far too relaxed. On the other hand, it is hard to fault the second half; everything is flawless. It’s a sort of successful concoction containing The Devil’s Backbone and the unmistakable storytelling poetry of Neil Gaiman.

The first hour is a seriously good teen comedy with no toilet humor and several gags that work. Unfortunately, afterwards it turns into something we’ve seen a thousand times already and so you quickly forget the impression it initially makes. But still, thanks to Lindsay Lohan who doubtlessly has a little comic talent, it is watchable without being any health hazard.

Christmastime in Heaven... Doesn’t that sound morbid? Not at all, this is simply an attempt by Czech filmmakers to bring the “fairytale" out of the woods and forests to a different location for a change. The entire thing relies purely on the actors and their squabbling. And that’s where the problem lies; it’s a decent sitcom, but a poor fairytale. Maybe it needed a few more puns for adults, a stronger fairytale storyline and for evil to be punished at the end. And the traditional true love storyline is “a bit weird", doesn’t work much and, mainly, fizzles out.

The first two thirds of this picture are outstanding in all respects, but the nearer it draws toward the ending, the more Déjà Vu suffers from its miserable screenplay which tries to convince you that there is more to it than you think. The subject matter isn’t bad, has considerable potential, even working excellently for quite a while, but the ending trips the whole thing up. Even so, the initial idea could be the makings of a pretty good story perhaps for a series like CSI. What makes it even more of a shame is that otherwise this Tony Scott / Denzel Washington duo collaboration worked out well... Well, almost. This time Scott seems to have taken sedatives and although the directing doubtlessly does have his characteristic idiosyncrasies, compared to his recent movies, you can watch this without risking an epileptic fit. This walks in the footsteps of techno-thrillers such as Enemy of the State, but this has a taste of sci-fi in it and almost zero humor. It’s certainly worth watching, but it might be worth leaving the movie theater when the “operation is called off as successfully solved". That way Déjà Vu could aspire to achieving much higher quality levels and you wouldn’t be left with the feeling that somebody missed a big chance.

A movie with a nice, loopy screenplay by Kauffman, excellent acting, but it loses points for the directing, unfortunately not handled well by Gondry. It’s as if he forgot that he’s not shooting one of his ingenious music videos. This is a feature film and it simply needs a slightly different approach. He incorporated a lot of ideas into the picture, but not all of them help the movie as a whole. In any case it’s such a whacky and unconventional experience, that it’s well worth your while.

Although the directing is excellent, the acting great and the atmosphere perfectly set, there is still a long way to go to complete perfection... Even though Gondry’s screenplay is good, it’s simply incomparable with the spotless perfection of Kauffman’s masterpiece Eternal Sunshine. Of course it wouldn’t be completely fair to compare The Science to Sunshine. Mainly it’s completely different and, above all, very well made. You don’t warm to Stephan and Stephanie as much as to Joel and Clementine, but it’s not due to their acting skills, but instead because the couple in this movie are just genuine nut cases. But they’re cute. The dream sequences are, once again, perfectly evoked and they are what make The Science of Sleep a must see movie.