3DD!3

Cherchez la femme. Polanski’s grasp of the excellent and well-thought out screenplay is a joy to watch. Sun-parched L.A. is stifling with a heavy and paranoid atmosphere, especially when no water comes out of the faucet. I’m not a big fan of Nicholson, but here he really is excellent and gives the hero the necessary authenticity. The crushing finale is just the icing on the cake. In the 70s this must have almost been a revolution in cinema. Bad for the glass.

Two human wrecks (a would-be writer and a would-be photographer) chatting together, complaining about their lives and reminiscing. They criticize their life for how it was and how it might have been. They reflect upon it using intellectual analogies and feed us with their extensive experiences without setting foot outside New York. They keep on trumping each other with better and better arguments. Then they begin analyzing the Good Book and everything moves forward. Slowly, but surely begin emerging words of wisdom, priceless... “It can’t be done without money." You can smell the theatrical drama in Chinese Coffee a mile off, but Pacino leads very deftly. Of course, he acts better than he directs, his ever irritated Harry is a real character, the same as the laid-back Jerry Orbach. I recognized some people I know in both them. The picture could be analyzed for hours, it’s so rich in themes. A joy to behold.

This time he brought you a Mercedes... The only thing that didn’t drop in quality was Beltrami’s music. Otherwise, this is like falling painfully on your face. For me, this isn’t another episode of that excellent series that I grew up on. I’m not treating it as one of them, so that I can be at least a little objective. I don’t like Moore, he already ruined Max Payne and he isn’t much good at making movies. Here at least he tries to push the action to the forefront (I have to admit that there really is a lot of it) because any switch to “father and son talking" equals catastrophe. I would be surprised if Skip Woods’ screenplay was any more than five pages long, it’s completely off any qualitative scale. It has some sort of story, but too few snappy lines and hogwash about the holidays soon gets boring. Bruce doesn’t give a damn about anything and he seemed to me to be overacting. And what else can he do, it’s a parody on Die Hard after all! I’m not going to have a dig at the illogicality of individual scenes, but several times I had a really surprised look on my face. Especially on the trip to Chernobyl. That reminds me of the days when I used to watch Seagal movies with my dad (e.g. Under Siege 2) and he always went on about what a pile of baloney it was, that it didn’t make any sense. Who on earth thought up such a load of tripe? Well, now I’m following in my dad’s footsteps. Wanna cuddle?

A brief trip through the Napoleonic Wars set against a backdrop of a conflict between two fencers. The part of hot-headed provocateur Feraud is just right for Keitel, even though he doesn’t do much with the character because he lacks space to do so. The less famous of the Carradine brothers has a slightly fuller character, but the important thing here are the duels. Polished, varied and perfectly filmed duels. Scott handles the atmosphere at different periods in time (the most powerful is the part with the invasion of Russia) and the direction is hard to fault in any respect. This picture is over forty years old and it hasn’t aged a bit.

Unpleasant. After leaving the theater I had a weird feeling of changed perspective. The screen offers the viewpoint in the first person on a limited scale, then enlarging it disproportionately. When I returned to two-eye vision I seem to have experienced a sort of inner shrinkage. Like if I had crawled out of a sick brain back into my (less sick) brain while not losing the ability to discern reality. It was a relief, despite the headache that set in. Khalfoun exploits the concept to the full. The dime-a-dozen, slasher plot receives the stamp of reality and ideas abound. The stay in the disintegrating mind of a serial killer isn’t very pleasant, but even some really romantic moments occur too. Anna is the only one to keep the movie from toppling over the brink of normality, the other characters are unpleasant or behave stupidly. Elijah Wood acts with his voice, just occasionally we see him in the mirror or in a special sequence when his “soul leaves his body". The music by a certain Rob affords Maniac anger and volatility, creating much of the chilling atmosphere that seeps from the screen. We haven’t seen anything like this for a long time.

A cute mosaic connecting up stories, either already told or those that take place right in front of us. Each is cloaked in smoke, but still they are heartwarming and you get to like them. It’s a joy to watch the great acting performances and clever outcomes in a movie that makes you think and reflects the period as exactly as Auggie’s camera captures time. The last, Christmas story warms the cockles of your heart. I must go visit grandma at the weekend. If you can't share your secrets with your friends then what kind of friend are you?

And it’s behind me. Goodbye, I won’t miss you. In any case, I was looking forward to the rest of Twilight, because it was the last episode, but even so it managed to annoy me. And it was with the same trick that irritated me in Cage’s Next. If you saw that, you know. I admit that in that (badly filmed, but that didn’t matter so much) fight I really had a good time, heads being ripped off the popular heroes was enjoyable, no blood, but ok, it’s a kids movie... but what on earth did they do with it at the end?! Why?! After the fight, it’s stringy like cheese fondue from the pot to the fork. I had goosebumps from Michael Sheen (and not in a good way). And everybody talks slowly, walk to the fight slowly, even though they can run really fast and their clothes don’t get torn, for god’s sake, didn’t they see Flash? For some reason, the kid has a CGI mouth for half of the movie. The vampires drive a Volvo because it’s the safest car under the sun. The vampires make a fire because... they’re cold. Probably. Pattinson is Lautner’s father. Everybody lived happily ever after... until the earth’s core disintegrates. Because vampires cannot die and are here forever. That’s the long and the short of it. Burwell’s music is nice and as always is on a completely different level from the rest of it. We have the same temperature now.

A kickass R-rated movie based on the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. Wirkola, who last directed the undead army of the Wehrmacht in Dead Snow is in his element. Witch blood by the gallon, kids dying (a lot) and the “friendly" troll squashes heads like flies. Hansel Renner is a nice guy as always, just that they gave the poor guy diabetes and Gretel Arterton looks great. And they really like beating up on people with the audience in the theater egging them on. The head witch, Famke Janssen is also a fox. And the weapons mmm... every kid’s dream. Blessing a Gatling gun? Hell yeah! Mainly, don’t go into the gingerbread house.

A picture from the days when Petersen wasn’t so flabby, a time when it was fashionable to wear light blue jeans and money was printed at home. From the beginning, Friedkin presents a traditional thriller and not much happens until the ingenious chase through the concrete jungle of L.A. But he puts his foot on the gas in the second half of the movie turning it into an unpredictable genre masterpiece. The finale is a raised middle finger to all crime movie clichés. Really good.

A delicacy. Daniel Day-Lewis steals the whole picture. He is the type of heavenly actor who would be capable of ripping down and retracing in all of David Plainview’s character contours. A struggle for money and faith, where money always wins. A demolition of the American dream, a dream that doesn’t just sit and wait for you, but you have to wade through mud, oil and blood to get to achieve it. Paul Thomas Anderson knows this. A masterpiece.