3DD!3

Real... but incredible too. Cameron delivered all I was expecting and much more. He embellished this simple or fairytale story (a dash of Pocahontas, a dash of Beauty and the Beast etc.) with an incredible amount of ideas and details that take your breath away. Of course, I made sure to watch Avatar at the IMAX and I must say that the movie really was created for 3D with a screen as large as possible. Pandora plucks you like a raspberry (parallel with Jake) and you feel the new world in all its beauty and unknown secrets and you want more and you get more. Each animal is more fascinating than the one you met before and every shot reveals new image after new image that remains ingrained in your memory. Luckily Jim didn’t skimp on technique and so we get the best performance from everybody. Militant and reckless humanity (represented by the great Ribisi) for destruction lovers and on the other end of the scale the naturally sweetened Na’vi race for beauty lovers (all the talk about ecological agitation are wrong, nothing specifically stands out, it all creates a whole where questions of racism etc. are also dealt with). All of this forms into a wonderfully working story and a breathtaking experience. I can’t remember seeing anything as intense (and anything that acts on all levels) for a really long time. I just noticed that I didn’t write about the special effects at all. Maybe because they didn’t seem like effects. They seemed real. When Neytiri cried, I felt with her like with a real person, not like with a nine-foot clown. She looks that real. So it should be said here that the effects are of the highest possible quality (if they are revolutionary or not, you’ll have to ask an expert in the field), personally I was completely gobsmacked, and I’ve seen a lot of movies. Almost all the actors shined, but Sam Worthington really was the best of them all. The nice guy who guides us on this wonderful journey without a doubt deserves great praise. As does Stephen Lang. A proper baddy who reels out one tough line after another. All in all, it was worth the wait. I felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open. I see you...

You can see clearly here that Jim had everything that he put in his famous movies in his head way back in ‘78. And, even if Xenogenesis comes across rather silly today, I have to admit that this short had me captivated. On the other hand, I would have welcomed something different than the open ending.

Cage - excellent, Sam Rockwell - excellent, Alison Lohman - excellent. I was rather surprised to fins a movie from Ridley Scott (!) with Cage (!) that I didn’t know even existed. And it was a pleasant surprise. The type of cool movie that occasionally makes you laugh, but otherwise it’s pretty full-on. + unexpected ending.

Sometimes things go right, sometimes not... Herzog shot a very pleasing old-school movie where there’s no shortage of snappy lines, dumb staring and things work out the only right way. Nick Cage is back in form and is GREAT. A perfect dumb expression, constant feet shuffling and crazy, dry laughter. Excellent. P.S.: The close-up “stoned" shots of the iguana is one of the craziest things I’ve seen this year.

Where’s the splatter movie about a woman who bathed in blood? Herbs, after all... how lame. Boring, no atmosphere, nothing worth remembering. The story doesn’t hold together and of the actors, only Roden sticks out, the others don’t deliver anything special, but on the other hand it’s not embarrassing (even Upír Krejčí was ok in his mini-role :-). But mainly I had the feeling that this movie lasted about three and a half hours. Never again.

It would probably have been better if they hadn’t given away almost the whole movie in the first clip, but in any case I reasonably enjoyed myself. Some of it is seriously gourmet style (yep, the chase with the one-armed Bruce), but most of it was more like marzipan on an over-sweet cake. The story is clearly not fully thought through, even though I’m ready to believe that as a comic book it was at least 50% better. Also, I didn’t much like Mostow’s plastic vision. Did they all really have to look THAT artificial?

More of an existential drama than a comedy. And Sandler is good at acting this type of guy and it’s a joy to follow his verbal exchanges with Rogen. The excessive length bothered me a little (I was glued to my armchair in the end), but on the other hand, I don’t know what I would have left out, because I really enjoyed myself the whole time. I also enjoyed the many star cameos. Personally, that Aussie Oz Eric Bana got to me most. :-)

The stormy atmosphere of Neptune and a space ship spewed from the depths of hell didn’t give me a moment of rest for the whole 92 minutes. Anderson can do it if he wants (the faultless dizzy beginning) and if it weren’t for the slightly over the top ending I would easily give it 5*. But now I can only remember the perfect build up of atmosphere in the first two thirds, the superb acting performances of Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill, the very decent effects and the idea which, if it had been developed right could have satisfied my dark side.

Likeable main protagonists, a ton of laughs and eye-candy slow motion splattering blood. What more could one ask for? Woody Harrelson is awesome and Jesse Eisenberg was a very pleasant surprise. The zombies here aren’t spooky, so no horror, but maybe comedy of the year. You must learn to appreciate the simple things in life.

Lightweight testimonial. Stephen King would have been delighted with this movie. I was impressed by the great atmosphere that swings between relaxed enjoyment and absolute despair. The cast is A-grade (Chris Pine rules) and the characters behave nice and realistically and if for a minute somebody behaves humanely, he is deservedly punished. Just one thing bothered me. I would have made the ending a little longer and had the rest of the crew eliminated too. But I suppose people like a happy ending. P.S.: Oh, I see now, Steve really was delighted with it, he even wrote something about it in an article in Entertainment Weekly.