My Favorite Movies

The movie that made me "fall in love" with David Lynch and cinema...

One of the most sensual and romantic films ever made, without one single kiss. This film is 100% pure beauty. From the colors, to the music, to Maggie Cheung... Stunning in every possible aspect, In The Mood For Love is one of the first masterpieces of the twenty first century, perfection reached in the art of film making. No matter what Kar-Wai does in the future, this will always be the film that made me 'fall in love' with him...

David Lynch's most complete and perfect film!

Allen fans will forever discuss this but... Annie Hall is his masterpiece. Manhattan can only approach perfection, Annie Hall reaches it.

It just doesn't get any better than this! The perfect union between drama and comedy and a lesson of film-making and acting from Benigni! Has clearly his touch in it. Simple and pure comedy! Not any kind of "intelligent" humour, just goofy and innocent... Very much Chaplin's style, brilliantly mixed with a very emotional and intense story that makes you undecided between laughing or crying... The film is clearly divided in two parts. A more "enjoyable" first one, and than a little more difficult and sad second one. As for the "so called" critics (not even a masterpiece escapes!) who said this film was irrealistic, among other barbarities, yes it can be a little irrealistic. But that's not a bad thing! I don't think Benigni's ideia was to diminish or offend the Holocaust survivors in any way. On the contrary! This is simply a story of love and above all hope, that happens to take place during the war and in a concentration camp. It has also one of the most perfect, uplifting and brilliant endings I've seen... You know those films that make you stare at the credits for a couple of minutes when it ends? (Unlike the millions whose imediate effect on you is to get up instantly, get your jacket and leave...) This is one of them! Obviously a very restricted list...

The greatest film ever made...

The kind of film that makes me believe in perfection. Hitchcock's masterpiece.

"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."



Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange will always go down in history as one of the most polemical, violent, disturbing films ever made. A tale most vile, full of the old in-out and other such nastiness. A tale in which Alex (Malcolm McDowell), our faithful narrator and leader, is imprisoned for the accidental killing of a person and later conditioned by his government to abhor sex and violence, but also the glorious music of Ludwig Van. Sometimes karma can be a cruel, cruel mistress. Sometimes it can be poetic. But, the thing to remember, is that it's always in play.

So learns Alex after his release from prison. Cured of his predilection toward sex and violence, he encounters the victims of his earlier transgressions only to find that people's forgiveness cares little for his cure or the fact that he's paid his debt to society. The wounds Alex has inflicted are deep, so it's little surprise when his victims exact their revenge because, deep down, they are no better than Alex. Freed from restraint by a feeling of righteous indignation, they are able to expose their true selves, as dirty and nasty and vile as Alex in his prime, only now Alex has been so conditioned that he cannot even fight back. He is defenceless, begging for mercy. It's doubtful that this was a desired effect of the conditioning, so you have to wonder: if the government takes away Alex's ability to defend himself and sends him out in a society that hates his very existence and distrusts this so-called cure, does perhaps the punishment exceed the crime? Taking nothing else into consideration, possibly. But when you factor in the conditioning against the perfectly natural sexual appetite and the music of Ludwig Van Beethoven, then it's clear the government has gone too far.

There's little question that's part of the film's message, but to what end? The Prison Chaplain (Godfrey Quigley), as close to a voice of morality as A Clockwork Orange gets, argues before the review board that due to the conditioning "He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice." He's right, of course, as the Pavlovian approach to morality takes away the subject's humanity, reducing him to nothing more than a castrated animal. He's pitiful, really, which is a stunning turn of events considering his actions in the first half of the film. A great deal of that change relies on the acting abilities of McDowell, who's amazing in the role. His performance is often noted as one of the best to never be nominated for an Academy Award. He was also snubbed by the British Academy. The film received four Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing. It won zero.

Part of what made A Clockwork Orange so controversial upon its initial release - Kubrick received death threats against both himself and his family and took measures to ensure the film wouldn't be shown in Britain until after his death, which happened in 2000 - is that switch wherein Alex goes from hated to pitied. Kubrick presents us with a protagonist and narrator who is essentially an uber-villain - a gang leader who picks fights with rival gangs, beats up a homeless man, orchestrates a gang rape, and has a three-way with two teenage girls. There is no code of ethics by which he could be considered a good person. But, he is a clever and charming young man who serenades his rape victims with "Singin' in the Rain" and has a strange, unexplained fascination with Beethoven.

It's difficult to reconcile that this likeable young man could be capable of such atrocities, which is partly what Kubrick's going for here. Take Alex out of his odd white outfit and into some normal clothes and he looks no different than anyone else his age. Only at night he lets his inner demons run wild, where the rest of society has decided to suppress them. But the solution of just taking the demons away isn't a solution at all, because the demons are vital to who we are. Think of it as a ying and yang approach to the soul of man. Without that battle between good and evil we have nothing but an empty, boring wasteland. And that's not a life worth living.

A Clockwork Orange, like so many of Stanley Kubrick's films, is an acquired taste. It is a bold, daring piece of cinema that aims to provoke a reaction in the belief that it is better to be found spectacularly bad than dull. Thankfully, it is neither. Kubrick paints in broad, provocative strokes, muting nothing in the frame. He employs a broad range of colours and flourishes that give the film a vibrant and raw feel, as if you're watching the characters and images explode off the screen. Alex mentions during one of his sessions that "the colours of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen", so Kubrick does his best to make them seem really real, from Mum's hair to the red outfit of the woman being raped to the flashing lights of the record store. Couple that with the wide-angle lenses Kubrick is fond of, the slang bordering on gibberish, the numerous phallic symbols, and the occasional intention continuity error and the entire film is a bit disorienting and unnerving. It's designed to put you slightly on edge.

Of course, A Clockwork Orange isn't for everyone. It's an X-rated film that contains rape scenes and torture and pretty much anything that could make someone uncomfortable, but it's also a brilliant film with grand ambitions. Sure the film's message gets a little muddled near the end, and it isn't always clear what the intention is, and it tends to occasionally lose its way, but that isn't a reason to discount it. Thanks in large part to Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange feels like jazz, and because of that it feels alive, and a flawed film that feels alive is always preferable to a by-the-numbers one that's dull, especially when it's directed by a genius.

Everything that was made after 1967 regarding the mix of comedy and romance - the so called 'romantic comedies' - has in The Graduate its main source of inspiration. Owner of one of the most ridiculously perfect endings ever!

"He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."



Widely hailed as the greatest black comedy ever filmed, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is Stanley Kubrick's subversive take on a common Cold War theme. Deranged General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has sent his squadron of planes an order to attack the Soviet Union as they held at the fail safe point, and subsequently made it impossible for anyone other than him to call the planes back. When news of this reaches Washington, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) calls his advisors to the war room, where General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) suggests the best plan of action may be to back the planes up with a coordinated all-out offensive that's sure to cripple the Soviet forces and limit American casualties to twenty million, tops. But the Russians, to everyone's surprise, have just completed a "Doomsday Machine" designed to destroy all plant and animal life on the planet, and even they cannot prevent it from retaliating.

Combine the plot details with Kubrick's direction, and it's probably safe to assume that few people in 1964 automatically assumed Dr. Strangelove would be a biting political satire. But on second thought, maybe they did. In retrospect, Dr. Strangelove feels like a departure from Kubrick's normal fare, like 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket, but Dr. Strangelove pre-dates them all. So a comedy doesn't seem like a Kubrick project to us, but it makes sense when you view it in context. This is a man who had done several self-produced projects, which he had parlayed into the Kirk Douglas war film Paths of Glory. When Douglas couldn't get along with Anthony Mann, he replaced Mann with Kubrick for Spartacus, primarily to serve as a figurehead through whom Douglas could operate. Naturally, this didn't work. Kubrick took over, then made Lolita, a 'light-hearted' version of the Vladimir Nabokov novel that featured a supporting turn by Peter Sellers. All this is to say that when you view Kubrick's career in that sequence, a Peter Sellers dark comedy isn't all that unexpected. In fact, it's a rather natural progression.

But enough history, let's look at the film itself. The primary settings for Dr. Strangelove are deceptively simple: the interior of a plane, the War Room, and General Ripper's office. Apart from a few others, that's pretty much it. A knowledgeable audience member realizes that much of the film is shot on sound stages, but a couple of choices in staging and camera work gives the impression of so much more.

The plane interiors are filmed as if the camera is being operated by one of the crew. There are no long tracking shots or wide establishing shots. They are instead framed in a way that at no time are we given the feeling that the production has taken out a chunk of the plane so that the camera can get the perfect angle. This gives the scenes a cramped, uneasy feeling further heightened by the borderline mental instability of the pilot, Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens). Our level of closeness to him and the rest of the crew is uncomfortable, especially when you consider the nuclear bombs stored below. Contrast that with the scenes in the War Room, where Kubrick goes to great lengths to show us just how big it is.

He seats all the advisors around the type of enormous round table you only see in a film, with a circular florescent light hovering overhead. Behind them is the "big board", a large map of the Soviet Union with lights indicating the position of the planes. The room itself is so big that even the widest wide-angle shot cannot show it all. Clearly rooms of this size do not exist, but Kubrick uses it to remind us of the great power the men in this room hold, but at the same time, he often puts them in the lower part of the frame, an indication that despite all their power, there is little they can do in this situation.

And the one man in the room who should be able to prevent a nuclear holocaust, comes across as the most ineffectual of them all - President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers). Originally conceived by Terry Southern as a character with a bad head cold, the President is shocked to learn that not only has someone authorized an attack, but that there's no way to bring them back. And to top it off, the bill that enabled such a bizarre scenario is one that he approved. It is a politician's worst nightmare.

Of the three characters Sellers plays in the film (Muffley, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, and Dr. Strangelove), this is the most memorable, or at the very least my favourite. His telephone conversation with the Soviet Premier ranks as one of the best comedic exchanges in all of cinema, and it's all that more impressive that we can only hear one half of the call. The Premier is drunk, so Muffley must explain things to him multiple times and deviate from a very important issue to reassure this man that "Of course I like to speak to you! Of course I like to say hello!" The three-pronged performance by Sellers is clearly one the best from this comedic genius. Much of Muffley's scenes are played against Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson (George C. Scott), a military advisor a little too enamoured with the business of war and highly distrustful of the Russians.

Scott, a criminally underrated actor, is perhaps the best thing in the film. Chomping violently on multiple sticks of gum, he's all big movements and facial contortions, ready to fly off into a rage at a moment's notice. Secretly he's thrilled with the turn of events and a little perturbed that he must waste valuable time convincing this damned politician to launch a coordinated attack. Acting-wise, Scott is off in his own little world, but it's important to note that even as he launches nearer and nearer to madness, he stays firmly grounded in the reality of the film. Few actors can chew the scenery with such vigour without detracting from the film. It's a fine line, and Scott walks it perfectly.

There's little doubt that Dr. Strangelove serves as the high-water mark for anti-war films, but it also ranks alongside not only the best comedies ever made, but also the best films. For such a timely film, it feels as fresh today as it did in the Cold War. But what's most remarkable is that it was even made at all. Imagine the modern equivalent: a dark satire about terrorism featuring the melody "We'll meet again" playing over footage of the explosion. It's the sort of bad taste no one would permit, but when you have people as bold and talented as Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers, they find a way to make it work. In their able hands, the gruesome becomes absurd and the horrific becomes somewhat campy and sweet. It is, hands down, one of the greatest and most brilliant things ever put on film.

"I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"

I remember a conversation I had a couple of years ago with a friend of mine who goes to art school in which she told me something very interesting about how she perceived Picasso's work. She said that she thought he was just alright until she saw his early works, that it wasn't until she saw that he could paint very well while following the rules of art at the time that she could truly appreciate how he was able to break the rules.



In a similar way, I think The Elephant Man is an absolutely essential piece in David Lynch's - who, as I'm sure you know, is also a painter - oeuvre. It shows how he was able to craft a film that played by the rules of Hollywood and keep his vision and integrity intact. Lynch's career path has taken so many twists and reached so many peaks and valleys, that you really can't call it a path anymore. Not with a straight face, anyway. He abandoned any pretence of a traditional Hollywood career a long time ago and a familiarity with his subsequent work makes watching The Elephant Man all the more fascinating. Back in 1980, Lynch was just beginning to make his way as a filmmaker, but had already found a style distinctly his own through his experimental short films and the 1977 cult hit Eraserhead. This cinematic voice reverberates through every frame of this film. Even today, The Elephant Man remains one of Lynch's very best films and certainly one of his most accessible.

The film is based on the true story of John Merrick (John Hurt), discovered by Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) on display as a circus freak and billed as the Elephant Man. Treves teaches anatomy at London Hospital and is immediately overwhelmed by the wide array of physical deformities suffered by Merrick. He is intrigued by him as a specimen, but - understandably - assumes him to be an imbecile. Even so, when Treves discovers that Merrick is savagely beaten and misused by his "owner" Mr. Bytes, the proprietor of the attraction, he arranges for him to be given shelter at the hospital.

Once there, Treves is astounded to learn that Merrick is in fact quite literate and his misshapen body houses the soul of a true English gentleman. Word of London Hospital's new patient spreads and Merrick again finds himself the centre of attention, greeting visitors from the highest echelons of society. Treves now begins to wonder: is he any better than any of the others who've exploited Merrick for their own benefit? Merrick seems happier than he's ever been, but why did Treves bring him to the hospital in the first place?

The first act of the film, before we see Merrick's face, is wonderfully directed. Lynch makes us hate the people who gawk at Merrick, not because we believe in the dignity of all creatures as we would like to think, but because we are jealous of the people who see what he looks like. We paid our money, and we want to see what these people are seeing. It is only after we see Merrick's face and learn of his intellect that we are able to raise ourselves above the level of the gawkers, of only by a little bit.

Of important note are the two shots that set Merrick's first visit to the hospital. Each shot is taken from an elevated position, distancing ourselves from Merrick. This distance works on multiple levels. First, it gives the impression of a peeper looking at Merrick. This is emphasized in the first of the two shots, since we are able to see a staircase leading up to our level. Second, it shows how we look down on him, both literally and figuratively. Third, and most importantly, it is the same distance and angle shot. This shows how nothing has changed. Treves doesn't understand him as a human being, and neither do we. We do later, but at this point he is just another freak to us.

The film's fascination with the two-faced nature of Victorian London society is born out in how Lynch employs veteran cinematographer Freddie Francis' gorgeous black and white photography. Over and over again, Lynch's camera is fixated on the elements of industrialization and modernity - smoke chimneys, enormous machinery, an operation on the mangled body of the victim on an industrial accident. While much of the story takes place in the world of the upper class - the hospital, Treves' home, the opera - many scenes are set in the squalid back alleys of London, which immediately establishes a consistent visual juxtaposition that illustrates Victorian society's deep split. This is complicated, however, by Merrick's outcast status, as his deformed body precludes his being fully a part of either the upper or the lower class - he is completely outside.

The cast of The Elephant Man includes some of the most distinguished actors of all time, including Sir John Gielgud, Anne Bancroft, Wendy Hiller and Freddie Jones as Bytes. But the brunt of the film rests on Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt. Their work in this film ranks among the best of both their careers. Hopkins expertly conveys the warring feelings of ambition and compassion that Treves struggles with. As for Hurt, he's extraordinary, completely buried beneath prosthetic make-up that renders him totally unrecognisable. John Hurt is the heart and soul of this film and it is virtually impossible to remain unmoved by his performance.

David Lynch, who - I've told this story 300 times, I know - is the filmmaker who made me fall in love with cinema, is too often dismissed as an intellectual weirdo. He may well be an intellectual weirdo, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying his films. Whenever I meet someone who can't quite embrace Lynch's more esoteric films, like Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and especially Eraserhead, I usually point them toward The Straight Story and especially The Elephant Man. This is a beautifully produced, deeply humanistic film that promotes a message of tolerance, which makes it mandatory for any cinephile. Nominated for eight Oscars - it won none.

David Lynch in its more raw and natural state. A film that has haunted me profoundly (in the most positive way possible) since the first time I saw it. A work of rare genius and real bravery. A stream of subconsciousness work of art in surrealism and abstractness. Eraserhead, ironically, for being Lynch's first and most honest, even 'naive' film, ends up being the one that can get you the closest you'll ever be to understand his world, to see through his mind. It's a film that seems to require interpretation. Answers, however - and this really is what stops any human being from enjoying Lynch's work - are so distant that you'll wonder if they are even intended. May very well be the greatest debut by an American director after Welles' Citizen Kane.

First of all, what people need to understand and have in mind (I saw some comments here that blowed my mind), is that this was made in 1968... 1968! You have to understand that number. That's almost 40 years! What we need to ask ourselfs, and try to answer truly, is that if we could possibly have the vision to do something like this in that time. And the answer is obviously NO! I don't have the slightest doubt when I say that this film is one of the greatest achievements in Cinema history! The way Kubrick imagined the 'future', 2001, our present (or past), is brilliant and fascinating. Technicly the film is flawless, considering it's time, and there are moments, scenes that I actually didn't believe that that was made in 1968! Of course I understand people who say it's boring. As a classic has to be recomended to anyone who loves Cinema, but it's not for those who expects action and dumb entertaining. What I would say is that this is one of the most 'difficult' films to wacth and analyse. It just can't be watched if you're sleepy, as simple as that... Anyway, I said it and I say it again: this is one of the most important achievements in the history of Cinema! That's why it's one of the few that deserves 5 stars...

NOTE: This review will discuss the film's ending. If you haven't yet seen it, beware.

"Hate the smell of dampness, don't you? It's such a, I don't know, creepy smell."

The film that made a generation wary of the shower, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a landmark of cinema, one of the high-water marks for the man many consider to be one of the greatest directors in history. Janet Leigh stars at Marion Crane, a rather ordinary secretary who one day decides to steal $40,000 from her boss and run off with her unsuspecting boyfriend. After napping on the side of the road, she arouses the suspicion of the local authorities, but nothing comes of it. Nearly in the clear, she stops on a rainy night at the secluded Bates Motel. She rents a room, shares a pleasant enough discussion with Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), the son of the hotel's owner. Then, she is brutally murdered. Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, Crane's boss starts to worry, both about his secretary and his cash, so he sends a Private Eye (Martin Balsam) looking for her.



While a great number of people would rather forget it ever happened, we all know Psycho was remade in 1998 by Gus Van Sant. Employing a shot-by-shot approach and starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, the remake is generally considered to be a preposterous travesty - which, for me, is being nice - but it actually has some value for the purpose of explaining how genius the original is. One would assume that a shot-by-shot remake would approximate the quality of the original, at least to some extent. It doesn't. So what does this tell us about film? Well, for one, one could argue that the contributions of actors holds more value than originally assumed. After all, that's the major variable at play. Beyond that, though, it suggests that perhaps Film is an art form where genius lies between the shots. That is, if the shots are identical and the script is identical, then what does it do to the auteur theory? Van Sant is no slouch of a director, so you have to wonder if his remake indicates that perhaps we're spending too much time analysing the specifics of a shot, if perhaps there isn't something larger at play that conventional criticism can't put a finger on. It is, at very least, something to ponder.

As for the masterpiece, to fully understand the impact Psycho had when it was originally in theatres, you have to know a little of the backstory. Hitchcock purchased the option to Robert Bloch's little-known novel without telling anyone, then proceeded to buy every available copy he could find. During the production, which was filmed under the fake title "Wimpy", he planted casting rumours in the press that he was considering Helen Hays for the non-existent role of Mother, had a chair on set reserved for the character, and went to the trouble of billing Janet Leigh as the film's lead, despite the fact that she dies in the early going. Effectively this created two stunning plot twists with the dual benefit of being completely unexpected both in the context of the film and in the reality of anyone familiar with the various Hollywood machinations of casting. Few expect the lead to die in the first half of the film and fewer still expect the casting rumours to involve a character that is a figment of another character's madness.

Part of what makes Leigh's death scene so powerful is that the film never gives us any indication that it isn't going to be about her theft of the money. It invests a great deal of energy in developing her story, from the opening scene of her in a hotel room with her lover, to the nerve-racking encounters with the police, we are completely behind her as a protagonist. So when Hitchcock "kills" her, revealing the theft as the ultimate MacGuffin, it has the ability to take your breath away, but the way Hitchcock films it - with quick cuts and lots of screaming - creates one of the most harrowing scenes ever put on film. It is such a vivid scene that many audience members swore they saw red blood washing down the drain, when in fact the film is done entirely in black and white.

With the protagonist gone, the audience is left scrambling, open to suggestion and manipulation and all sorts of trickery. So we focus on the relationship between Norman Bates and his mother, or what we believe to be his mother. Hitchcock wisely gives us only as much information as is absolutely necessary for us to be convinced of her existence - a shrill voice, a silhouette in a window, a shadowy figure in a dress - but none that might suggest otherwise. Yet the ending survives our suspension of disbelief, partly due to the psychiatrist's explanation but largely thanks to the performance of Anthony Perkins, who is nearly flawless as the boy with the Oedipal complex. He's a friendly enough person, perfectly comfortable with small talk, but note the slight shift in his eyes when someone mentions his mother. He reflects both devotion and a quiet desperation, but more importantly goes from helpful to protective. It should be clear that he's got something to hide, but the devotion to one's mother can be a fierce one, so a son protecting his mother's health isn't all that insane. Only, in this case it is.

To me, one of the most powerful aspects of Psycho is the way the film presents two false realities without undercutting the impact or validity of what's truly going on. So often a twist ending is either telegraphed well in advance by excess foreshadowing or so far-fetched that no reasonable person would ever believe it. But Psycho manages to avoid both pitfalls, striking a perfect balance where it is both shocking and realistic. Factor in Hitchcock's unique ability to ratchet up tension shot by shot and what you've got is one of the greatest thrillers ever filmed, the likes of which most films can only dream of duplicating, even if they duplicate everything else.

The most magical and honest celebration of cinema ever created in the form of film. A film with such a heart and soul that you feel literally happy for being alive. Genuinely emotional and authentic. A beautiful, sublime cinematic piece. Virtually impossible to not be loved, because, in the end, if you don't like Cinema Paradiso, you don't like films.

Sublime. The kind of film Sir. Alfred Hitchcock himself would have been proud to make. One of the most imaginatively scripted films ever made. A 2-hour comedy-mystery-thriller and a tour de force for two enormous, genius actors. Expertly directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (his farewell film) and based on the play by Anthony Schaffer, the film opens with delightfully circus-tinged music that lends itself throughout the entire film to mix up the tone as each of the characters transition from serious to comical. Sleuth is a grand example of how you can take the barest of essentials - two great actors, one great script, one great set - and make magic happen. A game of murder, mystery, intrigue, deception and good old-fashioned sleuthing. Outstanding acting from its two main - and only - actors. Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier in one of his most eccentric and wickedly clever roles ever. One of the greatest British films ever made.

I've had the "why is Woody Allen a genius?" discussion many times. There are virtually hundreds of explanations. One of them is the fact that he did something few - if any at all - filmmakers in history have: he took essentially the same thematic material and made two great, huge films out of it, and they feel entirely unalike. They are obviously Annie Hall and Manhattan. They both star Allen and Diane Keaton, both are about imperfect and somewhat forced relationships, and both have the traditional Allen-isms of him playing essentially himself as a neurotic character who inhabits New York. However, the two are completely different in tone. While Annie Hall is the blunt, sad realist of the pair, Manhattan is the hopeless romantic. Annie Hall's honesty reminded us that two people in love don't always end up together in the end - which is true everyday - Manhattan's naiveness made the point that the idealizing and glossing of life can't be considered a bad thing either. Call one the realistic adult that we eventually become after eperiencing life and the other the dreamy child we're often asked not to leave behind. They need each other to make their points. In the end, it's one's personality and view of the world and life that dictates which one we love the most. Personally, my heart belongs to Annie Hall (the character and the film), but Manhattan will always be one of the few films which remotely approaches its sublimity.

Elliot: "Oh, God!
E.T.: Elliot.
Elliot: What?
E.T.: Elliot! Elliot!
Gertie: I taught him how to talk. He can talk now.
Elliot: Wait. Can you say 'E.T.'? E.T.?
E.T.: E.T.
Elliot: Aha!
E.T.: E.T.! E.T.! E.T.!"



There are certain cultural experiences that tend to define a generation, sometimes a song or a novel or a current event, but quite often it tends to be a film that transcends demographics and is able to reach people on an intimate level. For a variety of reasons, few films can accomplish such a feat, but the ones that do are permanently burned into our collective memories. Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is one such film.

The story, for the uninformed (is there any?), centres around Elliott (Henry Thomas), a little boy trying to adjust to his parent's divorce and the myriad of things boys his age must adjust to. Then one night he encounters E.T., an alien accidentally left behind by his spaceship. They form a fast friendship, even to the point where Elliott begins to feel what E.T. feels and react to what he does and sees. But as E.T. stays separate from his own kind, it begins to have negative consequences on his health and, by extension, Elliott's. He attempts to "phone home", but it may be too little too late.

It had been roughly five years since I last saw E.T., a long time to be sure, but an eternity when you consider that my primary focus back then was less on cinema and more on sports and creating havoc. As a result, the E.T. I remember only somewhat resembles reality. Certain things are lodged in the back of my head - the Reese's Pieces, the NASA men, and the rest of the iconic images - so it was surprising to watch it again and realize just how different the actual film is from the film in my memory. The childhood version of me found the film, while certainly endearing and moving, slightly creepy. But what do kids know anyway?

In actuality, very little, but they do have the unique ability to respond to stimuli without the burden of knowledge and cynicism. So when E.T. propels the bicycles across the face of the moon, a child is much more likely to believe they're flying, rather than assuming the film is using some form of rear projection or other such effects. It's that innate sense of wonder that E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial employs more effectively than the vast majority of films dare dream. It has the ability to move people to tears with a simple tale of a friendship that transcends all barriers.

One thing Spielberg does in the early going is model the visual style of the film after all the alien invasion B-films of the 1950s. At every opportunity he fills his night exteriors with fog and lights cutting through the haze. He puts more light then is even remotely plausible in the shed where E.T. is hiding, so when contrasted against the fog, it tends to glow with an otherworldly eeriness. And this is before either the characters or the audience has met the alien, so there's an amount of unease about the scenes where Elliott is sitting in the lawn chair armed with nothing more than a flash-light. For all we know, the alien could pounce on him at any moment. There's always that risk in an alien film: they're either friendly or hell-bent on world domination. Rarely is it something in-between. And sure, you could assume that, since this is the man who idealized Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the aliens are likely to be peaceful, but young directors love to try new things, so you never know.

So when we discover that E.T. is indeed friendly, a lonely soul accidentally left behind, we breathe a sigh of relief knowing that Elliott and his family will indeed be safe, that no one is going to get shot with a laser. Elliott, for his part, does what virtually every boy his age would do in such a situation: he treats E.T. like a cross between a little brother and a pet that's followed him home and he won't be allowed to keep. That is, he hides him in the closet, confiding only in his older brother, Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and little sister, Gertie (7-year-old Drew Barrymore), who, despite some conflict earlier in the film, are more than willing to help. The task of keeping E.T. a secret serves to unite these siblings in a common cause. Gone is the constant bickering and yelling of the film's early scenes. When Elliott is teased in school, Michael actually sticks up for his brother against his friends. They learn, in some small way, what it means to be part of a family, growing closer in pursuit of a goal.

Of course, they don't become nearly as close as Elliott and E.T., who actually form a bond so tight that their heart rhythms begin to operate in sync. They begin to share experiences, such as E.T. drinking beer while Elliott gets drunk during school and mimics the actions of the film E.T. is watching on TV. This is by no means an original way to show how two characters are linked, but by tying their fates together in a supernatural way, Spielberg is able to present it in a new way and it's so effective that when they lay side by side on the verge of death, you can scarcely stand the thought of what might happen. As an audience member, you're torn between wanting E.T. to be able to phone home and re-join his family and wishing he could stay on Earth with Elliott and his family. But if they're to both live healthy and productive lives, they cannot stay together. E.T. cannot stay on Earth and Elliott cannot leave his family behind, and so ends one of the great friendships in all of cinema. The film, however, will live on forever.

[Mary hits E.T. with the refrigerator door]
Gertie: "Here he is.
Mary: [absently] Who?
Gertie: The man from the moon. But I think you've killed him already."

The kind of film that is above any kind of personal opinion or 'taste'. Is and will ALWAYS be a masterpiece! Gibson's first proof that he's a natural-born filmmaker.

One of my personal favourites... Amazing script, wonderfull acting, brilliantly shot! A modern masterpiece!

The kind of film American cinema should make at least once a year, but only does once a decade. Total perfection in almost every level. A future classic.

One of my personal favourite films. A captivating, sensitive and perfect capture of life's essence. A picture whose charm, meaningfulness and perceptive intelligence is big enough to fill every one of Earth's oceans with. A film I personally connected beyond words with, and one that is likely to be appreciated by anyone who is still 'searching' for themselves. Whatever that means or how much of a cliché it might sound. The kind of film I dream of making one day.

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"



Two young men are hurtling down a street as Iggy Pop's incantatory ode to survival, "Lust for Life," blasts through an old '90s-TV speakers. A little 11-year-old boy (yours truly) watches, sitting in his couch alone, speechless. Concurrently, a voice-over, with a thick Scottish accent, sardonically disembowels society's empty exhortation to "choose life." The little boy discovers, for the first time in his life, that he doesn't want to choose life either. And that he should stay the hell away from heroin.

Trainspotting is and will always be the film that kind of took my innocence away. Once I first saw it I wasn't a little boy anymore. It's a modern-day little story about the experiences of some unrepentant Scottish junkies, yet in its opening moments, it spiritually resembles nothing so much as the Beatles' careening burst of adrenaline-charged "devil-may-care" in their introductory films, A Hard Day's Night and Help!. Hardly cute and cuddly moptops, these Trainspotting rogues are, nevertheless, driven by similarly simplistic formulas. In those films, the Beatles race along trying to stay one step ahead of crazed fans and other pursuers; action for the Trainspotting crew is solely motivated by the need to fix and score.

Instead of the social-realism approach taken by most films dealing with drug sub-cultures, Trainspotting observes its subjects with a mordant eye - an inclusive perspective that permits humour ("It's SHITE being Scottish!"), exhilaration, wit, and hyperbole to mingle with stark realism and dingy morality. Some have (falsely) interpreted this stance as a dangerous glorification of heroin, but Trainspotting really remains neutral on the subject. Heroin, with its pitfalls and pleasures, is merely a fact of life, and so are the sub-cultures and lifestyles it generates. The film does not ignore the drug's harrows, but neither does it deny heroin's intractable lure and efficacy. In fact, the film's most pathologically violent and twisted character is an alcoholic who never touches heroin.

Trainspotting plainly includes various heroin-related tragedies such as AIDS, crib death, and personal betrayal, but it also resorts frequently to humour and exaggeration in order to drive home other points. The most obvious example of this is the by-now talked about to death scene in which Renton swims into the most disgusting toilet/cesspool of feces in order to retrieve a couple of heroin suppositories he unwittingly excreted, thereby showing in an astonishingly vivid, surreal, and unforgettable manner the literal depths to which one can sink in the quest to score.



The same Scottish team (Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, screenwriter John Hodge, and Ewan McGregor) responsible for 1994's surprise low-budget hit Shallow Grave reunited here for Trainspotting despite serious wooing and many lucrative proposals from Hollywood financiers. Besides pretty much making the careers of McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Kevin McKidd and Jonny Lee Miller, Trainspotting was also Kelly Macdonald's first role. It's arguably the most important film in which all these actors were in.

At times, the Scottish accents seem difficult for everyone to penetrate (I know for a fact that even English people have a hard time understanding them), and the characters' dexterous use of slang and sub-culture references do not make things any easier. Yet the ear, if permitted, adapts quickly to the Glasgow oratory, and though some of the specifics and nuances may pass unclarified, isn't that the way of all sub-culture lingo? The on-target performances, along with the unceasing barrage of popular music and daring narrative gambles, combine to make Trainspotting one of the grand film rushes of the '90s.

"We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclizine, codeine, temazepam, nitrazepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal, dextropropo xyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine, buprenorphine, dextromoramide, chlormethiazole. The streets are awash with drugs you can have."

Gus Van Sant, Alfonso Cuarón, Isabel Coixet, Walter Salles, Ethan & Joel Coen, Christopher Doyle, Tom Tykwer, Wes Craven, Gerard Depardieu, etc... All directing their 'little' love story (wrote by them) through the random neighborhoods of Paris.

I was obviously curious about Paris Je T'aime, but I had absolutely NO IDEA the result would be this brilliant! Mainly because it's hard to make this kind of film work. It has been done before, and not very successfully. Putting together eighteen random stories that apparently have nothing to do with each other and linking them in a way that it means something. As far as I'm concerned it was perfectly achieved.



The film flows very naturally, you almost don't realize you're watching eithteen distinct episodes. Each one has its own topic and style, given by each filmmaker, and when put together result in this amazingly beautiful and harmonic mix of short films, all with the same subject: love. And not necessarily the typical 'Man loves Woman' kind of love. All with at least one thing in common: Paris as a scenario. Really, is there a better scenario in this world than Paris? Anyone who has been to that magical city will immediately fall in love with Paris Je T'aime. Some of the shorts will seem realistic, others pretty sureal. The truth is that each one has the ability to show so many different feelings and characters, a pure look at Human nature. I'm not going to describe each segment, not a spoiler... But obviously I have my favourite ones, like Nobuhiro Suwa's ''Place des Victoires'', Tom Tykwer's ''Faubourg Saint-Denis'' or Vincenzo Natali's ''Quartier de la Madeleine''. Who already watched it know what I mean, who didn't will find out soon, I hope. The cast is also interesting. A mix of big american names like Steve Buscemi, Gena Rowlands, Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood, Willem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Miranda Richardson and some european 'stars' like Gerard Depardieu, Juliette Binoche, Rufus Sewell, Gaspard Ulliel and Emily Mortimer. Either way, all of them are equally great and a big part of why I personally consider Paris Je T'aime a rare masterpiece. Unmissable!

I'll the risk gladly, but I'll say this: Dolls is one of the greatest cinematic achievements ever! Takeshi Kitano is one of the most talented and brilliant filmmakers alive! I've seen every one of his films and the truth is that there isn't a single one that isn't at least 'good'. I won't say Dolls is his best film, even though in my intimate it is my favourite one, side by side with Hana-bi, but it certainly is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen.



It might take some time and mind openness to fully get its greatness. Probably why some didn't get it at all... But there's no way you won't get blown away by this modern masterpiece. It's painfully beautiful, sad, melodic, depressing, realistic and visually astonishing! The rose garden scene is something close to sureal... Any aspiring filmmaker has to see Dolls. There's no going back there. It's pretty much a lesson of filmmaking... I can't help finding extremely transcendental that one single man (sensei Kitano) has imagined, wrote and directed this piece of pure, genuine ART...

Like Kitano or not (or even know him at all), if you truly love Cinema than you can't, just can't, miss this wonderful film!

A film that will always have its name written in history as one of the best and greatest animated pictures ever made. Miyazaki's most accomplished work, technically speaking. Will always be considered his masterpiece, but most of all, it's the result of a unique and brilliant career, full of magical and beautiful films. Breathtakingly beautiful, exquisitely formed, a flawlessly executed masterwork. A sheerly imaginative and groundbreakingly wondrous cinematic piece, wether the anime genre or filmmaking in general is concerned. A dream and poem in the form of film.

One of the strongest and most affecting films ever made. Horrifyingly honest, mesmerizing, scary, raw, romantic, sad and devastatingly effective. Conveys, visually, sonically and dramatically, the siren call of addiction like no other film has to date. A phantasmagoria of self-destructive obsession that is so visually astounding it becomes literally painful to watch. And yet, you can't look away. A spiritual nightmare. One very worth having. Has everything a cult film is supposed to have: innovative visuals, a haunting score, undeniably courageous performances from all of its leads and a consistently gripping narrative. A masterpiece.

"If you want to end your life, end it. You don't have to kill yourself to do that."



Powerful, heavy, crude, turbulent, realistic, brutally honest... All those adjectives combined are not still not enough to describe Head-On. This is probably the most sincere film I've ever seen, occasionally too sincere for everyone to endure. Throughout it, with no warning whatsoever, there are these (at first) incomprehensible, random shots of a red dressed singer accompanied by a typical Turkish orchestra in front of the Bosphorus valley, with the stunning view of Istanbul in its background. It is, as well, with one of these shots that the film itself starts. With this simple Brechtian technique, Fatih Akin (as a tribute to his origins) provides us some occasional clarity and calm during the two long hours of chaos and melodrama that are hard (impossible I'd say) to run from. Without those short, occasional breaks the darkness and the suffocatingly dramatic mood of this film would probably be too much to handle.

Two Turkish immigrants (Cahit and Sibel) living in Germany - he, born in Turkey, but officially a German, she, a Turkish immigrants descendent - two of the so called "German Turks" living in Hamburg meet by chance and fall in love. Even though they have a German ID, they don't feel German, nor Turkish. Foreigners in their own country. They meet in a psychiatric hospital, after both of them tried to commit suicide. Cahit (Birol Ünel), by driving his car into a wall (Gegen die Wand = "Against the Wall") and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), by classically slitting her wrists. At first sight they don't seem to have that much in common. He's a lonely, numb, Rock 'n Roll legend-alike 40-year-old who has no reason to live since his wife's death. Drown in alcohol, drugs and self-commiseration. Self-absorbed on his nihilism and mad at everyone and at the World. She, on the other hand, is a beautiful 20-year-old with her whole life ahead of her, who desperately wants to live, to experiment everything, but finds herself trapped by her family's traditions and restrictions.

Sibel sees in the apparently only similarity between the two of them (the Turkish background) her ticket out of the 19th century recreation she has lived in her entire life, by asking Cahit to marry her. What's interesting and ironic is the way that they both complete each other. She, tied in her suffocating culture, needs to get loose from it in order to be free. He, already 'too free', and distant from his origins (doesn't even talk Turkish correctly), needs something new, something to make him feel alive again, which he eventually finds in Sibel. The two main actors are absolutely phenomenal. Birol Ünel is one of the most charismatic actors you'll ever get the chance to see. Cool as hell. An amazing performance (won a German film prize) and a big part of the film's triumph. Sibel Kekilli is also brilliant. Not being dazzling, she has this natural beauty that fits her character like a glove. Very intense and provoking.

While being a very personal look at the lives of Turks in Germany (told through one of them), Head-On is much more than that. It's a tale of alienation, loneliness and about that feeling of not belonging (If you want a comparison think of Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things). Whether it's in Germany or any other country in the world, that's something that millions of people can relate to. Which is probably why this film has such a deeply honest and contagious strength, because it all feels natural. The people involved, Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli in front of the camera and Fatih Akin behind it, are telling a very personal story, far from being fiction. I can't recommend this film enough. It was here I first discovered the enormous talent that is Fatih Akin and it's the ideal film for anyone willing to open themselves to one of the most promising and gifted filmmakers working today in Europe. This film speaks, shouts directly into one's soul. A unique, unabashedly raw masterpiece!

"Punk is not dead!"

One of the most complex and utterly brilliant original screenplays ever written, by the ingeniously idiosyncratic Charlie Kaufman - who is by far the most exciting screenwriter working today. A concept so unique, strange and yet human that the film is somehow simple in all of its complexity. Both a brilliant piece of visionary filmmaking and a deeply romantic love story. The fact that Jim Carrey gives the best performance of his career also helps a little. A masterpiece!

"The worst part of being old is rememberin' when you was young."

Inspirational. The personification of what films are supposed to be. David Lynch's most 'normal' and humane film since The Elephant Man. The living proof that a man and artist's genius can show itself in more than one way.



Based on a true story, The Straight Story follows 73-year-old Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth, in the best acting performance of 1999, next to Kevin Spacey) as he travels cross-country on his '66 John Deere lawnmower. Alvin lives with his daughter Rosie (the magnificent Sissy Spacek) who has a speech problem, he doesn't have a driver's license, can't see very well, and can't stand without the help of two canes. All that, however, won't (and didn't) stand in his way of travelling 240 miles between Laurens, Iowa and Mount Zion, Wisconsin, when he hears that his estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton), whom he hasn't spoken to in 10 years, has suffered a stroke.

During the six week period his journey took, Alvin meets all sorts of different people, like a pregnant teenager, a group of cyclists and a nice couple who lets him camp in their front lawn when his lawnmower breaks down. Alvin helps them with their problems, even if simply by sharing his old-fashioned country wisdom, and they all feel the need to help him too. In one occasion one of the friendly neighbours offers to drive him to his destination. Alvin's reply is, "you're a kind mind talking to a stubborn man."

While watching The Straight Story, I asked myself a simple question: If I hadn't known the director's identity beforehand and hadn't seen the opening credits, would I have recognized this as a Lynch effort? The answer, no matter how big of a Lynch fan I am, is probably no. This is a G-rated film, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. I mean, the words Lynch and Disney don't go together... right? Apparently they do.

Although astute viewers may be able to find traces of Lynch's usual bizarro small-town characters from Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, the truth is that The Straight Story, even with its share of weirdness, doesn't belong to the steroetyped 'Lynchian Universe'. While Blue Velvet opened with a shot that burrows beneath the ground to reveal maggots, The Straight Story starts with a placid view of a starfield. Lynch takes a break from the nightmarishness and darkness which he obviously prefers to emphasize in the human nature and, for once, focusses on its humanity and simplicity. He doesn't attempt to dissect middle America - he celebrates it. And more importantly, he brings back a time where American cinema was unique and the good old road movies and westerns were a joy to watch.

Lynch paces the film beautifully, allowing Alvin's character to be developed in such a way that the climactic scene has a genuine emotional impact. The Straight Story moves slowly, very slowly, which almost works as a sort of metaphor in a film that concerns travel by a lawnmower. The cinematography (by Freddie Francis) is evocative, and features numerous shots of autumn leaves and corn fields ready to be razed. Angelo Badalamenti (the composer of the "Twin Peaks" theme) turns in a wonderful score that enhances the atmosphere without ever becoming intrusive.

A beautiful, beautiful film.

Vanilla Sky is a little children's film compared to the original spanish masterpiece...

Wong Kar-Wai was born in China and moved to Hong Kong when he was five. This obviously means he grew up watching traditional Chinese martial arts films. Everyone who was born there did. So, considering that those are always a filmmaker's first influences, it would be normal, expected even, if he would to aspire to make films such as those.

...Except we're talking about a man who emantes art and beauty from anything he does. His first film, As Tears Go By, came in 1988 (one year after I was born) and it was the start of a career full of visually unique, highly stylized art films. Ashes of Time is his... I wouldn't say 'attempt', more like his tribute to the Wuxia genre. His only film that doesn't take place in the 20th or 21st century.

It isn't, however, an action film. There are two, maybe three fight scenes in the entire film. The action is shot in a largely inscrutable manner; most of the motion is blurred, and the chaotic swordplay rendered more so by the quick cutting. Wong isn't interested in action or violence so much as the idea of them. Basicly what he does is to turn something as physical and 'real' as swordplay into a dreamlike abstraction. I can't even begin to eplain how brilliant that is to me. Ashes of Time has everything any other of his films do. The only difference is that its characters live in the martial arts' world, instead of an urban, easier to relate one. Other than that they still feel love, loss and regret.



Not suprisingly, the film doesn't follow a traditional narrative but, rather, carefully unspools a number of interconnected plot threads. The common link between all of these stories is Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) a once-active swordsman who now acts as an agent for other hired killers. As a multitude of characters pass through and by his Inn in the desert, the focus of the film moves across a number of episodes involving characters such as Yao-shi Huang (Tony Leung Ka Fai), a swordsman friend of Ouyang's, who one day gives him a gift of 'magic' wine; a swordswoman (Brigitte Lin) with a severe multiple personality identity crisis; and a blind swordsman (Tony Leung) who wants one last glimpse of his home before the final blackout.

Ouyang had abandoned his home and his true love (Maggie Cheung) in search of fame as a swordsman, and as the film unfolds we come to understand how he came to his current place in life. Cheung's character is the heart of the film, the one with more screen time, but the film would mean nothing without all of its characters, who all interact in strange, unchronological manners. The doubts and the confusion that will emerge (cause it will) from all these characters put together - at a certain point you'll find yourself completely lost, wondering who's who - won't be nice, some will find it infuriating and won't be able to fully understand its greatness after several viewings. However, the many fragments of Ashes of Time DO assemble into a clear picture. The patient and attentive viewer will be rewarded when the film ultimately reveals itself as the meticulously constructed puzzle that it is.

Ashes of Time is a gorgeous film. Even those who can't follow the story should be greatful for the fact alone that they got to see something this beautiful. Wong's poetic prose, along with hauntingly melodic music and Christopher Doyle's heavenly cinematography makes it a feast to the senses. A film of a rare and unique beauty. Even the fight scenes (shot, keep in mind, 13 years ago), beautifully choreographed, are a joy to watch and make a masterpiece like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon feel ashamed of itsef. Words are not enough not describe how sorry I am for all those who can't see the brilliance of this film.

For any Kar-Wai fan, or, in a larger picture, any Asian Cinema fan, Ashes of Time's cast is like a dream come true. I mean, can you picture Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin together, all giving some of the best performances of their careers? Cheung is fabulous as the lead, playing the cynical and bitter Ouyeng, Leung gives what might be his most emotional performance ever as the mysterious Blind Swordsman, Lin is probably the one who shines the most, playing two characters in one and Maggie's ten minutes torward the end is the most jaw-droppingly beautiful, yet haunting and sad scene you'll ever see. If this wasn't a masterpiece, the film would be worth it for that scene alone.

May be hard to believe, but Ashes of Time recalls Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Besides the love-it-or-hate-it reputation, both have insanely stellar casts; both use a violent genre as the launchpad for existential meditation; both concern themselves with the psychology beneath the bloodshed. And, of course, both have been called pretentious. I call them both art. A-R-T!

"As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices."

The future never looked this bleak. In a matter of 20 years time, the world overcome by its own excesses and greed. In Alfonso Cuarón's chilling dystopia Children of Men, we witness a world not different with the world we live in today, a world of violence, inhumanity, plague, environmental destruction magnified through a looking glass. With one pinning factor of hope deducted... children. How can one think, knowing that they are the last generation left on earth, with no one to look after? Death to the human race as we know it.



The film opens as a crowd gathers in a small cafe mourning the loss of the youngest person on earth, born on 2009, died 2027. This will be the catalyst for events to come, as Theo (Clive Owen) meets up with his ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore), still mourning their own loss several years ago, they must both come together as they embark on a new journey that will spark hope to humankind's deadlock fate.

Cuarón, together with his go-to cinematographer Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, have created a place as accurate one may think of in the near future. A world filled with violence, as people are more concerned with their own survival, one may even see similarities to events that have passed, as we witness our so called future. The forced deportation of illegal immigrants from the U.K. portrayed on screen recalls the Nazi Germany's crackdown on European Jews and other minorities during the early to late 1930s, well into the 1940s as Adolf Hitler enforced the Gleichschaltung, a doctrine that forbid individualism and free thinking and adhering to one ideology, and that period called for antisemitism.

Today, we have the Patriot Act in the US and Anti-Terrorism Law in dozens of countries throughout the world, in which ever fence of political ideology you may belong to, one cannot deny the countless objectionable provisions that are included, such as detaining and deportation of "suspected" immigrants of terrorist activities. More often than not, innocent people are detained. The so called "sneak and peek," where in any law enforcement agency can search a person's home or business without any warrant. All comes full circle on Cuarón's adaptation of the novel by P.D. James. We may be closer to the world portrayed here than we anticipated.

Amazing characters dot this film from Michael Caine's hope trotting hippie, to Pam Ferris, a hopeless reveler, even Charlie Hunnam seems to be out of whack, as Patric, a zealous member of the Fishes. Notice how the camera evokes realism through seamless tracking shots, as seen through the immigrant's ghetto, we follow Theo run and dodge bullets both left and right. Or perhaps, the claustrophobic aura in the car, as Theo, Julian and their group are attacked by a crazed mob, the camera swivels around them as the mob tries to get in the car. No music used on both climactic scenes, just a realization of dread.

It's highly plausible that an infectious agent will one day cause infertility to human reproduction, as seen in other animal species. Add in the myriad of other threats to our survival, indifference, social inequality, global warming, habitat destruction, natural calamities, widening gap between the haves and have-nots. All of these things come together in such a symbolic film. Children of Men has probably opened up more questions than it has answers. As viewers of the celluloid, we're given a choice: continue on towards our path to destruction or instill change while perpetual hope blooms. The choice is ours to make.

Tony Wilson: "June 4th, 1976. The Sex Pistols play Manchester for the very first time. There are only 42 people in the audience... but every single one is feeding on a power, an energy and a magic. lnspired, they will go out and perform wondrous deeds. For instance, Howard Devoto, at the front, Pete Shelley, at the back. They organised this gig. They're way ahead of everyone in Manchester. They're already the Buzzcocks. Howard later sleeps with my wife. Behind me are Stiff Kittens. Soon to become Warsaw,
later to become Joy Division... finally to become New Order. That's John the Postman. He's... a postman. And that guy dancing at the front, that's Martin Hannett... the only bona fide genius
in this story. Well, one of the only two bona fide geniuses in this story. He will later try to kill me."



It feels as if we've waited an eternity for 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom's glorious 'mocku-feature' about Manchester and its "mad music" sound of the 1980s. Released in the UK in April 2002, 24 Hour Party People is Winterbottom's Almost Famous, his love letter to Manchester and the post-punk revolution that made that city the place anyone wanted to be, that he and producer Andrew Eaton brainstormed while avoiding the cold climes of Canada during the shoot of their last film, The Claim (2000). 24 Hour People wasn't just worth the wait, it was a dream come true.

24 Hour Party People, named after an early Happy Mondays song, is an irreverent piece to say the least. A biopic of sorts, the film's creators (including scriptwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce) do all they can to tear down the inflated genre. Almost functioning as two films in one, 24 Hour Party People is based around the life and times of the still very alive Granada TV reporter Tony Wilson, one of the chaotic architects behind the famed Hacienda Night Club and influential music label Factory Records.

The parallel film is of course about the music itself. The bands and individuals featured in 24 Hour Party People (whether they were there or not sometimes) range from major, world-changing bands like Joy Division and their later incarnation New Order, to the Happy Mondays, the Duritti Column, The Fall, The Buzzcocks, manager Rob Gretton, Howard Devoto, Bernard Sumner and producer Martin Hannett, made eccentric and troll-like by an actor who seems to specialise in trolls these days, Andy Serkis ("Gollum" in Lord of the Rings).

After Wilson kicks off the proceedings with a madly funny recreation of a hang-gliding story for local Manchester TV, we veer straight into the Sex Pistols' first Manchester gig in 1976, where straight-to-camera again, Coogan's Wilson informs us that this is "where it all began" for the Manchester sound. Forty-seven people attended the gig (including "Tony the Postman"), though its inspiration proved infinite for the area. The film all but implodes around 1992, the year that Wilson and his associates ran out of money and closed the Hacienda, one of the acknowledged foundations of England's rave culture.

Winterbottom, Boyce, and Coogan all grew up in the "Madchester" scene, so the story is as much theirs, as fans, as it is the bands' or the film's mouthpiece, Wilson. Boyce could have waxed elegiac, mourning the loss of an era, or nostalgic in recalling the music so integral to his youth - which he still does, particularly in the tribute to Ian Curtis and the recreation of his suicide. But he eschews both, choosing, instead, to celebrate the Factory with absurd, ironic humour and a screenplay that breaks through the fourth wall for Wilson's constant asides to the audience (with dialogues such as "this scene didn't actually make it to the final cut. I'm sure it'll be on the DVD"). Winterbottom and cinematographer Robby Muller complement Boyce's script in grungy, hand-held, digital-video style that both lends the story a sense of immediacy and echoes Manchester's industrial milieu. You literally feel as if you're actually there.

Anybody who has ever experienced comedian/actor Steve Coogan's character Alan Partridge is sure to find a lot of that creation in his portrayal here of Tony Wilson, the irony being that said character was in part actually inspired by the guy in the first place. His performance is that kind of glue which keeps things vaguely adherent to some semblance of plot here is quite sublime, helped out no end by a not particularly big name, but no less talented because of it, supporting cast all faced with a rather lofty challenge - portraying an array of people all well-known, many of whom are still alive and still around. Some are spookily accurate, while some are merely representative without invoking any real sense of those they're playing. However, as with the screenplay, the direction, hell - even the whole Factory saga to a degree - it all works. Somehow. 24 Hour Party People is responsible for some of the most fun - memorable, meaningful fun - I have ever had while watching a film. An immediate, life-lasting favourite of mine.

Tony Wilson: "And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester."

Euthanasia. Mar Adentro isn't about it. Nor if it's 'ethic' or not, even though obviously everyone has their own thoughts and opinions on the subject. It's about one man, Ramón Sampedro. About his life, his struggle for dignity and about his beloved ones who stood by him untill the end.

Ramón was a young, charming, intelligent, life lover man who, in an instant, because of an accident that could happen to ANYONE, became quadraplegic. The next 28 years of his life were spent on a bed, without any use of his body, with only one life goal: to die. Like I said, the intention wasn't to discuss Euthanasia itself (even though that was unevitable), it was to tell the life story of this man who always kept that strange smile on his face, his love for music, his unusual humor and who, above all, kept loving his family and friends...



Biographic or not, this is an intense drama with a sublime message of hope and love. Alejandro Amenábar is an extremely talented and sensitive filmmaker that everyone should keep in mind. He may very well be the future of spanish Cinema. As for the acting, couldn't possibly be better! Javier Bardem's performance is simply haunting and mind blowing! Just brilliant!

With clear remindings of The Barbarian Invasions, even though with different approaches, Mar Adentro's runtime exceeds by far the theatre, it goes on and on inside each and everyone of its viewers. That should be the intention and wish of every film maker... Right?

A film that should be used in Film schools in the "How to create the perfect Soundtrack" class.

At this point of the year (ten days away from 2008) and although I haven't seen the Coens' No Country for Old Men - which, apparently, will be #1 in most 'Best of the Year' lists than any other - I, personally, have found my own #1 for this fabulous year that was 2007. Now, regardless of my huge fondness and respect for the Coens, unfortunely I won't be able to see their film 'till next year, so I suppose it's oficial: Atonement is the best film I've seen in 2007.



Joe Wright's second feature film - after the fabulous Pride & Prejudice - is one of those extremely rare examples of when everything works out perfectly in a film. And I mean everything. Atonement is perfect in every single aspect that makes filmmaking an art: writting, directing, acting, cinematography, editing, music, etc... I feel nothing but sorry for anyone who sees a flaw in this film.

Wright's second film is also his second adaptation of a prestiged literary work (I have read both, I'm proud to say). After Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice" two years ago, this time it was Ian McEwan's "Atonement". Anyone who has read the book knows how powerful it is. How huge its emotional impact is (particularly the end) and how exhausting and brutal it can get as an experience. I remember being completely drained and numb after finishing it, feeling like my heart was ripped out of my chest. Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton's biggest achievement was the way they managed to be faithful to the source material (even with the obvious, occasional changes), dividing the narrative structure in two principal parts and a short epilogue, and also keeping the power and essence of the ending. Watching the film felt just like reading the book again... except in two hours. I tell you, that is a magical feeling.



In both cases - book and film - the first part of the story covers the pre-WWII era in the life of the Tallises, an upper class english family who knows nothing but wealth and privilege. On an ordinary summer day at their luxurious countryside estate, impressionable 13-year old Briony (Saoirse Ronan) witnesses, and misunderstands two encounters between her older sister, Cecilia (Kiera Knightley) and the housekeeper's charming and educated son, Robbie (James McAvoy). Feeling a combination of jealousy and overprotectiveness, she falsely accusates Robbie of a horrible crime and forever changes those three lives.

The film jumps four years - again, like in the book - to find the three characters' lives altered by the break of WWII. Devastated and lost Robbie is now a soldier fleeing with the rest of the British army toward the English Channel. Cecilia, still in love with Robbie and eternally waiting for him, works as a nurse treating wounded soldiers back from the war. And Briony (now played by Romola Garai), also a nurse, now completely aware of the consequences of her actions as a foolish 13-year old girl, who, tending to the brutally wounded and holding the hands of dying men, seeks some kind of atonement.

It doesn't reach half of the book's emotional impact, but Atonement is not an easy film to endure. It's much more likely to be appreciated for its artistry than for its entertainment value. When you look at the film's poster or trailer you see two young people in love, but in reality that love story isn't as important as Briony's serch for atonement. Atonement isn't about two people falling in love and then spending the rest of the film trying to end up together, it's about how our actions (even when we're just 13) can affect others, how we - human beings - are all an expected event away from watching our lives being destroyed.



Joe Wright does an absolutely fantastic job directing. Earlier in the film, in order to capture two scenes in particular from the book in which Briony's perceptions don't match the reality, he shows us events twice - once through Briony's eyes looking through a widow and once from a neutral, correct perspective. This reminded me of Kurosawa's Rashômon, distances kept. With the help of cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Jacqueline Durran, editor Paul Tothill and Dario Marianelli's Score, he also makes it a completely gorgeous film to watch. In more than one occasion in the film's second half, it felt like watching a painting in motion. This obviously includes the very talked about, almost famous scene of the Dunkirk retreat. A vast 5-minute re-creation of one of England's shining moments, except through a perspective of horror and descruction that makes war what it is. Breathtaking. One of the most beautiful and brilliant scenes I've seen in my life.

Acting-wise, both Keira Knightley and James McAvoy show chemistry enough on screen and both give good performances individually. Knightley proves (again!) that she's much more than a pretty face and that her true potential can only be extracted playing sensitive, literary characters, not playing pirate on american blockbusters. McAvoy adds another great performance to his career and is already in the group of best male performances I've seen this year. Still, as exceptional as they are, the standout here is 13-year old Saoirse Ronan, who owns the screen from the moment she's introduced. Ronan's Briony is a spoiled child one moment, and a spurned young woman pining after a man she can't have the next. She's both innocent and diabolical, bright yet foolish... one moment you like her for her cleverness and next you want to slap her for her arrogance. My guess is that girl is going places. I think I'll even watch I Could Never Be Your Woman just so I can see her again.

It will be very hard the Coens' No Country for Old Men to steal Atonement its first place in my 'Best of 2007' list. I'll give it the chance, of course, but I'm afraid Atonement got to me first...

The personification of what a perfect animated picture is. So good that it shames virtually and literally almost every animated film made since Spirited Away. An organic, childlike wonder, fabulously unpredictable and inventive film experience. A masterpiece!

The reason why Battle Royale is so loved and hated at the same time is simply because it explores an idea that the human mind is almost pre-programed to fear and reject. We are thought, when we're kids, that there are two sides: 'Good' and 'Evil'. Stealing is wrong, killing is even wronger. But the pure and unquestionable truth is that any human being has the ability to take someone else's life, or themselve's for that matter. As simple as that. That's why Battle Royale has the unique and fascinating ability to shock, inlight, entertain and divide people. It's just brilliantly honest exploring that idea. How more honest could it be than putting 42 teenagers on a deserted island and making them kill each other for their own survival? If you think about it, it's not that different than a bunch of kids with guns killing everything and everyone on their way on some random american school... Is it? Of course, the probability of something like that (the 'BR' program, I mean) happening is almost unexistent. That's why the script can be a little surreal and at times silly. But guess what? I LOVED IT!



The violence, the killing, the blood... All of that loses relevance when we realize just how original and visionary (in a kind of twisted and bizarre way) Battle Royale really is. I mean, let's face it, it wasn't for the violence or the blood (seen on thousands of other, sometimes awarded, beloved films) that the film was banned from the US and almost in Japan. It was the social/polytical message. Youth has the need to be heard. As simple as that. 20, 50 years ago and now as well. When a kid is not taken seriously he makes himself heard, he asks for attention. Rebels. This may be a little 'Oprah,' but it's true. So, maybe kids boycotting their schools, writting on the board 'Today there's no class, because we don't want too!' is not that utopic... That's probably the reason why the japanese goverment didn't find it that funny.

Either way, and finalizing, I just can't help finding hilariously ironic that the same country that banned this modern masterpiece from their theatres is the same one who will remake it in 2008...

Polanski's most relevant and humane masterpiece. One of WWII's most amazing stories of survival ever put on screen. Adrien Brody had in Wladyslaw Szpilman the role and performance of his career.

I saw it when I was a little kid and I never forgot it... It touched and shocked me in a way that not many do...

People love to say how sad and heartbreaking this or that film is... But until you see this film, don't! If there is a perfect way of capturing inocence and hope on screen, with some humor, it was done here! Very intense and detailed film, that can make any human being on this planet cry... It also has one of the most brilliant endings I've ever seen!

First of all this is a Christopher Nolan film. Which means that you already expect it to be a dark, thoughfull masterpiece. I mean, this is the mind who created Memento, one of the most fascinating pieces of Cinema of the last 50 years... Being said this, there would always be a risk that The Prestige would not live up to the expectations. But it does! It's all there: brilliant script (wasn't aware of the book), stunning cinematography and the best cast that Nolan could possibly wish. If Christian Bale's performance is not Oscar worthy than nothing is. As simple as that! An actor can't get any better than that... Hugh Jackman is also amazing and Sir Michael Caine's character just couldn't be played by anyone else. The plot's complexity, though not in a confusing way, keeps you wondering till the last scene and the truth is that, being the film about Illusionism, the film itself has something of tricky (Nolan's touch), with that brilliant, shocking finale... But I won't say more. Just don't take your eyes of the screen of else you'll be lost... :)

So, I guess it's pretty clear that this is one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the year. I'm starting to think that I've said this a lot of times... Probably because 2006 may well be one of the recently richest years, as for quality is concerned...

Beats any american classic war movie! The story is not the war itself, it's the effects, the human connections!

The kind of excelence German cinema can and should provide us with more often. A fascinating history lesson disguised as a clever, heartwarming tragicomedy. Its social satire is tinged with affable humor and subtle sadnesses. Daniel Brühl gives the first great performance of his career.

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!

Based on a true story, on the life of Oscar Orlando Torres, who wrote the screenplay and co-produced, Innocent Voices is one of the most moving and powerful films I've ever seen.



It portrays the harsh childhood of the eleven year old Chava (the sensational debuter Carlos Padilla) in the early 1980's in El Salvador, a country emerged on a long and senseless civil war. Chava lives with his mother (the stunning and talented Leonor Varela) and his sister and two little brothers. They live in a poor, remote village in one of its many cardboard houses. Everyday is a struggle for survival.

Now, this isn't just another war film. Nor a simple biopic. It's an amazing tale of survival and courage. A story of a child whose biggest struggle was to remain a child, to fight for his innocence (like so many around the world). And also a story of a mother, who'd do anything for her son. This is a film of an extreme importance. The fact that it had the UN support says it all. A film that deals with 'sensitive' subjects, subjects that most people prefer to ignore. Because wether we want to face it or not, people die everyday in stupid, easily avoided wars around the world. Twelve year old kids are recruited to the army, when their only concern at that time should be a math test or falling in love.

The most impressive thing is to think that everything we see in the film (or at least 90%) actually happened. This isn't just another film remotely 'based on a true story'. It was written by someone who actually experienced all of it. Unlike Oliver Stone's Salvador, that looked at the El Salvador conflict through the typically American point of view and whose plot and characters were obviously made up based on facts read on newspapers and magazines, Innocent Voices is about real people, real life situations and tragedies, real human emotions.

This is a mexican production from Altavista Films (the same company that gave us Amores Perros). Technically the film is close to perfection, from the stunning cinematography to the editing and the magnificent score, this is a world class film, can't put it more simply. Another huge triumph of Mexican Cinema!

Can't, just can't be missed!

And so it came, almost out of nothing, an unexpected masterpiece. Unexpected because a few months ago I haven't even heard of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, even though I'm a particularly enthusiastic follower of European Cinema. I guess I wasn't the only one caught by surprise with this stunning directorial debut.



Being european, I grew up studying this film's subject in class rooms, so I was curious as to it's political and historical relevance. Even thought I'm not exacly a History expert, I'd say that this is an extremely relevant film, an essential look at a particularly important time of our recent past. A tribute to those (impersonated in Georg Dreyman) who fought for their ideals, for freedom of speech, for their secret dream of a united nation. And also an interesting look at the 'other side', at those who'd do anything they were told in the name of their loyalty. Ulrich Muhe's performance is absolutely phenomenal! Incredibly dubious, dark, sad and believable...

The 'Best Foreign Language Film' award is my favourite one at the Oscars. It has been for several years and I'm sure it'll always be. Probably because it's the only one that can still surprise me and make me forget, for a while, the triviality and previsibility of the cerimony iself. And of course, when we look at the nominees, there are always 5 top class films that are as good (or better) as the candidates to 'Best Film'. I mean, let's face it, when we have The Lives of Others and Pan's Labyrinth, both competing for the same award, we have to ask ourselves if the language is really that important. My opinion? NO!

For any filmmaker born in Europe, to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival is like... well, like a dream come true. It's basically the greatest achievement that filmmaker can aspire in his or her career and lifetime. Writer/director Cristian Mungiu wrote his name in History last May with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a stunning, simply stunning film. Another one from one of the most promising cinematographies of today.

Much like Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest, who started this Romanian New Wave, Mungiu's film has a vaguely political nature, in the way it criticizes and analyzes the effects of Communism in Eastern Europe, but it doesn't have the clever, dark humor and graciousness in which those two filmmakers told their stories. Quite the contrary. 4 Months... is as dark, dramatic, gripping and devastating as a film can get.



Set in 1987, during the final years of Nicolae Ceausescu's regime, the film takes place over the course of one long and menacing day in the lives of two college students. The film's first brilliant shot shows us roomates Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) making preparations for what appears to be a trip. Packing their bags, cleaning their dorm room, debating over taking notes for exams they will miss and feeding the goldfish. We soon discover that Gabita is pregnant and has decided to abort - ilegally, obviously.

Gabita is the pregnant one, but she's maddeningly helpless. It's Otilia who takes care of the situation, who is forced to make all the arrangements: securing the hotel room where the procedure will be performed, meeting the demanding abortionist - ironically named Mr. Bebe (the convincingly creepy Vlad Ivanov) - and even helping to pay the high cost of the abortion. When they get to the hotel, things go horribly wrong. The fact that they got a room in a different hotel then the one he had requested, that Gabita didn't meet him in person and especially that she lied about the lenght of her pregnancy makes the sinister abortionist charge more for his services than he was supposed to, and the two girls, to pay a price they never thought they would...

The fact that 4 Months 'stole' the Golden Palm from films like No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly or Zodiac may help to understand its real brilliance. In the last few years I've had the "Is Cinema Art?" discussion hundreds of times. Many say it isn't, others stick to the original belief that it is. And the discussion is useless, really. Each one believes in whatever he wants. However, this is one of those films that I would use as an example if I had to defend my point of view. It will get inside your thoughts and guts and won't leave them. It will shake the very core of your existence. It will make you hate and love humankind at the same time. It will tear you apart.



Mungui creates a grim landscape of dilapidated buildings, dark hallways and green gray rooms that just get under your skin. One particular scene, at the birthday party of Otilia's boyfriend's mother, becomes a kind of tour de force, with the joy and loudness of the celebrants making Otilia's misery all the more palpable before our very eyes. In another, a tense, gripping and heartbreaking sequence towards the end of the film, she must dispose of the aborted fetus in the darkness and squalor of an unlamented urban hell. Virtually every scene, no matter how long, is shot without cutting. In long, hand-held takes, the camera bears witness to the events in what feels like real time. The story is told through Otilia's emotional responses. Anamaria Marinca's performance is powerful beyond words.

If I said that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days wasn't about abortion it would obviously seem false. It's impossible to run from the issue. It was obvious, and Mungiu knew it, that the film would raise (again) discussions and debates on the subject. Some will make the point "If abortion was legal at the time, those women didn't have to go through what they did. They would just go to a clinic, and that was it". Ceaucescu outlawed abortion and contraception in Romania in 1966. By 1989 - the end of communism - 500.000 estimated women died from illegal abortions and 200.000 children grew up in orphanages. Still, no one needs those statistics. Everyone makes their own mind on the matter. 4 Months... is less about abortion than it is about the power of friendship. Its power knows no limits or boundaries, and this film will teach or remind you that in the most painful and cruel way possible. A masterpiece.

Bill: "Do you find me sadistic? You know, I bet I could fry an egg on your head right now, if I wanted to. You know, Kiddo, I'd like to believe that you're aware enough even now to know that there's nothing sadistic in my actions. Well, maybe towards those other... jokers, but not you. No Kiddo, at this moment, this is me at my most... [cocks pistol] masochistic."



Quentin Tarantino has never hid his love for 1970s exploitation and asian/kung fu genre films. His occasional film festivals have often featured forgotten and nearly-forgotten grindhouse fare and his "Rolling Thunder" distribution company (named after the 1977 revenge flick) has brought back into circulation b-films such as 1975's Switchblade Sisters (from blaxploitation director Jack Hill) and Takeshi Kitano's 1993 gangster film Sonatine, which was the first Kitano feature to be shown internationally and one of Taratino's inspirations for Reservoir Dogs (this
photo, Tarantino himself admited, being an actual tribute to that film and to Takeshi "Beat" Kitano). But with Kill Bill, Volume 1 (and later Vol. 2) Tarantino has taken all of his grindhouse and kung fu inspirations, filtered them through his own particular vision and created a masterpiece that is more than the sum of his influences.

Uma Thurman is The Bride, a member of the elite Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. When she decides to quit the professional assassination business to settle down and marry, leaving without a word after discovering she's pregnant, the other members of the team show up at her wedding - at the wedding rehearsal, actually - killing everyone present and putting her in a 4-year coma. Understandably enraged at having had four years of her life, her planned future and her unborn baby all taken from her, The Bride sets out to extract her revenge on her former team mates (Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Darryl Hannah and Michael Madsen) and their leader, the enigmatic Bill (David Carradine). Volume 1 sees the Bride start out on her quest and her encounters with a now turned suburban housewife Fox and Tokyo organized crime head Liu before ending on an emotional cliffhanger leading to what would be the concluding installment, one year later.

Even with Tarantino's trademark non-linear storytelling, the plot is strictly fairly linear, in much of the style of the many of the kung fu auctioneers released by the Hong Kong based Shaw Brothers Studio from the '60s to the early '80s. Tarantino is plundering much of the same source material that Ang Lee did for 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But where Lee concentrated on themes of love, honor and duty, Tarantino is more concerned with vengeance, a much rawer and bloodier business.

When I first saw Vol. 1, I believed Tarantino was - besides making a film he always dreamed of - baiting us to cheer for vigilante justice and excessive bloodshed. But having seen the whole thing now, I see that this takes place in a fantasy world, a police-free universe, in which the Bride represents the struggle of a sinful woman to break free of her chains, rid the world of her devilish master, and make the world safe for herself and whoever might come after her.

Make no mistake, Kill Bill is a violent picture, which obviously put some audience members off (members who shouldn't even be watching it in the first place, for it simply wasn't made for them) and even had the audacity to call it overrated. But the violence almost transcends itself at points. Tarantino (along with fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping) stage the most violent and lengthy segment ("The Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves") almost as if it was a dance number, with long flowing shots that showcase the fighting skill of all involved. At one point Thurman and several opponents square off in silhouette backlit by blue light recalling An American In Paris.

Kill Bill wears its inspirations on its sleeve. It opens with the title card "Filmed in Shaw-Scope" that graced the opening seconds of many Shaw Brothers pictures. The flashback describing fellow assassin O-Ren's background is done in Japanese animation style. Living legend Sonny Chiba, star of the Streetfighter series of films in the '70s, appears as Hattori Hanzo, a master forger of samurai swords, former Shaw Brothers star Gordon Liu (1978's 36th Chamber of Shaolin) is Johnny Mo, the head of Lucy Liu's army of black-suited yakuzas, "The Crazy 88", and the - at the time - 19-year-old Chiaki Kuriyama is the insanely psychotic and sexy Gogo Yubari (aka coolest body guard ever created) who, from the moment she appeared in cult films as Battle Royale and Ju-on, obviously got Tarantino's attention.

While many may pick up on the Bride's yellow track suit as a tip of the hat towards Bruce Lee's Game of Death (1978), many may not get the finale to the House of Blue Leaves fight as being visually inspired by the Shaw Brothers production Lady Snowblood (1973). Still, one doesn't need to know that Darryl Hannah's character is inspired in the main character of the Swedish film Thriller (aka They Call Me One-Eye, 1974) to enjoy Kill Bill any more than any other filmgoer. It's certainly fun to discover those little details, but they're just an extra. Kill Bill owes its masterpiece title to itself and, although Tarantino takes many inspiration from all those films, his outdoes most of them, which would be expected.

This same philosophy seems to have directed Tarantino's choice of music for the film's soundtrack. Here he's utilized tracks like Al Hirt's "Green Hornet", Isaac Hayes' "Run Fay Run", Argentinian master Luis Bacalov's "The Grand Duel" (from 1972's Italian Spaghetti Western of the same name) and Nancy Sinatra's cover of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" (originally recorded by Cher in 1966). This is not the first time that he's cannibalized another film's soundtrack. Jackie Brown opened with the theme from Across 110th Street from the 1972 crime-drama of the same name. Tarantino makes the most of these selections, cutting images to the music's rhythm for maximum impact.

But Kill Bill - contrary to many's belief - isn't just a triumph of style, there's plenty of substance also. These characters know they're part of a cycle of violence that they may not be able to break free from. Early in the film the Bride regrets that Fox's 4-year-old daughter discovers the end result of their confrontation and tells her "If when you grow up, if you're still raw about it, I'll be waiting". When The Bride defeats Lucy Liu's O-Ren, there's not a sense of accomplishment, but one of remorse, knowing that O-Ren's life was forged from a similar experience of violent loss that has set the Bride on her own path of retribution. Whether or not the Bride can break free of this cycle of violence, especially in light of the film's final line of dialogue, would remain a doubt until April 2004, when the much expected Volume 2 came out.

Bill: "[about B.B.'s pet fish] She told me later, that the second she lifted up her foot and saw him not flapping, she knew he was dead. Is that not the perfect visual image of life and death? A fish flapping on the carpet, and a fish not flapping on the carpet. So powerful even a 4-year-old child with no concept of life and death knew what it meant. Not only did she know Emilio was dead, she knew she had killed him. So she comes running into my room, holding Emilio in both of her little hands - it was so cute - and she wanted me to make Emilio better. And I asked her, why did she step on Emilio? And she said, she didn't know. But I knew why. You didn't mean to hurt Emilio, you just wanted to see what would happen if you stepped on him, right?"



Quentin Tarantino's homage to 1970s exploitation, grindhouse and martial arts cinema concludes with the second installment of his Kill Bill saga.

Having dispatched with two of her would be killers in the first volume, The Bride (Uma Thurman) continues on her "roaring rampage of revenge". But before she confronts Bill (David Carradine), the man who ordered her death, she must first defeat two more of her former teammates. However, when she finally faces Bill, she learns what we the audience did at the end of the previous film - the daughter she thought was dead is still alive.

Where the first film packed a wallop from its visceral and often brutal fight sequences, Volume 2 delivers a more emotionally charged punch. Kill Bill, Volume 1 was a story of revenge that relied heavily on the inheritance of blaxploitation and kung fu films. Volume 2 owes more to Japanese samurai films and spaghetti westerns with its stronger emphasis on the psychological aspects of revenge and retribution.

The assassins that the Bride goes against in this installment are stronger, more complex characters. Bill's brother Bud (Michael Madsen) is tired of the death that defined his life and has seemingly exiled himself to a beaten-up trailer home in the desert. He realizes that there is a price to be paid for the life he has lead. "I don't dodge guilt", Bud explains to his brother when informed that the Bride was on her way. "She deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die", being one of the film's most famous lines. Darryl Hannah - playing what is perhaps my favourite character of the saga - deliciously shades the hatred Elle Driver holds for the Bride with just the right air of respect for her skill and power as a fighter - something that is very much a part of Asian culture, but not so much of Western one. When the two finally square off, it was the film's most intense and personal battle: brutal and desperate.

David Carradine has the role of a lifetime in Bill. A man who exudes a hypnotic, deadly charm, like the poisonous snakes he uses as codenames for his assassins. It's easy to see from the writing why Tarantino's first choice for the role of Bill was actually Warren Beatty. However, the casting of Carradine was perfect The film's opening sequence between Bill and the Bride conveys volumes of their history not through expository dialogue, but through subtle shadings of their line delivery. It's great work (storytelling work, not style or choreography) and serves to set up the film's climactic confrontation between the two. Even when we see Bill playing with the Bride's daughter B. B. an undercurrent of quietly restrained menace lies behind his loving father exterior. Not many actors can do that.

Quentin again utilizes many old genre stars in small roles, this time Swedish actor Bo Svenson (Walking Tall Part II, 1975), stuntwoman Jeanne Epper and Sid Haig (Coffey, 1973; The Devil's Rejects, 2005) in small roles. Hong Kong martial arts star Gordon Liu returns (after playing Johnny Mo in Vol. 1), this time playing one of the saga's most beloved characters, kung fu master Pai Mei. Liu literally grew up in the Hong Kong cinema (his first film work was at age seven) so he knows intimately the type of character Pai Mei is. The character feels transplanted directly from a Shaw Brothers film. Also returning from the first film in a new role is Michael Parks, playing a Mexican pimp who can direct the Bride to Bill.

While the conversations may not be as witty or as wise as those in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, they do help flesh out these characters, their worldviews, and their motivations. But what makes Vol. 2 even more worth listening to is its music. This film is every bit Pulp Fiction's equal as a fusion of film and song-oriented soundtrack and surpasses the first film's music, which was pretty darn good. From the spooky retro-pop-jazz of Shivaree's "Goodnight Moon" to Robert Rodriguez's Spanish guitar stylings and Ennio Morricone's evocations of Sergio Leone films, it's a dazzling tour of music and light. In one of the film's most emotional - and, yes, human - scenes, there's an irresistible remix by Malcolm McLaren of the Zombie's brilliant '60s hit "She's Not There" that is as memorable as Mia Wallace's famous solo dance to "Son of a Preacher Man" in Pulp Fiction. One of my personal favourite soundtracks, that I proudly own and that I've listened to countless times these past few years.

But the film's chief virtue is one of performances. For the first time, Tarantino has drawn out a lead performance that overshadows his aggressive stylistic flourishes. Uma Thurman deserved an Oscar for the versatility of her work here. It is a rare wonder to see an actor commit themselves so whole-heartedly - and so whole-bodily - to such a demanding role. Robert DeNiro (Raging Bull) and Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) come to mind. Thurman makes the Bride soft, hard, funny, bitter, brave, sad, and terrified. Her tough vigor, for me, surpasses even legendary action hero performances like Bruce Willis' or Harrison Ford's in the Die Hard and Indiana Jones films. We believe that she can do anything, which is a greater achievement because... well, she's a woman.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Tarantino doesn't tie up all his loose ends. He's made no secret of the fact that he plans to make a third volume some time in the future - I've read somewhere that he once had the idea of making it with the two little girls (B. B., the Bride's daughter, and Nikki Bell, Vernita Green's daughter, who watched her mother with a knife on her chest as a result of the Bride's revenge, as the two main leads) which means he'd have to wait ten years - and he has plenty of material to work with although, I suppose, the title would be irrelevant at that point. The Tarantino style has been copied a thousand times over since Pulp Fiction, what Kill Bill, Volume 2 proves is that he's still the man.

Giuseppe Tornatore is one of those names that every true Film lover should recognize and bow to, when heard. An unusual filmmaker that always cared more about making good films rather than lots. The Unknown is only his 8th film, six years after Malèna and nineteen after his masterpiece, Cinema Paradiso. After directing Monica Bellucci in 2000, Tornatore dedicated himself completely to the big project on the Leningrad siege left behind by Sergio Leone after his death. The Unknown marks a break from the overwhelming research work for the still-active project and it is surprisingly stunning.



While Malèna had on Lajos Koltai's heavenly Cinematography, on Morricone's Score and Monica Bellucci's physical and acting qualities its strongest points and Cinema Paradiso had... well, nothing but qualities, The Unknown is also nearly flawless. In fact, I think I'll risk it and say that it is flawless. Cinema Paradiso is and will always be Tornatore's masterpiece, but the fact is that the man made another one.

Set in a north-eastern contemporary Italian city, The Unknown follows the trials and tribulations of Irena (russian actress Ksenia Rappoport, in a fantastic performance), a young, 'unknown' Ukrainian woman looking for a job. We immediately understand that she's trying to run away from a troubled past, as a slaved prostitute in southern Italy. She settles in an old and pricey flat, and soon starts working as a cleaning woman in a rich and distinct building situated in front of hers.

The distant people around Irena start to embrace and accept her, and while we watch her cleaning a big, dirty spiral staircase, she gets more and more in touch with a nanny (Piera Degli Esposti) who is working for a family of rich goldsmiths, the Adacher (Claudia Gerini and Pierfrancesco Favino), taking care of their young daughter (the adorable Clara Dossena), who has a rare neurological disease that deprives her of any defensive reaction. We soon realize that her slowly building closeness with the family isn't just a coincidence...



The film is structured around a duality. The timeline which separates the present life of Irena from the old one is physically correlated to the division between the two houses: her house, and the house she works in. All the dramatic development of the plot, and the violent reemergence of Irena's troubled past, lies in the interchange and interrelation between these two dimensions.

Throughout the film constant flashbacks of her past appear randomy. It's like we're seeing two different stories: one in the past and one in the present. Irena may very well be one of the most complex characters I've ever seen. One minute she seems 'normal' enough and the next her actions are completely vicious to say the least (like throwing the nanny down the stairs so she can have her job). Still, we can't help to feel nothing but empathy for her.

Labeled by many as an Italian noir, the film is a complex and bizarre fusion of genres. A distinct noirish out-of-the-past scheme is obvious, but The Unknown is less noir than thriller, only, with an added melodramatic touch. The hitchcockain feel to it is undeniable and Tornatore does what any filmmaker on this planet should aspire: he brings back the essence of Cinema's golden age - the 40's/50's - mixing the typically italian full blown melodrama of directors like Raffaello Matarazzo and Vittorio De Sica with the less usual exploitation and perversions in the form of thriller of Pasolini and Dario Argento. Still, his touch is recognizable in every single shot. The ending, for instance, is of a brilliance and beauty that I find hard to describe by mere words.

What makes The Unknown such a clever and utterly gripping thriller is the fact that we never know where the film is going. Irena's intentions are never clear to us. We know something is going on, we slowly try to figure it out, but the plot's complexity and density is such that we're not 'allowed' to know more than we're supposed to before it's time. Again, Sir Alfred Hitchcock's legacy at its best.

The Unknown is as a joy to listen as it is to watch. Mr. Ennio Morricone's Score is fabulous. One of the best he ever composed. Goes from a sweet, sad and mellow melody to a delirious, mad and powerful sound of shrieking violins that will immediately remind you of the shower scene from Psycho. I wonder if 2008 will be the year in which the Academy will finally open their eyes and give the man a bloody Oscar...

One of the rare examples of a Hollywood film about an international/historical event that actually resulted in a good film. Even though it isn't the first time this issue is subject of a film, it's always aplaudable and important that what happened in Rwanda reaches out to as many people in the world as humanly possible - and we all know Hollywood is the only one who can do that. An enormous, enormous performance by Don Cheadle!

"Before the holocaust, Adolf Hitler called all of his collaborators together and in order to convince them that he could get away with his plan he asked them "who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?" That's what he said. Thirty years later nobody remembered the million Armenians exterminated in the cruelest possible way."



In acting, as in life, the ability to listen is perennially underrated. A talented actor's gifts are sometimes deemed mysterious, but often it's less look-at-me line readings than an authentic relationship with the world - more critically the sounds, the words - surrounding him or her that reveal character, forge connection. Perhaps we all wish to be listened to so well, with such passion; in acting, as in life, a good listener evokes an almost primal response. Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins are challenged, in Isabel Coixet's second English-language film, The Secret Life of Words, to develop a connection during long dialogues in which Polley, playing a nearly deaf nurse more comfortable with her hearing aid turned off, listens with her eyes and her fingertips, while Robbins, a burn patient temporarily blind from his injuries, is keenly attuned to her silences - more frequent than her words - listening with the set of his mouth, twist of his neck, and the quick lines fanning at his cheeks.

As Hanna, Polley uses her million mile eyes to suggest the stillness and the silence of her character's existence, which can be mapped out in the footsteps between her home and her factory job, precisely controlled portions of her meals, and stacks of almond-scented soap - one for every wash - lining her bathroom. The tight cask of silence is a comfort to the girl, it seems, and she defends it with the tenacity of the gravely wounded; though she speaks with an Eastern-European accent, Hanna lives in Ireland, and when her boss, unnerved by her 10 straight years of uninterrupted service, demands she take a month's vacation, she is at a loss as to how to exist outside the confines of routine.

Through a rather convoluted series of events - moreso when we learn her history - Hanna finds herself on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean, the only woman among a crew of men recovering from an on-site fire which killed one worker and badly injured Josef, played by Robbins. Hanna, a former nurse, volunteers to tend to Josef until he can be moved to the shore, and finds him to be a willing, if voluble, patient; there is clearly more life in Josef, blinded and burned raw, than there has been in Hanna for quite some time. The rig, a bleak palette of inky greys and fresh rust, is also populated by an ambitious Chilean cook, a shy oceanographer, a reclusive foreman and a pair of workers who may or may not be lovers.

The Secret Life of Words could have been two different films, using the same actors and characters, thatched together into a contrasting mellifluous whole. During the first half the mood is as hazy as the mist and clouds that permeate the screen; as mysterious as its quietly solemn subject. Coixet gives virtually no background information about her protagonist, begrudgingly letting small titbits go as the dialogue requires it. Enjoying the mystery, and knowing Coixet's early Spanish films (which were essentially dramas about broken-hearted people), I thought the film might centre around the exploration of Hanna's interior existence as she'd tenuously moved through the concrete world of the oil rig. However this was not to be.

The Secret Life of Words' back end funnels the plot through a sharply focused narrative which highlights Hanna's previously ambiguous behaviour and motivations. Yet this is no Shyamalanesque serpentine thriller, designed to impress us with its cleverness. Rather the interplay of relationships is what counts here; specific plot details serve only to give these interactions context and weight without overtaking them. The film centres on the hope of rediscovery when life has buried, beyond sight, your very person.

Robbins, hitting unlikely, deeply romantic grace notes with another pint-sized blonde (see Michael Winterbottom's brilliant and underappreciated Code 46, with Samantha Morton), has a sweetly hulking quality (even when bedridden) and a stubborn bloom of a face; combined, in Josef, with an all-American bawdiness, his desperation to draw Hanna out is magnetic. Polley is the soul of conflicted restraint as Hanna, sizing up her compulsively chatty opponent: it's not that she doesn't have the words he seeks, if facetiously; indeed, they have been living the secret life of the title inside of her. Somehow Josef, harbouring a secret of his own, provides both the perfect storm and safe harbour for Hanna and the unspeakable words she has to share.

Victor: "He doesn't like to be with the others. He's a loner, too.
Hanna: There are many of us."

"Say what you will about Gibson, he's a filmmaker right down to his nerve endings!"

Couldn't agree more with Peter Traver's review! Apocalypto may well be one of the most amazing, breathtaking films of the last couple of decades! Of all times maybe... It's highly entertaining, lots and lots of adrenaline will run through your veins untill the very last minute, that's for sure! But than again, it's so much more than an action film. The real, ultra fast paced action only begins in the second part of the film, after the pyramid scene, with the chase. - The greatest chase sequence since The Fugitive? - before that there is a deep, realistic, brilliant and even funny at times, look at a civilization that lived 500 years ago. No matter what, you just can't ignore and not admire what Gibson did! He reinvoked and portrayed the Mayan culture in a way that probably was never done so far. I pretty much travelled in time, of how involved I was... But more importantly, what he did was a reflection on 'civilization' itself. The fact that eras come and go. That life on Earth is always on constant change. As for 'evolution', don't really know... The violence, that the 'professional critics' called excessive or ridiculous, for me was one of the best parts of the film, and one of the reasons why it is so stunningly realistic. There are some scenes (like the pyramid one) that you just can't believe your eyes, of how bizarre and primitive what you're watching really is... And still, I couldn't help finding it strangely fascinating and brilliant.

It's pretty clear Gibson's fascination (or obssession) with Human nature and suffering. He just loves to shake people up, to make them jump off their seats! The way he shoots impersonates that. My doubts were taken: digital cinema IS definitely the future! The cinematography here is nothing less than perfect! And so is the acting! I still can't believe that this was Rudy Youngblood's first acting job and Carlos Emilio Baez ('Turtles Run') is just adorabe! :)



When I got home from the theater, I came straight to Flixster and immediately added Apocalypto to my 'Best of 2006' list! Something tells me I'll watch this film many times in my lifetime...

POST SECOND-VIEW THOUGHTS:

It only made me love it even more! F#%$&'n BRILLIANT!

Sublimely funny, surprisingly warm-hearted little story that will always be relevant, no matter its time or location. Wether it's 40 years ago, today or 40 years from now and regardless of what country and society is concerned, the war between idealistic young people and rich, capitalist, conservative and fat fucks will always be one worth fighting!

"Every heart is a revolutionary cell..."

One of the most insanely amazing physical transformations ever endured by an actor. One of the few films to scale the barrier between chilly fantasy and authentic cinematic nightmare. Not for everyone - difficult to watch, sad to contemplate and just creepy - but also inventive and, in the end, sublime. Bale's performance is simply magnetic and mesmerizing. A fantastiic Spanish film!

Sonny: "You're making me very nervous, Richard.
Richard: Well you should be. If I were you, I'd get in that fuckin' car and I'd get out of here man. I'd gather them goonies and get whatever you've got comin' mate... 'cause I'm gonna fucking hit you all.
Sonny: I don't like being threatened, Rich'.
Richard: I'm not threatening you mate. It's beyond fucking words. I watched over you when you were asleep and I looked at your fucking neck and I was that far away from slicing it.
[opens up his right hand and points towards his palm] You're fucking there mate!
[clenches his hand]
So get in that car... and FUCK OFF!"



Mike Hodges' Get Carter set the bar 37 years ago as the ultimate in brother revenge sagas, where honourable intentions are carried out with extreme measures of violence. Shane Meadows has, with his fourth film Dead Man's Shoe, muscled into the heavyweight division of that sub-sub-genre with a highly unnerving and unsettling tale of justice and revenge.

In a story that is simple but told in a gut-wrenchingly effective way, Paddy Considine (a personal, old friend of Meadows' who shares the screenplay credit) stars as Richard, a disaffected soldier who returns to his Midlands hometown of Derbyshire intent on avenging a terrible deed committed upon his mentally-challenged brother Anthony (an excellent Toby Kebbell). Those responsible for the crime are a bunch of petty drug dealers, grown men who have never left town and are big fish in a small pond. Starting off quietly, Richard taunts, stares and occasionally explodes in short verbal assaults. He haunts them, appearing in their houses with uncanny ease, and gradually gets his retribution in several shocking ways.

There is a creepy, but oh-so-cool hint of Michael Myers about Richard in his suit. Not only frightening to look at, his eyes genuinely scare the shit out of you. With all the skill and calculation of a chess grand master, he orchestrates every move before eliminating obstacles in his way. To say too much would be to spoil the occasion, but there are twists, turns and horrific bloody scenes of carnage. Told through a series of flashbacks, Anthony's ordeal is eventually made clear and the motivations for Richard's spiteful acts of revenge become more understandable. This is the film's strength, the slow unravelling of past events crossing the path of the present.

Much of Meadows' trademark style is in evidence, notably the almost-improvised dialogue that peppers his script. It's an excellent cast, made up largely of local actors, but it's Considine who shines and makes the film. One of - if not - the most talented young actor in British film today, the fact that, in other roles, he so often conjures up empathetic, humorous (24 Hour Party People) and even endearing (In America) characters works all the better here, once the viewer's got used to the bleakness. His Richard is devastatingly menacing and utterly insane, but entirely credible, sudden acts of pitiless violence and all. When Meadows refers to Considine as the Robert DeNiro to his Scorsese, he's only half-joking. They're most definitely a partnership to watch.

What makes this so special are the elements you're not expecting at all, being a violent revenge flick: the nimble switching from terror to laughter; the deeply surreal flourishes; and the quite spectacular cinematography. Meadows has a knack for making his comedic moments blacker than black and revels in life's little absurdities, such as the sight of the hard men of town travelling around in a battered Citroën 2CV. There are several jarring visuals, notably the sight of Considine in a gas mask and, while the film does have its edgy moments of blood and guts, the skill is in the way it is portrayed, where anticipation builds up the tension several levels. The use of a hand-picked melancholic and atmospheric soundtrack and 'period' flashback footage is immensely effective, and the emotional after-effects on the viewer of the whole film are uncommonly powerful.

It's a film that stays with you. Meadows is slowly becoming an expert at taking well-worn film scenarios, eradicating them from Hollywood, and transposing them into his own backyard. In many ways, his debut TwentyFourSeven was a distant cousin of Rocky or The Karate Kid, whereas Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, as the title suggests, played out classic Western situations in modern day Britain. Dead Man's Shoes obviously has one eye on bygone revenge films of the likes of the mentioned Get Carter and Straw Dogs, but again, goes about it in the uniquely Shane Meadows setting. If one day I had the opportunity to talk to Meadows I would immediately ask when is he planning on making a film about hooliganism. I always had the feeling that he would do wonders with it. I'm sure the thought has crossed his mind.

Perhaps in some ways, despite all this, it remains a low-fi assemblage of terrific elements rather than an entirely satisfying, original whole, but that's almost shallow nip-picking, which isn't something I do. It's a fascinating work by a potentially tremendous filmmaker. Meadows' best, it seems certain, is still yet to come. For now, Dead Man's Shoes remains a must-watch for anyone who wishes - and I strongly encourage you - to discover this new exciting and endlessly talented British filmmaker. Terrific stuff.

I saw this film years ago but I had to watch again! I don't even know what to say! First of all it's unlike anything I've ever seen! The plot is simply surreal and to call it original is an euphemism... It's basicly everything you (well, me at least) could possibly wish in a film! A brilliant black comedy, a provoking drama, an unsual horror movie, a twisted thriller and a futuristic fantasy film (1991!). It's all of this and more... Definatly one of the 90's greatest!

After lots of enthusiastic recomendations from some 'aussie mates' of mine and months trying to get it, I finally saw In My Father's Den. And let me tell you that it was so worth the wait! Turns out all of the reviews I read (and the 8.0 rating on IMDb) was right. This is a great piece of Cinema!

With an extremely clever scipt, well adapted (even though I haven't read Maurice Gee's novel), the film is this half drama, half thriller, very well paced and delivered, never becoming too long, even though it crosses the 2 hour barrier. Visually stunning, as New Zealand itself, with those breathtaking landscapes, that Peter Jackson (as a 'local') knew were the only ones capable of turning The Lord of the Rings trilogy into one of the greatest achievements in Cinema history. In My Father's Den manages aswell to capture the essence of New Zealand, the quietude that almost allows you to hear your own thoughts, the loneliness that only who was born on an island can understand.

The story isn't original. This is not exacly the first melodrama filled with long hidden family secrets, nor the first 'small town guy returns home' flick. But I can garantee it's one of the best you'll ever see! Brad McGann gets us hooked from the very first scene, and keeps it that way 'till the very last one. A thriller at some of the time, that gradually develops and unveils, through some unexpected twists, the secrets and tragedies that were hidden, from the main character Paul and of course, us. The acting is utterly superb, specially Matthew Macfadyen and Emily Barclay. Both so amazing and incredibly heart-wrenching. The link between the two couldn't possibly be more genuine, like they're not acting at all.



I started mentioning those who recomended me this film. To them, a big Thank You! :) And I can only do the same, please do yourself a favor and watch this amazing film!

In 1984 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds, Hayao Miyazaki's second film, was released, and led to the creation of a landmark called Studio Ghibli. Initially, Nausicaä could not find financial backing, so Miyazaki created a manga series instead, which proved successful and thus paved the way for this feature-length animation. After that, he would eventually become the greatest animation director of modern cinema, and make it into the list of the greatest of all time.



A Sci-Fi epic warning against the dangers of damage to the environment, a theme Miyazaki would later continue in Princess Mononoke. It shows a world devastated by mankind 1000 years before in a war which burnt the world. Survivors now live in isolated communities seperated by the Sea of Decay, a poisonous forest inhabited by giant insects, chief of which are the Ohmu. Nausicaä is a Princess who lives in The Valley of the Winds, a peaceful place until it's shattered by a aircraft from the warlike people of Tolmekia, which crashes into their valley. Closely followed by a resuce party from Tolmekia it is discovered that the crash ship carries a weapon left over from the old world, with which the Tolmekians plan to destroy the Sea of Decay and reclaim the Earth for man.

Miyazaki sets the model here for his imaginative vitality, with probably his most fantastical tale - machines, creatures and setting all impressively realised. There is also the spiritualism that can be felt elsewhere in his work; though taken further here by a prayer to God (by Nausicaä), a rarity in a Studio Ghibli production. Having the Ohmu harry humanity is noteworthy. 'Ohmu' is pronounced in the film just as 'Aum', a sacred word in Hinduism. Indian strings in the musical score play in relation to the insect. In Hinduism there is the belief in karma - where in the cycle of life, rebirth to a better or worse life is a result of our actions.

Few are the filmmakers of our time who can claim they made their first masterpiece at their second attempt. Hayao Miyazaki is one of them.

As cute and sweet as a film can possibly and humanly get. The kind of film I would, one day, watch with my kids. In the original Japanese version, of course.

I've been a fan of Sarah Polley since the first time I saw her in Go, no sure how many years ago. She had two collaborations with spanish director Isabel Coixet, which resulted in two of my favourite films (My Life Without Me and The Secret Life of Words). Hell, I even watched Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead pretty much just because of her. That might help to explain the reason why I waited more than three months, with the DVD of Away from Her on my shelf, just so I could watch it in the theatre.



It has been said that Alzheimer's is the only "major" terminal condition to exact a greater toll on the family than the victim. Compared to cancer (for example), Alzheimer's offers a relatively gentle journey into oblivion for the patient, a gradual dissolution of memory and personality. For the family and such, however, the experience is different. They must watch as a loved one disappears, stolen away piece by piece, before their eyes. The process of mourning begins before the patient has died. Having dealt with it personally (my grandfather, who was a second, if not a first father for me) I knew better than I wished that Alzheimer's is not exacly a popular, nor easy subject for a film.

If Away from Her had turned out to be unrealistic and manipulative, I would have been tremendously disappointed. Luckily, it didn't. It represents one of the few clear-headed, uncompromising looks at Alzheimer's and its impacts. In large part due to Polley's approach, this is not a relentless downer. Calling it 'life affirming' might be a stretch but it at least offer moments of hope and an understanding of what it means to move on while at the same time remaining true to the past. Unlike films like The Notebook and Iris, Away from Her does not embrace the tear-jerker label. It is sad and touching, yes, but not a tragedy, and it does not seek to reduce its audience to hopeless weeping.

Like any actor-turned-director, Polley tells her story through her actors. She doesn't try too hard. There's nothing flashy in her approach. She respects her characters and the story they have to tell. Casting Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent (but especially Christie) as her leads, was, with all due respect for her undeniable filmmaker qualities, more than half of the work. Christie is still an incredibly radiant presence at 66 and she rivets us to the screen. Her Fiona is a woman of grace, charm and beauty, qualities that she obviously shares. Her performance is truly fantastic and now seats at #2 on my favourite female performances of 2007. Then, Pinsent's performance holds the film together. His steadfast love and growing realization of what his future holds is heartbreakingly sad. His performance is never cloyingly sentimental. It is always direct and deeply felt. Away from Her is an actors' film.

it wouldn't be too far from reality to compare Sarah Polley's debut to the work of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, who specialized in family dramas with a deep, cleansing, almost spiritual touch. There, Polley is less interested in how many hankies her film rates than she is in touching the human soul and finding it damaged, yet still beautiful. The world has in Polley another filmmaker full of potential. Give her a camera and some chances and she will make beautiful, haunting films in the future. Away from Her is, I hope, just the beggining.

What to say? What to say about something that reached perfection? Are words enough? The 5 stars surely aren't. I guess the thing that most upsets me is the fact that only 38 people, out of thousands, have seen this... So then I make this little experiment... I click on City of God below and... Ta-dah! 4814! I mean, I understand the diference of recognition, I do. But The Man Who Copied, without any type of comparisions, is as brilliant, as perfect as the same year's 'World Hit'! It has the same social relevance, shown through André's salary references, the fact that he has to steal to buy a 17$ jacket... Obviously the crime aspect is there, but without any kind of exagerated violence. Than it's also a comedy, a smart and touching one, that never makes you cry... On the contrary, it puts one big fat smile on your face. It can be hilarious at times, like the chicken scene (the other 37 will know what I mean...). Of course all this demands a talented cast. 'Talented' will probably not be enough in this case. Lázaro Ramos' performance is nothing less than stunning, showing the versatile actor that he is, with the perfect way he plays André, the shy 19 year old kid who works as a photocopier on a crapy store for his monthly 100$ wage, and that by night goes to his own world, with his drawing escapes or spying on his neighours (especially Silvia). The spying scenes are an obvious reference and trivute to Hitchcock's Rear Window by director Jorge Furtado. The rest of the cast doesn't desapoint either. Leandra Leal as the beautifully awkward Silvia, Luana Piovani as the jaw-dropping (like herself) Marinês or Pedro Cardoso as the funny Cardoso.



Jorge Furtado made what any filmmaker aspires, or at least should! Something unique. Actually sent something new to the world. A smart, touching film, always unpretensious, with some interesting and unpredictable twists and one of those perfect endings that, like I said, brings a smile to even the most heartless' face...

Studio Ghibli's last production of the 80's and another Miyazaki film set in Europe. Although it's a fictional Europe, in which WWII never happened, the way Miyazaki's animation - besides gorgeous to look at - is so accurate portraying the cities' architecture is simply amazing. Other than that, it's more of the same: fantasy, pure and harmless entertainment, adorable characters (including the cutest cat in history) and a fun and inspirational story full of timeless messages.

Part of the 80s classics, regardless of personal opinions and tastes. Broderick's "Twist and Shout" parade scene is among the most fun and entertaining things I remember seeing.

One of Miyazaki's very first masterpieces. Another tale of endless fantasy and adventure. Funny, sweet and romantic as always. Incredibly advanced technically for something made more than 20 years ago.

This isn't a semi-long, detailed review. For one I don't have the time and besides, pretty much everything there is to say has been said. Pixar's greatest achievement to date. A lesson of animation and filmmaking.

Best film of 2007 so far, side by side with Hot Fuzz.

"The most astonishing immersion of one performer into the body and soul of another ever encountered on film."

Stephen Holden



It is EXTREMELY hard (impossible, actually) to review La Môme focussing on, and only on the film itself. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't... Once you decide to to see the film, you're irremediably about to witness one of the greatest performances in the history of Cinema.

Marion Cotillard's portrayal and encarnation of Edith Piaf isn't just another 'great' performance, with the expression 'Oscar-worthy' written all over it (something that happens every week these days, whenever an actor/actress does a decent job). It's a performance that belongs to a different category, that assumes an almost historical importance and that shouldn't even be disscussable as to any acting award that might exist.

She doesn't merely embody Piaf, she is literally possessed with all of the monstrous talent - and behavior - that burst out of the parisian chanteuse. From her struggling youth to her middle and dying adulthood; all the moves and gestures, in and out of the stage, all the facial and verbal expressions, the personality - with her occasaionally big ego and her deliciously dark humor. Even the voice... It's all there. An immaculate and ultimately perfect performance.



It has been said that the greatest obstacle in mounting a successful biopic - a genre that hasn't succeeded many times, with the most renowned exceptions of Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus or Schindler's List - is for the lead performer to overcome ventriloquism. Which, obviously, Cotillard does. After a series of recent disastrous docudramas, such as last year's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus and Factory Girl, Olivier Dahan's film is all the more impressive for its energy and completely earned grandiosity.

Although Dahan claims his intention "wasn't to make a strict factual biopic, but a fanciful portrait", La Môme, in the end, manages to put together the most important moments of Piaf's troubled and fascinating life. From her childhood, through her abandonment first by her mother and then twice by her father, her brief childhood blindness, her upbringing in a brothel, the start of her career singing on Parisian streets for centimes or her fall, consumed by ilness and drug addiction. Dahan's narrative makes us travel from a period of La Môme's life to another. A scene from childhood seamlessly melts into an adult tragedy. One minute we see a young girl singing on the streets and the next a broken, disabled Piaf in her late 40's...

As we float through those times for two hours, Dahan makes us wait for the cathartic release until the very end, with Piaf's last performance at the Olympia. Never a final scene has meant so much. Never a song has meant so much as "Non, je ne regrette rien" ('No, I regret nothing'). An absolutely shivery and tear-dropping scene of dramatic proportions. A perfect finale for a pushing-perfect film.

It is difficult for me to explain the emotional impact this film had on me. I grew up watching my mother listening to Edith Piaf's records while I did my homework... As far as I'm concerned she was one of the few godesses that ever stepped foot on a stage, one of the most brilliant artists that ever lived. If you add to that the amount of pain and suffering she had to bare her entire existence (lost pretty much everyone she ever loved) you can easily understand why she is an icon and one of the most beloved artists in her country and around the world, and therefore worthy of every single tribute we can think of.

Yet the appeal and beauty of La Môme - or La Vie en Rose, if you like - transcends nationality or people's taste in music. Simply put: this is a film that EVERY human being should see. Period.

"If I had a penny for everything I love about you, I would have many pennies."

These days true originality is something of a rarity. That's why, to me, it's a pure joy to come across with such a fresh, smart and witty film like Waitress. Actress-turned-writer/director Adrienne Shelly (lead in Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth and Trust) has made a 'little' film that just emanates beauty and unpretentiousness. Another gem this wonderful year has brought us.



Keri Russell - the talented and underrated Keri Russell from "Felicity" - stars as Jenna, a young woman who works as a waitress/pie maker in a small town's pie restaurant. Jenna is unhappily married with the controlling, Neanderthal Earl - one of the most ridiculous and pathetic characters I've ever seen in my lifetime - (well played by Jeremy Sisto) and her only two friends are her co-workers Becky (Cheryl "Larry David's wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm" Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly herself, in an adorable role). The only thing in her life that brings her 'some' happiness is making pies. Designing and creating new, unique pies for the restaurant's daily specials. That's probably enough to show how wonderful her life is... *Sarcasm*

She has just discovered that she's pregnant - a fantastic opening scene, where she says something like: "I don't need no baby. I don't want no trouble. I just wanna make pies. That's all I wanna do, make pies!" - and, although the baby isn't exacly welcome (she calls it "an alien and a parasite"), it will change her life. That's how she meets the newly arrived in town Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion, in another fun and charismatic role), a nervous, kind of foolish doctor with whom she'll have an affair and who'll remind her what it feels like to be happy.

Even if its premise might not seem exacly original - woman trapped in unhappy life who tries to escape abusive husband - Waitress is as original and unique as a film can get. Garanteed. Shelly beautifully balances clever humor, light drama and heartbreakingly lovely moments of happy truth. The film's sweet and utterly honest tone makes it one of those films that was made to be loved and enjoyed. Not judged or criticized, even if it might have its flaws.

Some scenes and moments go way over merely 'enjoyable', dangerously approaching sheer genius. This includes Jenna's letters to her unborn baby, all starting with "Dear baby...", as a form of narration or her pie invention - and naming - process ('I-Hate-My-Husband Pie'; 'Pregnant-Miserable-Self-Pitying Loser Pie') shot in fantastic, colorful and vibrant overhead close-ups that will make you salivate throughout the entire film. Little warning: do NOT watch with an empty stomach. Fair warning.

The film's female strenght and sensitivity is obvious. Every single male character in the film is either a jerk or an idiot. And don't get me wrong... I didn't find that insulting. Not at all, I actually think it's pretty faithful to the real world. Men really are either jerks or idiots. Myself included. Shelly's unquestionable filmmaker's gift, when combined with the cleverness and brilliance of her dialogues and characters and Keri Russell's career-defining performance make Waitress what it is: a captivating, graceful and meaningful film that should be seen by as many eyes and hearts as humanly possible.

RIP Adrienne Shelly... :(

One of the most brilliant, yet overlooked films I've ever seen. A collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities - Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki - throughout one night. The film is disguised as a comedy, when in reality it's an authentic study of human nature via the taxi drivers and their passengers. Roberto Benigni's segment is hilarious beyond words and the Helsinki one has Jarmusch's genius stamped all over it. The whole film has.

A mark in portuguese Cinema!

Szofi: "[at subway vending machines] Nice place. Come here often?
Bulcsú: Only when I really want to impress a girl."



An enormous crowd pleaser at several 2004 film festivals throughout the world - picking up the "Prix de la Jeunesse" (Award of the Youth) at Cannes - and young Hungarian-American Nimród Antal's film début, Kontroll is one of the most creative and original films I've ever seen. Part black comedy, part action/thriller and part allegorical tale of redemption, it mixes elements from standard American urban thrillers with the feverish, dreamlike distortions of classic Eastern European art cinema, played out in the labyrinthine tunnels of the Budapest subway system, the world's second oldest.

There's something very appealing and appropriate about subway systems as an outsider film location, underworlds in which those who do not fit in or have rejected the values of society above can feel at home, subsections of society in which small pockets of precariously maintained civilisation are connected by a large network of dark tunnels that could house just about anything, areas into which no sane person would venture without the protection of a big metal underground train. Antal takes full advantage of that evocative locale by setting all of Kontroll down there - shooting the entire film at night in the stations and tunnels of the Budapest Metro - with the world outside and above never glimpsed, except as a distant hazy light just above the topmost stairways. The result: a highly exciting, visually alive thriller that stands as one of the most promising débuts in recent film history.

Kontroll opens with a message from the director of the BM, stating that the film we are about to watch is a work of fiction - which, therefore, has to be seen symbolically and not literally - and that the employees of the Metro don't behave as shown. We then understand why. According to Antal's vision, the Budapest subway system is the kind of place where people threaten each other with Gypsy curses and dirty syringes, amateur welders work on the rails, and even the white-collar business travellers don't bother buying a ticket. Administered by a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, the system employs five-member crews of ticket collectors - controllers - to ensure law, order, and proper payment of fares.

This is the story of one group, an unkempt unit already on probation for breaking the rules. There's the leader - our protagonist - the mysterious and damaged Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi) who never goes above ground, the elegant and middle-aged Professor (Zoltán Mucsi), the belligerent, slightly insane Muki (Csaba Pindroch), Lescó the narcoleptic (Sándor Badár) and the new boy, Tibi (Zsolt Nagy). They're the kind of group fused together by foul working conditions, general anarchy, and the hate of the general public. They're also the kind of guys who routinely wake up smeared with blood, ketchup, or something worse, and it's somewhat normal for them to walk through a door into a fight with pipe-wielding, face-painted hooligans. (The existence of these gangs is never explained; they're just there.)

Bulcsú's motley crew are constantly faced with public contempt, erupting hostility, wild chases and violence on their daily rounds - complicated by the insolent cheats (including their nemesis, a fast punk called "Bootsie" who wears a CD headset and often sprays paint in the controllers' faces); the callous indifference of their subway system bosses; the contempt of a rival, slicker group of inspectors; and the assaults of a mysterious, hooded serial killer who has been terrorizing the system, randomly pushing passengers off the platforms into the paths of oncoming trains.

One of the problems I have with leading characters in many Hollywood films is that, even those in the most grubby and punishing jobs, don't look like the people who actually carry out these tasks, but good-looking actors pretending to be them. In Eastern European cinema the opposite occurs. There's not a face in Kontroll that doesn't look like it has wandered in from the back streets of Budapest, and the film is all the better for it. Hollywood relies on the recognition factor for character engagement - oh look, it's Tom Cruise, I know him, therefore I know the character - but in Kontroll you engage with the characters in part because the faces so perfectly fit. You feel you know them precisely because, in a way, you do - you've met them, worked with them, are related to them. Perhaps you even are them.

It helps, of course, that they are genuinely funny people, or at least funny to us - they have a somewhat negative world view arising from working in a largely thankless job that offers the thin illusion of power to those who would otherwise never command it. Their authority is tenuous at best - the controllers are identified only by a simple armband pulled over their regular clothes, their slovenly attitude and scruffy appearance making it all too easy for those they confront to ignore, argue with or even attack them. It is these very confrontations that provide some of the funniest moments, and if a couple of these groan under the weight of painful stereotyping - the smiling, camera wielding Japanese family, the outrageously camp predatory gay - many of the others are inventive and wittily handled, and in one case involving a syringe and a saw, borderline surreal.

The great unspoken question of the film is this: why is Bulcsú down there? He doesn't just work in the subway - as we find out in the opening scene, he lives there 24 hours a day, sleeping on benches and empty platforms after the last train stops running. In one scene, we find that Bulscú has left a job - not named, though his former colleague's words and possessions make either architect or mathematician seem the most likely possibilities - at which he was quite good, and which surely was more profitable than his current job.

Antal's messages are so subtle you don't even notice they're under your skin until they're already there. Bulscú relishes the loner mentality he can cultivate in the subway, and Antal's crafty direction heightens that feeling of isolation to the point where it becomes incredibly ominous. The contradiction between the closed-in world of the underground and the wide-open way in which Antal frame it is a brilliant representation of Bulscú's mindset - the underground may be a finite network, but to him it represents more freedom than the surface world ever did.

He has a different take on the underground. For him, it's not just a workday hell, as it is for his co-worker-mates; it's a source of magic, adventure, athletic triumph (he's a crack tunnel-racer) and romance. Bulscú's world-view starts to shift with the introduction of Szofi (Eszter Balla), a pretty, weird girl who rides the subway dressed in a teddy-bear costume. Representing the good side of human nature, she is a stark contrast to the faceless killer's random attacks. In the end, Bulscú must come face to face with both.

Many people have described Nimród Antal as the Hungarian Danny Boyle. With the film's slick, jazzy aesthetic and high beats per minute, it's relatively easy to notice how Kontroll resembles Trainspotting - the weird little guy (Badár) even looks a little like Robert Carlyle's Begbie - although it also reminds Doug Liman's work. Point is: Antal has talent. And he obviously knew where to draw inspiration from. As for the acting, Sándor Csányi is a marvellously magnetic actor, and he inhabits the whole Brando-Dean-De Niro-Pacino persona with impudent skill and deep inner emotionality. The ensemble is a fine one too, salty character actors with pungent faces and lines. But the truest star of Kontroll, of course, is the Budapest underground itself, which I very much hope to visit one day.

Vilmos Zsigmond's apprentice DP Gyula Pados' fulsome cinematography makes of the underground sets the kind of textured iconographic landscape of Wim Wenders' late American films. A dream (paced by electronica group Neo's rowdy, fantastic score), in which Bulcsú finds himself crawling through something like an endless vaginal tunnel, is the moment when Kontroll comes fully alive: it's the juncture between metaphor, craft, and narrative - and for almost all of its final hour, the film maintains an unbelievably high level of invention and insight. It's a great Sci-Fi piece, a razor-sharp satire, a horrific thriller, a lyrical fantasy and an impressive calling card for an emerging Hungarian cinema. Fantastic!

Girl in Cafeteria: "What are you writing?
Alex: Uh, this? It's my plan.
Girl in Cafeteria: For what?
Alex: Oh, you'll see."



Gus Van Sant's Elephant, at first blush, seems on an inexorable path to controversy. The film that put a stop to the nine-year absence of American cinema from the list of Palme d'Or winners, it is a quietly horrifying, fictional exploration of a Columbine-like school shooting... but one with little - or absolutely no - moralizing about its subjects. The film projects a cavernous, labyrinthine American educational system that has little understanding of the deeper social forces affecting its students. Perhaps most provocative, the two male killers share a pre-annihilation kiss. Add political fire-storm, mix well, and serve.

These details, however, misrepresent the undeniably compelling nature of Van Sant's mesmeric film. Told in sparse, improvised dialogue that erupts between longer, langorous passages of time, Elephant strips the tragic sentimentality from this particular social catastrophe, allowing viewers to look reflectively at a larger context. It is moving, yes, and sad too. But it's also fine, magnificent work that makes one re-consider preconceived notions about Columbine?s massacre and its causes. It is important, timely, and visionary cinema.

Considering that Van Sant revelled in unchecked sentimentalism when he directed another story about two mixed-up boys (Good Will Hunting), the cool, even tone of Elephant is refreshing and unexpected; it is, perhaps not surprisingly, the best film of his career. His cast, comprised of over a dozen untrained teenagers in Portland, Oregon, reach astonishing heights under his direction, inhabiting their high-school trajectories with disarming honesty and adolescent ritual. Improvised dialogue can often be indulgent and grating, but here the cast?s personal experiences imbue it with a clarity no screenwriter could have attained. Particularly outstanding are John Robinson as a social butterfly who must care for his alcoholic father, and Alex Frost as the social outcast who takes solace in classical piano and internet gun websites.

Unhurried and unconstricted, Van Sant follows a very particular and personal vision, reflected most exquisitely in the cinematography of Harris Savides. The camera floats ethereally around the campus, a seemingly endless connection of nondescript hallways, vacant gymnasiums, and personality-beige classrooms. Savides fills each frame with a classical grandeur, a rolling beauty that underscores both the banal commonality of high school life and the missed opportunities in every moment. It is as if the camera is telling us that life is precious... and no one is there to listen. Savides' images are complemented by an outstanding score - a collection of songs chosen by Van Sant himself - that enhances the elegiac quality of the filmmaking. The music of Beethoven, in particular, resonates superbly in the film's atmospheric aura.

Much was made of the details of the story, where controversy would always find plenty to rear its ugly head about. The final strength of Elephant, however, is not in these particular plot points, but in its steady, sharp focus on the larger picture. The murders, we all know, are horrific. But the blissful, unaware hours that precede them - which make up the majority of the film - are even more so. The minutiae of high school life becomes electrically charged by the misery we know is imminent, but Elephant never tips its emotional hand to exploit this. The tension stays firmly in us, and not the students - they are dramatically unprepared for cataclysm when it occurs. When tragedy finally does arrive, even we who knew what was coming are unprepared for its impact. What in the hands of a lesser director might have become overwrought or maudlin is instead a cool, dispassionate sadness at the inevitably of a culture gone awry.

Elephant's greatest achievement is to remove the veil of history from these events, making the unreal real again. Great art undoes its viewer, in order to remake us. On that score, Van Sant has scored an unreserved triumph. And I'm sure that Béla Tarr was proud to have influenced such fine cinema.

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

Pete Dunham: "Fuck it, I will take you with me. You might learn something...
Matt Buckner: About soccer?
Pete Dunham: No mate. Not about soccer, AND FOR FUCK SAKE, STOP SAYING SOCCER!"



Football hooliganism is a sociological phenom studied in Universities in Europe for decades. German-born writer and director Lexi Alexander's - Oscar nominee for her 2002 short Johnny Flynton - Hooligans (in its original title) widens the issue considerably, probably for the first time, by giving it a more 'Americanized' view. Juiced by her eagerness to depict what she apparently learned while living among British football gangs, somehow the film, an entertaining yet still realistic look at a a firm's functioning and what it means to be educated, transcends its faults.

Elijah Wood plays Matt, who is expelled from Harvard's journalism school when his stoner roommate sets him up. Matt's father, a well-connected journalist on assignment in Afghanistan, is unavailable to offer guidance, so Matt transports himself to London, where his sister (Claire Forlani) lives with her British husband (Marc Warren) and a newborn he has never met. Through implausible circumstances that are the film's sore point, Matt is drawn into the underworld of Brit football teams and their roaming gangs, a band of thugs who spend their down time - each has a respectable job - beating rivals to a pulp. They're called the Green Street Elite and they support West Ham United.

Charlie Hunnam takes the film to a higher level. Looking like Heath Ledger with a buzz cut, he plays Green Street's fast-talking top dog Pete, and, before Matt can unpack, Pete lures the unwanted American into London's mean streets. Tattooed Pete swaggers around causing trouble and cheering for West Ham, trying to raise the firm's stature. He is aided by an assortment of surly types, including a swarthy fellow who has Judas written all over him. The gang has rules, of course, and among these is the commandment that thou shalt not associate with the dreaded journalist - a commandment that any well-respected, tabloid-hater British hooligan follows religiously. Without knowing much about Matt, Pete, who's game for turning pint-sized Matt into a mini-me, takes a liking to the young American, whom he inducts into the gang.

Matt guzzles beer, slurs his speech and finally feels like he belongs. He learns how to fight, too, in a rivalry that elicits a good war strategy - taking the fight to the enemy's turf with a show of unyielding force. Only a gang is a gang. Not glorified so much as examined, and not too closely at that, Alexander re-inserts the college tale exactly where it belongs, transforming a pansy into a man who learns what it means to fight back.

This is not a pity party and the fights, language and action are gritty, rough and tumble, though fistfights are impossible to follow. Game battles and intra-brethren jealousies culminate in a showdown, an impressive scene with slow-motion thrown in, whose violence and realism are surprisingly top-notch, for something shot by a feminine eye, where everyone - including a vengeful old rival - shows what they can do in a pinch.

Elijah Wood tries to make us forget Frodo, and whether he succeeds, in the end depends on one's fealty to that gigantic trilogy. His Matt is aggressive and, if he fights like a ferocious kitten, he throws a few punches, too. As Pete, Hunnam gets the showier role, and he milks it like he's playing Brian's Song, protecting the pack, initiating the American and locking horns with anyone who gets in his way. Forlani as Matt's sister cries a lot, and she is more interested in tickets to the theater than in the fact that her younger brother has gone from Harvard to hooliganism on her watch.

It's probably soft in spots and like I said, obviously Americanized, but it had to be 'cause that was the whole purpose, and besides, nobody wants to sit and watch blood clots form. For a spirited B-film, Hooligans - Green Street Hooligans, for the yanks - is a fine film.

One of Woody's best. Allen's character (Cliff Stern) is, of all of his, the one I relate to the most, Alvy Singer included.

"I am out here for you. You don't know what it's like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, OK?"



There's a scene in a recent episode of "How I Met Your Mother" in which Ted explains the reason why Marshall didn't enjoy Jerry Maguire by saying he doesn't have a heart. Now, I apologize to those who aren't familiar with the show - which is awesome, btw - but that's also the best thing I can think of to say to anyone who can't seem to enjoy this film. Those people should, by law, be forbidden to use the expressions "show me the money!" and "you had me at hello." whenever they're trying to make a '90s cultural reference.

At the time of its release, which was twelve years ago, Jerry Maguire received mostly positive reviews. It's easy to understand why: it's funny, cute, harmless, and has an iconic, much beloved actor in the lead role. The first time I watched it I found it to be all those things, nothing more. But, growing up and getting to know the work of Cameron Crowe, it started to grow on me, eventually becoming a sort of "guilty favourite", a film I'm always ready to defend against anyone. This is after all perhaps the best example of why the world loves Tom Cruise in spite of all the craziness. The Scientology bullshit, his relationships, jumping on the couch on Oprah, all that has absolutely nothing to do with his work as an actor. This film did its best to exploit the Tom Cruise we still pay money to see in theatres. No one can really think of Tom Cruise, the actor and not remember Jerry Maguire.

He's a fast-talking, hard-working young sports agent who works side-by-side with a group of young people at SMI (Sports Management International) in Los Angeles. During a tumultuous exposition-laded, terrifically edited opening credit sequence - note to "serious" filmmakers: see, they're good for something, as opposed to just starting the film with no sense of focus or pace - Jerry has a dark night of the soul, sits in front of his computer and writes a "mission statement" ("not a memo") pleading to shift the focus of the business from the bottom line to hands-on managing of fewer clients per agent.

The memo brings public cheers from his colleagues, most of whom remain privately cynical. Is there room for the truth? Apparently not; Maguire is fired by his boss, whose unremorseful callousness will make him the vague focus of Jerry's professional redemption. Stalking out of the office with only a goldfish and humble accountant Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), Jerry pours his not-immodest energy into two clients, clean-cut college quarterback Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell) and eccentric Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). When his shepherding of Cushman hits an unexpected obstacle, it costs Jerry his relationship with hard-as-nails NFL publicist Avery Bishop (Kelly Preston) and opens the door to the awkward but inevitable courtship of Dorothy, whose young son Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki) has taken an immediate liking to the agent - who is surprised and touched by his own seemingly endless tolerance for the kid.

The climaxes of the film, such as they are, involve redemption: Rod learns the importance of singing for his supper in a hysterical send-up of celebrations that was reportedly choreographed by Paula Abdul; Dorothy's sceptical, wise-cracking sister Laurel (Bonnie Hunt) makes her peace with their relationship ("If you fuck this up, I'll kill you," she tells Jerry); But most significantly, Jerry Maguire has the courage of not making its convictions about a revenge against SMI, opting instead for a graceful story arc of discovery and growth followed by an unabashedly sweet fade-out that makes extraordinarily effective use of Bob Dylan's classic "Shelter from the Storm" (the awesome soundtrack includes other giants such as The Who, Elvis Presley, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, AC/DC or Gloria Estefan).

Remarkably, at 19 minutes over two hours, Jerry Maguire never plays long, due entirely to the informed immediacy and precise balance of the script. It took Crowe three years to write, and the care shows in the depth of the characterizations and the logic of the plot. Originally conceived as a vehicle for Tom Hanks, the film cries out for an actor going through what one character fleetingly refers to as a "pre-mid-life crisis". Crowe has trusted his instincts to go with - at the time - relative unknowns in the large supporting cast, and the gamble has paid off handsomely. The acting is uniformly first rate, without a sour note in the entire ensemble. Gooding Jr. is outstanding (as would be his Oscar-win celebration), Zellweger is a revelation of precise comic acting, while little Lipnicki is constantly adorable, and his finely-timed scenes with Cruise - sentimental without once becoming cloying - are indeed the heart of the picture.

After Mission: Impossible, Cruise, an actor known for balancing "important" films with more mainstream stories, has cleverly switched the order by starring in his summer smash and following up with a film that looked like another populist parable like Days of Thunder but played with as much sincerity and substance as Rain Man. Perhaps sensing that his brash-young-guy-on-the-come routine was getting a bit old, Cruise must've rejoiced at the complexities of Maguire, a guy who wants to change but hasn't a clue how to go about it with guaranteed success. And it is that very confusion and vulnerability that separates Jerry from Cruise's other forgettable creations. A very smart actor, he saw the need for modification and jumped at it with calculated relish. Could Tom Hanks, or John Cusack, or Matt Dillon have played Maguire? Sure, but not with the volatile mix of supermarket tabloid fame and honest talent Cruise brings to the role. Would that have had an impact on the fragile chemistry of the film? Without a doubt. Jerry Maguire, the actor's 19th feature, showcases the best performance of Tom Cruise's career.

By 1996, Crowe was now three-for-three as a hyphenate filmmaker. His Say Anything... (1989) is a sublime tribute to youthful eighties exuberance, while Singles (1992), with its stoned-again career-best performance by Dillon but uneven secondary cast, was unfortunately overlooked but will play far better with age and the adoration of pop archaeologists seeking the truth about the Seattle grunge movement. Jerry Maguire was the confirmation, the "that guy has talent." statement.

He's a filmmaker of power on the word processor as well as the set, writing snappy, sharp dialogue that plays only in the context of his seemingly meandering, episodic plots. Look closely, though, and you'll see how carefully he unites actor and situation: scenes like the awkward elevator ride after Jerry and Dorothy have left SMI succeed through an intertwined foundation of timing, angles and performance. Yet an actor in a Cameron Crowe film must be prepared to do things that fly in the face of conventional narrative: his characters are forever addressing the camera and declaiming their innermost thoughts in voice-over, the cumulative effect of which is an anything-can-happen atmosphere and characters of enormous substance. That he coaxes such a disciplined performances out of 27-year-old Zellweger is proof enough that his sets must nurture an atmosphere of confidence and control.

Smart without being smart-mouthed, astute without being calculated, and quite obviously the work of a filmmaker with something important to say and a clear and wicked way of saying it, Jerry Maguire is a triumph of nuanced social satire masquerading as a commercial romantic comedy, a film that can both make fun of and wallow in its celebration of the crass spectacle professional sport has become. It's everything you'd expect from a Cameron Crowe film: funny, poignant, and insightful. There's a hero who dares to be optimistic in a cynical world, a charming, lonely man who yearns for recognition and, of course, the Girl, the one who inspires the hero to be more than he thought he could be.

Bailey: "Tonight I'll be the super me.
Steve: What if the super you meets the super her and the super her rejects the super you?
Bailey: Then it's no problem.
Steve: Uh-huh. Why?
Bailey: Because it was never you, it was just an act. I live my life like a French movie, Steve."



A disarmingly clever and sweet-spirited comedy, Singles - Cameron Crowe's second film, three years after Say Anything... - was the first film to put a new spin on the boy-meets-girl formula. When the young romantic couples in this film break up, they don't get mad at each other or indulge in a series of insults and attempts to make their lives miserable. They simply go from being lovers to being friends - and it's often hard to tell the difference. That's what Singles is about: a generation so self-protective it has come to see love as just another style of friendship - as interaction plus cuddling.

While Say Anything... was arguably the loveliest youth comedy of its decade, full of true, delicate, layered emotionalism, in Singles Crowe expanded his focus to include six characters in their early to mid-'20s, most of whom live in the same horseshoe-shaped apartment complex in Seattle, the new capital of middle-class bohemian chic. The surprise is that Singles is even slighter than Say Anything... was. Crowe may be a director in danger of having too much affection for his characters. He likes them so much, he minimizes their conflicts; he doesn't want to see them hurt. Still, he has such a perceptive eye for detail and a genuine, singular wit. Singles often comes close to being a TV show (Twentysomethings, perhaps), but it's a clever and infectious comedy of manners.

Honest performances, great writing and a kick-ass soundtrack make this film more than just a romantic comedy about finding true love. Crowe has a unique ability as a writer/director to mix the right song with the right dialogue to create lovely, funny and heartbreaking cinema moments. Kyra Sedgwick, Scott Campbell, Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon are perfectly cast, bringing their own unique touches to characters that could have been clichéd, yet come across as distinctly original. The film is separated into acts, breaking up the two main relationships into the various actions and conversations that either bring the lovers together or tear them apart.

The Sedgwick/Scott pairing is the more serious, taking their instant attraction onto a bumpy life road neither of them is prepared to deal with. They give the film heart and hope, showing that there really is someone out there for everyone and that sometimes you have to fight for happiness. On the other hand, Fonda and Dillon are the poster children for the old adage opposites attract. He's a wild, womanizing, wannabe rock star; she's a simple, sweet girl who just wants to be loved. When she stops being a doormat and begins to realize her own dreams, she gives him a reason to not only miss her, but respect her as well. Her conversion from desperate to confident is a wonderful example to women everywhere that you don't need a man to be happy with yourself or your life. That her lack of interest eventually turns Dillon into a worthwhile boyfriend stretches belief, but it does make for a happier ending.

Singles received a fair amount of publicity because of its links to the indigenous Seattle grunge-rock scene. Yet it's far from being any sort of cutting-edge slice of Rock & Roll life. Given its nightclub settings, the film and the characters could have used some more raunch but then again, except for Cliff, they're not meant to be spiky, into-the-night types - they're basically polite, stylish young people. What marks them as '90s bohemians is their casual communalism. They're like overgrown teenagers, blithely exchanging partners as if love were a high school square dance and at the same time, they've grown up in a world where romance is shot through with cynicism and fear. And so they're too wary to let themselves be overwhelmed. Crowe has caught their spirit - the cooled-out passion of those who can long for love without being ruled by it. An intelligent look at relationships that never gets old.

Besides, you can't go wrong with a film that has Eddie Vedder (in a cameo as one of the members of Cliff's band, "Citizen Dick", along with Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam) and Tim Burton (as a next big Avant-garde director who makes a living shooting dating videos) in it.

"Somewhere around 25, bizarre becomes immature."

D.C.: "Lloyd, why do you have to be like this?
Lloyd: 'Cause I'm a guy. I have pride.
Corey: You're not a guy.
Lloyd: I am.
Corey: No. The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don't be a guy."



When you think of '80s "teen romantic comedies" you think of John Hughes. You think of Molly Ringwald, you think of The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Cameron Crowe's Say Anything..., his first foray behind the camera, is not only the best film of that lot and an incredibly impressive début, but it's also stood the test of time and become one of the best films about young love EVER made.

The film is set during that pivotal summer between high school graduation and (what usually seems like) the emergence of the "real world". It opens with Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) wrestling with the idea of asking Diane Court (Ione Skye) out. But Lloyd doesn't really know Diane all that well; in fact, nobody really does. Diane, known as a "brain", has kept to herself during her high school years - eschewing social activities in favour of long hours of homework and studying. Lloyd decides to give it a shot anyway, though, and is pleasantly surprised when Diane accepts. He asks her to a blow-out graduation party given by the same 20-something guy every year, and while most of the attendees recognize her, she finds that she knows very few people there. Lloyd, on the other hand, appears to be a big-man-on-campus type, with virtually every guest saying hello to him. Although Lloyd and Diane seem an unlikely couple, the two begin a summer relationship everyone assumes is doomed to fail - most notably her father (John Mahoney).

Say Anything... was made nineteen years ago, and it holds up incredibly well - all the more surprising given that it could have wound up resembling a Michael Jackson video. A lot of films from that time period (the late '80s, early '90s) have aged quite poorly, due mostly to overindulgence in everything that was showy and loud about that era. But Say Anything..., like Roman Holiday and all those great romances that came before it, has a certain timeless quality about it. The time and place of the film takes a back-seat to the characters and their motivations - the key difference between a good romantic film and a bad one. By the time the end credits begin to roll, Lloyd and Diane have become real characters to us; and as such, we want desperately for their love affair to succeed.

This is due in no small part to the lead performances by Cusack and Skye. Unlike contemporary counterparts like Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook, these two young actors actually had a huge amount of talent and charisma. Their chemistry together is undeniable, which only encourages us to root for them. As Lloyd, Cusack gets the chance to be as charming as ever - the sort of guy most people have known at some point in their lives. And Skye takes what could have been a standoffish sort of person and makes her human (and genuinely likable). The supporting cast is comprised of an eclectic bunch, including Joan Cusack, Lili Taylor, Eric Stoltz, and frequent Cusack collaborator Jeremy Piven.

Many people criticize Crowe for being a stronger writer and a weaker director. I've said it once and I'll say it again: I don't think that's true. I think he's really strong in both areas. Say Anything... is by no means an elaborate production, it has no need for that. This film is incredibly realistic and Crowe shot it as such. The editing is perfectly suitable and gives you a great feel of the atmosphere the story presents. Crowe sets the film at a great pace and really captures what the story is all about: teenagehood, relationships and true love with comic and conflict, all sealed with an amazing amount of heart that feels right; not manipulated or sappy.

His direction is fine, but of course, there is his fabulous story and script. Most of us know that Crowe is a superb writer (sort of a pre-requisite since he wrote for "Rolling Stone"), and this wasn't his first time writing a script (adapting his book Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982 and co-writing The Wild Life two years later). Crowe creates such rich material out of what is a clichéd plotline: boy doesn't know girl, boy has crush on girl, boy wants to win girl's heart, wins heart, conflicts ensue all over. It's amazing how he takes something similar to this and makes it feel like such a fresh, new idea. Say Anything... blazes with a load of originality and leaves similar films of this nature in the dust.

It's how Crowe structures his story, his dialogue and his characters that makes it all shine and come together. He avoids a lot of stereotypes and clichés and gives us the unexpected. When you hear about the plot and then see the film, it's never how you thought it would be. The story may mostly take place after high school, but you're still dealing with teenagers no matter how you look at it. The dialogue is very realistic - no one says" Honest to blog" - and the words that come out of the mouths of every character really does seem like something real people would say. Lloyd's nervous words, Diane's cheerfulness, dad's protective guidance, graduation, the party scene... you name it, and you wouldn't be surprised if any of this happened to someone and those words were said. It's all very subtle and all very natural, which usually means honesty.

Music always plays a predominant role in supplementing the emotions in Crowe's films, and this is where it all started, so it's no exception. It is difficult to recall this tale without immediately remembering the image of Lloyd holding the boom box above his head outside of Diane's window. Through the lyrics and context of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes", Crowe has Lloyd express so much without uttering a word. The soundtrack also contains effective tracks by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Aerosmith, Soundgarden, Depeche Mode, Fishbone, and The Replacements, which perfectly mesh with the images presented.

Say Anything... is a quintessential romantic modern classic. It succeeds where every single unsuccessful "teen" film failed. It's made of intelligence, wit, honesty and truth, being the work of someone who appreciates - and so many other miss - the fact that there's enough drama and comedy in human-scale relationships - especially among the raging hormone teen set - that you don't need to exaggerate in order to have an entertaining film. Low-key funny, elegant and touching, Say Anything... is the prototype for successful youth-oriented romantic comedy. This is it: what all the others wanted to be.

Here's a difficult film to write about. By principle I don't describe plots, no matter what film is concerned, but in this case I don't think I could, even if I wanted to. A mix of Hitchcock's Vertigo, Memento, some 'Lynchian' twists and with the sublime and yes, sometimes unconfortable touch of Almodovar. Unlike what I've read, I wouldn't describe this film as 'shocking', even though there are some delicate subjects. The homosexuality 'thing' obviously prevented this modern masterpiece from having the visibility and accpetance it deserved, unlike other Almodovar films, like Hable Con Ella or Todo Sobre mi Madre (both Oscar winners). However, the sexuality (or homosexuality) is never an inconfortable aspect, the sex scenes are never vulgar or unbearable. Well, except for some homophobic minds of course... Anyway, this film is a direct reflection from someone who actually grew up in the Franco era in Spain, with the strict religious schooling and the child abuse (who normally everyone preffers to ignore or deny).

Pedro Almodovar is one of the few GENUINE filmmakers alive! Fact. He creates stories, by himself, writes and directs them with the same passion and brilliance that he did 20 years ago and will 20 years from now. His passion for Cinema is well shown in Bad Education. It almost has a role of it's own throughout the film. All thumbs up for Gael Garcia Bernal aswell! A brilliant, powerfull performance! Perhaps the best of his career so far. After all, it's not everyday you have the chance to see an actor playing three different characters, all equally brilliant, in the same film.

An important, essential film for a restricted audience...

"Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself «slightly» killed."

One of the most dominant motifs in Alfred Hitchcocks work is the search for identity. Sometimes, this search is shown through a literal journey, as in The 39 Steps. Sometimes, the attempts at creating a new identity can only be accomplished once another, more dominant identity has been thrown off, as in Rebecca. North By Northwest differs from the rest of Hitchcock's work in that, instead of the main character alone, every major character in lacks an identity. This lack of identity is presented cinematically in a different way for each character. Nevertheless, for each character, the fake identity must die in order for the true identity to form.



Roger Thornhill, the main character of North By Northwest, lacks a true identity. This is shown in several different ways. One of the most important is his reflection. Thornhill is shown either looking in or being looked at through a mirror at four different points during the story. In each case, he is pretending to be someone he is not. Three of the four times, he appears in the mirror as what he is pretending to be. This is not true the final time, but here it is not Thornhill looking in the reflection.

The first incident occurs in a certain George Kaplan's hotel room. At this point, Thornhill, who has been mistaken for Kaplan, looks through Kaplan's personal items. When he looks in the bathroom, he glances in the mirror. From the camera's perspective, the mirror shows nothing but a blank wall. That is because Thornhill, in order to get into Kaplan's room, pretends to be Kaplan. However, Kaplan is not a real person. He is a fake spy created by the government, and as a non-person, he has no reflection. Thus, when Thornhill pretends to be Kaplan, he pretends to be no one. By showing Thornhill without a reflection, the camera is implying that Thornhill is successful in his pretending.

Thornhill looks at a mirror again when he pretends to be no one - in essence, to disappear. At this point, he is hiding in Eve Kendall's room on the 20th Century Limited train from New York to Chicago. By hiding from everyone outside of the room, he is pretending to be a person who does not exist. And so, when he looks in the mirror, the camera shows only Thornhill with no reflection. Again, he is successful in his pretending.

Thornhill's third encounter with a mirror happens in the train station in Chicago. When the police search for him, he enters the men's restroom and lathers up for a shave. Finally, Thornhill is shown with his reflection. However, this achievement is dubious, since the role he is playing at this point is that of a man. The camera, by showing him as what he pretends to be, implies that he is simply a non-descript man. He is not a man by Hitchcock's terms because he does not have an identity. He is still pretending to be a man, even though he will not become a man until later in the film.

When Thornhill is shown in a reflection for the last time, he has finally attained his identity. He is sneaking in the upper level of Phillip Vandamm's house when he is spotted in the reflection of a television screen by Vandamm's maid. Here, like in Eve's room on the train, Thornhill tries to go unnoticed by pretending to be a person who simply does not exist - to disappear. However, unlike his previous attempt, he fails this time. He is not able to pretend to be someone else because he has a fully formed identity. Once he is unable to fulfil his role, he has what he needs to be a true man - a full-formed identity.

In order for Roger Thornhill to attain his true identity, his various pseudo-identities must be eliminated. This is accomplished when Thornhill, in each of his fake identities, dies. He is figuratively killed at two points during the course of the film. After each "death", he takes a new identity, one that suits him until that identity is no longer useful to him. At first, he is a man without identity and without knowledge. He does not know anything about the spy games around him except that he is not George Kaplan and that he is not guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused. This persona is run over by a truck during the cornfield scene allowing Thornhill to come back to life with a new identity.

When Thornhill comes back from the death of his first non-identity, he assumes the identity of George Kaplan. While Kaplan, he learns Eve's part in the spy games, Vandamm's real name, and what he must do to be George Kaplan. He plays the part expertly, only coming out of character briefly when meeting the Professor. Nevertheless, when he and the Professor go to Rapid City, it is George Kaplan, not Roger Thornhill, who meets Vandamm and is killed by Eve. From the dead body of George Kaplan arises Roger Thornhill with a fully realized identity. Thornhill does not work for the government, he is not George Kaplan, and he is not guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused. However, he is not the mere victim of circumstances he was at the beginning of the film. Now he controls his own destiny, and he is able to save himself and Eve. Since his previous incarnations were fakes, they needed to be eliminated. Once Thornhill finds his identity, he can survive in the world and make his own decisions.

As Thornhill sheds his false identities to create his true one, Phillip Vandamm must rid himself of the mask he wears to find his true identity. Vandamm uses a false identity, only to have it fall away, revealing his true identity. When Vandamm first meets Thornhill, he uses the guise of Lester Townsend, a UN diplomat. At this point, Thornhill does not have any solid identity, and neither does Vandamm. Like the identity-less Thornhill, Vandamm is not the complete master of his surroundings. He is the subject of his wife's wishes, unable to take time out of his dinner party to properly do away with Thornhill. The next day, when Vandamm's plot to kill Thornhill fails, Thornhill tries to find the real Lester Townsend. Upon the meeting of Thornhill and the real Townsend, Townsend is murdered. Since Townsend's identity could be used by Vandamm, he does not have a secure identity. Without a secure identity, he is vulnerable to the attacks. Like George Kaplan, Lester Townsend must die in order for the man pretending to be him - Thornhill for Kaplan and Vandamm for Townsend - to arise as a fully formed individual.

Even Eve Kendall has a false identity that must die. Her entire existence is as a spy, so she lacks a coherent whole inside. She is just an actress, playing the role of Phillip Vandamm's girlfriend. Her nothingness is symbolized, not by a fake name or the presence of mirror, but by the juxtaposition of her face with nothingness. The closest close-ups Hitchcock gives of Eve's face are always near some great emptiness. The last shot in the train station in Chicago shows Eve's face in extreme close-up. This is followed by a dissolve to a large expanse of empty land. A cornfield with no corn, only a dirt road and a highway. By placing her image next to this open area, Hitchcock equates her with the emptiness of the land. This ultimately shows the nothingness at her core. Similarly, Eve's final close-up shows her face with a horrible drop behind her. She is hanging by her fingers, inches from her death, at Mt. Rushmore. Figuratively, Eve Kendall does fall here. This woman with no identity except the roles she played for the government is dead at this point. The woman who is finally saved from the abyss is Eve Thornhill, Roger's wife. This is the identity she must take in order to survive.

Throughout North By Northwest, characters must assume false identities in order to accomplish what they want. However, each false identity must be killed in order for a true identity to form. George Kaplan must die so that Roger Thornhill can live. Lester Townsend cannot survive in the same world as Phillip Vandamm, and Eve Kendall was just a woman waiting for Eve Thornhill to come along. And each of these characters' lack of a true identity is represented in a different manner. Eve is equated with nothingness by juxtaposition, Vandamm uses fake names, and Thornhill is shown in the mirror as exactly what he pretends to be. However, when the picture ends, the two protagonists happily ride off in a train with each other and their identities. This is the archetypal Hitchcock story, showing people go through terrible ordeals to get what is most valuable to them, their identities. It has been used in other Hitchcock films, but never quite so effectively as in North By Northwest.

One of my first Hitchcokian experiences. The definition of the word 'Thriller'.