Paul's Talk

Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime)

The Dark Knight

In my usual style with such big scale blockbusters, I waited until all the hype calmed down before viewing this film.



I am so pleased to say that Heath Ledger truly did give a great performance in this and the film and character weren?t just hyed because of the tragic circumstances. A fantastic opening scene, this film is packed with content from the storyline, the huge all star cast, to the impressive effects and it was no doubt a huge job of a film to bring together and one that was worthy of all it?s praise. Along with Batman Begins, both films have taken the Batman series to a much more realistic level (if that is at all possible?).



A personal high moment for me was the changing of (the ever so annoying) Katie Homes with the much more talented Maggie Gyllenhaal, with likeness noted.



Jack Nicholson put his mark on the original Batman movie some 20+ years ago and made a great Joker, Heath Ledger stepped up the role to recent times with a different but fantastic portrayal of the character.



Brilliant make up and the best Batman film to date.

Strella

A masculine movie in spite of the exceptional twist somewhere in the middle,Koutras is evolving,leaving behind aliens and bourgeois salons,there's simply a bohemian state of free-spirited individuals (with a fine sense of rhythm in the frame by frame observance of the social status) alongside the neglect for but also the casualty of "strange" people.
Orfanou playing the titular transsexual sparkles in her debut and Kokiasmenos presents a stiffed ex-inmate,beginning a chain reaction stretching to a (curiously enough) panegyric finale.

Je, Tu, Il, Elle (I, You, She, He)

Je: I am a man who wants to love a woman.
Tu: as in the second person who I'm responding to,and yet nothing is quite certain or as it was supposed to be...
Il: domineering,bipolar,strict,even truck-drivers get the blues!
Elle: fierce,emotional,witty,the artistic,carnal fulfillment for both sexes.
Result: ?
Argument: "Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men" Joseph Conrad

Black Sheep

What's Opera, Doc?

Delirious,blasphemous and yet ravishingly innovative!
Inspired by the likes of slapstick stars,musical numbers (did i forget to say the obvious William tell reference),there's not exactly a happy ending rather a diversion of functioned tragedy...and Mel Blanc drives the vehicle of lunacy!
Rossini would have loved this for sure.

The Informers

"The Informers" is a most curious film. Every time it seems to be going somewhere it inexplicably chooses to sabotage itself: the best scenes seem to end just when they are getting started, the worst scenes seem to take forever and there is a marked disconnect between the tone of the screenplay and the tone of the film. I was not at all surprised to find out that Bret Easton Ellis (poet laurerate of rich, bored, young, blonde, white, Reagan-era Los Angelinos), who co-wrote the screenplay, intended for it to be a vicious satire on 80s excess that bordered on farce while Gregor Jordan, the director, saw it as a portrait of dissatisfaction and urban alienation. This explains why much of the movie feels uncomfortably like parody taken at face value. What is worse, however, is that there are just enough glimmers of the greatness that could have been to make the experience of watching it twice as depressing.

The 1980's setting, key to the film, is very well rendered without being needlessly overbearing (despite some less-than-subtle references to the impending AIDS epidemic and name dropping Ronald Reagan). Beyond the fashion, architecture and music it is the hedonism and me-first philosophy that shines through. The film is also well cast (surely it can't be coincidence that Chris Isaak seems to be channeling Kurt Russell and other key performers tend to resemble Anthony Michael Hall, James Spader and Matthew Modine?) and beautifully photographed. Its funereal tone, aided in no small part by Christopher Young's magnificent score, manages to almost work much of the time and fully work some of the time (especially toward the end) despite being at odds with the screenplay.

Would the film have been better served by adhering to the author's original vision? I'm not sure. Bret Easton Ellis has made an entire career out of satirizing 80's excess while nostalgically pining for it. Much like Chuck Palahniuk he has proven to be little more than a one trick pony. As a result there is nothing new, fresh or even remotely original in his writing. The fact he wrote the film's key emotional scenes as parody should tell you everything you need to know about him. He complained that Mary Harron's adaptation of "American Psycho" was done entirely "in quotations" but I certainly can't think of a better phrase to describe his writing itself. Gregor Jordan's key mistake may not have been to deviate tonally but to not rewrite much of the screenplay to better support the tone he was going for.

As is, "The Informers" is a curious if sometimes interesting failure. I would certainly like to see an extended cut (41 minutes of footage were apparently removed for its theatrical release) since there is enough in here to pique my interest but I have a feeling the film crippled itself irrevocably sometime before production began.

Star Trek

There is an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that has been permanently etched into my mind since I was 10 years old. The Enterprise has been hailed by an ambassador from a race known as The Children of Tama. Previous interactions have led to the Tamarians being labeled as incomprehensible but Picard is confident that with enough care and attention he and his crew will be able to bridge the gap between both cultures. After the attempts prove futile, however, the Captain of the Tamarian ship kidnaps Picard and beams both of them, alone, down to the surface of a nearby planet. What the crew of the Enterprise at first believe to be a duel is eventually revealed as something much simpler and heartbreaking: the reason the Tamarians are incomprehensible is because their entire language is structured around metaphors from their own history and culture. The Tamarian captain, desperate to establish formal relations with other cultures, created a quest for him and Picard to embark in. By enduring adversity together for the sake of a common goal they would reenact a metaphor from Tamarian history (also common in human history, Picard even delivering an improptu summary of "The Epic of Gilgamesh" to his wounded co-Captain at one point) and leave as friends.

While I am not a Trekkie (I've never seen an episode of the original series, Deep Space 9, Voyager or Enterprise and only a handful of TNG) I have always admired Gene Roddenberry´s vision. In a genre so rife with dystopias, post-apocalyptic visions, urban decay and overall pessimism his idea of the future is perhaps our best case scenario: a universe where diplomacy, communication and acceptance are the predominant means of intercultural relationships. Starships in this universe aren't instruments of war but entire cultural centers with permanent populations in the thousands. What weapons they have are defensive in nature. They are at the service not of an empire but of a liberal democratic federation. Their policy is not one of conquest but of observation and noninterference. The voiceover which opens every tv episode says it all: "Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before."

J.J. Abrams is not a fan of "Star Trek". Even if he had not stated this publicly numerous times it would be blatantly obvious from his film. When he thought "Star Trek" he saw only flaws he needed to correct. As a result his film is loud, flashy, broad and action-packed from beginning to end. It is also almost entirely devoid of substance. Characters move from one loosely structured action scene to the next without so much as pausing to think. A "Star Trek" film where no one thinks? Welcome to the year 2009. He didn´t even include a sample from the original, haunting, iconic score!

I won't waste time discussing the numerous plotholes (what exactly did Nero do for 25 years?) or the film's uber reliance on cosmic coincidences (the meeting between Kirk and Spock on the surface of a particular planet is....unlikely....to put it gently) because every "Star Trek" film and episode has relied on them at one point or another. In a film that went out of its way to promote itself as a "new and improved" reboot for new generations, however, their presence is rather curious. I also must regretfully inform that in stardate 2258 product placement is alive and well: both Budweiser and Nokia make appearances here as do the Beastie Boys.

The shame of it is the film gets a lot of things very, very right. Most of the cast is spot on, for example. Chris Pine, who contrary to popular opinion, does slightly resemble a young William Shatner, is very well cast as James T. Kirk. While he is not given very much to do he does it well. Zachary Quinto looks quite a bit like Leonard Nimoy and makes for a decent, if not transcendental, Spock. Karl Urban, an actor I generall dislike, comes up with an impersonation of Deforest Kelley that is so spot on it is truly eerie. Eric Bana, as our villain, is underused and underdeveloped but mostly effective. The film also, wisely, expands the role of Uhura and maintains the ethnic diversity for which Roddenberry's universe has traditionally been known.

While the film is never boring and sometimes surprising (Urban's entrance gave me joygasms and the delivery of the line "I have no comment on the matter" by Spock made me giggle in no small part because I wasn't expecting them ) it is also almost entirely forgettable. The experience was enjoyable, certainly, but almost entirely hollow as well.

A series of inconsequential flashes, bangs, zooms, the end.

Milk

An extremely worthy tale to tell of the true story of Harvey Milk, Gay and Human rights activist turned politician during the 70?s in San Fransisco.

Yet another great performance from Penn and very Gus Van Sant to bring a controversial story to light.

This is a great awareness story and a legacy that will live on. It also acts as a metaphor for any type of minority, whatever that minority might be.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A slow paced film that has plenty of character. The poignant tale of Benjamin Button pulls at your emotions and brings you into the storyline. David Fincher has done it again with this original film and has a brilliant aging process in the characters, which looks exceptionally real of course helped along by the talents of Blanchett and Pitt and their great performances here.

Worthy of it?s praise, even if you don?t feel so until a little way through.

Gran Torino

Takes a little time to warm up, but getting close to the main characters is what this film is all about. The underlying hypocrocy is dealt with in a realistic manner with a whole back story which lets you understand where all the hurt and outlook comes from.

Perhaps Eastwood?s most deeply connecting film to date in terms of both the character he plays and in directing this film.

This is a film you cannot help but get emotionally pulled in to.

Worth all the praise and recommendations.

Naked Lunch

I have not read "Naked Lunch" but I know enough about it to feel confident in saying that David Cronenberg, one of my favorite directors, was not the right man to adapt it. Despite an intriguing premise, fantastic acting, a great score and an uncompromising approach it is an underwhelming experience, a brave and often effective but ultimately failed experiment.

There is a mortifying tendency to disparrage unconventional cinema as "fucked up", and to lump all "fucked up" films together in the same group, as if there is no appreciable difference between the films of Richard Kelly, Kenneth Anger and Alejandro Jodorowsky. As a bankable "fucked up" director, then, Cronenberg was the natural choice for a "fucked up" undertaking such as this. What prophets and pundits failed to realize is that the very tendencies and artistic flourishes that make his films "fucked up" would doom this marriage, perfect only in the most supercicial of levels, from the start.

Croneberg's entire body of work is based around the concept of body horror. His cold, clinical approach reveals a man who is terrified of the unpredictability of the flesh: it grows, decays, oozes, seeps, transforms, mutates and evolves without rhyme or reason. His films seem to argue that we are intellectual beings trapped in impractical, fleshly bodies over which we have increasingly less control and which will eventually revolt against us in the ultimate of betrayals: death. He approaches art much like a scientist would: he is observant and nonjudgemental. It is this very quality, along with the sharp, clinical feel that his films have as consequence, that makes them so frightening.

"Naked Lunch" is a film that takes place entirely in the mind. Our lead, an author experiencing writer's block, wanders through the "Interzone", a nest of spies, femme fatales and very bad men somewhere in the middle east. It becomes clear as the film goes on that he has brought himself to this (mental) state in order to come to terms with his own guilt at having accidentally killed his wife, his anger at her unfaithfulness, his crippling yet satisfying addictions and his latent homosexuality. This is material that cries to be set loose, to run wild, to move of its own volition into what crevices it finds. Cronenberg, however, is both unwilling and unable. He anchors it down to a classic structure and reduces the "Interzone" to a drunken and drug addled delusion. As an artist he must have logic, rhyme must follow reason and in this particular case where neither is called for his typically brilliant approach winds up gutting the film, robbing it of its potential beauty and power.

It is not surprising that the strongest set pieces in the film involve the flesh and body transformation. It is somewhat more surprising to find that Cronenberg's dispassionate manner works extremely well with the more noirish aspects that characterize the film's earlier sequences. Peter Weller, best known as Robocop, delivers a strong and complex performance. As detatched as Cronenberg is to the material our lead is to what is happening to his own body, and even his mind, often taking the role of passive observer through his own trials and tribulations. The supporting actors do the best they can under the circumstances, often being very effective, but the film's insistence on tying itself down takes many oppostunities away from them.

Kynigoi, Oi, (The Hunters)

Part III of A Trilogy of History by Theo Angelopoulos:

Wanna know what was Angelopoulos' intention with this film?Well,don't expect a straightforward reply!
According to the post-civil war feelings and terminal partition by the Papandreou democracy,the factual Rules of the Game and "America's" be-friendship are valid,but who yelled for any "foreign" aid?Maybe the film does circulate in a vicious historical trap,and here's how Theo achieves his scope,in a "we shouldn't care of any of the WWII results,we might as well have died by our own comrades a few years later" quota and alas,that small company,from past to future,looks as if hope was finalized by the regimes,the revolutions,the duplicate,governmental allusions...

The Travelling Players (O thiasos)

Part II of A Trilogy of History by Theo Angelopoulos:

Pure mysticism but requires a lot of patience.What Angelopoulos divides here is time and present history.Flash-forwards to the General's Regime (or should the Civil War be denominated like that?),the uninvited theatrical troupe merging in the seemingly confusing backdrop of Greece,a masterful touch of a timeline mixture,it's as if tragicomedy of chronology occurs where Golfo,the troupe's play is but the interlude in between the film's chapters.
For the love of Artemis,there's even sexual parallelism ala Oresteia tension!!!

Meres tou '36 (Days of 36)

Part I of A Trilogy of History by Theo Angelopoulos:

The particles of 20th century Greece being here,in an attempt to observe,spy and subsequently organize the scattered hopes of the ancient legends.Suffice to say Angelopoulos re-defines history as we know it,it's hilarious to find out underground schemes and corrupt authorities damaged a (non-existent) state of union!!!
That is,regardless of the politicians,ignorant of the prosperity of the state nor of the rebellious inmates,struggling for their voice to be heard against a totalitarian nation (Metaxas the "prime minister" was ready to rule with the 4th of August Regime),not even the main protagonist of the drama exaggerates.

Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo) (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea)

Best Movie of 2009 so far, You have never seen anything quite like Ponyo. Not as dark as Spirited Away but definately a comparable Miazaky Masterpeice! See it now.

Jian guo da ye (The Founding of a Republic)