James' Talk

Raging Bull

As a De Niro and Scorsese fan I'm not sure why I'd waited so long to watch this masterpiece.

The 'warts and all' true life story middleweight boxer Jake Lamotta was a little drawn out, but held me from start to finish.

Superb performances by De Niro and Pesci and a fantastic transformation with De Niro as the older Jake.

VERDICT: A must see for all De Niro/Scorsese/boxing fans

Deja Vu

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. For some reason I was expecting something a lot less interesting. I think that is because I had read a review which said that the film is a little hard to follow. I did not find this to be the case at all. There are strong performances from Denzel Washington and (to a lesser degree) Paula Patton. In my opinion the movie also has a rather original take on the time travel concept.

The Illusionist

My second viewing and I enjoyed it even more this time around. Perhaps this was because I wasn?t comparing to ?The Prestige? and watched it as a film in it?s own right.

This is clever little mystery love story.

I wonder how many people have tried the trick they give away in the film?

Apocalypto

Visually stunning, mystically enlightening. Apocalytpo is a huge accomplishment for Mel Gibson and everyone involved in the making of this film, giving us the viewers, a chance to divulge into the history of the Mayan culture.

Some truly breathtaking shots and a real effort was made to keep this as authentic and realistic as possible.

This film will satisfy anyone?s curiosity into the way of life and survival of these people. Unspoilt and simple, yet action packed and real.

Ultraviolet

If you are looking to watch something with good dialogue and an interesting storyline, don?t watch this. However, if you are simply looking to be entertained by fairly decent action sequences, pretty cool special effects as well as delicious eye candy (Milla Jovovich for the guys and the SERIOUSLY scrumptious French vampire baddie for the girls) then this movie isn?t so bad :D

H6: Diario de un asesino (H6: Diary of a Serial Killer)

A unique story of a serial killer, the cover of the dvd says 'The Spanish answer to Hostel'. Although the film is based on Sadism and torture, the scenes (unlike Hostel) were left to the imagination at the last bit, however they are realistically done.

VERDICT: Personally I thought it was a really good film, but it won't be for everyone, not just because of the violence, but because of the sub-titles too.

Shooter

A very enjoyable action movie, a kind of Bourne Identity meets the Fugitive. I've finally forgiven Mark Wahlberg for his days as 'Marky Mark' and have at last accepted him as an actor. Consipiricy and Action, if you like that combination this film is for you.

Atonement

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...

Persepolis

"Fear lulls our minds to sleep."

2007 was a fabulous year for cinema, we've all come to that conclusion. That fact, however, becomes even more indisputable when we realize that, in one year, we didn't have just one animated masterpiece. Besides Persepolis there was also Ratatouille and Paprika. Now, I won't encourage comparisons, although I don't think there are much doubts left that Ratatouille will win the "Best Animated Feauture" Oscar, but, in my list, Persepolis takes the first place. I'm the first to admit that Brad Bird is an animation genius, in his own way. Pixar certainly deserves credit for creating such unique films, but the truth is that Persepolis is more than that, much more.



Art and cinema don't need to have a pedagogical or political mission. But sometimes they do. Persepolis' release time couldn't have possibly been better. In a time when, due to certain countries' personal interests and colossal misinformations, the word Iran is a reminder of things like nuclear weapons and axis of evil, this film arrives as a cultural textbook and eye-opening tool in the form of film on the history of a much misunderstood nation.

Persepolis, however, is much more than a history lesson. That part, I'd say, is like a bonus. Before that it's a very personal and intimate tale of teenage rebellion, revolution, war and tolerance. Based on illustrator and children's book author Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, first released in France in 2000, it tells Satrapi's life story, from her childhood in Iran to the moment she left her country and seeked a different future in France. It does this in half an hour, and does it always with the same amount of passion, style and coherence that many live-action films can only dream of.

Marjane is a Bruce Lee, Rock 'n Roll-loving 9-year-old girl when the story starts in 1978, just as the Iranian Shah is about to be overthrown. The horrors of his regime have oppressed her leftist intellectual family, but their hopes for a free society are dealt an even crueller blow when the Islamic Revolution's theological police state comes to power. Marjane's story then takes her into exile in Vienna, where, as a 14-year-old teenager, she befriends a group of nihilistic hippies and discovers love. First love (hilariously) and betrayed love (even funnier). Marjane finds in Europe a different kind of freedom and comfort, but also racism, loneliness and homelessness. She returns to Tehran in the 1980s for college, which meant putting on the veil again, finding a society where the few rebellions were small and unprofound and whose people had made peace with their fundamentalist masters by caving in. The chain-smoking rebel falls into a depression, then into a bad first marriage and finally, at 24, leaves her homeland for good and settles in France - where Satrapi now lives and works. Through all her adolescent and early adult torments, Marjane is counselled by her earthy, beloved grandmother, a wise, sophisticated and foul-mouthed mentor whose memorable, full-bodied personality belies her 2-D pen-and-ink profile.

This bare synopsis doesn't begin to convey the imaginative breadth of Persepolis, the richness of its characters, the wit with which it encapsulates a huge amount of historical detail or its breezy moments of pure genius, which include heavenly discussions between God and Karl Marx, Marjane's otherworldly advisers, her trips to the black market to buy Iron Maiden tapes hiding under her burqa or her "Eye of the Tiger" impersonation. Marjane might very well be (especially in the childhood/early teenagehood stages) one of the most adorable and easy-to-care-about characters I've ever seen in my life. One who'll give, I hope, Juno MacGuff a run for her money as the year's best teenage heroin, or at the very least, some competition.



It's practically an epic tale, filled with almost every kind of emotion - from irony to terror - you can possibly imagine. Yet, what really makes it work is not just Satrapi's brutal honesty while telling something as personal as her life story, but her simple, highly evocative drawing style. Working with top French animator Vincent Paronnaud, the author has created the motion picture equivalent of her black-and-white panels, which practically shimmer when projected onto the screen. (I've had the chance to go through both the first and second book when I was last in France, so I know what I'm talking about.) This stark palette is particularly effective during sequences of war and brutality, but every scene is suffused with a highly original graphic sense. Persepolis simply doesn't look like any other animated film you've ever seen before, because, in the end, it isn't like anyone of them.

The voice casting functions as a sort of tribute to Satrapi's adopted homeland: Chiara Mastroianni as the teenage and adult Marjane, Catherine Deneuve - Mastroianni's real-life mother - as Marjane's mum, Armenian descendent Simon Abkarian as Marjane's father and 89-year-old Danielle Darrieux, one of France's last surviving grande dames, as Marjane's beloved grandmother. An English-language version has been recorded with Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn and Iggy Pop, but it has yet to be released theatrically and may only surface on DVD. Thank-fuckin'-God! (apologies for the cursing)

To end this, let me just say that it's simply a joy to find old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation surviving into the present day. Technically, Persepolis can't compare to the modern pixel films. Artistically, it bloody shames them all! Satrapi and Paronnaud have created something rough-shaped and real, with a narrative authority that has fallen out of use in our pre-digested digital age. This, some say, is how you're supposed to tell a story - by bearing witness and refusing to skimp on the details. This is how you start a revolution. This is how you make art. A masterpiece!

4 Luni, 3 Saptamâni si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)

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.

Romeo + Juliet

Copycat

An original plot for a serial killer film and although it?s not exceptionally well acted, it is the plot in this one, that is the main focus of the film. The more you know of Serial Killers the more fascinating the storyline becomes, we see the investigation from a Detectives view, a victim?s view and an analytical view from a criminal profile.

This does happen to be one of my favourite watch over and over films, but that of course is my appeal with the subject matter.

Watch out for a very different looking Harry Connick Jr, who plays quite a quirky psychopath.

Film speeches:

The screams of the victim deaden his pain, the act of killing makes him feel intensely alive, what he feels next is not guilt, but disappointment, it was not as wonderful as he?d hoped, maybe next time it will be perfect and as his determination builds to take another life, he plans in obsessive detail what props he?ll bring, what knots he?ll tie.

American Gangster

This film is not for people looking for non-stop action, based on a true story, this lengthly drawn out film is only for those with the stamina to see it out to the end.

Admittedly if I'd seen this on dvd, I would have been tempted to quit watching after the first hour or would have at least watched it in two sittings. At the end of the film it leaves you feeling glad you saw it through and it is indeed a hell of a tale. My advice would be not to read too much abou the film before you see it.

Great performance from Denzel, but I have to say that it was Russell Crowe that shone for me.

VERDICT: A Brilliantly put together film for those who can last the distance

Mischief Night

Very impressed! For those of you who like the down to Earth, gritty British films such as those by Shane Meadows, you'll love this.

Excellently captured the goings on a big coucil estate (in this instance just happens to be Leeds). Forget the political correctness, this film works because it's real life demonstrated at a level not everybody gets to see. As well as being gritty it is both humourous and serious too.

VERDICT: A definite recommendation.

Derailed

Thoroughly enjoyed this from start to finish, good performances alll round, particularly from Vincent Cassel, but more shockingly, a good performance from Jennifer Aniston as a serious role.

I watched this film, knowing nothing about it and having not even seen a trailer and I'm glad, because I had no expectations of it and it left it unpredictable.

Death at a Funeral

Without a doubt the best laugh I?ve had all year! Alan Tudyk (Steve, the Pirate from Dodgeball) is my new hero! He is INSANELY funny as the hapless Simon who accidentally ingests a hallucinogen just before the funeral begins and what follows as a result absolutely had me dying with laughter! This movie is as much character as it is action-driven and is very well executed. Funny, funny, funny ? and then some!