Stella's Talk

Avatar

This is clearly a movie to be watched in the cinema, with all visual achievements it has to offer. It's in a league above all other in visual effects. I watched it last night in 3D, and I has to say, WOW. James Cameron has done a awsome movie again, cant wait for Battle angel in 2011. In Avatar we are in the year 2154, as we follow Jake who is selected in the Avatar program where he has to go to the Pandora jungle, where he meets the Na'vi people. This is a humanoid race with their own culture not like the one mankind has it. This movie draws parallels to what happens in the world today.

Robin and the 7 Hoods (Robin and the Seven Hoods)

A face-off between two Chicago prohibition mobsters at its core, the movie is soaked to the brim with the suave and verve of the sixties and the unforgettable rat pack. Excpect off-the-wall and someimes quite explicit one-liners when Dino & Co let their charm ooze of the screen. While some musical numbers feel very much pushed into place, as soon as the boys start singing in duets or triplets, old school magic happens and it is a delight to see numbers featuring Frank, Dean & Bing performing together. Peter Falk shows why he is severely underrated, especially when it comes to campy comedy. The female actrors make for a nice decoration, I guess that fits a movie by the Boys Club that was the late Rat Pack.

Judgment at Nuremberg

Very intelligent approach to the responsabilities after WWII, mainly because it does not try to judge the main leaders, but the men who were just obeying orders or making their jobs. Also some arguments have been explored frequently, others are quite new or expressed in an original way, and shows the complexitiy of the arguments. It makes a good job describing the political circumstances of the moment and how they affect to the judgment (and, as well, how the judgement affected Germans). Great actings from Burt Lancaster (specially) and Maximilian Schell, maybe some of the bests I have ever seen -by the way, Montgomery Clift was very good, I don´t remember, what of my Flixster friends told me she was an enormous fan of him?, I don´t remember, and I would like to know-. The main faiulure of the film is not combining in the correct proportion the judgement and extra-jugdgement stories, what would have improved the story (for example, although Marlene Dietrich makes a good role, they don´t make the most of her, as a enormous actress she is), and also a problem of rhytm -it has moments of climax and anticlimax, but doesn´t seem to arrive to a directed peak, and story apparently lacks of a rhytmical continuity. In any, very good work, mainly if you take under consideration the difficulty of the issue, that makes some fails be exonerated. The end, by the way, satisfies me as a conclusion, including all the different arguments you can expose against it.

Elektrokohle (Von wegen) (Off Ways)

November 9th, 1989. The berlin wall is down..? Physically yes. Mentally no. There is still border control and stasi operational. The public is confused, some to the point of disbelief.
Follow Einstürzende Neubauten's trip, when they're finally allowed to play in east berlin, through border checkpoints and into east berlin to play for a marginalized youth that so far had to settle for smuggled cassettes with Neubautens music. Follow them into a place of neglect and discontent.
And then see the same places, the Elektrokhole factory that made the stage, and interviews with the concert goers all 20 years later. Do you think it's all good now? Do yourself a favor, if you like the band, if you're historically interested or if you just want to see a really good documentary and see this one.

The Desperate Hours

A dense cat and mouse game featuring old Bogart, still pulling it off, maybe not as menacing as he could have, but it is his charcters rogue-like ambiguity that carries the movie. A hostage drama at its core, the movie features a many characters and depicts their conflicting interests. Of course, the increasing tension between the captors and the glooming disaster is what fires up the heat of suspense. Very good. HX

Extract

The casting is perfect. Bateman, Kunis, Wiig, and even Affleck all superb.
The stage is well set and there are some truly hysterical moments, but we are left in tepid running water here and I just don't know why.
"Office Space" was pure comedy genius with both "in your face" comedy and subtleties that have made it a classic.
"Extract" had some serious potential with the casting and premise as well as some of the gags, but the execution and pacing were just not there.
Some of the scenes just drag on and on long after the laughter is gone (see stoner sequence).
Still, there were enough "laugh out loud" moments that I wanted to see more.
I read an interview with Mike Judge who spoke about this film which he wrote a long time ago and only now got to make it as he wanted to make it so long ago and I am wondering where that vision went.
Some fantastically funny moments, some great comedic acting/timing and some really wasted potential for a superlative comedy.
Good movie. Definitely watch it, but I had hoped for more.

(500) Days of Summer

When an indie film receives as much hype as this one had one gets set to be a bit disappointed. In this case, one would be wrong.
Swimmingly excellent in every aspect this film was just a delight to watch.
We are told from the word "go" how this film will end and usually that is a pitfall, but in this case it leaves us wondering where the trail will lead as we weave in an utterly un-chronological fashion through our lead's recall of the relationship.
Isn't that how it really goes though? Never from 1 to 100 (or in this case 500), but snippets that get us from here to there. We remember the most recent and then perhaps insight into the middle and back to the start an then somewhere else in between. Some people might find this vehicle trite, but I feel it was very well done.
In fact, many vehicles are drawn upon to make this marvelous story work. Time, black and white, musical numbers and dance. We even get a little Fellini on you, but they all work. They are a perfect depiction of how perception takes hold and love holds sway to tell the story rather than having us believe the reality which is what our lead must eventually come unto if he is to walk away in one piece...maybe even wiser (if not too jaded) than he was before.
Fantastic performances by Joseph Gordon Levitt (Tom) and Zooey Deschanel (Summer) both of whom never disappoint. Levitt came into his own in my opinion in "The Lookout" and "Brick" and continues his great performances in great films here. Deschanel, ever the stunning, velvet-eyed Goddess, is perfect in her part as the independent, smart, beautiful woman that we all want, but, as she tells us from the start...we cannot have. That is just the way she feels and she never professes otherwise. She is not the product of some bad mix of emotional baggage she simply is as she is with no apologies.
Watch this as soon as you can and go with it...it will take you places you have been before if you are honest with yourself. Summer was.