MarkAngel

Again, it's David O'Russel that saves this clumsy fairy tale. The cast was OK although i find Bradley Cooper and Jenifer Lawrence very annoying and not interesting in general. I even felt real chemistry between Bale and Adams (and Adams was sooooo beautiful in this film).

It's hard not to admire when they make a movie so formally perfect. Inspecting the darker aspects of being gay, harmoniously tangling desire, lust, danger and death while building on Aristotelian's unity of space and time, the director has crafted a composition nothing short of majestic. Yet, the film remains remote and distant and overly intellectual with obscuring symbolic aesthetics (which gets even more confusing as the film progresses), failing to provide any fresh perspective for personal interpretation. This inevitably will result in some silly readings of the film .

To paraphrase," what do you do when you have so much money that you don't know how to spend them?"...Well you make a movie like this one. Everything here is meaningless and irrelevant. The Wolf is rare thing. Probably the worst movie Scorsese has made to date.

Well, it's about how technology helps us to disconnect from others and reality by connecting to our own reflections. Because that's what Samantha is, a mere reflection of Theodore. It is also the best movie of 2013. However, it did remind me a lot to Black Mirror series.

The obscure magnum opus of one of the greatest. Kaleidoscopic puzzle of uncompromising beauty. Unsettling experience that lingers on you. A true masterpiece.

The performances are great. However, I can't say the same thing about the way the subject matter is treated and presented. At times it felt embarrassingly over inflated, surreal and at some points, like a fairy tale. I think they tried to squeeze to much emotion in less than two hours. I've definitely seen more decent and way better movies about child abuse.

A true example of really good film-making. However, what carries this movie are McConaughey's and Leto's performances. They are simply marvelous. Can't remember when was the last time I've been so astonished.

I haven't read nor seen the play, but this thing was way too depressing. The acting should probably be regarded as superb (especially Meryl and Julia) although at some points overwhelmingly difficult to handle. Nevertheless, i enjoyed the dinner scene a lot.

The premise is not especially original nor inventive. Nevertheless, by the end of the third hour, La Vie d'Adele marvelously and bitter-sweetly becomes singular cinematic experience that feels profound in its essence. It avoids tedious detailing of events, people, circumstances, complex narratives or character studies. Instead, it focuses on simple and meaningful themes such as youth, self acceptance, love, sex, loneliness, lost and dealing with the sorrows of solitude. The juxtaposition between life and intimacy achieves greatness here.

I've always had mixed feelings about this film. Although hailed as masterpiece and regular darling of the art house lovers, to me it's just a little bit messy, chaotic and pretentiously involved piece. The main problem as it seems to me is that, Kubrick here addresses issues of deeply political nature without clearly specifying his ideological perspectives, resulting in ambiguous and confusing work. Now the ambiguity might be welcomed in ethereal and metaphysical meditations such as "2001" but when targeting the political as he does here, it is irritating. Or, as Mr. Ebert said, "The Clockwork Orange" is ideological mess.

It is movie made to be enjoyed. And that's all you really get. Pure, extraordinary, exquisite, pop entertainment. "Gravity" is more like industry statement and a proof that by combining advanced technology and a decent, smart story and script (shown to work very well a lot of times before), Hollywood can still make movies that excite us.

I like dark movies. But saying that "Shame" is dark doesn't make justice to it. I loved "Shame" because it's poetically dark and not just that. It is poetically dark in the right way, the Baudelaire way. And Sissy is "La fleur du mal" with a scent too strong for Brandon. After all, she is his sister. It can't get simpler than that. And that is just disturbing! Intimate, personal and hopeless decent into the deep darkness of men's weak hearth.

Bizarre, twisted, absorbing and marvelous, yet, incomparable with his recent work. Nevertheless, La Piel que habito is completely enjoyable and entertaining.

Masterpiece.

Incredibly fine movie made by one of the few remaining Gods of contemporary film making. The Ghost Writer is a triumph of atmosphere.

I had a problem with its symbolic aesthetics, since it rarely provides opportunities for self-reflective projection. However, it can't be denied that this is beautiful trademark work of the master who made Satantango.

Wonderful, small and sad but enjoyable. These ordinary people may even provide the viewer with self-reflective thoughts.

I didn't enjoy it. Not for a single second. Extremely depressing and confusing! I can not say if it is overrated or not (maybe i'm missing something about this movie, maybe i'm not) but with all my sincerity, i must admit i didn't like it.

Masterpiece.

"Spirited Away" is the mountain high, the kind of movie we all wish to be able to make. The honest sensibility, gentle and simple storytelling that reincarnates on-the-fly into states of being beyond imagination-all of that supported by amazing yet nostalgic hand-drawn animation constitute one of the most important aesthetic achievements of the 21-th century.

Inexplicably fine film. A monumental ideological concept elaborated with calligraphic punctuality. Dogville established Lars von Trier as one of my favorite filmmakers of all time.

For better or for worse, (probably) there shall never be another film like Antichrist.

It is what a contemporary drama film should be: carefully paced, slowly revealing, supported by strong performances and effective score. However, it lacks deeper and much more involved analysis of the problem especially since the story is based on actual events. The film barely elaborates on the issue presented. This means that, besides some questions arising at the very end, the film and most of the time relies on depiction and the potent shock value such visual suggestions contain.

Holy Motors, all of a sudden contained much of what i like and don't like about movies. It was carefully paced, insanely weird, exceptionally visionary and courageous, largely experimental, ultimately disturbing. All in all, surprisingly good surreal dreamscape. But it also frightened me and sometimes its sadness was overwhelming and unbearable. With all of its surrealism, it still felt as a realistic intrusion and exposure of my own little live and privacy. It was like we all live on the stage of a singular theater, from day to day, from second to second playing our self, acting that we have control over our self, pretending to be free, when in fact we aren't even allowed to go backstage for a minute to take some rest. It haunted me.

Sad, odd and viscerally beautiful film about the act itself and the aftermath of child molestation. A film about how profoundly such experience can affect the free will, the choices the victims make later in their life and ultimately the constitution of their personality. Is there a lesson to be learned here? With all the uncompromising depiction and dialogue all over the place, i really doubt that. All that you are left with is the wish that you yourself were able to change the past of these poor souls. Trust me, that implausible and irrational wish will linger on you for days just like some mysterious skin.

Superbly crafted, The Master is the ultimate contemporary Avant-garde film. The complexity of the story and the lack of dramatic coherence and unity, combined with richly colored cinematography, Greenwood's brilliant score and Anderson's nearly unprecedented artistic talent rich in philosophically adventurous and thematically exploitative spirit, makes The Master a layered statement against conventional narrative and determined resolution. Therefore, it sustains its marvelous and enigmatic opacity and many may find it very difficult to deal with it. Nonetheless, even those who find it difficult to digest Anderson's lack of transparency and non-eventful story, should be able to find a lot to enjoy in, e.g. the masterclass performances. Besides the grand aesthetic values, the film also explores themes such as post-war American society, its psychological, emotional and moral structure, the western's world principles of freedom and the conflicting yet absorbing authority of the master, the loss, weirdness, sadness, mental illness, belief, accompanied with suggestive philosophical ideas such as the impossibility of reconstructing and ultimately, facing one' s past.

The expectations were overwhelmingly high by any standard and the expectations seemed very unrealistic and unfair. At least that's what I thought weeks before I saw it early in August. Back then, i actually felt sorry for Nolan and the huge amount of responsibility he has imposed on him self by making The Dark Knight. But saying that TDKR simply does not deliver is a lie and i've never been so disappointed in my life. What this film delivers is almost 3 hours long tedious and messy melodrama, full of standard cliches, traditional sentiment and clumsy characters.

Although i usually like to troll directors inert to stylistic changes and evolution, W. Anderson always manages to sneak up. And now, i must confirm that Moonrise Kingdom is an extra quality piece of Anderson's craftsmanship.

Just a little bit above the average. It's quite enjoyable, funny and likable and the performances are strong. I personally think that D.O'Russel's direction is what makes this lemonade so respectable. Still, even with the strong direction and catchy soundtrack, the screenplay, the dialogue and the whole atmosphere felt plastic and exaggerated and non-believable. And personally, I don't like how this fairy-tale depicts bipolar and depressed people. Oh, and is the Solatano family really dysfunctional? I never noticed that.

Bigelow's new film is an example of (what it seems to me) a new trend, new wave for the American film production. It is about time for some things to start to change! ZDT is not pretentious moral story carefully crafted and polished to be liked by large infantile and sterile audiences! ZDT is not a compromise and it is not conclusive, it doesn't make it's own statements, it doesn't provide quick and false answers and it doesn't take moral stand behind what it depicts which is by my opinion its greatest strength. This is not sterile work like many amusement-seeking moviegoers and "eminent" journalists wished it to be! Are Boal and Bigelow to be blamed that these consumers won't be able to see Maya's chin and nose up in the air as the proud motherf**ker who killed bin Laden? NO!!! And what they get at the end? Only Maya's tears! ZDT is intellectually challenging work of art, meant to trigger conversation, to provide options. It insists that people should be able to build their own opinions about what they see. I completely understand that some of those opinions may not be positive, i get that. But claiming that ZDT with all of its ambiguity is just a propaganda or that it glorifies torture, is desperate, outrageous, conservative and shameful backlash! As a cinematic experience it is thrilling, dark, mournful, strange and uncompromisingly beautiful! As an artistic achievement I see it as ingenious polemical statement against the Hollywood based dis-empowerment of the spectator! As a screenplay and dialogue, it is a work **** since it provides the audience with political ambiguity and ambivalence. As a film, it is probably one of the greatest American films ever made. Thank you Bigelow and thank you Boal for this bold masterpiece.

The movie lost me at the end of the first hour. And I couldn't care less about that! I simply relaxed and let the plot, the haunting but sad characters, the over-complicated narrative to lead me. Accompanied by wonderful but sad score, ever confusing dialogue, non-coherent gorgeous cinematic sequences and over the top performance by the daring P.S. Hoffman, at times you may be able to make the ends meet, but that's so unnecessary. I don't need to "understand" this film. I feel it. The movie refuses to offer you consistency and dramatic coherence. Yes, you are free to build it your self but that's also unnecessary. Kaufman's messy directorial debut is definitely not the work of genius, that's for sure. Even better, it is the work of rare surrealist and storyteller. In a world in which Lynch refuses to make another film (for now), Synecdoche is a welcoming work that will surely satisfy your appetite for deeply emotional nothingness.

Well, as expected, it exploits the Southern American history in the most abusive, offensive and disrespectful way: by creating entertainment and amusement out of it! But, considering the history of American film production that doesn't come as a surprise to me. Just think of the grand Schindler's List! Other than that, the film is classic Tarantino and as disrespectful as might sound I really enjoyed it (blushing)!

I'll use it as a reference whenever i need to remember about the vast and overwhelming nobility a single movie can attain. In one of the strongest cinema years in my recent memory, Beasts of the southern wild stands as one of it's finest!

Arguably, the finest movie i've seen this year. Being as close to a masterpiece as a single movie can get, this uncompromising, gently quiet piece of art, masterfully purged from any form of sentimental glitch and kitsch, treats its audiences with unbelievable dignity and respect (which is so rare in the contemporary cinema), it poses the main questions and gives indefinite and countless frameworks for answering them. In the same time it tends to be "the ultimate horror movie". The repetitive disturbances and interruptions of the music which becomes it's leitmotif, the nightmares, the stares into the void, the pigeon and ultimately, its treatment of love and death in the context of George and Anne, make "Amour" even more disturbing then "The Seventh Continent".

Yes, it did have enough visuals and mesmerizing cinematography to fascinate and rock to the very core the target group of people for whom this movie was made and heavily advertised. But to me, it's just another multi million dollars disappointment. Actually, the movie was so unexpectedly (considering the director) goofy and clumsy at some points, i felt fascinated by the fact that such screenplay has been approved by a major studio. Probably it wouldn't have fared far at the box office if it wasn't for the viral marketing campaign.