Aloitetaan nyrpeästi. Näin festareilla kaksi dokkaria, joissa molemmissa oli mielenkiintoinen aihe ja jotka oli ryssitty ihan täysin paskalla toteutuksella: Yes Men ja Secret Glory. Yes Men sisälti paljon hauskoja tepposteluja, mutta minkäänlaista selkärankaa siinä ei ollut, ei elokuvana eikä dokumenttina. Jackass globalisaation vastustajille.

Secret Glory puolestaan todisti jälleen kerran, että asiasta voi tietää paljon ja silti olla sanomatta mitään. Kasa kohtauksia, vihjauksia, salaliittoja ja aivan kammottavaa kuvituskuvaa sai minut ensin uneliaaksi ja sitten vihaiseksi.

Sen sijaan Super Size Me ja La Pelota vasca. La piel contra la piedra olivat molemmat hyviä, joskin puutteellisia elokuvia. SSM:n ongelma on sen kapeakatseisuus, mutta toisaalta se enemmän kuin paikkaa moiset puutteet silkalla hyväntahtoisuudellaan. Spurlock on karismaattinen heppu, jonka toilailuja seuraa mieluusti. Jackassia pikaruoan vastustajille, siis.

Tissiohjaaja Lunan La Pelota vasca oli valtava pökäle, jonka sulattelu vaati hieman voimia. Sitäkin voisi moittia näkökulman puutteesta, mutta elokuvan lähestymistapana olikin kertoa kaikki Baskimaasta ja sen historiasta, ja siinä tehtävässä se onnistui mielestäni erinomaisesti. Alkupuolella vaikutti hetkisen siltä, että akateemikkojen puhuvat päät filosofisoisivat asioiden laidasta, mutta onneksi niin ei käynyt. Voimakkain kohtaus oli mielestäni kahden lesken – toisen mies vankilassa, toisen puoliso tapettu – haastattelujen ristiinleikkaus tavalla, joka kertoo inhottavan paljon terrorismin noidankehästä ja kuinka hankala siitä on päästä irti.

Weather Underground jumittui sitten erikoisella tavalla liian kattavan ja liian suppean välille. Katsoin kelloani siinä vaiheessa, kun elokuvassa puhuttiin Weather Undergroundin ensimmäisestä terrori-iskusta. Siihen pisteeseen pääsemiseen oli kulunut liki tunti. Vaikka taustatiedot vastakulttuurista, joka johti WU:n syntyyn, olivat varsin kiinnostavia, ne tuntuivat saaneen hieman liikaakin tilaa. Ainakin minulle jäi sellainen olo, että sain tietää taustoista paljon, mutta liikkeestä varsin vähän.

Hardware, I Inside ja Chik yeung tin sai olivat melko yhdentekeviä elokuvia tavalla tai toisella. Hardwarelle pitää nostaa hattua siitä, että valkokankaalle heijastettiin näyttäviä kuvia, vaikka budjetti olikin ollut ilmeisen pieni. Valitettavasti elokuvalla ei ollut mitään muita ansioita. I Inside on tätä mindfuck-genreä, joka on tehty Mementossa, Fight Clubissa ja Donnie Darkossa paremmin ja aikaisemmin. Mitään uutta ei siis ollut tarjolla. Ja Chik yeung… se oli tylsä honkkari-aktion jo ekalla kerralla.

Joten jäljelle jäävät vain Buongiorno, notte sekä festareiden päätöselokuva Diarios de motocicleta. Edellinen oli kauniin surumielinen kuvaus siitä, mihin eurooppalainen äärivasemmisto hulluimmillaan ajautui. Suomalaisen katselijan kannalta on sääli, ettei elokuva taustoittanut paljoakaan, mutta henkilökuvauksena sillä oli ehdottomasti hetkensä. Oli se kyllä pirun tylsä välillä.

(Hei, ainakaan en teeskentele olevani muuta kuin popkornin purija.)

Nuoren Chen toilailuista kertonut Moottoripyöräpäiväkirjat oli kaksijakoinen: Se sekä onnistui että epäonnistui. Road moviena se on komea, henkeäsalpaavan hieno kuvaus Etelä-Amerikasta sekä sen ihmisten kurjuudesta. Chen elämäkertana se on aika lattea, sillä Gaelin esittämä nuori lääkäri ei tunnu mitenkään liittyvän hahmoon, joka myöhemmin samosi pyssy kourassa pitkin maailmaa. Mutta jos unohtaa sen, elokuva on nautittava ja jopa koskettava.

When I find the time, I’m going to start penning more extensive reviews for our DVD blog. However judging by the amount of stuff I’m struggling with right now, that might be a while.

Enough chatter for now.

Dellamorte Dellamore

Wonderful stuff! Titties, zombies and weirdo social commentary. A must see.

Haine

Technically stunning with good acting from the leading trio and a message (that might be a tad simplistic but still important). Well worth seeing.

Lashou shentan

I’m speechless. A wholesomely silly gun ballad from Woo that’s quite enjoyable exactly because it’s so airheaded.

Ladykillers

The Coen bros’ downhill slide deepens. I’m sad.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Masterful work from Leone. Not a minute was wasted, not a square inch of screen real estate left unused.

Spider-Man 2

Better than the first, still overwritten at times.

Touching the Void

A real (in all senses of the word) survival story that combines bare-bones interviews with reenacments that add visual drive.

Safe

Why do the critics love Todd Haynes? Safe is okay but nothing to go wild about, if you ask me.

Rivières Pourpres

What a lousy carbon copy of Seven.

Invasions Barbares

A must-see. ’Nuff said.

Dummy

Jovovich is irritating as ever, the soundtrack is overwrought but still the movie holds some charm. Recommendable.

Gozu

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Producers

A real disappointment. I’m beginning to doubt if Brooks was ever funny.

Where Eagles Dare

A charming old school WW2 adventure romp with a powerful climax. Unfortunately the movie ends about an hour after that. A passable popcorn side dish.

Hafið

Impressive, beautiful, sad. Ignore Ebert, see this.

Out Of Sight

A career high for Clooney and Lopez. Not quite as enjoyable as Ocean’s Eleven, but then again the style’s quite different.

Backlog, backlog.

Houhokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun

If it’s Ghibli, it’s good. My motto still holds. The story of the Yamadas has a distinctive look that floats the movie even when the storyline falters. Not that there would be that much of a story anyhow; it’s mainly just thinly connected vignettes that sort of chronicle the life of an ordinary Japanese family.

However, it’s Ghibli and therefore damn good.

Smultronstället

I can value Bergman’s film as a character study. I’m not quite so sure I enjoyed it as a movie, though. All this probably means I’m a redneck who wouldn’t recognize a classy flick if it bit him in the ass (and my choice of words more than proves this), but I still find Bergman to be Tarkovsky’s equal ie. vastly overrated. Mighty fine artists, very boring filmmakers.

Siriuksen vieraat, Delegaatio

Matti Ijäs would definitely qualify as an auteur. He writes his own stuff, has a large oeuvre and a distinctive style. Plus I happen to like his movies, at least the ones I’ve seen.

Siriuksen vieraat was scripted by Arto Melleri of all people and unfortunately it shows – the whole thing is a bit of a mess, an artsy-fartsy semi-coherent story that doesn’t really gain anything from its would-be lyrical dialogue.

Delegaatio is a different story altogether. It’s funny, makes a point and isn’t too long. Quite simply it’s a damn-near perfect telemovie. Hilarious.

Scratch

How very, very boring scratching vinyl albums sounds like. And how very, very entertaining it can look. As a documentary Scratch really isn’t that special – the same things could’ve been told in a five-minute infomercial, but as timewaster the movie works. DJ Shadow and the other diggers, the unbelievable bodyrockers (or whatever it was called) and standard-fare keeping it real chitchat make this a nice romp into one of hiphop’s less appreciated footnotes.

Hotel Room

So even Lynch can fail at times. His segment in Hotel Room is just pure ellipsis. The second sequence in this ultra-cheap HBO teleplay is the best but that still isn’t saying much. Better steer clear of this one.

I’ve kept my pace lively this year, haven’t I?

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

I think my vomit is covering the telly. Horrible, lazy writing, no acting to speak of et cetera. Two thumbs down.

Zelig

Woody’s been enthralled by the possibilities of the medium and forgot to write a movie around them is my theory of Zelig. The retouched documentary footage looks absolutely real all the way through and this was ten years before Forrest Gump and CGI. There are some great lines in there as well but on the whole Zelig is very dissappointing, at least compared to Annie Hall.

One thumb up but sort of wiggling to the side.

Casablanca

Casablanca kicks ass. If you’re a cinematic neonate who has yet to see this masterpiece (just like I was not two years ago), what are you still waiting for? Casablanca is one of those classic movies that work on their own without the benefit of a doubt of their historical context which is a rare thing indeed. During a screening of Bronenosets Potyomkin I dozed off for some fifteen minutes and Metropolis was watchable only on fast-forward.

Not so with Casablanca. Did I already say that it kicks ass? Two thumbs up.

House of Sand and Fog

Excluding one poorly written supporting character and the perfunctory role of one family member – you’ll know what I’m talking about when her/his Big Scene lurches closer – this was one enjoyable tragedy, if that is not a contradiction in terms.

Say what you want about Sir Kingsley, but in my opinion his acting is always razor-sharp. House of Sand and Fog includes a few scenes that tread the fine line between genius and stupidity, and were it for a lesser actor, they would surely fall on the demented side.

Two thumbs up.

Dark Star

Spare me, no more! No more! Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me that Dark Star is a total and utter turkey? We’re talking Battlefield Earth grade-of-awfulness here. Even thinking about Dark Star is making my head ache.

Two thumbs down (or if you’re in an appropriate frame of mind, two thumbs up).

Troy

Of the two early summer fx movies, Troy was easily better. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean much TDAT being the reference point. So the dialogue is clunky, reminescent of Legolas’ mindnumbing elven anecdotes in the LotR movies (wonder why that popped into my mind). And the acting is, well, uhm… I mean this is Brad Pitt we’re talking of. Brian Cox is actually quite fun to watch, as he goes into his best evil ruler mode, which is pretty good. I mean he’s evil in an enjoyably over-the-top way.

The trailers have been trying to sell the movie on it’s epic scale. So there are a thousand ships and tens of thousands of men, but the battles don’t really deliver. There’s just too much stuff going on with too much rapid-fire editing. What the movie really shines in, however, are the duel scenes. Excellent swordplay choreography, imaginative cinematography and wonderful use of sound perfectly capture and convey the feeling of being beaten with a heavy sword.

The runtime (163 minutes) is just a bit too much but still doesn’t feel quite as long as I’d expected. Obviously the movie is full of factual errors, but as the phrase in IMDB explains, It is our policy to exclude differences between films and their source material as goofs. Then again nobody goes to see a Hollywood actioner and expects historical accuracy, right? Right?

I’d give it at least one thumb up.

Swimming with Sharks

The movie has three things going for it: Kevin Spacey as an asshole executive (my fav line must’ve been You’re happy. I hate that!), the setting (movies about moviemaking or – in this case – Hollywood are interesting a priori) and the surprise ending.

On the other hand, the dialogue gets a bit on-the-nose at times and the whole torture thing was a bit silly. Please do tell me in which order you, dear reader, would perform the following acts of cruelty? a) Cutting someone’s hair so that his receding hairline shows, b) inflicting paper cuts on the tongue and c) throwing various spices (think mace) on that same someone’s face, including his eyes?

I thought so. In the movie they go for c, a, b. A minor complaint, I know, I know, but it still bugged me. As a movie critic it is my prerogative to pick all the nits I see fit.

In any case I’m holding my final judgement until I see Altman’s The Player. One thumb up.

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Brilliant stuff. Solondz is master of the uncomfortable, which actually means that his vision of the world is acute and he isn’t afraid of poking the sores to find out what’s causing the pain. The movie has so many things going for it. For one the acting is adamant and considering that the protagonists are all kinds, it’s all the more amazing. The scenes with the little sister just dancing around in her tutu are perfect and need absolutely no dialogue.

The only thing I can complain about at all would be the parent’s one-dimensionality. I mean I don’t expect them to turn around actually care about Dawn but they could’ve had at least one other personality trait.

Three thumbs up!

Did we lose them? You sure? Okay, let’s just lie low for a while.

Human Nature

Oh how much I would’ve wanted to like Michel Gondry’s first flick! Oh how easy it should’ve been, given that it’s scripted by Kaufman. Alas, it was not to be.

For some reason the movie just doesn’t cut it. The unmistakable visual flair is there, the eccentric script is in place, the acting isn’t bad, but still the film doesn’t come together. At times it feels a bit contrived (Just a bit? I hear you ask) while still not crossing the border to fantasyland. The ever-present Kaufmanian theme of identity is once again meddled with but with no great results. Maybe the movie lacks one more act, maybe Gondry and Kaufman are fallible. Who knows? Well worth seeing though, only don’t expect miracles.

Oh shit! Blow out the floodlight right now and make a run for it!

Kukushka

Excellent cinematography! Lapland might’ve never looked this good before. The storyline is interesting also, if for nothing more than avoiding the easiest cross-cultural communication breakdown jokes (see Lost in Translation). Prime quality movie making.

It’s the Feds! Get to the car, quickly now or we’re done for, Jake!

Wizard of Oz

Hard to see how this movie could’ve become a gay classic. It’s also very hard to decide whether the production designer was really really into kitch or just very drunk. If you have to see this, just use fast forward – you’ll see the sets and won’t have to suffer any of the dialogue or the acting.

Put the pedal to the medal like your life depended on it now!

Ultimo tango a Parigi

I’m torn. Torn between taking the piss and praising. I mean, Brando’s acting is fabulous, no doubt about it. The cinematography is just stunning, both outdoors (hell, you’d have to be really lousy to make Paris look bad on film) and indoors (what a great crappy apartment). The jazzy score is excellent as well.

But then again… at times the dialogue is just horrible, horrible artsy-fartsy crap. At times the music just comes up for no apparent reason. At times, like pretty much whenever Antoine Doinel appears on-screen, the acting is irritating as hell. And who the fuck thought of the lame-ass ending? (Don’t bother writing in to tell it was Bertolucci himself.)

The sexual explicitness probably doesn’t feel as naughty as it once was, as hardcore porn surrounds us 24/7. But a flawed masterpiece is a masterpiece nevertheless.

Watch out, they got a helicopter! Turn left here, turn left now or we’ll crash!

Butterfly Effect

A flat pancake. A pancake that looks really promising in the oven but implodes under its own weight once you pull it out. That’s what this picture is like.

First things first: Kelso Kutcher does a fine job here, if you can call whatever it is that present generation of stand-ins does acting. The script is pretty clever, but unfortunately fails to deliver anything after the first few punches. All the loose ends are taken care of in a way that insults the viewer’s intelligence, but then again this is standard Hollywood fare, so we really don’t get to complain, do we? Save your euros.

Jake, are you awake? Wake up, Jake! Jake, we have got to make a stand right here, right now!

Wu jian dao

The best new thriller I’ve seen in quite a while. The first half hour is superb and most of the following 90 minutes don’t drag either. The movie’s theme is de facto HK cop stuff, what with mixed loyalties and disguised identities. All the female characters are underdeveloped but that’s the norm in a patriarchate, innit? Looks brilliant as well. All in all, Infernal affairs has deserved its reputation fair and square.

Jake, talk to me. Jake, say something! Jake, don’t you fucking go dying on me, not now you fucker!

The Blob (1988)

I remember reading somewhere that slasher movies’ teenage audiences in the US used to cheer the monsters rather than the would-be protagonists. I certainly recognized the trait in myself whatching this remake. It’s obvious from the word go that most of the cast is going to get butchered, so guessing who lives isn’t really the main source of pleasure, however seeing how the costars get shafted is titillating. The old-school stop-motion animation of the blob is also strangely entertaining at times. Popcorn fodder (though my choice of snacks was tortilla chips, dip sauce and Pepsi Max).

You bastards! You shot at him! Take this and this! Die, you pigs!

Sin noticias de Dios

The best bit of this movie is undoutably the testosterone-dripping walk of Penelope Cruz. Unfortunately that bit, however great is it inself, isn’t enough to buoy this flick. Well, the acting is quite enjoyable overall, but the theme of fighting over a man’s soul never really goes anywhere and besides Kevin Smith already did a fine piece of Catholic nitpicking in Dogma.

Jake, I’m hit! It’s… so… cold…

FADE TO BLACK.