Possibly everyone knows that William Gibson wrote a screenplay for what was supposed to become the third movie in the Alien franchise. What I did not know was that the whole production was troubled from day one and had more writers attached to it than is usually considered healthy.

A researcher called Sue Clayton has allegedly discovered the way to make perfect hit movies. One thing about this story looks a bit weird, tho. Well okay, several things, but especially this one. If the perfect movie has 10% of special effects, how can she claim that Toy Story 2 fits the bill? I mean come on, that’s one long special effect.

It seems like once you get started with Kirk Douglas, you can never stop. I’m watching Brian De Palma’s The Fury, starring Mr. D. This time around he’s not wearing leather or furs, he’s wearing trunks! Rolling around in sand with another man (his son), jumping from hotel windows, shooting traitorous people with an assault rifle, the works. Amazing. (Though the movie is P&S, which is weird considering that last week’s Soylent Green wasn’t.)

The founder of Easyjet is going to apply the same method into cinemas. From the Guardian article titled ’There could be a fight’:

Here’s how it will work. The pricing structure will begin at 20p. You will log on to easyCinema.com. There you will find three options. You can either select the movie that you want to see – and find the dates on which you can see it, and at what price – or you can select the day on which you want to visit the cinema, and find out what you can see on that day, and for what price. Or you can come to the site with a budget of, say, 50p, and find all the shows that you can see for 50p or less. It’s a very seductive method.

Brazen promotion of this one business aside, this looks like a good idea to me. Haji-Ioannou has clearly thought the process out (where to cap prices, how steep the pricing curve should be, what are the biggest liabilities, how to legally force the distributors into co-operating etc) and deserves his shot at fame. I only hope he can get it to work, so we all could enjoy cheaper movies in the future. I’m sure Helsinki could support one of these theaters; after all, there’s already a few art house cinemas there.

A touching movie. A cruel, yet still life-affirming movie. A movie about Sarajevo. Welcome to Sarajevo, directed by Michael Winterbottom, is all that and more.

Basically this is a story of Sarajevo, although the first half of the film concentrates on the way foreign journalists face daily life in the besieged city. Gradually the focus shifts onto the citizens themselves, as we are introduced to old people dying in indiscriminate attacks, young men trying to make a living any way they can, helpless babies being born into this world without a choice, random executions, people chosen for slaughter because of their names – all the horrors are shown unflinchingly.

Last year’s Oscar winner, No Man’s Land, tread similar ground but I prefer Winterbottom’s version. The powerlessness of the onlookers, the guilt, the suffering are all there on the silver screen. The viewer is forced to confront the issues, and no easy answers are provided. As Woody Harrelson’s reporter says: Welcome to the 14th worst place on Earth.

The movie shows Winterbottom experimenting with mixing drama and documentary, using actual news footage in the middle of reconstructed situations. The combination works well, as the horrors of reality cannot ever be really conveyed by fiction. Winterbottom went on to fine the technique later on in 24 Hour Party People which mixes the two seamlessly.

Based on a real story – those dreaded words – and made by outsiders, Welcome to Sarajevo manages to overcome those obstacles and is easily one of the most important movies of 1997 (the year of La Vita é Bella) and obligatory viewing for everyone.

Rating: € € € €

I just happened to notice that American Psycho 2 is directed by, gasp, Morgan J Freeman. I sure hope that the J is significant. (Can’t check it out right now as I haven’t got net access.)

Janne once noted that Spartacus is an excellent movie, all the more so because it features Kirk Douglas clad in leather. By that token I’m sure he’d enjoy Vikings, a fine pseudo-historical adventure romp in which Mr. D dons a fur coat and some nasty looking leather leggings. On a more sordid note, it is quite remarkable that he plays a character with a scarred face and nasty character – quite unusual for a big movie star in his age, or indeed any age.

On the other hand there’s a really alarming scene in Striptease where Demi Moore’s character’s daughter sees her stripping, erm, dancing in the club stark naked. I just hope that the scene was actually put together in the editing room, for no one under 18 should be subjected to Ms Moore’s naked body. Come to think of it, most of the time it would be good to steer clear of her even when she’s dressed.

Three Kings seemed better the other time around, especially now that I knew more about the circumstances in Iraq during the end of the first Gulf War. Now the film seems almost prophetic, but of course it already had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight (it was only made in 1999).

How many films in the IMDB Top 100 have you seen? I counted 62 (possibly a couple more: I’m not sure about Duck Soup, The General and Seven Samurai. Yes, I know) with some serious deficiencies, more so with older flicks. (Courtesy of Asmunder.)

From the Independent on Sunday Review 11.5.2003, p. 28:

The man next to me laughs all through the movie – can he be imagining the same thing? I think not, but he must be one of those people who have to make their derision or approval loudly known to the rest of the audience. This is especially annoying in foreign films, when people grunt or snort their appreciation of the French with nanoseconds before the subtitles have come up.

I thought that it’s quicker to scan the subtitles than to listen to the dialogue, and therefore I’ve held back my loud acknowledgements until the precise moment of the utterance. Yes, I am an annoying person.