Movie 43

Just a horrible film. Several sketches which attempt to be funny but fail miserably. The plot tries to be politically incorrect, but quickly degrades into bad tasted jokes. The only truly hilarious bits are the first three - the rest just calls for epic facepalm. The jokes tell volumes about a particular lack of sense of humour of screen-writers, and I cannot see how any actor, however brilliant, would possibly be able to pull of a decent performance.

Well, at least they actually do enjoy it, as is obvious from the closing credits. Hugh Jackman plays his part nicely, as does Kate Winslet. The rest of the cast is failing miserably, and it is a shame to see so many good actors in such a failure of a movie-making.

Do not waste your time on this, unless you want a revenge on your girlfriend who forced you to watched Twilight.

1/5

Arbitrage

Arbitrage has solid plot: the story about tough life of high-flying financier entertains. The rich also cry! It remind me of Wall Street 2, but without much of the fluffy staff about good people and worthy causes. Graydon Carter, by the way, played in both movies. The development of the story is grievously slow though, with only a couple of nice unexpected plot turns. Some of the scenes are simply brilliant, like the negotiation in the cafe with Mayfield.

Richard Gere is back into shape; well, he is in a better shape here than he was in Movie 43. Tim Roth plays Lightman again, but still delivers! Funny enough, Monica Raymund is there too.

Overall, smart movie that does not attempt to paint bankers as idiots. 

3/5

Django Unchained

Former dentist, Dr. King Schultz, buys the freedom of a slave, Django, and trains him with the intent to make him his deputy bounty hunter. Instead, he is led to the site of Django's wife who is under the hands of Calvin Candie, a ruthless plantation owner.

There exist certain features which, if found in a movie, point out that the director is Quentin Tarantino. You can always tell the Tarantino film apart from the rest – he is absolutely unique in what he is doing. He is in love with films of 80’s and 90’s; he devotes a lot of time to the work with camera, and he is able to mimic the camera work of almost any era he wishes to; his characters are charismatic and memorable; he loves to think that he films the advertisement of Heinz ketchup by the looks of the amount of blood that is spilled. But most important of all are the dialogs – you will never find this kind of dialogs in a movie by other directors. They can be empty in substance, they may not convey any message or lead the plot sequence, but they are interesting to listen to, they are witty, smart, sharp and effervescent. The dialogs are Tarantino’s trademark, and his contribution to the cinema (at least for now) is definitely putting the art of writing dialogs to the next level.

Life of Pi

Life of Pi is a magical adventure story centering on Pi Patel, the precocious son of a zoo keeper. Dwellers in Pondicherry, India, the family decide to move to Canada, hitching a ride on a huge freighter. After a shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, all fighting for survival.

The film is based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, and it is difficult to think of a book which will be harder to transfer to the big screen. Life of Pi is so multi-faceted, so multi-layered, that it is just the question of how much is lost in translation rather than how to transfer everything accurately. And the real achievement of the filmmakers is that they managed not only to keep the atmosphere, the storyline and the main idea intact, but they actually enhanced the experience considerably.

Best movies of 2012

It is January 1st, and I guess now is the right time to draw a line and make some conclusions about 2012. It was a hectic year, year full of fantastic movies and disappointing failures. Overall it was a good year, inspirational and interesting.

And here are the movies that I liked the most:

1) Amour
Those who watched it will understand: it is the most emotional and touching movie of the year. Amazing play by actors, suspense and drama. Must see.

 2) Life of Pi
Mesmerising and fascinating story of the Journey. Unique masterpiece, great book skillfuly translated into the language of the big screen. Philosophical story wrapped up in beautiful 3D.

3) Moonrise Kingdom
Feel good movie of the year. Heart warming and simply a pleasure to watch, not least because of charming Bruce Willis.

4) Argo
Simple story with so much suspense you will sit on the edge of the chair all 120 minutes.

5) Skyfall
Bond got the second birthday. Stylish, action-packed, interesting, smart - James Bond we have been waiting for.

Argo

In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans are taken hostage. However, six manage to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA is eventually ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devises a daring plan: to create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez creates the ruse and proceeds to Iran as its associate producer. However, time is running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House have grave doubts about the operation themselves. (© IMDb)

The story is a dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation, and this one is the best example of a situation when the real life story is much richer and much more fascinating than what film plots can offer you. And having the story ready to use, the suspense is the king. It is extremely easy to fall into the trap of retelling the story rather than giving an interesting spin to it, leading to a boring and difficult-to-watch-without-falling asleep kind of film.

Cloud Atlas

6 stories spanning into the distant past and even more distant future. The people who shape their present, not realizing that they actually shape the future for many years and generations to come. An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution. And simply a new movie from Wachowski, who gave birth to the Matrix, which became philosophical thought for many film-goers for years to come just as Star Wars did.