The Ides of March

The politics is a dirty business. This assertion goes without proof, it is an axiom. And this assertion also means that politics is a perfect topic to explore in a movie: it is only natural to recall Shakespeare and the tensions and emotions of his plays. The topic, I believe, remains underexplored despite the lack of good and fresh ideas obvious in the cinematography now.

The Ides of March is based on the play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, and the influence of theatre can be sensed throughout the movie. Relatively short at approximately 100 minutes, it sets fantastic example to numerous recent movies in terms of how to keep attention of the audience. Just like in a theatre, the movie throws you right in the middle of the action, gives you a couple of minutes to familiarize yourself and then quickly throw a few problems in, and before you even decide for yourself what would be the best course of action, the movie proceeds to catharsis, leaving you pondering about the nature of human beings.

John Carter

Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War vet discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior.

The success of Avatar keeps the heads of the world movie corporations awake at night. Cameron managed to create another world, populate it with unusual yet charismatic creatures, create a conflict with humans, drop the main character in and let us watch the development of the story. What sounds simple in theory found a great response in peoples’ hearts, allowing Avatar to take in a lot of profit and leaving fans waiting for the sequel. John Carter is so obviously trying to be the second Avatar, it is impossible to escape from comparisons. And comparisons are, unfortunately for John Carter, not in its favor.

The Hunger Games

After the rebellion in Empire somewhere in a future, the punishment is set for 12 rebelled districts. The Capitol selects a boy and a girl from each district who fight to death on live television. Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.

The movie is based on the first novel in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, published in 2008. It was probably the most advertised film of the spring, and, given the bestseller nature of the books, the film to wait for. And the fans will not be put down.

Art always follows the mood of the crowd, reflects it and tries to satisfy the desires of the majority. This is why the occurrence of the anti-utopian and post-apocalyptic movie was actually predictable given the world-wide movements like “Occupy Wall-Street”. The society filed a demand for another “V for Vendetta”, and the movie industry (as well as book-publishing) rushed to satisfy it.

Super 8

It is the summer of 1979 and a group of friends are filming an amateur movie for the contest. During one of the scenes they witness a train crash which put the start to the chain of events that are going to change the lives of all people in their small town.

I was not intending to watch this movie based on what I saw in the trailer. I am not a great fan of horrors or anything like that, and given the fact that 2011 was rich in good movies, my conscience did not object much. Anyway, as the flow of movies came to a stall, I got back to the Super 8.

Well, J.J. Abrams, writer and director of the movie, fooled me. It is beyond the understanding come the trailer to the movie is so detached and different from the movie itself, as if the trailer was a completely independent unit of cinematography. In a way this is good as it does not give away all the catches of the movie, but the fact remains that based on the trailer you would expect something completely different.

Limitless

Eddie Morra is an unsuccessful writer who suffers from never-ending misfortunes. One day, he meets a drug dealer who sells him a top-secret drug which bestows him with super human abilities. And he is soon to find out that “with the power comes great responsibility”…

This movie made a buzz in 2011 when it launched provocative and smart advertising campaign, which featured a guy hacking into the screens on the Time Square in New York. That was brilliant move, fresh and interesting, and it is probably the only thing which is good about this movie.

It should have been called Brainless. Yes, to hope that this movie would be smart and brainpower-demanding would have been completely unreasonable. After all, from the first frames of the trailer you could guess that this is yet another pop-corn action about difficult life of people with superpowers. However, even these low expectations did not save me from brutal truth: you have to turn your brains off to watch this movie.

A Dangerous Method

Sabina Spielrein, Russian with extreme psychological disorder, arrives at the clinic where young Carl Yung is working. This is the start of a difficult and intense relationship between Sabina, Yung and Sigmund Freud, which will enrich all of them and will give birth to psychoanalysis.

I am a great fan of Keira Knightly, and I have been waiting for this movie since its release in September 2011 on the Venice Film Festival. Eventually, it arrived in Britain almost half a year later, and it was almost impossible to find it in the cinemas.

The movie is an adaptation of the book "A Most Dangerous Method" by John Kerr, and it is a very poor adaptation. There are some movies adapted from the books that run smoothly, without considerable losses of cohesion or plot details. Just recall the last Harry Potter movie: despite pretty poor source, the movie itself is easy to watch and still interesting even for those who read the book several times.