Branded

I spent around a week trying to find internal strength and summon all my abilities to write a couple of words about this movie. I was pondering about deceitful marketing, lying trailers and tough destiny of ordinary picturegoers, who have to put up with the fact that you know nothing about the movie until you actually see it, and thus they take immense risks of watching something they won’t like. To cut the long story short, I was trying to come up with the way to explain why Branded is the worst movie I have seen in my life.

Should I talk about actors? Ed Stoppard is simply not good enough for this role, he looks lost; Jeffrey Tambor does not convince as the US spy; Leelee Sobieski only impresses in the undress scene. Style? The movie tries to copy Generation P (2011), lively and hilarious story about Russian advertising market in 90s straight after USSR broke up, but Branded is not even close in its emulation. Directors? Although there were two directors, I didn’t notice major contribution of either of them. If anything, they only ruined the film by amateurish execution.

The Bourne Legacy

Following on the previous three films in the Bourne Universe, the main character, Aaron Cross, finds himself targeted by the CIA people who are trying to contain the damage caused to the system by the actions of Jason Bourne.

Let’s start from the basics: why do producers do sequels? The most popular – and the most sensible – explanation is that they are trying to bank on the same, popular, liked characters, trying to get money from people who miss the universe and will be happy to pay to see the continuation of the story. This is why we see never-ending Twilight saga – producers (correctly) believe that 14 year old girls will be happy to see the next portion of adventures of Edward (ok, this is a massive stereotype).

So the idea of The Bourne Legacy as the movie was flawed from the very beginning. Bourne movie without Bourne? Seriously? 

21 Jump Street

Meet two very unusual in real life, but so common in the movies, friends: Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum). One is stereotypical nerd with no personal life whatsoever, and the other is…well, Channing Tatum. They become a pair of misfortunate cops, and their last chance to prove themselves is to participate in the undercover operation: they go back to high school to try to bust the drug-dealing ring.

To say that the preview sounds slightly unpromising is to underestimate the cause. We have seen it so many times in so many bad comedies: two good friends going back to school for some reason, with mandatory tear-squeezing moments of absolute reconciliation of everyone and everything. So yet another comedy about again same things did not give me any excitement of anticipation.

Moonrise Kingdom

A young scout Sam, bored with the performance at the church, escapes to the backstage, where he finds Suzy, a girl with whom a very romantic relationship is going to develop. Pair of lovers decides to escape from the town, triggering a chain of events that will put the whole island into disarray.

There are some movies which bring you some kind of warmth and unexplained happiness. Moonrise Kingdom is one of those. During the whole showing I was sitting with a silly smile on my face, feeling like I was drinking a huge cup of hot chocolate, sitting in a huge armchair near a fireplace. The movie is so comfortable and easy to watch, it reminds of Amelie or Hugo. All the ingredients are in place and appear at the correct time, playing to the overall impression of warm, velvety, irresistibly charming and cuddly atmosphere.

Christmas

The Christmas 2012 is definitely something to look forward to.
Here are the two trailers:

1) Great Gatsby

Promising cast, strong underlying story, beautiful visuals - what else is needed?

2) Django Unchained

Just one name: Quentin Tarantino

Snow White and the Huntsman

The fairy tale that we all know from our childhood. Beautiful princess, evil stepmother, dwarves – sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But here is the twist: take this story, add a lot of gothic style to it, pepper it with stunning visuals, make it slightly creepy, invite the most popular actors and actresses to produce dark story, which won’t even remotely remind of the original tale. This is Snow White and the Huntsman for you.

In a search for some interesting plots, the movie industry has gone crazy. Any story that can be turned into a movie is snatched at a snap of fingers and transformed. Sometimes this is good, and we see really exciting impressions of old stories, Watchmen being my best example. But I personally believe there are stories that should not be touched – and fairy tales from the childhood is just one of those stories. So I definitely did not like the fact that there are two (!) movies based on Snow White – this one and Mirror Mirror. And I am glad to admit that I was wrong.

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen is in this again. After brilliant comedy Borat and absolutely terrible Bruno, he brings another comedy, where he plays Aladeen – the head of small Arab country, who opposes any kind of democracy and will never let anything looking like freedom to sneak into his kingdom.

Cohen got an absolutely unique niche in the entertainment industry. His characters become something more than just fiction. Borat was outstanding in some sense; the jokes from the movie were quickly learnt and quoted by almost everyone who bothered to watch the movie (despite the notorious quality of the jokes, which exploited practically only a couple of topics). Bruno, on the other hand, failed badly. Partly because of the high expectations, partly because of the poor plot, but the movie failed to amuse in the same shocking and provocative way. This is why I was a bit worried about the Dictator – the movie could have gone in both directions.