Reviews

Everybody's lying. You shouldn't analyze a film to know whether it's good or not. Analyzing wouldn't make it worse, you will just come to the same conclusion. Only thing that matters, is how film feels, not necessarily right after you saw it, but in general. Take "Mulholland Drive". The film might seem pretty primitive. Lynch takes the story of the naive actress's broken dreams in Hollywood, and blows it up, making it surreal and reminiscent of Hollywood noir. Is it easy to do? Theoretically speaking, yes, it is. But you can feel that movie is really good, because you can feel that for Lynch it's not just an exercise in twisting and turning rules of the narrative. (Lost Highway was the exercise, but exercise so splendid, even if it was cold and artificial, it still was mesmerizing). Lynch's strong points here are, first of all, is that he shows us both versions of what happened. None of the parts of the film are dread, no matter what hundreds of reviewers been saying. They are like two mirrors that were put together under weird angle. Second of all, even though you can point out similarities between two parts, they are totally different. Everytime you trying to put all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, they don't fit. And that's what films supposed to do anyway. I anticipate, in the near future, Mulholland Drive will suffer major throwback. It's too perfect, it's getting too much acclaim, naturally people will call it overrated. They will refer to the loose ends of where TV pilot ends and the film begins, they will say that "Club Silencio" is blue colored version of Black Lodge. Most of all, they will say, that the moral of the film is an obvious cliche. To all this, I can say: First of all, the only way to appreciate Lynch's film, is to have faith in him completely, to trust that he really means what he says, and in Mulholland Drive I am willing to trust him more than ever, because I do feel the love he put in every scene, even what might've seem the exploitative lesbian scene. I believe every single scene in this film. Second of all, getting back to beginning of my review, it feels right, and no amount of writing about film can change it.

Critics who sing praises to "In The Bedroom" could have been exactly the same people who gave Oscar to "How Green Was My Valley", instead of "Citizen Kane" in 1942. It's shameful, how ready they are to praise this mediocrity that doesn't take any risks, doesn't try to tackle any issues, and plays it safe all the way through the end. Hollywood executives aren't the biggest evil in the industry. Much worse are the critics who promote films like these over really daring and unuslual films, like this year's "Mulholland Drive" and "Man Who Wasn't There". I always felt that a good film should make you walk out of the theatre not really understanding everything, making your own conclusions. "In the Bedroom" is the film that I understood everything about before walking in. Everything in it, starting with plot and direction and ending with acting, is a calculated, boring, ridiculous trash. All this film tries to be is a mediocrity, and it doesn't even succeed there. Acting? Sissy Spacek is all right, but it's not a performance of a wide emotional rage and enormous difficulty. Marisa Tomei is all right, but, once again, there is nothing there. The only thing in this film deserving praise, is Tom Wilkinson, who was the best thing about "Full Monty". He carries this film on his shoulders. Director Todd Fields tries stretching the film with the long, boring, meaningless sequences, that are supposed to channel to us the emotional agony the characters go through, but it just makes the film long, boring, and meaningless. At one point, he gives su a hint, that this picture perfect family might have some underlying issues, lurking from beneath, when Spacek and Wilkinson start to accuse each other in the tragedy. But then, he cowardly withdraws. So is the whole film. It's a cowardice.

"Night Porter" is the film that is considered to be one of the greatest Italian post-war films in Europe and a piece of crap in US. Pauline Kael called this film "a gothic porn" that proves that "women can make trash just as easily as men." In fact, Cavani's controversial film is the perfect example of how differently American and European critics view the same pictures. The film is another Italian entry in Fascist decadence genre, so beloved in Italy. If Japanese view aftermath of WWII with shame and guilt, Germans with sheer nihilism, Italian's views on horrors of the war were always seen in a sexual context. "Night Porter" in a way is a follow-up to Visconti's "Damned" and Bertolucci's "Conformist". The reason that Americans hate the film so much, is that it has no redeeming social value. Really, what exactly is Cavani trying to say? That relationship between Germans and Jews during Holocaust had sado-masochistic implications? Or was it like the relationship between molesting father and a child, full of denial and love-hate? Even if Cavani is trying to make those points, film offers no explanations. The film is full of haunting, shocking images of brutality and forced sexuality. It is an exercise in showing beauty of the ugliness, or the ugliness of the beauty, or whatever. Which is not bad. "Night Porter" is all about creating a legend of fascist depravity. In real life, of course, everything was much more boring. But the film creates a right mood. Not because deep inside we were always more frightened by the sexual abuse victims of concentration camps were subjected to more than the violence. That would be too simple. But mainly because, no matter how pretentious it sounds, in our minds political depravity always goes hand in hand with sexual perversions. Your level of appreciating the film depends fully on how much you believe Cavani. Is this really how she viewed Fascism? Or did she just wanted to shock her audience, to show that despite being a woman, she has as much rights to shock viewers as Pasolini or Visconti? One thing is for certain. Everytime people see images of naked men, women, and children being sent to concentration camps, most of them feel nauseous. I guess, Cavani felt sexually excited.

Usual Fellini style carnival, this time adaptation of Petronius' novel. Too beautiful for its own good, it doesn't measure up to stylistically similar Pasolini's retelling of classic novels. Not angry enough, and too self-aware, the story of odyssey of a young man through nightmarish surrealism of ancient Rome, is so masterfully done, so unlike Pasolini's minimalistic fantasies, it doesn't quite gets where it wants to.

**

George Lucas reminds me of a classical molesting father. 22 years ago, he had a lot of children, and he gave them the dream, something they always wanted, fairy tale called "Star Wars". And then, he helped major studio companies to rape this kids with incredible amount of garbage that poured on the screen, while he himself always stayed on a distance from it. Now, 22 years later, his naive children still want to believe their father loves them. They are awaiting for new trilogy as little kids for the affection. They didn't notice that their father raped them again, this time himself, with Jar Jar Binks and little Jake Lloyd and whatever it is he put in the movie. They are in such a denial, that while some of them are so blind they pretend they loved the movie, others aren't dumb enough to do so, they pretend that this was a mistake, and next films are gonna correct it. Epsiode one was surrounded by so much hype, it's practically impossible to distinguish the movie itself. It's probably the average film, not too bad, not too good. The only question is, when exactly millions of funs will understand how violated they are and say good bye to this dream turned nightmare. *1/2

Exceptional case of the movie breaking away from its young filmmakers and starting to have life of its own. Can be compared to Hopper's "Easy Rider", just like Dennis Hopper, Hughes brothers aren't great filmmakers( you can hear them giving interview after feature presentation on a video, and one can't help but wonder how these naive 21 year old twins could create film of such complexity), but this film once again proves that masterpieces are accidental, and have nothing to do with intelligence, education, or moral values, (or maybe even talent) of its filmmakers. Still, brothers could create an atmosphere so unsettling and disturbing, that puts the film above average American indie.After watching Menace II Society, you could feel nothing but disgust towards talentless hacks like LaBute and Egoyan, who gained notoriety and fame, because of American audiences' (and sometimes critics') complete unfamiliarity with anything but American cinema. Unquestionably, one of the best films of 1990s. ****

Maestro Brass is usually considered to be either most underrated or most overrated director in Italy. "All Women Do It" is his another, most successful exercise in stylish porn, with anal fetish and ridiculous morality. Not sexy, but that, kind of, is the point.Has a certain innocent charm, but then again, nothing more than just a porn film. *

Maybe Bunuel's best film. In this one, he's completely off the leash, he says exactly what he wants to say and shows what he wants to show. From people defecating in a dining room to man showing police a little girl and asking to find her, this is one of Bunuel's funniest, most original and exhilarating pieces. ****

Reviewing Fellini's "Casanova", Pauline Kael wrote, that it's impossible for a director to make a successful epic about himself. With "Annie Hall", Allen didn't just become first director to accomplish that, he was the first successful case of a person to just stand before camera, and tell the world about himself. Allen makes what other directors were afraid of: he shows all of his cards, he hides nothing. His message is: "Here I am, a little man, telling you about my views on everything from sex to politics. Some of them are trivial, some original, but I don't care--take it or leave it". "Annie Hall" could be so incredibly bad, but it wasn't. It is a masterpiece not in a sense that it's a very good film, it's rather one of those cases where you accept it for what it is.It's really simple, yes, but like with all Allen's films, it's simplicity borders with perfection. It's obvious that Allen was set to make a "serious" movie, but, like many times after, didn't. Instead, we got one of the funniest and honest films ever made. Maybe word masterpiece shouldn't be applied to "Annie Hall", but in his own half-baked way, Allen made the perfect self-portrait.

If this film wasn't so long, it wouldn't be watchable. Simple story about love, death, betrayal, and redemption, has unmistakeable 70s feel, which was very rare in terrible years of 1980s for a film. Leone gives us something script doesn't: he makes it so slow paced, even simple scenes have some hidden meaning in them, we are allowed to meditate over characters' routine actions, which makes the most trivial details unusual and enigmatic. The film is nostalgic by the time that never existed. Even if it didn't show anything we haven't seen before, and probably events in the movie couldn't inspire philosophical interpretation, thanks to Leone, after watching "Once Upon a Time in America" we have a feeling that we just witnessed something huge and wonderful, even though we are not sure what exactly.

Woody Allen's comedies were always shallow, and that is what made them great. They were based on the same Parking-space-NRA-I-could-buy-this-ring-for-less jokes. He never tried to make his films more than one man's confessions to the world. Then came his "serious" films all through 80s. "Wild Strawberries" as "Another Woman", "Anna Karenina" as "Hanna and her sisters", even "Crime and Punishment" as "Crimes and Misdemeanors". Here, his shallowness and simplifications made pictures uninteresting and pretentious. And then came "Husbands and Wives", his most underrated film. Here, Allen stopped going for big ideas, and made simple melodrama, so simple, that like his comedies, it came close to perfection. From Liam Neeson's semi-cameo to Judy Davis's crazy bitchfest, every character feels unbelievably alive. Dialogs are as funny as they get, and simple structure makes development of story incredibly fun to watch. Even much criticized hand-held camera comes off as a mean of Allen's new found simplicity. Every great filmmaker owes his audience a small nice movie. This is what it is--a small masterpiece.

Another Ferreri's fetishistic piece, this time about S&M relationship between man( Mastroanni) and woman (Deneve) which reminds that of Man and dog. Supposedly, the deep insight into the true nature of relationship between men and women. Actually, just like David Cronenberg after him, Ferreri obsessively keeps re-doing same pic over and over.

When I was going to see "Canterbury Tales", I knew Pasolini was infamous director who made crazy films, that weren't for everyone's taste.When I saw it. It was one of those movie experiences that change the way you see films. It's not that I loved this film, I don't see how I can use word "love" here. It's just that from the beginning to the end I couldn't believe my eyes. Sequence after sequence, the movie became one of the most original films I ever seen in my life. Wife having sex standing on her husband's shoulders, woman farting in the face of the young boy who loves her, drunken man, p***ing on dining people, giant ass, that defecates with demons, it's shocking, yes, but it's not the point. The point is,we believe every single thing we see on the screen. Of course, it's because Pasolini uses natural lightning, unprofessional actors, and partly because when there is fucking on the screen, it's not simulation, it's real f**king (what other film can be classified as "porn", and also have Oscar-winning costume designer in its credits?). But it's not the reason. I always admired Pasolini, because he was one of those people, who make others respect them, who have remained hip even twenty years after they are dead. And being this incredibly fascinating person, he could put part of the magic that made him the person he was into his movies.