J*A*S*M

I don’t belong to the generation that considers I'm the Girl He Wants to Kill  a cult film, but I tell you what, this thriller is perfect, even if you watch it for the first time now, in 2009. The beginning is a bit protracted, but once the building empties and only the heroine and the killer remain, I almost had a stroke from the tension. Excellent picture.

A lyrical poem about sobering up from the naivete of youth and loosing dubious ideals. Like most films that focus on a more abstract storyline, this one isn’t very viewer friendly, but the visuals are beautiful and the performances are better than expected. That said, making the hero a person whom the viewer can never identify with and actually,  based on the logic of the film, should never identify with, is a very bold move. Taking Ivan Heinz as a role model is only possible after a bad reading of the film, a very bad reading. An interesting and unusual approach and this time I’m rounding up the 7/10.

My apologies to all the fans, but this kind of humour is just not for me. I gave it eight episodes and in those four hours of net time, I smiled for about 10 minutes in total. I’m very sorry about it…

Incredibly flawless and the most amazing cinema experience of my life. A film that erases the boundaries between the screen and the viewer and that lets you look into another world, to the point that it makes you want to believe Pandora is real. I expected a lot from Avatar and I had come to terms with the fact that such massive expectations could never be met, but the result actually surpassed them. This is something that I could have never imagined, even in my wildest fantasies, because up until now nobody had set a standard for the cinema screen according to which we could set our expectations. The story perhaps isn’t great, but it’s beautiful, classic in the best sense of the word, and certainly not worse than other blockbusters. And to be honest, I don’t think I would be able to watch something intricate, like Strange Days for instance, in this package. Once there are more comparable films, Avatar probably won’t be my favourite (due to personal genre preferences), but it will always be the first. Another viewing is mandatory, the cinema is mandatory, 3D is mandatory! Cameron was the king of the world, now he’s the emperor of the galaxy, next time he’ll reach at least god level, and after this experience, I’m almost certain he’ll pull it off. PS: The posers with prejudices like “I can’t be arsed with a fairytale about blue monkeys” will surely find plenty of things to criticise and I wish them the best wholeheartedly, they are only depriving themselves of the experience. PS2: The experience from the second viewing is at least the same. During the last 60 minutes those goosebumps hardly disappeared.

I usually get really mad when I hear someone loudly declaring that they laughed at a horror movie (even a very bad one), but in this case I have to say that, too. I couldn’t help but laugh at almost every appearance of the ghost, which looks like something between an old woman with Parkinson’s and a long haired ghost from Asia (who in this bloody world is still copying Asian long-haired ghost at the end of 2009?!). That’s perhaps the only reason this film can honour its name: Forget Me Not.

Every time a film gets a great response from the audience and is a phenomenal financial success, the following things happen: a) the creators immediately speak about a sequel; b) other filmmakers start imitating it; c) some fans are disappointed due to their excessive expectations, while others will oppose the film after having to listen to all the “insightful” comments from the uninitiated crowd; d) Asylum puts out a low-budget rip-off on DVD with the most similar name possible as soon as they can manage it, so people will confuse it with the original and they can profit from someone else’s success. Paranormal Entity is obviously a product of that amoral company and was produced as a response to the excellent Paranormal Activity (just in case you didn’t notice…). But what about the quality of the product itself? Unfortunately, it’s not bad enough for me to say that PE is boring shite that can’t possibly be compared to PA (as I would have liked due to Asylum’s practices). Basically, a low-budget rip-off of a ghost story shot on hand-held camera (and in this case, actually high budget) can never be as ridiculous as, for instance, a catastrophe movie made on a shoestring featuring the army, an octopus, a shark and Lorenzo Lamas. PE is ghost horror with terrible performances and lots of illogical things (a traditional problem in this type of horror, they’re always holding the camera, no matter what), but I can’t say that there weren’t moments when I felt hints of fear. The hand-held camera just works on me, even under these awful circumstances.

It’s been very long since a film made me feel so nervous and uncomfortable. The Box has a great atmosphere, a surprisingly brilliant digital retro look and a disturbing story. The direction is quite insane, but with a style that you can tell is intentional. And Frank Langella in the role of a “weird fellow” is almost the incarnation of my nightmares.

I’d give it 7/10, but I don’t feel at all like rounding up this time. Visually, this is an exceptionally beautiful film, the performances are flawless and so is the direction, but it lacks pace in a terrible way. Yes, it’s boring! I liked Normal a lot more than this tarted-up romance, and I’m also not really sure what it is (primarily) about…

I just don’t get it. I don’t get why so many filmmakers try to make a deadly serious, psychological and atmospheric film when they don’t have an interesting premise, an unusual twist, exceptional talent, feeling for atmosphere, or at least an idea for an original style, instead of making a fun little horror movie that doesn’t need much for good results, because even if it wasn’t that good, the viewer at least wouldn’t end up bored to dead, like me with Deadline. The effort is clear, but the result is soul crushing.

A very nice film about time travel. It’s not very envelope-pushing or brilliant, but it’s still worth watching. It’s like a comedy spin on Timecrimes or Triangle. The climax is a bit too over the top, but the four-start feeling held even after it was over.