Archive for the ‘movies’ Category
The Dark Knight
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Here’s why this movie rocks:
- Joker. Absolutely phenomenal performance by Heath Ledger. The guy is convincingly creepy, sicko, amusing, seducing, philosophical. When he’s on the screen he totally shadows everybody else, including Batman. I remember an old Batman where he was played by Jack Nickolson with a plastic mask on his face. That was so lame… this guy actually looks and feels like somebody took a knife and made him those scars. Sadly, Heath is now dead.
- Batman is indeed the Dark Knight, “an outcast, making choices nobody else can make”. Eg he chooses to first save the only bright light in the city fighting against crime, his ex-girlfriend’s may-be husband, over her.
- Harvey Dent. I’ve had the feeling from the beginning that he’s going to turn into a villain. How he falls is a big story withing the movie.
- It’s directed by Chris Nolan, who made Memento.
- Batmobile is so badass that it makes a black Lamborghini look like a cheap joke.
- There is no Robin.
2008 favourites
Comments (3)Hey folks, happy new year and thanks for reading this blog!
Before 2008 is completely over, here’s my list of music releases that I’ve reviewed over the past year that I’ve been returning to most.
- The Mars Volta – The Bedlam in Goliath
- Cat Power – Jukebox
- Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts
- Beach House – Devotion
- The Kills – Midnight Boom
- Flying Lotus – Los Angeles
- Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul
- Maurizio Pollini – Chopin Nocturnes
- Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren – Mare Nostrum
- Beck – Modern Guilt
The plan was to publish much more movie recommendations, however many of them are sitting on my hard drive still unseen. I’ll try harder next year, and for now I’ll just highlight five, which I totally recommend:
- Man From Earth
- Into The Wild
- My Blueberry Nights
- Encounters At The End Of The World
- Zeitgeist: Addendum
That’s it, see you next year!
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The Kautokeino Rebellion
Kautokeino opprøret is a Norwegian movie based on a XIX century event in northern Norway, when a conflict between the Sami people and the Norwegian government representatives occurred. It all starts from the first appearance of alcohol, and a powerful merchant’s self-interest. It is an excellent movie, with superb acting and a pleasure to see the to me unknown landscapes and life, although the shameless pact between the church and local authorities has made me quite angry before half of the movie has been through.
Zeitgeist: Addendum
Zeitgeist: Addendum is a sequel to ‘Zeitgeist, the Movie’, a documentary exposing the mythology that predates Christianity, the 9/11 hoax and its motives, the U.S. Federal Bank, the system of central banks in general, and generally the not very wide known information about the social institutions that determine our lives, however indirectly. I found it completely by accident about six months ago while browsing through popular documentaries on Mininova.
While I was already familiar with most of the views presented in the first, the second film blew me away. I’d even say that these two together are the most important documentary movies in the recent history.
It is worth watching the film just for the clear explanation at the beginning of how money is being made in the monetary system. It is absolutely critical to understand this for our own good, and while I got a hint from Money As Debt just a few days ago, some things about further credit circulation were not clear to me as they are now.
But the goal of the film is deeper than that, to discover and present stories of economic hitmen, or any scenario in modern slavery governed by a global corporatocracy, or in a word, globalization. It goes on to identify the causes of corruption and instability in all social behaviour, from any institution to the individuals that form them – the money (aka debt, infinite profit) driven society, in which no one, but a very small majority in the banking elite that run the game, is free. It warns for the destructive consequences of present social constructions, proposes a new form of society, sustainable and connected with the nature – views largely influenced by the Venus Project and the so called resource based economy – and finally calls for a number of acts which we as people can take in order to help the current system ultimately fail.
Ground-breaking and compulsory work; well done.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Encounters at the end of the world
Encounters at the end of the world is a very interesting documentary made by Werner Herzog about life on and below Antarctica. It tells a story about people who wanted to “fall of the radar”, or the scientists searching for the origins of life on earth. You will see what the fingers of royal Aztec origin look like, hear about the movement of the ocean and the huge icebergs, the scarce animals living there, what life looks like in water below the ice and feel the power of the vast frozen landscapes.
The Mars Volta – Live at the Electric Ballroom
I was looking for a good concert torrent and look what I’ve found! The Mars Volta in the De-Loused era; I’ve never seen them perform so far and for me it was jaw-dropping to see with how much passion they play. A must see.
Sarkar Raj
I saw Sarkar Raj listed on mininova the other day and downloaded it not knowing what to expect. It’s a Hindi movie, and I haven’t seen one ever, I think. So I was eager to see it. The story bored me a bit at first. It’s about a powerful family, minister of the Maharashtra region and his son (on the poster), who has “in only two or three years achieved even more”, whatever that means exactly. They’re asked to support a project of building a large power plant. In the short term, 40,000 people will need to move. But the long term benefit is the development of the whole region, a dream that gets clouded quickly by political games, bribery and violence. I enjoyed it mostly for the atmosphere which feels somewhat new to me, with a different culture portrayed in a unique directing style and intense soundtrack.
Shutter
Shutter is a Thai horror movie from 2004. The title refers to the shutter in the photo camera, because, throughout the movie, mysterious shadows and ghosts appear on photographs.
The story begins with a young couple accidentally hitting a girl with their car, then driving away in the night. The girl’s spirit haunts them then on myriad occasions. The twist begins to develop somewhere after the first 45 minutes, when the two reveal the killed girl’s identity and slowly we learn that the guy actually knew her and had a relationship with her. Not just that, but there were also some really bad things which he did and the worst is in what he didn’t do… The way the burden he has to carry as his punishment is portrayed by the end of the movie was particularly interesting to me.
Overall the movie was pretty good, the creepy scenes were well made, although after seeing a couple of such films you might begin to feel it all repeats in a way. The actors were very persuasive in their delivery of characters and the plot, which does have some unique elements, alternating with some cliche stuff.
The Mist
The Mist is a movie based on Stephen King’s novel, portraiting a small town community trapped inside a supermarket surrounded by a mysterious and unnatural mist out of which oversized animals and insects occasionally attack them. Besides having lots of blood & gore, this is a very strong psychological thriller showing us well-developed characters, and the behaviour of a small community in extreme conditions of fear and danger.
There’s not much more to say without unnecessarily revealing the plot. I didn’t love the movie, that would be quite hard for me given the genre, and I do think that the ending is against basic biological instincts. However, it has made a powerful impression on me and I recommend it.
