Othello

Aaaaand I need Hoffman drops like this more often. The man is a super actor, a movie god, a demon. Luckily Before… doesn't just rest on his shoulders, and apart from the successful script, it's also worth mentioning the amazing music. Moreover, Lumet, at his age, doesn't make grinding philosophical dramas like other deserving directors and sticks to his hoof.

I was prepared. A bunch of abused madwomen systematically dismantle the domination of disgusting and filthy men. At least they have the by now surely impotent Scott Glenn as a magical grandfather with a sniper rifle to help them. Sucker Punch is an awesome ideological counterpoint to Trier's Antichrist. PS: I felt like crying with delight at times during the action scenes... PPS: I'd love to lend Jena Malone a towel some morning at home.

About 15 American soldiers and give or take a bajillion Somalis die in the film, with the focus on the dying Americans occupying over twenty minutes of the film in total and the shots of the dying Somalis about 40 seconds. I didn't care about any of the characters (okay, except Sizemore, but I knew nothing would happen to him), and I didn't care about the heroes throwing grenades in exactly the same shot as the athletes throwing the javelin in Triumph of the Will. Of course, I don't give a shit, and I pretty much welcome recruitment films, because then there'll be enough material for more movies about botched military actions that can be handled by someone like Ridley Scott and I’ll be able to sit there for two and a half hours, snorting loudly with delight and thanking God that there are so many Somalis that the movie will still take over an hour. There were certain passages where I seriously considered sending my fellow viewer home, user Marla Singer, because I was jealous of the fact that she was watching the film in Blu-ray quality with me. The incredible gradation of some of the scenes, the perfectionist work with the shot, the well-used filters, the surprisingly slower editing, the believable brutality. War is beautiful.

In the film's prologue, a secret agent subtly infiltrates a tightly guarded party of bourgeoisie, speaks five languages flawlessly, seduces a beautiful art collector, and busts out a tango so classy it would make Argentineans throw their hats on the floor in frustration. And the agent is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who normally leaves wreckage behind him just by walking into a room and hasn't been able to learn English in forty years. Like sorry kids, but this is total comedy gold. Cameron is fully aware of what he holds in his hand so he knows that all he has to do is zoom the camera into Arnold's face at the right moment and he’ll bring you to your knees. Completely against current tradition, this action comedy is actually action (whereas these should be two automatically kindred genres since they're mostly about rhythm, pacing, and editing) and even though the second half falls a little short of the first half, once Schwarzenegger picks up an AK with his foot and shoots four people in a single second, all is absolutely forgiven.

A nasty bit of play with the viewer on the subject of absolute wrongdoing. Indeed, the methods that the able-bodied bunch here carry out, for the sole purpose of fleecing three unfortunate kids, are so drawn-out and methodical as to amount simply to organized sadism, for which we are ignorant of any motivations save what we weave into the film ourselves. Then there is good old-fashioned racism on the one hand and inept apologetics on the other, whereas it is all only ex post since we are unable to respond to it when the wrongdoing is taking place in front of us. Östlund, in all the films I've seen from him, always presents some complicated problem, tries to illustrate all the positions that concern him, only to conclude by saying there's probably nothing that can be done about it anyway. I actually like that approach, but he's kind of an insufferable dick about it, tell me I’m wrong. Anyway, if you look around at how many weak-minded people this movie has served in confirming their own prejudices, at least we know who is to blame for the current over-cautious treatment of ethnic minorities in contemporary pop culture.

Cameron knew exactly what he was doing by cutting the original last 20 minutes or so of the film; in the Special Edition I advise everyone to turn it off right after Ed Harris settles in at the bottom and waits to die. What follows then is just a goofy pat on the head from wise alien mantises completely unworthy of everything that preceded it. And by that I mean especially the intense romance where each of the two lovers watches the other slowly die. This romantic horror thus has an unshakable place in my mind due to the fact that it activated my childhood phobia of the deep.

I was always too cool not to take issue with the second installment of the Alien Tetralogy because a) I resented the way it stripped the aliens of their eerie Gigerian mystery and b) I thought it broke from canon in that, unlike the other installments, it didn't focus on the crumbling periphery of humanity's galactic boom but instead placed us on a vast station in Earth orbit or a newly built human colony. The latter does become a crumbling periphery very quickly as a result of alien activity, but what I love about the first, third, and fourth episodes is the unspoken fact of how the human race, in its colonization of the universe, carelessly tosses aside any parts of it that are not lucrative, simply without any interest in cleaning up the mess left behind. And yet I madly enjoyed my last viewing of Aliens as probably the most spectacular military sci-fi of the analog era. The fact that everything we see here is artfully crafted, nicely old-fashioned with dirty paws is accentuated here by the Cameron’s knack or perfectly selling every single screw or bolt of the film perfectly. Not five minutes go by where he doesn't introduce us to some new gadget or weapon. The entire set, costumes, and objects are so fitting it actually makes you want to touch and feel everything. At the same time, the film has fantastic drama, able to move from quiet traumas to showy spectacles, alternating small conflicts (Newt and Ripley vs. the facehuggers) with big ones (machine guns, flamethrowers, dozens of aliens). Not least, then, is the admiration for the duality that runs through almost all of Cameron's films – a technophile director making technophobic films from a male milieu in which women naturally assert themselves. His empathy for Ripley and Newt's relationship contrasted with the Marine figures kind of suggests that Cameron is not only an excellent filmmaker, but imo quite a heartbreaker in his personal life.

One of the most intense horror films I've ever seen, and the darkest denunciation of Hollywood since Lynch's Mulholland Drive or Inland Empire. I tried watching the film with a fever you and let me tell you, it's one big bad trip.

A group of young spelunkers explores a large fissure in the earth. An old shepherd who has spent his life grazing cattle around it dies peacefully. Purpose, humility, comparison, joy, peace. I loved every character here. Claustrophobics, however, will consider this a horror movie.

I've perhaps never experienced such anticipation for every new shot in a movie. Where they're going to put the camera this time, where the shot is going to come from, where it's going to take us. Every image, the layout of the characters in it, their body language, the setting of it in the real Paris and its suburbs, all create a strangely magical-realistic microcosm. This, unlike most French social dramas, is not altogether binary and yet has such a sympathetic childlike playfulness to it, reflected in the behavior and aimlessness of the actions of most of those involved. We don't know anyone’s backstory here, unless we project one onto them by virtue of their being an Arab, a Jew, a black man, or a cop. At the same time, the film constantly feels like a game where all the players know the rules, where Paris is a giant playing field where they all pretty much out of boredom just shove each other, double-cross each other, and chase each other between buildings, then they patch everything up again until someone breaks the code and a gun ends up in the hands of someone it shouldn't. Jusqu'ici tout va bien