Godzilla vs. Megalon

Nuclear tests have made the lost continent of Seatopia emerge in Japan. In revenge for the damage caused by nuclear tests performed by the UN, the Seatopians release Megalon, their civilizations' god, in order to destroy Earth.

Shutter Island

In a remote psychiatric facility on an island, two police officers must find the whereabouts of Rachel Solando, a violent inmate who has disappeared from her cell. The atmosphere in the hostile prison and a storm outside underlines the sense of confinement. The double whistle of a ferry is the only communication with the outside world.

Trainspotting

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin can openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. 

The School of Rock

Dewey is a short, chubby guy whose goal has always been to become a rock star. He lives, however, with no money and in Ned's apartment, an old friend whose girlfriend will make the impossible to kick him out.

And as if this was not enough, the same band that he formed some years ago has decided to let him go because they claim he is the worst member of it.

Love Actually

The so-called romantic comedies have always had a secure public. The drill is almost always the same: two characters who meet by chance and then discover to be in love.

Romantic comedies tend to have as characters romantic, beautiful women and  funny and sensitive men who find themselves feeling something new.

Unknown

Dr. Martin Harris arrives to Berlin accompanied by his wife to give a lecture on biotechnology. When registering at the hotel, he says he has forgotten one of his bags at the airport, so he takes a cab to go get it.

At the height of Oberbaumbrücke, however, he suffers an accident in which he gets close to death after falling into the icy waters of the river Spree. After a few days in a coma and after regaining his memory, he realizes that neither his wife nor anyone else is looking for him, and even worse, that another man has taken his place next to his wife and colleagues, while his disappearance did not call their attention at all. The only thing that seems out of place is himself, who nonetheless is living an incomprehensible nightmare.

Inland Empire

On the eve of getting her first major starring role in several years, the veteran actress Nikki Grace receives in her Beverly Hills mansion the visit of a ghost. The ghost is the somewhat sinister, ugly and old neighbour from the house at the end of the street: it is actually a Polish actress of the 40’s, who died at the end of shooting a film in Warsaw that never got out.

Lost In Translation

Bob Harris, a Hollywood actor who has been "sold" to a whiskey producer to record a Japanese TV commercial, for a few days he leaves his home, running away from his wife and son.

The shootings show us a crowded Tokyo, with metallic and shiny skyscrapers whose windows may appear like a dinosaur from a commercial advertising at any time. They are at the same time the look of wonder of Bob, who gets to communicate the feeling of loneliness and helplessness that the he will express throughout the story, accentuated by the effect of not understanding very well what happens when everything he says has to be translated and when he can’t understand anything when they talk to him.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

Dennis Dugan is one of the best American directors and he chooses wisely as stars for this film  Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Jessica Biel. He aims at delivering a few messages about the subject treated, but still keeps the focus on having fun.

This movie distinguish itself for treating homosexuality in a hilarious way and it helps to talk about this reality, to understand and respect diversity. 

Juno

What does growing up mean? It is true that sometimes it can seem that is sad to grow up: gone are the days that seemed easier, far from certain are responsibilities or worries. However, that does not seem the case of Juno, who has just discovered that at age 16 she is pregnant of his best friend's child: it was only once they had sex and she let him take off her white trousers with the apples... and now she is expecting a child.

Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi)

Be methodical. It makes no sense to improvise, because then the instinct prevails, perverting the act, in-humanizing it.

Methodical, I repeat. One step at a time. High heels. Shadows on the eyes. Every gesture, every movement, linked to a particular purpose. Everything has a reason. The plan for everything. The plan as the beginning and the end. The plan contrasted to the plan. First I decide it and then it governs me. I look at the map, keep on walking.

House of Sand and Fog

The only thing left to Kathy Niccolo, a drug addict rehabilitated and abandoned by her husband, is the house his father left her when he died. But an apparent delay in a payment of taxes will make her loose it.

Massoud Behrani, a former Iranian colonel who had to flee to America years ago, buys the house with the idea of fixing it and then selling it at a better price. But Kathy is not willing to see how he takes away all that is left for her and will make the impossible to recover it, as, according to her, it belongs to her.

Melinda and Melinda

Even the hardest critics of this movie acknowledge that the subject is excellent: life should be told as a comedy or as a tragedy?

The story begins with a dinner with a group of friends at a restaurant in Manhattan. At this dinner, the conversation verts on whether, at the end of the day, life is funny or tragic. As the dinner is attended by two playwrighters (Wallace Shawn and Larry Pine), someone proposes that each of them should develop a dramatic story and a comic one from the scene of a distressed woman who breaks abruptly in an apartment where a group of friends are having dinner. Melinda (Radha Mitchell) will then be the star of the two stories, both the comedy and the drama.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile)

Abortion has been a controversial and highly sensitive theme because the Catholic Church has turned it into a matter of principles: the woman cannot decide on it, she can never have that power. It disguises itself as a life defense, but behind that rhetoric what is at stake is this: the fear that any woman takes a significant decision without the permission of men.

For the absolute refusal of the church, the battle for legalization has been a slow process in the world; while this has involved and still involves the suffering and death of millions of women who are forced to practice unsafe clandestine abortions, at serious risks for their health.

Black Swan

I just realized I never really posted about a movie that I DIDN’T love. So here it is.

There has been a lot of talking about this movie last year and Natalie Portman even won the Academy Award for her interpretation of the mentally ill ballerina portrayed in this film (recognition followed by a lot of discussions over the merits of an actress and her double in such a movie). For the sake of honesty, I must say that I found Portman's interpretation indeed superb, but this is not enough to save the whole movie at my eyes.

12 Angry Men

I am a big fan of the classics. I am kind of sick in that way actually: I feel that if you don't watch the classics, there is no point watching the rest. I know that does not make sense, that is why I said it is sick!

This one is an excelent one and one of the best performance of Mr. Fonda: with all due respect for his comedy performances or the ones in the Westerns, I just love the smart, critic, brave, brilliant architect-jury member we see here.

Allegro

As we grow, we gain all kinds of experiences. We have joys, disappointments and we meet a lot of people who, most of the time, will eventually hurt us. Still, we keep playing the game of life often wanting to eliminate, for once, any hint of emotion and sentimentality or to completely erase the memories of 

those people that hurt us.

Where The Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze took the difficult challenge of bringing to the screen the famous children's book by Maurice Sendak, "Where The Wild Things Are". In a few words and with neat and beautiful illustrations, Sendak tells the story of little Max, a boy dressed as a wolf who after a day of pranks and tantrums is punished and sent to his room without dinner. However, the lock down lasted almost nothing, since this imaginative child will move from there to the land of the monsters where he will be crowned king and will do his will.

Kill Bill Vol. 1

"Kill Bill Vol. 1" is a story of revenge and death. The story follows the footsteps of The Bride (Uma Thurman) a woman overwhelmed but lethal. She is a member of a group of hired assassins that are as attractive as mortals. David Carradine is Bill, the head of the delinquent organization on paper but invisible in the first part, who becomes the backbone of the second part and who will be important. Bill killed, better yet, tried to kill The Bride but it is in a coma and after four years she is back for revenge.

The New World

"The New World" is based on the English landing on the shores of North America in 1607. The film tells the story of the formation of the Jamestown settlement and the encounter between the English and the natives who inhabited the lands of Virginia, then Tenakomakah territory.

This event holds a special place in the American imagination from the legend of the romance between John Smith, one of the captains of the English expedition, and the Indian princess Pocahontas.

Downfall (Der Untergang)

The Adolf Hitler in "Downfall" (Der Untergang) is primarily a symbolic figure. As a human being, we actually see very little of him, just a small decadent external layer. What we appreciate is a sick man, listless and overwhelmed by bad news from the war and by the failures of those in his inner circle.

Director Oliver Hirschbiegel was not able to go through the skin of the character. We never get a look of what is in his mind; there is never a moment of introspection that brings us closer to his motives; Hitler rarely has a moment of peace.

Elephant

Victims, we all are, wisely says the Crow. It is easy to recognize us in them: Who were they? How did they live? What they left behind? John deals with his alcoholic father, Elias dreams of a photograph of him in a cover of a magazine, Nathan is popular, Michelle does not feel good about her body, Benny plays basketball, Jordan vomits after eating, Alex plays the piano, Eric is alone.

Waltz with Bashir (Vals Im Bashir)

Ari looks at his picture taken twenty years ago in Beirut. Thin, wearing his uniform, with a crossed Galil, no beard, no white hairs, young. The city in the background, destroyed by the bombing. I do not recognize this, he admits. There's something wrong there. I can’t remember.

The Celebration (Festen)

The end of the year holidays remind us that, behind those toasts in which we celebrate that we are all so good and that we don’t want or ask for that much, it often hides the truth that reflect all the vices that can develop a precarious human condition. And though these truths rarely come to the surface, sometimes a kamikaze dives the toast and decides to unveil the harsh reality.

Defiance

WWII. Bielorussia is the battlefield between the German lines and the Russian ones. Jews are hunted and persecuted as in the rest of Europe. There is never going to be enough talking and reminding of the shame of those years, but we have to admit that a lot of the movies dealing with this issue are quite similar.

Buffalo 66

"Buffalo 66" tells the story of a revenge that gradually transforms into a truncated love story. Billy gets out of jail, prepared to end the life of a football player who made him lose all his money with a fixed game.

Layla comes out of nowhere; she is a friendly ghost with big shiny eyes that stands between Billy and his bitter gazer, uncontrollable incomprehensible anger, his frustration and urgent search for a bathroom to urinate. The meeting will be providential. Layla will provide Billy with what he just needs after years of being ignored and despised: a little attention, a smile, a hug in bed before sleeping. Billy will escape terrified from her sweetness in search of his beloved vengeance, promising her to return.

Billy Elliot

Billy Elliot narrates a simple story: an 11 year old boy, born among a mining family in England, discovers, unexpectedly, his passion for ballet and decides, despite a hostile environment, that he wants to dance.

Billy's family has not only overcome a series of unfortunate events, like the death of the mother for example, but they do also face a long miners' strike: the one that took place in 1984.

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is, in my humble opinion, one of the best shows of recent years, there included the oh-so-famous Lost. I have never read the comic-book this show by AMC is based on, but, if it is even just half as good, I am going to have to!

The Iron Lady

I finally got the chance to watch The Iron Lady...just finished actually so this is my fresh impression: average. It is not necessarily a bad thing: the industry needs average movies, people need average movies to watch every once and a while and so on. It may be a bad thing if we consider that probably expectations for this one were higher.

The White Ribbon (Das weiße Band)

Michael Haneke is undoubtedly one of the most meticulous contemporary directors in the industry. His style is precisely what does not allow him to reach all audiences, but those who know how to appreciate the consistency of his works will also be able to appreciate his desire to break the mold, by telling real stories, rooted in the man’s darkest nature.