Network

93/100 (121 min, 1976)
Plot: A TV network cynically exploits a deranged ex-TV anchor's ravings and revelations about the media for their own profit.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Writer:Paddy Chayefsky
Stars: Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Peter Finch


"You need me. You need me badly. Because I'm your last contact with human reality. I love you. And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day."


"Network" is one of the most famous American films, which also won unusual thing in Academy Awards history - 3 Oscars for actors, including first posthumous statuette for late Peter Finch. The film follows the lives and the job of people involved in TV - one day Howard Beale, the anchorman, goes crazy on air and announces that because he lost his job he will commit suicide on air one week later. Instead of firing him, upon seeing how his actions made for great ratings Diana Christensen, ambitious vice-president in charge of programming convinces her boss Frank and Howard's friend family man Max to just let the show go on with unstable Beale.

With all the hoopla around "The Hunger Games" and all the talk about how it shows important issues and the dangers of reality TV all people need to do is just to watch this movie. 36 years ago "Network" showed the same truth with better story, superior execution and much stronger punch. The TV Network is prepared to show whatever it takes in order to gain ratings and in the process success and money. No matter what, no matter how much it destroys Beale and with no regard for the fact that while chasing their careers without any ethics and any consideration they will be left a shell of a person in the process.

8 actresses who would be a better choice for Carrie than Chloe Moretz

Good Lord, it came to that. They are remaking "Carrie". The idea to remake Brian De Palma's brilliant masterpiece is ridiculous. For a while I was hoping that the project will die out, just like another stupid idea - "The Birds" remake. Unfortunately, yesterday the news broke about the studio finding the actress for the main part. And wow, it suddenly became even worse idea than it was. They want Chloe Moretz to play Carrie. 15 year old actress, who while was good in horror movie "Let me in" looks nothing like someone you would see and go "oh, I bet kids bullied her in school". She would be good in "Taxi Driver" remake playing adolescent hooker, not troubled girl with telekinetic powers. What's so memorable about Spacek's Carrie are her amazing eyes that were often the focus of the movie - Moretz doesn't stand a chance.  I mean there are some things that just can't get better - Spacek was 27 years old when she played Carrie, yet she captured her innocence and the sense of being lost completely. However if I had to chose someone to play Carrie, here are my 8 choices, who would all be better than Moretz:.

New TV Spot for "Dark Shadows"

I love all those scenes of Johnny Depp looking confused and freaked out by the world around him. Also the cinematography and set design look absolutely gorgeous. "Dark Shadows" premieres on May 11th and stars Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Lee Miller and Chloe Moretz.

Alien

98/100 (117 min, 1979)
Plot: A mining ship, investigating a suspected SOS, lands on a distant planet. The crew discovers some strange creatures and investigates.
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Dan O'Bannon (story), Ronald Shusett (story)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt and John Hurt

In space no one can hear you scream

With the fast approaching "Prometheus" Ridley Scott's return to the world of "Alien" for the first time in 33 years now it's the perfect time to revisit his masterpiece of space horror, one that's yet to be beaten as the scariest movie ever taking place in space. We follow the events concerning the crew of Nostromo and the mysterious monster whose only agenda seems to be slaughtering them with excitement and with true horror. I wasn't yet born when the movie premiered in 1979 and I was too young to see it when it was re-released in theatres in 2003. But I remember the first time I saw "Alien" as if it was yesterday, in broad daylight, in a house filled with people, the movie still managed to scare me, turning my blood cold many times and sustaining the almost unbearable tension from the opening scene to the very end.

There are so many things that worked brilliantly in the movie - first the setting. We are always with the crew, whether they are on Nostromo or on a bizarre planet. We know as much as they do - we have no idea what the strange eggs on the planet are, what is the facehugger creature that attaches itself to Kane's face and finally we have no idea what is Alien, where does it come from or what does it want. It's almost like it's punishing the crew with its brutality and viciousness, for whatever reason. Or it's much more simple - it simply needs a host to reproduce.

The Hunger Games

35/100 (142 min, 2011)
Plot: Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.
Director: Gary Ross
Writers: Gary Ross (screenplay), Suzanne Collins (screenplay, novel)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth
 
Please, let the games stop.

In a not-too-distant future, North America has collapsed to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the rich Capitol and poor 12 districts. Each year two young representatives - one male and one female - from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. The 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors with all citizens required to watch.

From the very first minutes "The Hunger Games" feels messy and it only becomes worse and worse as it progresses - you wait for the games to begin for and hour and when they do, they feel like action scenes shot for a TV movie with cheesy explosions, people running around the woods and horrid editing adorning all of it. The world the story takes place in, didn't engage me. The characters, so underdeveloped, didn't interest me. Say what you want about Jacob and Edward in Twilight - even comparing to those two male characters in "The Hunger Games" are so bland that if actors playing them are not nominated for Razzies this year, I'll be truly shocked.

Saturday TV Special: Ally McBeal

Plot: Ally McBeal is a lawyer in her late twenties. She is constantly looking for her Mr. Right, being a hopeless romantic and a neurotic. She gets a job in Fish & Cage firm and she finds out that her childhood sweetheart who left her during law school - Billy - not only works there but is happily married. Of course it's a horrible idea for them to work in such proximity and the first two seasons of the show focus on the dynamics between them and given how Ally bonds with Billy's wife Georgia it only makes the matters worse
Structure: Each episode follows a different case the firm takes. The cases are amazing - weird, shocking, unusual, frequently very moving or funny. There is a case of a boy who is ill with cancer and wants to sue God, a woman who is more happy dreaming and wants to get a court order for a hospital to put her in a coma, the man who cuts off his wife's arm after she is dead because he loved her so much he didn't want to lose the ability of being able to hold her hand and a lot of sexual harassment law suits, which usually make for the most entertaining episodes in the show. The series also follows Ally's and her friends' romantic life and their struggle to find happiness. The series however gets incredibly messy in its 5th season, mostly due to the fact Robert Downey Jr. was fired because of his drug use and since his character was a big part of the 4th season the series basically collapsed after that, even though there are some funny moments in the show's final season. 

Drive

89/100 (100 min, 2011)
Plot: A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbour.
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writers: Hossein Amini (screenplay), James Sallis (book)
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and Bryan Cranston

"There is always some madness in love. 

But there is also always some reason in madness."

— Friedrich Nietzsche 

 "Whatever is left of me, whatever is left of me...I'm yours."

"Drive", the movie sensation of 2011, has swept away most of the people who have seen it. Why? Stylistically the movie is just amazing - from the very first minutes the pictures just flow into the night, with shining, blurred lights in the distance and you get the feeling as if you were driving along with the main hero. The film never loses its dreamy, evanescent quality - the camera movements are steady and the takes are long, the images just flow before our eyes creating one breezy atmosphere which is curiously contrasted with the violence and the gore that we occasionally see in the movie.

What adds to the film is another reason for its popularity - the amazing soundtrack consisting of original score by Cliff Martinez, which for some reason brings to mind driving on the empty streets during night. The album also contains great synthpop pieces that feel very old school and may as well be something which Quentin Tarantino would love to use in certain scenes in Kill Bill Volume 2. From the beginning to the very end, the movie never betrays the amazing climate it established, pulling as deep into the story as if it was a dream.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Alien

Song: Main Title

Artist: Jerry Goldsmith

Movie: Alien

Game Change

82/100 (117 min, 2012)
Plot: Follows John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, from his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate to their ultimate defeat in the general election.
Director:Jay Roach
Writers: Mark Halperin (book), Danny Strong (adaptation)
Stars: Ed Harris, Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson

"I am NOT your puppet!"

Sarah Palin. If like me you don't live in USA what you know about her is probably only that she wears glasses, that she doesn't have much knowledge even you posses and you probably remember those horrible Fey/Pohler parodies (embarrassing for them too, since they were completely not funny). HBO's Game Change shows us a sympathetic look at her and with it comes one of the most outstanding performances from amazing Julianne Moore, who is long overdue for an Oscar, but at least with this film she is sure to win Emmy this year.

The movie begins in the midst of the presidential campaign when Obama is leading in the polls and McCain desperately needs something to win, he needs a game change. With the help of his advisers - Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) and Rick Davis (Peter MacNicol) he decides he needs to find a woman in the party, that would, if he wins, become vice president. Davis finds Palin - attractive, feisty and energetic governor of Alaska. And she is more than happy to help the campaign.

2nd trailer for "Snow White and the Huntsman"

"Lips red as blood. Hair black as night. Bring me your heart my dear, dear Snow White." Although the movie seems to rely too much on the CGI which looks only slightly less embarassing than in "Alice in Wonderland", this is nice, dynamic trailer and one thing we can be sure of - Charlize Theron will deliver amazing work as an evil Queen. The logic however, behind casting her as the person envious of Snow White's beauty when the Snow White is played by Kristen Stewart is flawed, to put it mildly. Stewart is pretty, but Theron is pretty much a goddess. There are many beautiful shots in the promo especially when taking place in dark forest and on the snow.

"How far would you go to get your answers?" International trailer for "Prometheus"

What a great treat - extended trailer for Prometheus with more scenes and more dialogue than the one we got yesterday. Does anyone know the music that plays in the background? It is absolutely gorgeous. Also I really do hope Noomi's performance will be as amazing as what we saw so far from the trailers - that scene where she composes herself is amazing. Also there is something chasing her as she is struggling to escape, which I only noticed now.

7x7 Link Award

 I got 7x7 link award from Stevee, Nikhat and Diana, thanks so much!

Rules are as followed:
- Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.
- Link to one of the posts that I personally think best fits the following categories: Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, and Most Pride-Worthy Piece.

Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you: I really loathe "Community" (I know, I know, how awful of me) but sometimes when I'm extremely bored I watch it. I do not know why, perhaps because I  wait for the scenes with the Dean, who is quite possibly the only funny character on that show.

Most Beautiful Piece: Amelie, Michael Clayton
Most Helpful Piece: The nature of sleep, the nature of life. (Sleeping Beauty)
Most Popular Piece: 48 hidden images in "Black Swan"
Most Controversial Piece: I'm gonna go ahead with my The Tree of Life review which I suspect if more people read I'd be crucified.
Most Surprisingly Successful Piece: Valentine's Day Special - 15 memorable sex scenes.
Most Underrated Piece: The Artist review, Sisterhood in film
Most Pride-Worthy Piece:   Black Swan - Possession theory, step by step.

Pass this award on to seven other bloggers.

Ruth

Alex

Andy

Bonjour Tristesse

Cherokee

Chris

Chip

First full trailer for Prometheus

I love the trailer. It has so much new great footage, a lot of Fassbender and Rapace and we still know absolutely nothing about the plot. Also I'm pretty sure that if you go frame by frame near the end of the promo there is a lot of hidden footage there, including Space Jockey and something weird attacking Noomi's character. I really can't wait for the movie.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 16 drinking scenes from movies.

2nd teaser for Ridley Scott's Prometheus

(I'm still looking for info whether it's the full trailer that was announced to appear this weekend, or just another teaser. Some sources say the full trailer is 2:30 minutes long, so this may be just another teaser, regardless of what it is it is freaking awesome).
We have Space Jockey, something freaking happening to eyes, Charlize Theron being bad ass and Noomi Rapace being even more bad ass. I can't wait to see this film and from the looks of it, let's just hope there is no way this will be PG-13.

First trailer for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows

What do you guys think? I think it's gonna be tons of fun. Tim Burton ceased to make good movies a long time ago and waiting for another "Sleepy Hallow" is just futile. This looks like a fun, silly entertainment, maybe with a little bit of "Beetlejuice" feel to it. The soundtrack is bitchin' and I hope it will be featured in the movie. Also how amazing does Eva Green look?

The Debt

82/100 (113 min, 2010)
Plot: 1965, three Mossad agents cross into East Berlin to apprehend a notorious Nazi war criminal. Thirty years later, the secrets the agents share come back to haunt them.
Director: John Madden
Writers: Matthew Vaughn (screenplay), Jane Goldman (screenplay), Peter Straughan (screenplay), Assaf Bernstein (film "Ha-Hov") & Ido Rosenblum (film "Ha-Hov")
Stars: Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson

The cost of lies

"The Debt" is a skillfully and elegantly shot film about the mission to apprehend "the surgeon of Birkenau"- Doktor Bernhardt, criminal responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. The mission is a task ensured to three people - Stephan (Marton Csokas and Tom Wilkinson), David (Sam Worthington and Ciarán Hinds) and Rachel (Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren). We see the story of how their mission turns out and then we jump ahead 30 years to the moment Rachel's and Stephan's daughter writes a book about her parents heroic mission. From the very first moments we sense there is more to the story, something that remained unsaid for three decades. Now Rachel, David and Stephan will have to pay the prize for what they did.

What makes the movie very interesting is that it shows more then your usual "catch the bad guy" movie. Yes, a good portion of the film is spent on agents' efforts to apprehend their target, but once they have him the best part of the movie begins - the part where the criminal tries to manipulate and break his captors. Since the three assigned to the task are so young and mostly inexperienced it's very easy for him to do. The best part comes when while being forced fed by David the prisoner tells him that the reason he thought Jews deserved to die was because it only took four guards to line them up and lead them to death, nobody resisted, not even when they took their children. The film is filled with strong moments like that, but the unimaginable cruelty of those words and the amazing ability Jesper Christensen has to stole the movie with just one scene really made the movie memorable for me.

Soundtrack Wednesday - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2)

Song: What If We Could?

Artist: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Movie: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 

Heavenly Creatures

75/100 (99 min, 1994)
Plot: Two girls have an intense fantasy life; their parents, concerned the fantasy is too intense, separate them, and the girls take revenge.
Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Fran Walsh (screenplay), Peter Jackson (screenplay)
Stars: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet and Sarah Peirse

"It is because we are MAD. We are both stark raving MAD!"

"We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,

Me and you."

— Sylvia Plath (Ariel: The Restored Edition)

"Heavenly Creatures" directed by now famous creator of "Lord of the Rings" trilogy Peter Jackson and a feature film debut of now one of the biggest stars in the world Kate Winslet is a disturbing and complex movie based on the real events, which led to the crime that shook entire nation due to the circumstances surrounding it and the brutality of the act.

Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme met in school during the 1950s. Pauline was a shy good girl,  Juliet on the other hand was eccentric and bold newcomer in the school. Despite being so different, the girls instantly became best friends and invented fantasy world in which they would live, spending every moment together. More and more estranged from their respective families, the two girls realised that they are extremely different from most other people - at one point it was just them against the world, they took no interest in other people, boys and their parents. The girl's relatives, concerned about the powerful and possibly inappropriate bond between them decided to separate them. That led to a shocking crime both of the girls committed in order to stay together, that in the end will be the reason for their lifelong separation.

Scene of the Week: Lost in Translation

directed by Sofia Coppola

The Silent Goodbye

The scene: In the memorable and beautiful ending to the movie, Bob, middle aged actor and Charlotte, young woman who met in Tokyo few days before and formed a friendship, say goodbye to each other. Bob catches up with Charlotte on the busy street, to her big happiness and surprise, hugs her and whispers something in her ear, which we never hear but we get the sense it's something reassuring. Then they share a kiss and say "bye". After they walk away in opposite directions they turn around, to catch one last glimpse of each other and walk with a smile on their faces.

Videodrome

83/100 (87 min, 1983)
Plot: A sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a very unusual fashion when he acquires a new kind of programming for his station.
Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: David Cronenberg
Stars: James Woods, Deborah Harry and Sonja Smits

"Long live the new flesh!"

Before "The Ring" made people scared of videotapes nearly two decades earlier came "Videodrome". Andy Warhol called that movie the "A Clockwork Orange of the 1980s". Disturbing, provocative and shocking, "Videodrome" is one of the signature works of David Cronenberg, who has very unique style and can make repulsive and potentially scarring things look curiously sensual and fascinating.

The film follows Max Renn, determined and unscrupulous TV produced who wants to find the new exciting show to be aired on his station. Due to coincidence he discovers the show called "Videodrome" featuring torture, sex and humiliation. There is no plot there, there is just senseless violence. Max thinks that the show can be a big success, but as the plot unravels we, along with him, find out more and more about Videodrome and the horrifying effect it can have on people who watch it. Soon his situation is starting to become very dangerous and he is beginning to experience disturbing hallucinations.

J. Edgar

33/100 (137 min, 2011)
Plot: As the face of law enforcement in America for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Dustin Lance Black
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer and Naomi Watts

Iron Man

What the hell happened to Clint Eastwood? He used make great films - "Mystic River", "Million Dollar Baby", "Changeling" and "Letters to Iwo Jima". Then came "Gran Torino" which while still being a decent film featured absolutely awful supporting cast which I can only assume was chose by someone blindfolded and drunk. And then last year there was misguided "Hereafter". But "J. Edgar" is so horribly bland, chaotic and messy which leads me to the one conclusion - it is definitely Eastwood's worst directing effort in years. I mean it's so bad it managed to make JFK assassination-related scenes look boring on screen, quite possibly for the first time in movie history.

I can't decide what was worst - the script or the execution of the story. The plot of the film focuses on way too many things without really telling us anything relevant and jumps around much like in "The Iron Lady" - 2011 was definitely not a good year for biopics. Much as with a misfire about Margaret Thatcher we observe Edgar looking back at his life, frequently not in chronological order. Most of the interesting things that happened during his days as the chef of FBI are omitted, in fact we don't learn that much from watching this movie. It's 2,5 hours long but I can't remember anything especially interesting happening in it or even anything actually happening in the film. The movie drags on mercilessly, the characters are never fully established on screen, sometimes they even disappear from the picture never to be seen again. It's especially baffling since Eastwood always had such a good hand to chose scripts he directs.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Frost/Nixon

Track: Beverly Hilton

Artist: Hans Zimmer

Movie: Frost/Nixon

Delusions to the rescue. Analyzing Jason Reitman's Young Adult.

"She was consumed by 3 simple things:

drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more:

youth and beauty"

— Charles Bukowski (The People Look Like Flowers at Last) 

Jason Reitman's Young Adult tells a story of Mavis Gary, a woman approaching 40 and a former prom queen. Mavis never grew up - she was always told how beautiful and amazing she was, which cause her to rely on her looks and never getting a chance to develop strong personality. When she was in high school she was popular and everyone always assumed she will achieve great things. She was dating Buddy Slade, it was a love of her life. In the beginning of the movie Mavis gets a message from Buddy's wife Beth informing her that she and Buddy just had a baby. Mavis is shown pulling her hair out for the first time when she looks at the picture - it's a compulsion, she does it every single time something reminds her of how wrong her life went and when everyone moved on, severed their connections to their teenage years, went on to do new things and started families, Mavis is just standing still, still trapped in her old mentality. She prints the photo of the baby and sits on the balcony looking at it. You can see curious things going through Mavis's face as she looks at it - nostalgia, jealousy and confusion. Mavis shakes the good emotions right off and comes up with a plan - she will go back to Mercury, her old town and win Buddy back. She is convincing herself that Buddy is trapped in his new life and he still loves her.

Screaming Sunday: The Thing (2011)

Sati's movie rating - 62/100
Plot: Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region of Antarctica for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up. When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew's pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish. "The Thing" serves as a prelude to John Carpenter's classic 1982 film of the same name.
The heroes: The team of scientists and Kate Lloyd, played by lovely Winstead, who is actually quite strong and admirable horror movie heroine. I have not noticed her doing anything idiotic during the course of the film which is admirable. I'm omitting the fact that when the expedition stumbles across the alien organism that was frozen for 100,000 years instead of just leaving this in the ice and getting the hell away from there, which is what I would do, they can't wait for examine it. Oh, by all freaking means do so.
The antagonists: The Thing, creature from space that is able to imitate all the organic tissues and make itself look like anyone in the research team. It can't however replicate non-organic materials, like for example teeth fillings, which will be a basis for one suspense filled scene.

Saturday TV Special: True Blood

Plot: Based on the series of novels by Charlaine Harris, "True Blood" follows young waitress Sookie Stackhouse, who is able to read in other people's minds. The show is set in Bon Temps, Louisiana, in the world where vampires exist among people and actually fight for their rights. The title refers to the synthetic blood the vampires drink in order not to feed off people. But as there are those of them who try to live peacefully among humans - as Sookie's main love interest Bill Compton, there are also others, who miss the old ways. During the course of the show other supernatural beings make appearance - werewolves, shape shifters, fairies, ghosts and even a Meanad, straight from Greek mythology.
Structure: Each season is centered around different major issue - first season is the only one to follow the books closely and it deals with a serial killer who murders women associated to vampires, second season deals with the curious character of MaryAnn who takes over the town, third one introduces werewolves and fourth one - based on the best novel and unfortunately the worst season of the show yet - deals with witches, fairies and magic. There also major story arcs that last through the entire series - the addiction to vampire blood - V - which is a powerful narcotic when consumed by humans, Sookie's many suitors and her doubts about all of them, the people who want to destroy the vampires - the Fellowship of the Sun, which is essentially a church and a gathering of fanatics and Sookie's struggle to find out why is she a telepath.

100 things the movies taught me.

Inspired by this brilliant post I decided to put together my own list, which is essentially composed out of some of the memorable quotes that stuck with me after seeing the movies. You can make a guessing game out of it and try to remember what movie is the quote from. Emjoy!

1. The only person standing in your way is you. Black Swan

2. Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. Synecdoche New York

3. You've seen the films, kiddo. It ain't over 'til it's over. Love Actually

4. No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of. The Big Lebowski

5. This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. Fight Club

6. Silencio... Mulholland Drive

7. I'm not the guy you kill. I'm the guy you buy! Are you so fucking blind that you don't even see what I am? I sold out Arthur for 80 grand. I'm your easiest problem and you're gonna kill me? Michael Clayton

8. That's thirty minutes away. I'll be there in ten.  Pulp Fiction

9. That six pound piece of shit stuck in your trousers would do more damage if you fed it to him. Snatch