The Revenant

A tree. A cloud. A tree. A cloud. Leo DiCaprio moaning.
Tree.
A cloud.
Leo moaning in the distance

Respire

I bet most of you had a best friend in high school. Someone whom you always hanged out with, told everything, shared secrets with. Someone who made you feel found. Someone who made you feel like you weren't alone anymore.

Melanie Laurent's second feature film Respire, based on the eponymous French novel, tells the story of quiet, withdrawn Charlie. Her mother is brokenhearted, her father is a cheating asshole. Charlie has friends but no one she really feels connected to. Then one day a new, intriguing girl shows up in her class - Sarah. Sarah and Charlie quickly become best friends. But nothing lasts forever and when Charlie discovers Sarah's secret things take a turn...

Rust and Bone

Rust and Bone is one of those movies that tell the story of two wounded people who find each other. She trains killer whales at the aquarium and performs shows with them. He is an amateur boxer who is a single father without any money, forced to move in with his estranged sister. He takes a job as a bouncer in the bar and one night a woman is punched in the face - it is Stephanie. He offers to drive her to house, on the way there being rude to her, saying that she is dressed like a slut. They get to her house, where her boyfriend argues with her in front of him, after which he leaves, having left his phone number.

Some time after that Stephanie suffers a terrible accident, when the platform at the aquarium collapses - the result is the loss of both of her legs. Helpless and vulnerable, she calls Ali and invites him over. That is how their peculiar relationship begins, as gradually Stephanie learns how to live her life after the terrible loss and Ali becomes more human and aware of other people's feelings. Well, a little bit more human, but still not good enough for me.

Red Dragon

(124 min, 2002)
Director: Brett Ratner
Writers: Thomas Harris (novel), Ted Tally (screenplay)
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes

All things truly wicked start from an innocence.

FBI Agent Will Graham (Edward Norton) has been called out of early retirement to catch a serial killer, known by authorities as "The Tooth Fairy" (Ralph Fienes). He asks for the help of his arch-nemesis, Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), so that he can be able to catch "The Tooth Fairy" and bring him to justice. The only problem is that "The Tooth Fairy" is getting inside information about Graham and his family from none other than Dr. Lecter

“The Silence of the Lambs” is a legendary movie. Right there, Anthony Hopkins created one of the most fascinating and terrifying villains in the history of cinema. More than a decade later Ridley Scott made sequel to the story - “Hannibal”. The film was very disappointing and instead of focusing on the nature of evil, exploration of dark places of characters' minds and building chilling atmosphere it served its audience ridiculous amount of senseless gore, weak script and overall grotesque (in a bad sense of this word) experience. Finally, with “Red Dragon” came a movie with rich characters, interesting story and Hannibal Lecter once again playing his sophisticated, devilish games.

Are some of the people born evil or do they simply become it along their way? Is evil hiding in all of us? Are we all capable of unimaginable violence, the cruel infliction of pain and monstrosity? We'll probably never know what really lies in the bottom of our soul and what our nature truly is. Both the beginnings of Hannibal Lecter and the story of the killer in “Red Dragon” - Francis Dollarhyde - seem to hint that the evil is born when other people unleash it on us.

Rabbit Hole

(91 min, 2010)
Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Writers: David Lindsay-Abaire (screenplay), David Lindsay-Abaire (play)
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest

Merging universes.

“'Cause I can't face the evening straight
you can offer me escape
houses move and houses speak
if you take me there you'll get relief, relief, relief, relief
relief, relief
it's too much, too bright, too powerful”
- Radiohead, Last Flowers

Becca and Howie Corbett are a happily married couple whose perfect world is forever changed when their young son, Danny, is killed by a car. Becca tries to redefine her existence in a surreal landscape of well-meaning family and friends. Becca's experiences lead her to find solace in a mysterious relationship with a troubled young comic-book artist, Jason - the teenage driver of the car that killed Danny., while Howie immerses himself in the past, seeking refuge in outsiders who offer him something Becca is unable to give.

This is small movie about big things, life changing things. The worst thing that can happen to a parent is experiencing the loss of a child. Especially young one, who didn't get to live life at least a little bit. “Rabbit Hole” portrays the aftermath of such situation – Becca and Howie lost their son. They stick together, but their marriage is shaking – not because of the loss, but because of the different ways they deal with it.

Repulsion

(105 min, 1965)
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Roman Polanski (original screenplay), Gérard Brach (original screenplay)
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry and John Fraser

Fear. Solitude. Madness.

(spoilers)

A Belgian girl, Carol (Catherine Deneuve), works as a manicurist at a London beauty salon. While having lunch, a good looking young man, Colin, spots her and makes a date for another evening. She shares a flat with her sister Helen. Her sister's married lover, Michael takes Helen abroad for a holiday. Left alone in their flat, Carol's moments of catalepsy and hallucination increase and deepen into madness

“Repulsion” is a fascinating portrait of growing insanity – the movie centers around one character, repeats certain situations and uses a lot of symbols, which are easy to decipher but at the same time they remain very clever and build disturbing and eerie climate of the painful isolation.

Carol is incredibly beautiful, shy and fragile girl who lives with her sister Helen. Her sister knows that something is not right with Carol – she genuinely worries about her when she's going away, but she is not concerned enough to see the signs of her sister's madness or to get her psychiatric help. Michael, her boyfriend, points out that Carol should see the doctor, but Helen quickly dismisses his suggestion, almost worried that someone noticed there is something wrong with her younger sister. Perhaps if Helen wasn't so busy with her life and paid more attention to Carol, the tragedy would never happened. But can anyone blame her? She was just moving on with her life, after all she lived with Carol, kept her company, was the person Carol talked to the most.

Robin Hood

(140 min, 2010)
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Brian Helgeland (screenplay), Brian Helgeland (story)
Stars: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Matthew Macfadyen

Gladiator in the kingdom of mediocrity.

Following King Richard's death in France, archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), along with Will Scarlett, Alan-a-Dale and Little John, returns to England. They encounter the dying Robert of Locksley, whose party was ambushed by treacherous Godfrey (Mark Strong), who hopes to facilitate a French invasion of England. Robin promises the dying knight he will return his sword to his father Walter in Nottingham (Max von Sydow). Here Walter encourages him to impersonate the dead man to prevent his land being confiscated by the crown, and he finds himself with lady Marion (Cate Blanchett), a ready-made wife.

Ridley Scott has found a formula how to made a mediocre historical movie when he was shooting “Kingdom of Heaven” and apparently, he plans to stick to it. The amount of similarities between two movies is overwhelming – ordinary men turned knights (Bloom, Crowe), fierce, unhappy beautiful women who at one point of the movie will look through the window so that only their piercing eyes are visible (Green, Blanchett), wise older and righteous man (Irons, Hurt), big battles about which you couldn't care less and good actors who are underused (Norton, Strong). I saw extended version of “Robin Hood” and I have to say, even without seeing theatrical one, those 16 minutes made a difference. If I saw the normal version of the film I'd rate it 4,5 and I would be very generous. Scott has to stop doing mediocre movies, which later on he will promise will turn out to be better, once you see director's cut. And in both cases (“Kingdom of Heaven” and “Robin Hood”) the difference in rating is slight, but big when it comes to labeling the movie – no longer “terrible” just “average”.

The Ring

(115 min, 2002)
Director: Gore Verbinski
Writers: Ehren Kruger (screenplay), Kôji Suzuki (novel)
Stars: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson and Brian Cox

Before you die, you see the ring

Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers (including her niece). There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. If the legend is correct, Rachel will have to run against time to save her son's (David Dorfman) and her own life
There is such thing as good remake and “The Ring” is the proof for that. The movie is one of the first classic horrors of 00's – almost everyone saw it and it's completely unforgettable. It also started the flood of remakes of Asian horrors - “The Eye”, “Dark Water” and “The Grudge” among others. None of them, with the exception of few amazing moments in “Dark Water”, even compares to “The Ring”, though. I bet after watching it every person freaks out about hearing the ringing of the phone or picking up the coffee mug and seeing a ring. In 2002 “The Ring” was something new and exciting in horror movies, nowadays films from this genre still borrow from this movie, although it didn't invent any the things included in it, along with other remakes of Asian horrors it only made them popular. Years after seeing the movie for the first time, I still feel uneasy when I look on switched off TV set, because I'm scared I'm going to see weird reflections in it. And I remember how scared I was during the first 7 days after I saw this movie.

The prologue of “The Ring”, which is cliched but very well made, suggests another teen horror. But then we meet Rachel, fierce and brave woman who is raising extremely curious son, Aidan (Who calls his mom by her name and not by simple “mom”?) we realize this is not just another silly horror movie. There is some family drama in the story, which brings interesting connections to the players involved. Rachel's curiosity is partly professional and partly mandatory, since she watches the tape. That tape is one of the most fascinating things in the movie – it's abstract, genuinely creepy, interesting and you simply can't get it out of your head. The images from it, all equally disturbing and unsettling, are placed throughout the movie. After Rachel watches the tape the phone rings and quiet voice informs her she has 7 days left to live.

Revolver

(115 min, 2005)
Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Luc Besson (adaptation), Guy Ritchie
Stars: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and Vincent Pastore

Well, fuck me, Guy. What have you been reading?

After seven years in solitary, Jake Green (Jason Statham) is released from prison. In the next two years, he amasses a lot of money by gambling. He's ready to seek his revenge on Dorothy (Mr. D) Macha (Ray Liotta), a violence-prone casino owner who sent Jake to prison. He humiliates Macha in front of Macha's lieutenants, leaves, and keels over. Doctors tell him he has a rare disease and will die in three days; Macha also puts a hit out on him.
After you see this movie you're gonna experience two things – headache and a feeling you saw wonderfully directed mess. After you read a little bit about the movie, you're still gonna have a headache and you'll discover something which will make it worse – there is no key, which is guaranteed to work, to unlock the secrets of this movie.

Apparently, to understand the plot you have to have rather wide knowledge about enlightenment and Buddhism. I have neither of those, because I don't particularly care. Don't get me wrong – I think every religion is interesting and I love reading about them but I hate when a movie, a separate art form, requires me to read books to understand it. I read “if you don't understand the movie don't worry, just read few books about Buddhism” in the opinions of people who actually got the movie. Well, I neither have the time nor “Revolver” is interesting enough for me to dwell in the religion and books to look for meanings. If I wanted to read a book about religion, It'd be a book about my religion. So apparently, Guy Ritchie made his movie for a very small number of people comparing to all the movie goers there are, and everyone else may be in pain during this spectacle.

The Runaways

(106 min, 2010)
Director: Floria Sigismondi
Writers: Floria Sigismondi (screenplay), Cherie Currie (book)
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon

Queens of Noise

My friend has this thing, that no matter how drunk or even passed out he may be, whenever he hears „I Love Rock'n'Roll' by Joan Jett playing in the background, he just starts dancing. Everyone knows this song. But I'm sure not many people, myself included where aware of Jett's previous project called „The Runaways”.

Based on "Neon Angel," the memoir of lead singer Cherie Currie, the movie revolves around the first rock'n'roll girl band formed in 70's by Jett and other girls, directed by manager Kim Fowley. Soon the band chooses its lead singer – Cherie Curie, barely 15 year old girl of intense presence– looking like half Bardot, half Bowie.

The movie is definitely everything you expect from it to be – it is wild, rebellious and loud. I like movies about music such as „Velvet Goldmine” or „Almost famous”. Sure, the formula is always the same, as it follows the real life – epic rise to fame and than painful fall, mostly due to drugs and alcohol. But „the Runaways” are different because, in such a formerly dominated by man area as rock'n'roll, group of teenage girls shouting about sex, jail and violence from the stage is immensely impressive and quite shocking.

Joan Jett is played by Kristen Stewart, known worldwide from her performance as Bella Swan in „Twilight” movies. Even there Stewart showed incredible potential, but if there is someone doubting her acting abilities he or she should watch „The Runaways” - all of those doubts will perish in a second. She is perfect – she is cool, wild, but also very empathetic and kind. She is capable of pissing on somebody's guitar and reconciling her fellow band members, she is the true heart of this movie. Not only is she extremely believable, she gains audience's trust and sympathy as the true heroine of the film. Stewart met Jett (who is the executive producer of the movie) and she clearly did her homework – her posture, her attitude, her look – it's all not only very close to real Joan Jett, but also a homage to her.

But the movie's focus is set on Cherie played by Dakota Fanning. She is truly outstanding in her role, this part was very difficult and Fanning showed incredible bravery, not for the first time in her career. She emits both strength and vulnerability, she creates very complex performance – at certain parts it almost seems that despite her young age, Cherie knows all too much about the world around her, how to manipulate, how to gain what she wants. At other moments she seems incredibly lost, as if her mind was scattered, shattered to the point she was unable of making any choices or she just didn't care to make them at all. There is something hiding in her eyes in this film – sadness, despair and at certain parts of the film – feeling of superiority and illusion of control.

Both actresses have pretty good voices and it's actually them we hear singing in many scenes. The performances on stage are well filmed - the director of the movie has a lot of experience – she directed some of my favorite music videos ever - „Blue Orchid” by The White Stripes, „Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse and „Megalomaniac” by Incubus. The movie's soundtrack is fantastic, it reminded me of legendary ones for „Velvet Golmine” and „Trainspotting”. The visual side is amazing too – some of the shots in the movie are incredibly inspired and create painful contrast with girls' off stage reality.

The movie doesn't dwell much into girl's background except for Currie – we see her strong relationship with her sister, her alcoholic father and her mother who abandoned her daughters. We don't know much about Jett's back story, the movie focuses mostly on implying how big her passion for music was – we see her playing guitar whenever she can, making her own t-shirts worshiping „Sex Pistols”. Jett was focused on music, not on fame or publicity, Currie was in the band because she wanted exactly that – to be noticed. She had no problem with doing outrageous things in order to gain more attention. As it often happens, her behavior was what broke up the band eventually.

A lot of publicity was gained for the movie due to alleged graphic sex scenes between Fanning and Stewart – those scenes are actually quite subtle and sensual, with timeless “I wanna be your dog” by The Stooges played in the background. This is the movie focused on characters, not on sex or outrageous scenes.

The film is surprisingly good - I thought I'm going to see something like “Thirteen” but instead I saw a movie that is closer to “Velvet Goldmine” than anything I've seen recently. All three performances from previously mentioned Stewart and Fanning and very good Michael Shannon as their manager are the reason enough to see the movie. Don't get discouraged if you hate “Twilight” and everything related to it – you will miss a lot!

80/100