The Brothers Bloom is a movie which, when it was out, almost saw at the cinema. I don’t know why, but I ended up watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I completely forgot about this movie until a friend of mine mentioned it and told me it was a movie I had to see. As he doesn’t exactly has the same taste in movies (he liked Smokin Aces 2 and Operation Endgame for example) I wasn’t sure I would like this one, but decided to give it a chance. Continue reading
Le samouraï opens with the line:
There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle…
It tells the story about a hitman, Jef Costello (Alain Delon), who has been hired to murder the boss of a nightclub. Costello is very effective and always makes sure he doesn’t get caught. He plans everything thoroughly. He steals a car, has the number plates changed, makes sure he has an alibi and doesn’t leave traces.
He executes his assignment, but doesn’t manage to do it unseen as there are several witnesses.
The police starts rounding up people in various neighbourhoods that match the description.
With all this attention from the police and added pressure from the people who gave him the job getting nervous Jef is forced to live as a tiger in a concrete jungle. Continue reading
The Abyss is a movie which I had not seen before. It tells the story of a diving team that are asked to find a lost nuclear submarine, but find something else they were not expecting. It’s the first of Cameron’s films where he used extensive CGI to tell his story. When you look at the scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 goes through the glass of the helicopter you see that this movie allowed it. Cameron’s use of CGI has only increased over the year resulting in the almost complete CGI movie Avatar. Continue reading
17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) doesn’t have an easy existence. She lives together with her younger brother and sister and her mother, who has some mental issues, on the countryside of America. Life is already very hard, but when she hears that her father has put up their house in order to make bail it all becomes worse. If he doesn’t show up on his court date it will mean that her world will collapse.
The only thing she can do is to start searching for her father. Her environment is very hostile towards her, which only makes her search more difficult. Continue reading
As it’s the last day of the year I think there is no better way to end it by reviewing my movie of the year by letting it skip the queue of upcoming reviews. With Black Swan I had the same feeling as I had with The Social Network. I was wondering how a movie about a specific subject, in this case ballet, could be interesting. If you check out the dance movies which came out lately you will notice that most of them are targeting a young audience with the drama in those films being equal to the levels you see in your average soap opera. As I try to never watch movie trailers and try to know as little as I can about films in advance, I was in for a big, but very pleasant, surprise. Continue reading
Sometimes a movie can have more impact on you if you don’t know anything about it. I try to do this as much as possible, because you usually won’t have high expectations and won’t be disappointed as quickly. This is also the reason I usually skip most trailers as well, unless it is for an action movie where the story is not as important.
I hardly knew anything about 13, expect that Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke were in it. For me those names are enough reason to see a movie, so I was looking forward to seeing it and really was not disappointed. I will try to tell as little as I can about the story. Continue reading
What’s the most important thing in life and how far would you go for money? Those are the central questions in the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Humphrey Bogart is Dobbs, a man who lives the life of a bum in Mexico. How he ended up there is not made really clear. He begs for money whenever he sees other Americans so he can continue living. He doesn’t seem to have a goal in his life. After getting his hands on some money he ends up being able to pay for a roof above his head for a night. There he meets an old gold digger named Cody (Walter Huston) who tells him that there’s gold to be found in the dry desert mountains. Together with a friend he met during a small job he did he decides to buy the necessary equipment to head out to the desert and start searching for gold. Together with Cody the three head out of town to begin their search. Continue reading
A Place in the Sun is based on the novel An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, which was based on real events. It won 6 Oscars, including best director, best editing, best music and best screenplay.
George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) is a man without a lot of education. He is invited by his succesful uncle (played by Herbert Heyes) to come over and work for him. Because he’s not really adapted for the higher social circles he receives a very simple job working in one of the factories. Because there are a lot of women working there as well it is not allowed to have relationships with other factory workers.
But as these things go, sometimes the flesh is weak and George has several dates with Alice (Shelley Winters), one of the women he works with. When he sees the wealthy Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) he immediately falls in love with her and tries to sneak away from Alice whenever he can to spend some time with her.
When Alice tells her that she’s pregnant he sees all his dreams go up in smoke. While spending some time at his uncle’s vacation spot he hears the story of a couple that drowned in the lake. Is this the solution for his problem? Continue reading
Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) is a war veteran who travels to Key Largo to honor a friend of his who died during the war. He visits those left behind (a father and his daughter played by Lionel Barrymore and Lauren Bacall), who run a hotel in this far corner of Florida.
Despite the quiet season no rooms are said to be available and it doesn’t take long for Frank and the rest of the occupants of the hotel to be stuck as a result of a tropical storm. It turns out it is not the only threat they are facing. Continue reading
Luc Besson is one of France’s most famous directors. He’s responsible for a lot of well-known movies like the Taxi, Transporter and Banlieu 13 series, he wrote the story for From Paris with Love and the Fifth Element. When he had to wait for Bruce Willis (he was doing another movie) to start filming the Fifth Element, he decided to write a script, which resulted in Léon, a story about an assassin who unexpectedly ends up having to take care of a young girl. Continue reading