Lavonardo

Of Michael Mann’s considerably good output Heat remains the top entry.

The 1995 heist movie excels in showing off the cat and mouse game between the robber and the cop. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, here in their first scenes together, spark when they touch – and both characters brim with charisma and determination. The intense coffeehouse scene settles the fact that only one of these guys will be alive when the credits roll in, but that discussion is conducted inconspicuously and in an exquisitely civil manner.

We want to hurt no one. We’re here for the bank’s money, not your money. Your money is insured by the federal government, you’re not gonna lose a dime. Think of your families, don’t risk your life. Don’t try and be a hero.

Thus there’s no avoiding a collision. And that indeed happens with city-shattering force.

But the minutes ticking towards the conclusion are as necessary to the movie as the violence inherent in the last moments. The plans towards robberies are shown in great detail. And both the policemen and criminals are shown to be human beings. Most of whom are carrying a lot of baggage. These sidetracks occasionally threaten to muddle the plot. But life’s rarely free of complications, and hence the extra issues do not feel like they have been glued on.

In addition to the leading duo, the cast is packed with talent. The likes of Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore fall in perfectly into McCauley’s crowd of high-end criminals while Ashley Judd, William Fichtner and Natalie Portman round out the extra helping of complications.

As with Mann’s other films (and Miami Vice, too), the cityscapes have a role to play here. Apart from Blade Runner L.A. has rarely looked finer – with glorious nightscenes alternating giving way to beach houses, and finally to a bloodbath in the financial district.

Heat is a long film. It clocks in at close to three hours. But slicing off any would make it a lesser experience.

Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro is a film I return to, over and over again.

The tale of a sundered family takes a left turn towards Sense of Wonder-City at the first opportunity and remains there for the rest of the movie. The plot is not an overly sweet story, but contains plenty of drama. And the drama is of the proper kind – there are no bad guys, no ADHD-styled chases and absolutely no explosions, just situations that demand painful choices of the protagonists.

Fortunately, the drama is adequately balanced with fantasy – weird creatures and uncommon domestic transformations are slotted into the somber story without visible seams.

Still haven’t seen the movie with anything than the original voices. The Disney-engineered dub is allegedly quite passable, and hopefully it erases one of the very few of my pet peeves about the film: there’s just too much shrill laughter in the beginning.

The Totoro merchandise is ubiquitous in Japan. The empire may not yet rival that of Hello Kitty, but the paunchy trolls are definitely closing in on Sanrio’s pale kitten. The cultural impact merits its own section in wikipedia, and is quite informative – the appearances range from an asteroid to a cameo role in Toy Story 3.

Like many of Miyazaki’s films, Totoro occurs in an idealized version of Japan. Here the milieu is rural, and dated somewhere around early sixties.

Totoro works effectively on all levels. It is an engaging movie for adults as well, without regressing to the injokes and pop-culture intertextuality so prevalent in the likes of Shrek and Pixar movies.

Watch Totoro. Or watch it again. It’ll rub meaningful amounts of cynicism off everyone who spends the ninety minutes enthralled.

I was given the dvd of Duncan Jones’ Moon with the simple recommendation: “Watch this, you’re bound to like it”. And I did, I certainly did.

Moon is by far the best science fiction movie in a long time. Where science is more than semi-believable, and the fiction involves very few explosions, bug-eyed aliens or plot-holes Nostromo would easily fit through.

Moon is a film about a lone and lonely man at the end of his three year stint in a Helium-3 mining colony in the moon. Routine turns into something completely different and very soon the life on the base evolves far beyond the terms of Sam’s original contract. About that much can be said without spoiling the plot. And in a movie like this, spoilers would indeed rob unaware viewers of something.

Sam Rockwell is the only actor on screen for the almost entire duration of Moon. And he manages to convince all of the circumstances that turn from boring into desperate. Kevin Spacey provides the voice of GERTY, the base computer. The role could have easily been a rehash of HAL or any other malicious artificial intelligence that seem to be dime a dozen. However, both the plot and Spacey’s low-key acting retain uniqueness until the end.

The environment is both claustrophobic and wide open. The base is rather roomy, and the moon itself boasts plains that stretch from horizon to horizon. The base is sterile and blindingly white, and probably an environment in which confinement of three years is just about the maximum.

Moon is a complete film, and the news of a sequel seem rather odd. Then again, Mute is billed as a related quasi-sequel only, not a direct continuation of the story.

I can only refrain the original recommendation – Moon is a fine film and well worth watching by anybody who doesn’t have an allergic reaction to smart science fiction. The slight demerits are awarded for sometimes odd pacing and an uncomfortable reminiscence to Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 remake of Solaris.

Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland is now officially his greatest hit. The candyland rendition of Lewis Carroll’s book is currently the fifth-highest grossing film of all time.

Quite a feat, quite a feat – considering that this is by no means the director’s finest film, nor a particularly good version of the novel.

I have nothing against the framing device of the plot. Alice, now a dozen years older, returns to Wonderland by accident in order to escape an unwanted suitor. However, the plot degenerates to fantasy cliches towards the end of the film and that quite significantly lowers the lofty heights of psychedelic sense of wonder the first half rises.

Burton’s choice for the protagonist is an unknown australian actress. Mia Wasikowska survives the ordeal well – she’s appropriately perplexed in the beginning and suitably determined when donning the armor to face the jabberwocky.

Johnny Depp’s role as the as the manic Mad Hatter headlined the advertising campaign. Alice is Johnny Depp’s seventh time in Tim Burton’s movies. He by no means has overstayed his welcome, but at times the antics of the mercury-poisoned hatmaker have a definite familiarity them.

Helena Bonham-Carter is even more manic as the Red Queen that is attempting to take over Wonderland. It’s her sixth turn in her husband’s movie. But unlike Depp, the role doesn’t grate in the slightest. Apart from the physical malformity that is – for some reason the Queen is saddled with a gigantic head.

The third cornerstone of a Burton movie is a Danny Elfman soundtrack. And that is present as well. In a form that does not raise any eyebrows at all. The “inspired by” soundtrack is quite a bit more interesting, though absent from the actual movie.

Quite a few of the biggest guns, casting-wise, never put an appearance on screen. Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman are present as animated characters only. Fry’s condescending cat is quite all right, Rickman’s jaded caterpillar ends up being the finest bit in the movie.

Alice is a three-dimensional film. But unlike the likes of Avatar, it was filmed using conventional cameras and the additional dimension inserted in the post-production phase. Hence the use of z-axis is quite subdued, and oftentimes it is easy to forget about it.

Alice in Wonderland is financially Tim Burton’s finest hour thus far. Too bad the last third of the film is so thoroughly mired in fantasy cliches. A severe minus for them is countered by a plus for Wonderland itself. Visually and thematically odd, it shows that there was potential for quite a bit more.

I expected to like The Wrestler, but in the end found it an OK movie and not the testosterone-fuelled tragedy as it was claimed to be.

In my opinion Mickey Rourke returned to the limelight much earlier than last year. Even before his turn as Marv in Sin City, he’d put in a good performance as “the Cook” in Jonas Åkerlund’s underrated Spun.

He’s obviously magnificent as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a performer for whom the glory days of the eighties, hair metal, pro-wrestling and rampant steroid use have turned into struggling existence in the gloomy noughties. Apart from Marisa Tomei as Cassidy, Randy’s pretty much only friend, the rest of the cast is low-key. That does not matter – this is not a glitzy star vehicle, the characters are all fundamentally broken and the actors’ performances well-matched.

As stated, I wanted to like this film, but for some reason the emotional floodgates never really opened. Instead of identifying the wrestler hellbent in wrecking his life, I remained an aloof observer. That diminished the impact of the bleakness enough not to land this film anywhere on the podiums it got raised. Not the director’s fault, and Mickey Rourke is not to be blamed either.

The ending was pleasantly non-Hollywood.

Postings about travel are not the only thing that’s rather delayed. There are more than half a dozen movie reviews in the backlog.

Of which the chronologically first one shall be the one popped from the top of the stack.

Watched Jonathan Mostow’s Surrogates on the flight back from Tokyo. While the film had decent casting and a sizable budget, it turned out to be one of the most disappointing films seen in quite a while.

The near future tale of replicant bodies (the “surrogates” of the title) has an awkward and badly realized premise, and things are not much improved in the two plodding hours the plot takes to run its course.

Surrogates never really engages the viewer, that’s its main fault. It feels as if the scriptwriters and director do not dare to shift to a bigger gear. Even if there’s plenty of action on screen, it all feels hollow and distant. In a world populated by human shells this may be intentional, but seems an awkward choice for a mainstream movie.

Don’t expect much, and you’ll get what youy bargained for.