Don´t remember the actors, it was a british movie I fell over during switching. It was great though, it was like the foregoer for movies such as WATERWORLD and HARD RAIN. It evolves around two inmates who flee during a flood that destroys a town. One of them is being brought in prison unjustly, and he wants revenge from an old pal. Great camera, great acting and beautiful lighting. A very good b-movie, with love for cinema. The director went on to do some episodes for the Avengers and A Fish called Wanda.

Best Wishes

Philipp

Thir13en Ghosts (2001 version):

I kinda liked it, or rather parts of it. It started out like the typical dumb modern ghost story, but I found it got quite interesting after the credits, at least for a while. There were lots of annoying bits all through the movie though, and they seemed to completely have stopped worrying about a plot towards the end. A shame, since the design was very nicely done, and the use of sound fx was also very good. I wonder if the original version is worth watching?

The Time Machine (2002 version):

Time Machine was lame. I like Guy Pearce. He does these movies well. See him also in Count of Monte Cristo, which also stars another unlikely actor, Jim Caviezel (looking like Antonio Banderas on the cover).

WHat have I seen so far in October? Nothing of consequence yet, but I did see a bit of Butterfield 8, which stars Elizabeth Taylor. Cheeseball dialogue.
Bronislau Kaper score, I think, though I could be mistaken. 'twas nice.

I think today I'll watch Sleepy Hollow, a nice Halloween movie.

Best movie and best score all year to me.

Sure it didn't have a surprise twist ending like Unbreakable and 6th Sense, but it tied up so nicely in the end. Just a remarkable movie.

I have to say that I really wish filmmakers didn't abandon the 70mm format, because certain scenes in that movie were so amazing...well...I really don't know how to describe them. It goes without saying that I don't want to see that movie again on the TV for a long time.

saw Red Dragon yesterday. good stuff, and a nice score by Elfman...dig the Lalo Schifrin cameo.

Brotherhood of the Wolf This movie was never ending. I kept thinking that the
end was near, but I was wrong. Way too long. Still it is a visually STUNNING movie.
17th Century France meets The Matrix and Crouching Tiger. Parts of the movie are
wonderful. Parts are dull. The first few fights were fascinating. Their repetition became
boring. Best to use the fast forward button at times. The beast disappointed but kept my
attention. I wonder why so many liked the music? Except for a slow theme at the end, I thought it rarely enhanced the movie.

But for the most part it's still quite amazingly enthralling. As disconcerting as A.I., and nearly as difficult to evaluate, but it's also real SF, for which I'm grateful.

Johnny Dubbelyou is as he has been of late - textural, but with exciting ATTACK OF THE CLONES action. I'll be getting the CD, because JW can do no wrong in my (fan)book.

MINORITY REPORT (USA 2002)

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen, from the short story by Philip K. Dick
Photography by Janusz Kaminski
Music by John Williams

I also feel that Woody is better when he's concise and brings his films in at under ninety minutes. Pushing the two hour mark, there isn't really enough material in HOLLYWOOD ENDING. But I still admire Woody, and I did have a sort of permanent smile on my face throughout. Well, maybe only a half-smile by the end.

Old recordings, of course, on the soundtrack - "Hooray For Hollywood" etc.

HOLLYWOOD ENDING (USA 2002)

Directed by Woody Allen
Screenplay by Woody Allen
Photography by Wedigo Von Schultzendorff

David Julyan mirrors monotony of insomnia (and may be perfect cure for it on CD).

INSOMNIA (USA 2002)

Directed by Christopher Nolan
Screenplay by Hillary Seitz
Photography by Wally Pfister
Music by David Julyan

One Hour Photo
I was expecting more. Robin Williams gives a great performance, the wall of photo is very creepy, and filmed perfectly, but the script feels like a draft that was rushed through production, with great events in a weird order and with a bad pacing. The very ending is beautiful and clever, but it's just a tad unbelievable to see Sy Parrish having these wild personality changes.

The Believer
Absolutely loved this movie. Very realistic in every way, chilling, incredible performance by Ryan Gosling, with a great, makes-ya-think ending. The only question I have is why some scenes show an awful lot of grain while others are crystal clear. Other than that, amazing realistic movie about a very, very controversial subject.

HEARTS IN ATLANTIS:
Rather dissapointing film, especially considering the very good, if not brilliant source material by King. Condensing the sprawling narrative of the book into 97 minutes didn`t do it too many favours. The book Hearts in Atlantis consists of 4 intertwining stories, a technique which ultimately brings meaning to the themes of the book ie. the disillusionment of growing up, corruption of innocence etc. A focus on a single story out of these four does no justice to King`s vision.

On the other hand, the acting and the cinematography were rather good. Danna`s score was a bonus, too bad there wasn`t much of it.

ALI G IN DA HOUSE:
Quite funny first feature outing from UK comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Appropriate pisstakes off `gangsta` culture amongst white teenagers. The biggest surpise was the score by someone called Adam F (no kidding!). Full-blown orchestral/choral bombasm, quite similar to Armstrong`s opening piece to Romeo & Juliet. Impressive work, but who is he?

NP: K-19 ****/*****

My take:

RULES OF ATTRACTION:
I went in expecting to hate this movie because of the reviews, but I don't know...maybe it's just me, but it sort of struck a chord. I think mostly it's because I'm in college right now as I'm typing this, so all the events, though exaggerated to make a point, made sense because I know people (and that's very sad) like the characters in this movie. Though I hardly fit into the clique portrayed in this movie, I'm around these people every day. So watching their lives collapse was really devestating. But that's just me. On a different note, though, Roger Avery needs to brush up on his technique, because, though I liked what he was saying, a lot of times how he was saying it was pretty obvious or stupid (especially some of the backwards photography that became redundant the third time he did it).

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE:
Another movie that a lot of people will probably like and even more will hate with a passion. I thought it was amazing, though again, I didn't think it was without fault. Though I didn't always agree with Michael Moore's politics, he was able to make me at least ponder over every issue that he raised, which is a lot more than I can say about other narrative films, much less decent documentaries. The interviews this man manages to get are staggering, ranging from the Nichols brother that wasn't imprisoned for the Oklahoma City bombing to Marylin Manson (who is a lot more articulate and well spoken than people give him credit) and Moses himself, Charlton Heston. Overall an amusing and powerful work that sometimes veers too left for even the leftiest of the left (i.e. a college student at San Francisco State, i.e. myself).

A good movie week, I must say.

Not great, but good. I found the opening scenes quite surprising, because they didn't remind me of Spielberg at all. The film as a whole wasn't typical Spielberg of course, but later it had typical Spielberg touches. I thought the future-ness (not too Sci-Fi I think) was well done, some bits were perhaps too obvious (I didn't need a whole minute of the eye-scanning posters to realize what they were doing ), but not annoyingly so. The plot was very intriguing, too. I didn't mind the action sequences, I thought they fitted well and didn't feel out of place. I also enjoyed much of the humour, including the eye rolling scene - they didn't feel out of place, unlike the T-Rex/lawyer/toilet scene in JP or the T-Rex/dog scene in Lost World. Score wasn't great, but supported the movie well. It's merely ok on CD, but has some good parts.

The one thing I think it lacked is re-watch value. I'm glad I've seen it, but I don't feel the need to own it on DVD. The action scenes alone aren't that great (nothing wrong with them at all), and the rest of the film doesn't give me the feeling of being that good the second time around, though the potential for that kind of film seems to have been there.

Today: Insomnia

Everyone raved about Memento, so I decided not to spend money for a cinema ticket but get it on DVD instead - and I love it. People seem to be slightly disappointed by Insomnia, so I did decide to watch this in the theatre. I had read a bit of it before (avoiding anything about the plot), so I didn't expect something like Memento, but a more conventional, though well-done movie. And as a result I'm not disappointed at all, but found it very good. The premise is very intriguing, and the plot keeps going. You often read stuff about the hero becoming more and more like the villain about many movies, but you don't often see that really happening in "real" movies (unlike fantasy/Sci-Fi - nothing wrong with those), and looking very natural no less. Al Pacino is wonderful as always, and Robin Williams is excellent as well. I wouldn't say Hillary Swank was wasted; her part isn't very big, but it's important, and I think she did it nicely. Julyan's score works wonderfully in the movie. It's probably good on CD as well, but I don't know if I need to have it.

It's a movie I'd like to see again someday, but nothing I have to get on DVD. It's not that it's lacking something though, I think it's just not the kind of movie I have to have. But then, I might think differently about this when the effect wears off.

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (1948) Directed by Robert Stevenson. A very solid thriller about a US treasury guy hunting down an international heroin ring. Whether you think drugs should be legal or not this had inventive ideas and a twist I never would have guessed in a million years. Dick Powell is just great as a tough guy and it had a good B-movie score by George Duning.

Jezebel A 1938 movie starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda. She won the Oscar
for her portrayal of the too independent and tough but inevitably tender southern lady.
I found myself getting hooked on this soap opera, and I enjoyed watching all the
melodrama. Lovely themes in Max Steiner’s score.

Windtalkers Bbbllleccckkkk! Woo can do better than making over 2 hours of
emulation of the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. One battle after another. He
forgot to really develop characters so that we could care about them. I really thought
Horner’s score was themeless and weak. He too can do better.

THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, a Hammer film without Lee or Cushing. I was told it was going to be pretty solid but it turned out to be unexciting and the ending was particularly weak. It had a good score by James Bernard but some of the best cues were left off the GDI Hammer Vampire Collection CD that has music from it.

MONKEYBONE. A neat premise (a guy goes into a coma and hangs out in the collective unconscious trying to figure out a way to return to life) and good visual effects but unltimately no real humor. Fonda and McGowan were pretty to look at though. Anne Dudley scored and gave it some quirky music but nothing special there either.

I OFTEN THINK OF PIROSCHKA. One of a series of 50s German films currently touring the country and playing in places like NY and Chicago. Colorful but highly romanticized view of both Hungarian country life and youthful, bittersweet love affairs. Both the female leads were beautiful so that you could appreciate the poor guy's situation in having to make a choice between them. But once they found out about each other you knew he'd wind up with neither one. That's true to life but with so much falsifying going on elsewhere they could have given us a happy ending too.

With Best Regards,
Dylan