The story of the legendary match opposing notorious boxers Cliff “Cleveland” Jones and Wallas Street Jr.

HA! So: no.

This Swiss / French produced documentary follows the trial that took place in Cleveland, Ohio, in order to decide upon Wall Streets’ responsibility in the colossal amount of foreclosures the city of cleveland has experienced and the despair and ruin they left in their wake.

Well… It would be, were it not for wall street bankers’ success in delaying it, it seems, indefinitely. So let me correct one more time, this is the story of a trial that could have been, every attendant playing it’s own role, better yet, being himself. Two reel attorneys, one local: representing the defendant, the city of cleveland, and one from new york: representing wall street banks as he is accustomed to. A real jude and juries, real opinions, real people, real tragedies.

Through what must surely be a relieving process to some, the crisis in cleveland is simply explained, analyzed and weighed form a human perspective, questioning the soundness of the sub-prime mortgage system without demonizing the banks, each attorney attempting to prove home owners are responsible for taking unaffordable mortgages or not. The trial seems to lead to one problematic: the capacity of each and everyone of us to understand the circumstances our lives provides us with in spite of the difficulties and advantages we might encounter, and the responsibility that entails. But are we not sometimes left with no other choice than the darkest one? It here really seems the poor are getting poorer by paying the rich to make them richer, rendering the american dream one step harder to reach.

The film was made by Jean-Stéphane Bron, a swiss chap, and I live in switzerland, a wee country who, though picturesque, is not so well-known for it’s movie industry. So hey, even if you don’t care (and you should, it’s really good) go see it!

My review.

 

(french)

The Guard

My review IN FRENCH. 

Kick-Ass, it does.

I will get hit girl-style bad ass on the next idiot who, when I tell them how much kick-Ass rules, gives me that superior “oh my god sweet ignorant child, she actually watches american block busters… And she says she has a blog? … well Truffault must just be turning in his grave!” look.

Well sorry douchebags, Kick ass does indeed rule.

So here’s the deal for those who don’t know it: Dave Lizewski, played by his royal hotness Aaron Jonhson, is this random nerd surrounded by more random nerds, who in between masturbation sessions suddenly askes himself this brilliant question: “how come nobody ever tried to be a super hero?”  And come on, good freakin’ question or what? Hell, my costume’s being shipped over from Ebay as we speak…

So anyway, the dimwit decides he’ll solve that unfortunate omission and becomes the world’s first real superhero (except for that psycho who jumped of a skyscraper dressed like some aerodynamic bird and splashed all over the pavement.) So off he is! Suited up and ready to fight crime! He gets the shit kicked out of him obviously, on numerous occasions. But then it eventually works, he fights off some bad guys, and no thanks to super strength, an invisibility shield or fancy gadgets, it’s mainly courage and luck that does the trick.

And that’s one of the things I liked so much about this movie. Director Matthew Vaughn doesn’t try too hard, there are no notable cheesy moments even though you do get the emotions, it’s just done in a clever, classy, concise way. There are no special effects to hide a lack of action because this, believe me, is action packed; bloody, bad ass, inappropriate, underage, in-your-face action. He doesn’t try to make the kids look cool either; they just are in a simple, honest way. Oh and they actually look like teens, which helps.

Based on Mark Millar & John Romita Jr’s Marvel Comics series of the same name the Film is a perfect mix of fun, guns, sex, color, music, blood and tears, It feels like Spiderman meets Kill Bill and leaves you all exited and blood thirsty after seeing it, I mean how can you see Hit Girl and not think of GoGo Yubari? Nic Cage is great, Chloe Moretz is too. Lyndsy Fonseca is as hot as ever, Clark duke is especially funny and Aaron Johnson…  * * can’t speak-Just fainted * *.

It’s an original, brutal, hilarious movie and will please comic book fans as well as movie addicts. Don’t watch it if you’re a douchebag. Don’t watch it if you’re ten.

IMDB users rated this: 8.3 / 10

My advice: If, you haven’t seen it yet, hurry up and do!

Oh yes, and I almost forgot:

you can do that here

“I am a relatively respectable citizen”

I was high the first time I saw this. Mistake? probably. The first couple of minutes were ok, well actually they were hilarious: seeing an already-spider-man-associated Tobbey Maguire, nerdy as hell, being offered a ride by a fat greasy Benicio Del Torro and his colleague wacky Johnny. I mean they all looked so delightfully weird! But after 10 minutes I was grasping my chair in terror, sweating as much as Del Torro himself, freaked out of my mind. Was i going insane? Had the drugs gotten to me? Was I imagining the giant lizards and moving tapestry or was this film really mad enough to show all of this? Then I remembered it was a Terry Gilliam movie, and relaxed.

So here they are: journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp), his faithful lawyer Dr Gonzo (Benincio Del Toro) and Blondie Maguire, racing trough de Nevada desert in a flaming red convertible heading to Vegas in a pointless search for the american dream ( and incidentally to cover a motorcycle race ), helped by a drug supply that would suffice to numb the pain of all of the Vietnam war veterans put together.The year is indeed 1971, a bit to late for the “free your mind” philosophy of post war times, but Duke still seems to live by it. 

Oh by the way, Maguire isn’t really such a big part of the film, he actually escapes the car quite swiftly, scared shitless by the two lunatics fighting away invisible hordes of bats, but he was just to funny not to mention.

The film is based on a partly autobiographic novel by Hunter S. Thompson telling the story of his trip to vegas where he encounters paranoia, fear, and loathing, in the place he describes as “The main nerve of the american dream”.

The movie also stars Christina Ricci  who has the terrible misfortune of crossing paths with our two coked-boozed-LSDed-up psychos who never fail to terrorize and destroy every place they set foot in (and I mean mass destruction). What I found funniest was  the way they where trying not to let the drugs get in the way of whatever they where doing but still allowing themselves to act like total sociopaths, patronizing each other for acting mental  befor attempting to rip their throats out for no apparent reason two minutes later. 

Like I said being high when watching this is not a good idea because, apart from the obvious paranoia it may cause, the directing is so good, the experience of it so intense you feel high just by watching it. The camera almost acts like a third protagonist just as fucked up as the two others, it swirls, plunges abruptly, always capturing the action from awkward angles.

A lot of people out there hated it or where just plain disgusted.  I’ll quote an IMDB user who in his review said the film was “Inspiring and motivating”,  well… that guy needs rehab… But the movie: GENIUS! 

So grab a beer, sit down, ignore your moron friend going ” hu… I don’t get it…”,  and enjoy!

IMDB users rated this: 7.6/10

My advice: Own it!

Thank you for smoking is a very funny satire made in 2005 by Jason Reitman, two years before his more popular Juno. The script was based on a Novel by author Christopher Buckley.

I wanted to see this for a long time, and when I finally did, I felt it was well worth the wait! It is indeed the kind of movie you don’t need to know a lot about to find it’s probably going to be ,if not good, at least interesting and controversial. And good it sure was, hell the title alone is mouthwatering to me! “Thank you for smoking” how inappropriate does that sound? Well, not as much as most of the brilliant lines delivered by Aaron Eckhart in the Movie.

Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. He basically is evil incarnated, responsible for thousands of deaths a day, in short: the kind of guy who makes Saddam Hussein look good. You probably hate the bastard already, and you should. But Naylor, oh no, you’ll love Naylor, you’ll probably want to go out for drinks with him after half an our, take up smoking again and buy a pack of fags or two for your kid’s next birthday. The Man is Good, and I mean good enough to get a talk show audience applaud when he says tobacco companies want a dying 14 year old lung cancer patient to be “Alive and smoking!”

Nick meets weekly with the M.O.D. squad (M.O.D. as in “merchants of death”) a charming gang of mass murderers consisting of Spin experts Polly and Bobby  lobbying for the equally noble causes that are alcohol and guns, enjoying lunch while squabbling over who has the highest death toll. The rest of the time he tries and succeeds to make cigarets look cool, be it by “putting the sex back in to cigarets” or by lecturing kindergardeners.

Alongside the perfectly cast Eckhart you will find the king-of-losers William H. Macy (actually being accused of killing people with cheese) awesomely pathetic as always, Katie Holmes, Adam Brody, Cameron Bright, Robert Duvall and my personal favorite: J.K. Simmons.

The film is hilarious most of the time, very well written, and I loved the directing. It doesn’t take a side, which I enjoy, mostly because no decent person would root for the A-Hole lobbyist, so why bother taking sides, but then again he is so much cooler then all of the “good guys” that you have to focus pretty hard to keep that politically correct opinion. I sometimes felt the plot was not really  as interesting as the characters themselves though, and didn’t care so much for katie holmes’s performance but I have to admit I’m prejudiced and never do…

IMDB users rated this: 7.8/10

My advice: V.O.D. it!

Spike Jonze, very well known for his work on music videos, brings us one of the most interesting and bizarre movies I have seen.

Quite simple plot really: When Craig Swartz, a wannabe puppeteer married to Lotte,  looser by traditional standards (well by all standards actually) manages to score a job as filer at Lester Corp, he stumbles upon a filing cabinet dissimulating a dark miniscule tunnel, crawls into it and WOOSH ends up aboard actor John Malkovich’s mind, before being spat out into a ditch adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike 15 minutes later. He falls madly in love with his co-worker maxine, decides to start a business with her selling people rides in Malkovich’s mind, tells his wife about it who immediately tries it out, and falls madly in love with Maxine also. Maxine? Well, she falls in love with Malkovich, well actually with Lotte being John Malkovich. Like I said, simple.

Oh and Malkovich?  He goes bonkers.

Well, I thought this was a great ride! The film opens with an introduction to Craig’s new work place: an office you can find on floor 7½ of the Mertin Flemmer building in New York City. So this is half a floor, where people crouch all of the time, except for the fortunate “persons of small stature” it was dedicated to in the first place. I felt that was a good thumbs up to most of the people in this movie having only half of their sanity left, including the ones who made it. Which consists of the insanely brilliant writer Charlie Kaufman, whom we also have to thank for my personal favorite Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind and of actors John Cusack, Orson Bean, Catherine Keener, a wonderfully ugly Cameron Diaz (you know how we tend to think when a hot person can be ugly on screen it means they’re good, well she for sure is) and  -wait for it… John Malkovich!

I first saw this movie in a youth group meeting of the evangelical church my mum used to make me to go too, let me say that was one awkward moment! This kid’s dad had brought it, clearly without watching it beforehand. The youth leader had to fast-forward all the “I’m having sex, but not with you john, with the freaky redhead inside your brain” moments, and there are a lot of those!

So, unless you plan to bring along your sunday school pupils, watch it!

IMDB users rated this: 7.9/10

My advice: VOD it!

The time has come for me to review something I didn’t like, Robert Luketic’s excuse for a comedy The ugly truth.

Well I won’t go into the details, mainly because I don’t remeber them, having spent most of the film wrestling the sand man. I was knocked out with boredom most of the time wich was better than the rest of it because that involved high levels of irritation.

So basically this stuck up TV producer Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl)  is pretty miserable and feels like a huge failure for the sole reason she’s not dating at that point, obviously totally forgetting she’s a smokin’ hot, immensely successful girl.

She ends up working with, would you believe it, the beholder of the Holy grail of love, the ever so charming Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) . Beside being the world’s rudest pig this delightful fellow also seems to be gifted with magic powers because, helped by his jaw dropping revelation that if you act like a huge jerk girls will come crawling, he manages to have the extremely uptight Abby masturbate in public after half an hour… They obviously end up *spoiler alert* falling in love and flying away in an air balloon (no, really!).

I have to admit Gerard Butler is kind of hot, that must be the only thing I enjoyed about the movie. But that was spoiled by the fact my ex boyfriend’s mate, with whom I was watching this, would comment every stupid macho line by “oh man that sounds so much like you” to wich said ex would answer “hu.. hu hu!”. 

Well, that was an eye opener!

IMBD users rated this: 6.5/10

My advice: Avoid it!

Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy-drama ” Pan’s labyrinth ( originally El laberinto del fauno ) is not far from a masterpiece.

This fable, set in 1944 fascist Spain is a beautiful yet troubling film.

It depicts the wonderful  story of a little girl Ofelia, impersonated by the young and talented Ivana Baquero.

Her mother having recently married the terrifying Captain Vidal and all of her newly - not so happily- recomposed familly having moved deep into the countryside she escapes a cruel, cold, unfair, everyday world by crawling into a fantasized underground kingdom, where see will come to accomplish different challenging tasks, guided by the very impressive mythical faun “Pan” (Doug Jones). 

be warned though this is not at all suited for the younger audiance, The Sceens existing through the child’s thoughts are indeed unsettling and creepy in a beautiful way, but when it comes to reality, well let’s say I don’t blame that poor kid for crazy-daydreaming! Apart from the violence of most of the characters’s situations, some scenes are incredibly brutal and graphic.

Sergie Lopez is breathtaking as the Sadistic Captain Vidal, attempting to undermine a guerilla uprising, while his housekeeper Mercedes (Maribel Verdù) and doctor (Alex Angulo) plot secretly to keep the revolution alive.

Pan’s labyrinth  is not only beautiful to watch but will give you thrills of joy and terror, of love and disgust. It is one of those priceless pictures which will capture and spit out to your face all the horror and pain some of us poor souls have felt in atrocious times, all the hate and rage some of us might come to feel, and all the hope and courage only a few of us can muster.

IMBD users rated this: 8.4/10

my advice: Own it!

“pay strict attention to what i say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself”

For my first review I chose a movie I just saw last week-end.

Spike Lee’s thriller  “Inside Man” is definitely worth the watch!

It’s Plot is quite simple when it comes to it: Theperfect bank robbery.

The quite impressive cast features  Denzel Washington as the detective in charge of the case, alongside Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, a brilliant and ancient Christopher Plummer ( well sue me, I’ve seen “the sound of music” A LOT, and that guy has gotten old over night as I see it ) and last but not least Clive Owen perfectly cast, though shame for me you don’t get to see his pretty face that much.

This is good in many other ways, a very clever screenplay full of unsuspected twists, taking you from a scandalous albanian ex-wife to a frustrated Seik all the way bouncing from real time action to after robbery questioning, It’s gripping, has no notable boring gaps, asks some important questions, and will give you some honest laughs. I found myself rooting for the Bad guy from the start… maybe that is because he cleverly shows there’s more behind his smart plan… (or maybe Clive is just really hot?)

“Inside Man”, unlike many others like it, can be enjoyed by a large audience and not only the gangster-loving thriller addicts.

I actually own this film, witch as you’ll come to notice is not often the case.

IMBD users rating: 7.7/ 10

My Advice: VOD it!