My second short film

This grotesque short film is dedicated to the theater I work in. The characters are all played by actors, who work there.

Thanks for all who contributed!

Bond is back

Here is the first official picture from the third Bond movie starring Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming's 007 secret agent.

What do we know so far?

Film starring: Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Albert Finney. This is probably the most prestigious cast to appear in a Bond movie.

David Arnold, who wrote score for five Bond movies since 1997, is replaced by Thomas Newman in the 23rd film of the series. Sam Mendes never worked with other than Newman since his first feature, the Award-winning American Beauty. Newman was nominated for 10 (yes!) Oscars, but he returned home empty-handed every time. "Maybe this time, for the first time, I'll win" sang Liza Minnelli in Cabaret. Cross our fingers for Newman, he deserves it. Mendes saying good-bye to Arnold is a sign of bravery: he and his favorite composer can live up to one of the best Bond composers ever. Mendes is not afraid of playing with the tradition... Just let's not forget about the incredible scores written by David Arnold... Excellent job!

Mendes said that, since it is the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, he will recall the the original Bond of the 60s. He will not have to worry about not being able to bring his ceremonial vision to the silver screens. The Broccoli family literally pays their respects to Bond since the 23rd movie's production budget is an estimated $ 200,000,000.

The 21th century Bond established by Martin Campbell in Casino Royale, and followed by Marc Foster in the Quantum of Solace will go to a slightly new direction. Campbell once saved the series by directing GoldenEye starring Pierce Brosnan, when everybody thought that Bond was over, that he was worn out over the decades. The new direction lasted for seven years, then Brosnan left the project. However he said he would return as the secret agent in Quentin Tarantino's black and white version of 007. The idea disappeared from the scene. Then came Craig, and the new Bond. His first two films were outstanding, not just as Bond, but as action movies. Some hated Craig and considered the movies as an assault on the series. You see, there are conservative people in the world, and there are others who want to move forward. I do not see much point in a debate. I was amazed by Craig, who is without a question the best actor to play Bond. I am not saying he is the best, because there is no such thing as best Bond. Everyone has a Bond. Some feel an urge to choose one. I do not. I love them all.

The point I am getting at is that Mendes has probably figured out something how to unite the old and the new Bonds. There are only two installments with the new Bond, and he is already taking it in a new direction. It is unprecedented that they change Bond under one actor. There is no need to worry about Craig. He is a fine actor. One of the best nowadays. And there is Mendes. And this is the 50th anniversary. The pressure is high and they seem to follow a new recipe. But hey, that is what Bond is about: when the chips are down, he says all in.

Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows

The second installment of Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes is way better than the first one. It would not be without having watched the previous one. I did not like the new Holmes two years ago, it had nothing in common with the character created by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle. The film was a fast-paced action movie, with no great mystery so my expectations were low.

I went to see the second one with two old friends of mine with whom I saw the first one; this event seemed a perfect fit for our reunion. I was glad to see them. And I was glad to see the movie, surprisingly. I prepared for the unusual action scenes for a Holmes story after seeing the first installment, so they did not bother me this time. I also gave up on the Doyle-type mystery that thrilled the readers. Despite all the negative signs, I enjoyed it.

This film is nothing but a classic adventure movie set in breathtaking locations (the way they reconstructed the 19th century London is still amazing), with witty and funny lines, great tempo, and clever finale. My suggestion is to accept the fact that this is a new Sherlock... then you can give it a try. Just do not expect the atmosphere of old crime stores. However, the final battle is one of the greatest closings of a film I have seen in years: the lack of final confrontation. At least not in the old sense. It is a chess game. Holmes and the villain fight in their minds: they reason out what the other thinks. While the original novels hold the reader's attention with the mystery, Guy Richie holds the viewer's attention by the intelligent ideas of how the world's two greatest brains confront each other.

A story must be told in connection with the production of the film. Hans Zimmer, who returned as the composer, went on a road trip to Bratislava, Slovakia to study gypsy music. (There is a gypsy community in the film, so the score contains elements of gypsy music.) Zimmer found a poverty-stricken gypsy community outskirts of Bratislava, and sat down to play music with them. These gypsies were touched when musicians from Hollywood, Los Angeles found that their music is a gem. Zimmer was amazed by their love of music, their playful melodies, so he organized a trip to Vienna to record the authentic songs. A similar thing happened a few years ago... Ry Cooder, one of the world's greatest guitar players, discovered the Buena Vista Social Club in Havana, and recorded their songs in a studio. The rest is history. I find it fascinating that Zimmer, who only wanted to record his soundtrack for the movie, took the time and effort, and saved the gypsies' music by recording it, that otherwise would have been lost.

The chemistry of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson still makes the game worth playing. But the Jolly Joker here is Stephen Fry, English comedian, who debuts in the film as Holmes' brother. He simply lightens up the scenes by being present. Sherlock Holmes 2 is the perfect Sunday evening film: humorous, filled with adventures, delivered by an outstanding cast - in good style.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

David Fincher is one of those directors whose works you have to pay attention to. There are not many film makers who earned this kind of reputation. Fincher, among Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino, directed more than one film that alone would be enough to establish themselves as good directors. Most if not all their films are considered classics.

Although Fincher could lean back saying his oeuvre is exceptional - he would never do so because he is a perfectionist - he keeps challenging himself. His latest movie is an adaptation of Stieg Larsson's first novel from the so called Millennium series. The author died in 2004 and the novels were only published after his death, soon becoming bestsellers. The American film adaptation was unavoidable. However, in 2009 a Swedish film production company produced film versions of all novels. The first was praised by the critics. So here comes the time for comparison between the Swedish and the American films, people thought. But let me get this straight. Fincher's movie is not a remake. It is an adaptation. An alternative adaptation of the source material. I would say it is more interesting to take the novel and the two films and see how the two directors approached the book.

I have no right to write this review though. My decision was to watch Fincher's film as an independent work of art, before having an relation to the preceding materials. I picked up the novel yesterday and will read it by the weekend, so let's stay with the American film starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

I am sitting here thinking how can I explain why this is a good film despite the fact that it is 158 minutes of depression, gloom, and misery. And it is not that we have not seen brutality on screen, or have not heard of stores like this. What makes it heavy is realism. Fincher does not want to make the viewer feel that this is only a story, an average thriller, but he wants you to feel bad. Most of the Hollywood films make you see the world through optimistic lens. Fincher sees the world the way it is.

I have the highest regards for Jeff Cronenweth, who is now nominated for Oscar (Best Achievement in Cinematography.) His retro-futuristic images create a feel that the viewer is watching an alternative world. Cronenweth's pictures and Fincher's realistic approach to the story creates an interesting dissonance. The soundtrack, written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, is a gloomy symphony of noises. I was surprised by the fact that they have a name for this genre: post-industrial, dark-ambient, drone. 

Apart from the incredible photography and atmospheric score, what distinguishes this film from the others is the love story within the thriller: the relationship of Mikael Blomkvist (journalist played by Craig) and Lisbeth Salander (computer hacker played by Mara). An unusual love story. They only meet in the second half of the movie, they do not talk to each other much, and the viewer would think this is a simple and short affair. Until the very last minute of the movie, when all loose ends are tied up, when the order was restored, suddenly everything turns upside down. I do not like to tell the plot, so I will skip explaining how faith is lost at the end of the movie. But I tell you this is a twist in the idea that the most romantic love story is the type that is unfulfilled. 


When it is hard to find words to describe a film, you know you are talking about a good one. When you cannot capture its atmosphere, its style. And this is the art of moving images. All you can say is that: go and see it yourself. 

My first film

The Popularity of 3-D Movies and the Crisis of Classic Cinema

Movies, in the first decades of the 20^th century, were considered humble, inferior quality goods for the masses. Though cinema was packing the crowds in, upper classes, more educated people did not acknowledge film as art. Only in the beginning of the 40’s did universities take film seriously, and started to deal with the fact that film became part of the modern culture. Motion picture became the seventh art.

Film has always been a product, but in most cases the director wanted to say, express something. Cinema came full circle and returned to the first image it had in the beginning, from the upper classes point of view. Today, it is only a product. The arrival of the new 3-D technique is like adding a catalyst to the process of depreciation of cinema.

Though 3-D is the most significant turning point in cinema’s history, film esthetes and critics should separate this new phenomenon from cinematic art. Besides, they should start a new chapter for three-dimensional motion pictures. Hollywood movie studios, such as Warner Brothers, 20^th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, and Dimension, started to rearrange their schedule and budget of the new releases, because the new technique changes the custom of watching films.

3-D or S3D (stereoscopic 3-D) is not a completely new technique, though; it had been invented in the 50s. Two special motion picture cameras recorded the same scene from different perspectives, which gave the illusion of depth perception. People had to put on special glasses (with a blue and a red lens) during screening. These glasses tired people’s eyes out, some also felt dizzy and sick. The technique was rudimentary; nevertheless, in 1953, more than a hundred movies were made with this procedure. The studio owners were excited about this new form, and also trusted in it.

However, not only was the audience’s opinion negative, the directors were inexperienced and did not know how to shoot a film in this utterly different way. Though Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Raoul Walsh, André De Toth, and John Farrow made experiments (just to mention the greatest), they later gave up. None of the movies were good, and the technology was undeveloped.

Through the last decades of the 20th century, 3-D made a significant improvement. Aficionados call the last ten years the second golden era (the first one was back in the 50’s), or the rebirth of 3-D. Theaters, after boycotting the new technique for 50 years, invested more than $100,000,000 in 3D projectors, because the developed system was promising. The production budget of Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, directed by Robert Rodriguez, was 38 million dollars, and its total lifetime gross (domestic and foreign together) was almost 200 million dollars.

Studios claim that 3-D is not only a spectacle, but financial necessity: the last hope of the biggest Hollywood movies studios to fight against pirates and entice back the audience to the theaters. Jaffrey Katzenberg (co-founder of DreamWorks) states that 3-D is the third revolution in the history of cinema, after movies were in color, given sound. "I predict that within five to seven years, all theatrical release films are going to be done in this new 3D to bring audiences into the movie-making experience”, says Katzenberg. "It's not a secret that movie theater attendance is down as more people look to the home entertainment experience, but this 3D film process gives the moviegoer a reason to return to movie theaters."

The problem is that 3-D is an obstacle not only for the pirates, but also for the rest of the world’s filmmakers, who do not have the money to produce 3-D movies. The budget difference between a normal and a 3-D film is more than 15 million dollars. No wonder only the greatest Hollywood movie studios (DreamWorks, Fox, Universal, Disney, Warner) can afford to produce a motion picture in 3-D. Even for them, the switch to the new system is very expensive; still, they are the only ones who have enough money for it. Thus the gap between Hollywood and the rest of the film industry (worldwide) grows, and if it continues, the smaller distributors will be excluded from the movie business.

 Though in the last 10 years’ 3-D movies grossed more than any 2-D films did, yet they were not critical successes. However, all of these were popcorn movies, meaning they cannot be judged, because every film should be criticized within its own genre. 3-D motion pictures are closer to an amusement park than to a show in the theater. Reviews show that the package became more important in the present Hollywood movies than content. Most of these 3-D movies are either follow-ups (Shrek Forever After, Superman Returns, Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, Step Up 3D, Piranha) or reinvention of older movies, fairy tales (Avatar, Polar Express, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Clash of Titans, and Beowulf). Stories are basically the same, so the film makers could concentrate on the outlook.

The highly anticipated directors of cinematic art (Milos Forman, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Jean Pierre Jeunet, Pedro Almodóvar, Terry Gilliam, Mike Figgis, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmush) can hardly make their films, because none of the producers want to finance a motion picture that, although it has a lot to say about modern world, history, politics, or relationships, will not gross the production budget. Art film can only depend on the government’s help, as they do in all over Europe. Controversially, James Cameron got 400 million dollar credit for Avatar 2. He even attained a whole studio in Manhattan Beach. 

People like all the 3-D movies, because they have fun, enjoy themselves. Millions of people all around the world announced that Avatar was the best movie ever made, that it was a milestone, and started a new chapter in the history of cinema. This is where the problem starts. The unusual, stunning experience made them forget that what the movie was really about is a mixture of Matrix and Pocahontas. Without the 3-D effect, the movie would have been an average adventure movie.

2-D films are already the third dimension of life. It gives a greater understanding of an issue, a political event, or human life: it is an essence, a structured look from above. 3-D does not give more than an extra chance to make the viewer feel closer to an extremely dangerous situation. Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park or Jaws scared people in the screening room two decades ago. He did not use 3-D technology. “I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me, I'm always interested in movies that scare. The thing I love about Jaws (1975) is the fact that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again” says David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, The Game), one of the best directors of all time.

Though there is a visual difference between 2-D and 3-D, the latter does not show anything that is not part of a 2-D film. If a character in the movie reaches out towards the screen in 3-D, it gives no extra information that a viewer would need. The editing of the two kinds of motion pictures is different, because a 3-D movie is only good for totals, and quick scenes make people lose track. “When you put the glasses on, everything gets dim”, says J. J. Abraham, producer of LOST series. People who wear glasses in everyday life cannot enjoy 3-D movies, because even if it is possible to put on two pairs of glasses, it is uncomfortable, and not precise. It would not be rational to say that 3-D motion pictures are negative discrimination though, because every movie is available in 2-D. 

3-D might be only a periodical phenomenon. “Whenever Hollywood has felt threatened, it has turned to technology: sound, color, wide-screen, Cinerama, 3-D, stereophonic sound, and now 3-D again. In marketing terms, this means offering an experience that can’t be had at home. With the advent of Blu-ray discs, HD cable, and home digital projectors, the gap between the theater and home experiences has been narrowed. 3-D widened it again. Now home 3-D TV sets may narrow that gap as well”, says Robert Ebert, the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.

3-D opened a new chapter in the history of cinema, but only a short one. Three dimensional films are closer to an attraction in an amusement park, so they should not be considered as part of film as art. When people say Avatar is the best movie, the point when they are wrong, is that it is not a movie, but a 3-D movie. Though there is no such title as ‘the best film ever’, if people tried to find one, Casablanca, 8 and ½, or Some Like it Hot would have better chances than Avatar. Therefore, 3-D movies should be considered as a separate genre; not part of the classic cinema. 

Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps

Oliver Stone’s sequel to his early movie, Wall Street, is one of the best follow-ups in years. Stone, one of the directors who are engaged in politics, not only advanced and revived his 1987 film, but had also something new to say. Wall Street portrayed the new social strata of the 80’s: the yuppies. Wall Street – Money Never Sleeps shows how the financial world changed over the last two decades, and what happened behind the financial crisis in 2008.

Michael Douglas’ portray of Gordon Gekko, the shifty shark of Wall Street, earned him an Academy Award in 1987. Though Oliver Stone’s financial fable of cold-blooded traders became a modern classic, the director did not plan to continue the story. 20 years later though, Stanley Weiser, original writer for Wall Street, started to work on the follow-up, but after the 2008 financial crisis, 20^th Century Fox ordered the script to be rewritten to make it more current. Stanley Weiser abandoned the project due to creative differences. Allan Loeb, a licensed stock broker, joined Stephen Schiff in writing a new script. After reading the final version, Stone decided to direct it, and shot his first sequel.

However skeptical the audience is to Hollywood’s new remake, spin-off, follow-up money-making strategy, this time the second chapter is even better. The conflict is knotty, the characters are complex, and the dialogues are very well written. Stone, who is constantly dealing with the biggest political affairs of the United States, was able to show the utterly complicated moral dilemmas of the business world’s leaders (or the lack of them), in which partners and family members steal from each other.

Michael Douglas’ role was not only to play Gordon Gekko again, the symbolic figure of the loan sharks, but to develop the character and expose his humanity. He does it so elegantly, that you hardly notice it; that is the point. Though he remained the old double-crosser, he shows his human side. For a few seconds.  

Verdict

Watching a carefully put together film, with a clever script and exceptional actors (beside Douglas, Eli Wallach, Josh Brolin and Susan Sarandon have done breakout performances), is delightful nowadays, even if it is a pessimistic drama. 

Best lines

Gordon Gekko: Greed is good. Now it seems it is legal. [Greed is good was Gekko's line in the first part. He adds the second line two decades later.]

Gordon Gekko: Stop telling lies about me and I'll stop telling the truth about you. 

Gordon Gekko: Money is a bitch that never sleeps.