CinemaWatch

The Girlfriend Experience (Soderbergh 2008)

2010-03-09T00:45:00.002+08:00

A high-end hooker lifes with a struggling personal trainer, she is too independent for his comfort, he is too honest not to tell her. She gets entangled in a web of customers pretending to lover her but returning to her families, website promoters promising to bring her out big-style but actually only chasing freebies, and maybe also her own dissatisfaction about what she stands for.It took me a

Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton 2010)

2010-03-09T00:33:00.002+08:00

Alice revisits Wonderland more than 10 years after her first visit, in an effort to flee from a jerk lord trying to marry her. Even though she does not remember going as a child, Wonderland remembers her, and sets the hope in her defeating the evil queen and the Jabberwocky.To be honest, I missed a substantial part of the movie, falling asleep now and again. I blame my jet lag, but I can also

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman 2008)

2010-03-06T23:26:00.004+08:00

An acclaimed director sets his mind on the development of a new play. A lifetime later, he has found out a lot of things about life, universe, himself, and the nature of the beast.I was wondering what to do with my own stupid decision of placing a plot summary at the beginning of every single movie review for a while … no, it's not reviews in the first place, it's comments and remarks and things

Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore 2009)

2010-03-06T23:12:00.002+08:00

Michael Moore looks into the income and wealth gap that he believes is tearing the US apart. He visits families in Florida being evicted from their homes, sit-in strikers taking on the fight for their final wages and their pension payments after their factories were shut down, and Wall Street bankers to get back US taxpayers' bailout money from the fat cats and make some citizens' arrests along

The Road (John Hillcoat 2009)

2010-02-19T22:26:00.002+08:00

A Man and A Boy, his son, walk the road, pushing an old wrecked supermarket trolley. All their belongings are in there. There is nothing but them and the Road. The aim is to reach the Sea, but why? There may be hope. Where there are, there is none. The world has been destroyed. There is no more life, no vegetation, no food, no humanity. Just a few survivors of whatever catastrophe came upon them.

A serious Man (Coens 2009)

2010-02-19T22:01:00.003+08:00

Larry has a terrible time: a student tries to entangle him in a bribery web, his wife leaves him, his wife's new lover is incredibly annoying, his supervisor is incredibly annoying, the rabbis he consults are either half-dead, full-fledged idiots or incredibly annoying. Oh and his brother is a criminal.Ah - … er … em… I cannot say a lot about this, because I am not sure what it was a bout apart

The Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson 2009)

2010-02-19T21:53:00.001+08:00

Mr Fox and wife are looking for a calm and quiet autumn of their fox lives. They even move into the calm neighbourhood of a tree where the regular chicken hunting days should be over. But Mr Fox has a plan, he is up for a final mission involving the three largest farms around.Make no mistake: this has nothing to do with a children's movie. It is about existentialist fears, manhood in the face of

Whiteout (Dominic Sena 2009)

2010-02-19T21:50:00.001+08:00

A bunch of researchers and additional staff (one police woman among them) hangs out around Antarctica. They discover a body in a remote area, and when following back the traces, they discover a plane that crashed decades ago, and that still carries a cargo worth killing for.The most amazing bit is the beginning, when for absolutely no reason whatsoever the director decides to spend 5 minutes

Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie 2009)

2010-02-19T21:48:00.003+08:00

Somebody called Sherlock Holmes (but without the detective's sophistication and wit) tries to break a plot of sinister Lord Blackwood to somehow overhaul the UK and the world and everything else.Just a short word, because I really cannot remember any details: this film is rubbish. And even worse: it's terribly boring. I am not sure what got into all those reviewers who suddenly converted to

The men who stare at goats (Grant Heslov 2009)

2010-02-19T21:46:00.001+08:00

A journalist stumbles across a former member of a special elite group within the US army, trained for paranormal warfare. He digs deeper and discovers people who believe they can break clouds by power of will, stop goats' heartbeats and run through walls.The cast and the story made for one of the films I anticipated most last year. Come on: George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges – what can go

Top 10 Chinese Films of the Decade, Poll results

2010-01-24T19:19:00.000+08:00

The result of the Dgenerate poll on the best Chinese films of the decade is out. An excellent list to catch up on – I frankly admit, some of the films I never heard of, and more I have not yet seen. But I am working on it now. The interesting thing to me: the expected "winner", but apart from that very few Hong Kong movies on the list: 1. In the Mood for

The Spoiler Shirt - she's a ghost, he's a sledge

2010-01-18T13:53:00.004+08:00

Hilarious! But what is the film with the policeman sacrificed by the villagers??

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman 2009)

2010-01-09T09:55:00.004+08:00

Ryan Bingham travels around the country (and a bit of the world) to sack people. He is a mercenary of the economic downturn, his company is eating off the flesh of corporate carcasses. He himself is quite pleasant at it, he has the skill to express sympathy and show the bright light on the horizon. His passion is travelling, is being on the move, feeling like a shark that is in danger of dying as

Lilo and Stitch (Dan DeBlois, Chris Sanders 2002)

2010-01-09T09:41:00.002+08:00

The Earth is the aim of a small ferocious creature that has been designed by a mad scientist on a faraway planet. Escaping from captivity was easy for the ugly thing, but now the scientist and half the planet's star fleet is chasing the little guy to bring it back. But on Hawaii, where it lands on his escape flight, there is little Lilo with her sister, and they happen to look for a pet anyway on

An Education (Lore Scherfig 2009)

2010-01-04T16:22:00.002+08:00

Jenny is supposed to take a proper education at a British boarding school, carry on to read English at Oxford, and finally become a decent member of the establishment. She likes Piaf and Sartre, and chooses smoking French cigarettes over studying Latin any time. David, the handsome older guy with the fancy car and the generous savoir-vivre lifestyle, naturally appeals to her. She follows his "

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs (Phil Lord, Chris Miller 2009)

2009-12-30T12:16:00.002+08:00

He always wanted to be an inventor – and one day his dream of inventing the ultimate machine to turn water into hamburgers finally comes to pass. But while Flint Lockwood has saved his desperate town from the fate of becoming an open air sardine museum, now he has to fight off the greedy mayor and hordes of tourists. All that while he must conquer the pretty girl reporter Sam and live up to the

The Hangover (Todd Phillips 2009)

2009-12-30T12:09:00.002+08:00

Four guys head towards Vegas to make sure their friend Dug is having a good last impression of bachelorhood before he subjects himself to marriage two days later. The night starts off well with booze and drugs, but zap! - they wake up next morning without any recollection of what happened during the night. And the groom is missing. And there is a tiger in the bathroom. And one of them lacks a

The Incredibles (Brad Bird 2004)

2009-12-30T11:52:00.001+08:00

The superhoeroes are out of fashion: after threats of litigation because of all the damage they have caused, the government deems it wise to send them into retirement. This also affects the Invincible family, with superstrong Mr Invncible getting a job in insurance (nice boss he has, does he remind me of some William H Macy role?), Mrs Invincible-Elastogirl taking care of the kids and trying to

Chinese Films of the Decade

2009-12-22T09:00:00.005+08:00

Just got this through the Chinese Cinema Digest Newsletter, looks very interesting, even though I have bot yet read myself: the publication of Tang Xiaobing's essay "Why Should 2009 Make a Difference? Reflections on a Chinese Blockbuster." The paper starts with a "The Founding of the Republic" and introduces a larger question of how to regard and rethink

Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Year (so far)

2009-12-21T19:26:00.002+08:00

And following the ambitious amateurs, here comes to pro: Roger Ebert, Godfather of film critique, cheated himself into a top 20 list for 2009, which has the unique feature of featuring Werner Herzog in the "Mainstream" category (the person most likely to ever anticipate that to happen would be Werner Herzog, I presume).Same treatment as with the filmspotting list: the watched ones (new title for

Filmspotting 2009 Films of the Year

2009-12-21T17:52:00.003+08:00

If you like movies and don't listen to Filmspotting podcast, I cannot help you. But if you like year's end, year's middle and year's sometime-in-between top-10 lists and top-5 lists, and still don't know their podcast, bury yourself. Or better, go to the site and indulge in the last years' lists about anything and everything related to movies. Best taboo relationship movies. Best Halloween

Robin Williams - Weapons of Self-Destruction (HBO 2009)

2009-12-20T22:48:00.002+08:00

At DAR Constitution Hall, Robin Williams gives his first solo special in seven years. He covers – in the words of the producers - "such topics global warming, sex and politics, the state of health care in the country (suggesting a cash for clunkers program for elderly relatives, among other things), drugs - recreational and otherwise - and more personal topics, including his recent heart surgery

Underworld (Len Wiseman)

2009-12-20T19:01:00.003+08:00

Part 1: Underworld (Len Wiseman 2003)A story of Vampires and Lycans (werewolf-like creatures), the war between which reaches the life of Michael, who then kind of transforms into a merged converged superthingy, because several hunts and fights later, usually won by a pretty woman in black tight leather pants, he ends up bitten by the wolf and the vampire, being the supposedly only hybrid creature

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog 2009)

2009-12-06T21:14:00.002+08:00

We follow the Investigation of the murder of an immigrant family in New Orleans by Lieutenant McDonagh. He steals dope, threatens suspects, harasses girls and is altogether not a very nice guy.It needs to be said: the Werner Herzog as grand auteur phenomenon is as inexplicable as the reputation of the Germans for continuously eating pork knuckles. Both has been witnessed, but both is far from