20 years - 20 movies

Like many other masterpieces, it steals you away into its own world. It creates this sinister mood of death, desperation, but also hope and bravery, for 3 hours and doesn't let you go. Not even after the very touching end scene. This is a movie you just have to think about over and over again.
I'm not sure if I would want to see this one more time. I just don't know if I could stand these pictures once again. Because the most unbelievable fact about Schindler's List is, that it all pretty much happened the way it's shown.
It's truly and unbelievably a very sad fact - that humans could ever have been possible of doing these things to other people. But it is something that we all have to live with. And instead of forgetting and repressing it, Spielberg makes us think about our behaviour.
The fact, however, that it was so popular in the box office shows that people do indeed want to change and that the basis is already there for us to become a better world.
Eventually, I'm very happy that I've seen this movie. I'm giving Schindler's List 25 points. The only thing that could have been a lot better, was the acting (Fiennes was astonishing, but the rest wasn't at all).

You will hardly find someone - especially from the younger generation - who will not say Pulp Fiction is one of the best movies they've seen. Tarantino is not for nothing seen as one the best, most creative and most innovative directors of these days. Pulp Fiction has a story, it has a lot of great dark humor and some great acting (Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, also John Travolta). Some have tried to copy the special style and the super cool dialogues, but they all failed. Pulp Fiction is one of these few movies that are absolutely unique and uncopyable forever!
I give it 28 out of 30 points. In between all the movie's ingenuiousity, I have to admit that Tarantino has played very bad. Maybe at that time he didn't really notice that he - unlike Clint Eastwood or Orson Welles - was not made for acting. Also this movie got only one oscar (shame on the Academy).

You may say whatever you want about Titanic, but you may not, you MAY NOT say it's a bad movie. It just isn't!
Now you might be not a fan of romance. I definitely am not. But the story is not really important. The acting is crap, but that doesn't matter either.
The most important thing about this movie is how Cameron enlaces his lovestory into the world famous events of 1912. This and the gigantic, epic looks of the movie, make it a milestone of film history. It should be seen! Definitely!
And although Avatar surely is a whole lot better in terms of storyline, characters and visuals, I don't think that it could ever be as big as this one was at its time.
I give Titanic a solid 21 points. As I said, the acting was pretty much disposable.

Hitchcock is the master of Thriller?
I say, Fincher is!
Rear Window, Dial M, Vertigo - all amazing movies. But Fight Club is a one of its kind. Not even Fincher's other strokes of genius can come up to this movie's quality.
Everything, from the story, the acting, to the amazing twists, the soundtrack, the editing... it's just a perfect movie! It's really a pity that the critics couldn't appreciate it, at least not at that time...
This only shows that sometimes (and really very rarely) the mass is actually right.
Now, we can only be so thankful to ourselves for not having forgotten this movie. Because Fight Club really is one of the very rare modern classics.
It's not only the best performances of every actor of the cast, it's actually also one of the best directorial achievements in movie history. To come up with so many innovative and great ideas - only a true genius can do that.
Well, as you can see, I'm not able to find any more words of praise for this movie.
I just give it 28 points, and that's all.
It's a perfect, flawless movie, which - and that is a big disappoinment - didn't get the recognition it deserved from the very beginning.

Many may say an animated movie can't touch one as much as a live action movie does. I have been one of those people as well. I liked animated movies. But I watched them with a certain suspiciousness. This was until I saw the Anime "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" - better known as "Spirited Away". From the very first picture of the movie I was banned. I was taken into a world of Mysticism and Surrealism, but at the same time I was to think about the real world.
The movie tells the story of little Chihiro who is caught in a mysterious world of ghosts, witches and diferent other creatures. She falls in love with a Prince who is cursed to live his life as a dragon occasionally. Chihiro now tries to convince the bad witch to free Hakuro (that's the Prince's name) from the curse.
The characters are so profoundly explained that one has to identify with them. And strangely enough I did identify with this common 12-something-year-old girl Chihiro.
However, not only that the characters are combined to a perfect symbiosis, Miyazaki also creates a detailed and never-seen-before world of magic through animation and sound.
I deeply recommend every human to watch this movie, because this is one of the few true masterpieces of modern film history. And without doubt the best animated film so far.
I give it 28 out 30 points. The movie has everything it needs. But if there is something I have to dislike it would be the music. For such a film some more impressive music wouldn't be bad.

What comes out if 3 of the most creative heads of the time get together to create a film, supported by tons of the best actors around? I tell you - Sin City!
I think mentioning the amazing cast would take me longer than writing this review. haha
But still, I have to praise the overwhelming performances by Bruce Willis and Del Toro. The rest was great, but these two stick out for me. Willis with a typical role for him, however very unusually played, and Del Toro just rocks the screen with his small character all the way through! (or... let's say his head does. haha)
I think, I don't even need to mention the unique visual style of the movie. Since everything to be said, has already been said.
I always looked at comic books and their adaptations as at the "freak thing". But after Sin City, I became quite interested in the art. As a matter of fact, the movie even made me read the original graphic novel. And I liked it!
I really think, this film will not be forgotten so soon. I'm very much looking forward to the sequels and to more collaborations of QT and RR! ;)
Sin City gets a humble 25 points from me. Simply put, one of the best movies I've ever seen!

Babel is the crowning and breathtaking top achievement of Inarritu's ingenious trilogy about death, hope and personal tragedies. What is especially outstanding in this movie, is how he manages to connect all the different stories and all the unusual characters to one big world of misunderstandings.

!Potential Spoilers!
The movie consists out of four intervowen stories, each having its own unique characters, its own storyline, each its own language in a different country, but at the same time each being so intelligently connected to the others.
Everything focuses around two Moroccan brothers who try out their new hunting rifle and - without thinking - hit an American woman in a tourist bus. The two young boys then try to hide the occurance, although it is clear to them that the consequences will be facing soon.
What they don't know is that the hit woman has survived and is now tried by all her husband's forces to be held alive. However, as they are in a desert, it's - due to her injury - impossible to get her to a hospital. Luckyly enough her husband can find her a village to quarter and to wait for professional help.
At the same time in America, the couple's two young children are taken to a Mexican wedding by their babysitter. The nanny, an illegal immigrant, has vainly tried to find a substitution for her job and has decided to take the kids to her son's wedding.
The fourth story circles around a deaf-mute Japanese girl on a desperate journey of finding a sex partner. Due to her desperation she is willing to go far beyond the scope to get what she wants.

!No More Spoilers!
Now I see that the four stories already sound more than interesting on their own. But combined, they are an undestroyable force of tradegy and pure humanity. Whereas the first three stories seem to have obvious conections in matters of the characters, the Japanese story is combined on a higher-than-obvious level. Rather, it is connected in terms of themes and emotions.
Still, all four stories include a whole spectrum of themes and symbolism. Next to minor themes like privacy, shame, police brutality, sexuality, fear, uncomfortableness, andsoon, andsoon, I can see three major themes. The first, and most important one, being the theme of misunderstanding:
Now, being the "title theme" of the movie, it's very obvious where to find it in the different stories - the deaf-mute girl with her own problems of communication, the American in a foreign country, or, two American children in another country, and the two brothers struggling for more attention from their father and eventually, and unintentionally, leading to one tragedy after another.

This leads to the second theme of family conflicts and family tragedies:
Beginning with a young boy secretly masturbating after having seen his sister undressing, further leading to the broken marriage of a desperate couple, to a father trying to regain contact with his drifted away daughter, reaching over a caring older woman who once more wants to feel young and therefore is neglecting their beloved as-good-as-children, until finally edging with a father who wants to save his kids by taking all the fault of their mistakes on himself - eventually knowing that no more day would be as it has been before - this theme is a common companion in Inarritu's worlds.

Another mental combination of the main characters clearly is loneliness:
As this theme is very similar to the one of misunderstanding, here Inarritu even goes one step further by creating a material symbol for the characters' lonelinesses: the desert. The Moroccan scenes, as well as the Mexican scenes, are mainly set in big, lonely, unscrupulous deserts with seemingly no exit. That setting only reinforces the respective characters' feelings. And also makes you think of the other characters not on screen. And in an abstract way also the downtown city of Tokyo resembles of a lonely desert. There are some scenes where not a single sound can be heard and where everything just seems so monotonuous and still.

With that much of a fundament, Inarritu is more than lucky to have such a great ensemble cast (one of Brad Pitt's best performances to date) to support his and Guillermo Arriaga's innovative ideas. Whereas Amores Perros - without doubt a modern masterpiece as well - looked a little bit incomplete in matters of characters and story, in Babel everything makes sense. Every single scene, be it the masturbating scene of the little Moroccan, the car chasing scene with Gael Garcia Bernal, or the scene where Cate Blanchett makes in her pants, they all fit together as a whole. They all add to the deeper sense, rather the several deep senses, of the film.

As for my conclusion of this review I will now present my point-system analysis:

1. Acting 10/10:
The cast is nothing but perfect. Even into the least bits of characters. The children who play on the streets, the extras at the wedding, even the goat - I've never seen so much realism in a movie before. I guess it's because there IS no staging and because those people are actually no actors but real people living in the real respective locations. Very risky take there, but it ends up in 100% of prefection.

2. Staging 10/10:
* Director/Screenplay 5/5 - It's not a secret that Arriaga writes amazing scripts. And the compination of Inarritu-Arriaga never disappoints. Very unfortunate that we won't see them work together in the near future again.
* Cinematography 2/2 - Doesn't stick out, but after a second look you will see how perfectly it fits.
* Music 1/1 - Ingenious, Santaolalla didn't get his oscar for nothing.
* Setting/Costumes 1/1 - There is no way it could have been done better.
* Editing/Visuals/Stunts 1/1 - No stunts. No visuals. But some interesting editing. Just take a look at the club scene!

3. Bonus 9/10
* Innovation 5/5 - Yes, we have seen unlinear scripts, yes we have seen intervowen storylines. Yes, we also have seen intervowen storylines by Inarritu. But we have never seen Babel!
* Moral 3/3 - This movie doesn't have a moral - it IS one single collection of morals.
* Oscars 1/2 - Unfortunately only 1 oscar.

Hence the result: 29/30.
Makes 100% for a (i have to admit, difficult to follow) drama film with great performances, should-have oscar-winning directing and oscar-winning music!
Inarritu is maybe the only director who is able to connect the subjective, human, quiet European film style with the melodramatic Asian film and the mega-budget Hollywood cinema in one single movie!

If it wasn't for that Oscar it won a few months ago, I would never had watched it. But I know say something I never would have thought possible of me saying: I thank the Academy for recognizing this film!
This Argentinian crime/drama film is one of the best movies I've ever seen. I don't use the word "perfect" very often and damn, you guys know best that I'm not the easiest to impress, but this little flick here left me stunned.
Basically, it has everything I wish from a movie: amazing performances, stylish direction and photography, an extremely engaging story, it's both emotionally and psychologically challenging. Damn, it even has some great action scenes! I mean, there's a nearly 10 minutes scene with no obvious cuts... and the camera flies around in any possible angle... you need to see it yourself!
I just can't say how much I recommend this movie. Looks like Mexico aren't the only "other" Americans who can make films...

I'm telling you this, if Black Swan doesn't win the Oscar, then there must be something terrbily wrong with people's minds. The film has everything a movie needs. It's got amazing acting. Portman delivers what I call one of the best performances in movie history by any actor (and the only female part to get a 10 from me to date!).
Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis are very good as well.
Aronofsky is obviously an extremely talented director. He's one of the best working today - right up there among names such as Scorsese, Tarantino and the Coen Brothers!
Black Swan is a movie that blends psycho-drama with thriller and horror elements. But also features a couple of funny scenes. And it has sex!
I mean, what else do you want from a movie? - sex, story, acting, great camera work, beautiful yet decent visuals!
A masterpiece! The best film of this year, no question about it! Forget crap like Inception, Social Network or even Shutter Island. This movie beats them all!
27 points from me - for now... but it'll definitely change after 2/27.

Whew, it's been quite a while since I last wrote a review (I think the last time was about a year back).
A lot of stuff happened in my life. And I watched a lot of new movies in the last few months. I surely was able to catch up with all this year's Oscar favorites. And one of them - The Artist - caught my attention in a very special way.
When I first saw the trailer, I just thought "hm, nice idea". But when it started to win its first awards I was really surprised. I never imagined it to be so big. So I just had to give it a shot.
And basically, usually I like being against common sense. I like to be the enfant terrible and throw crap at supposedly good movies (like Nolan shit or Gilliam shit or Polanski shit), and I also watched The Artist with the same intention - of throwing shit at it afterwards.
But I was wrong. Even I know a good film when I see it. And such was The Artist. If you have only heard about the movie, you certainly have heard it's good. Go check it out. If you have seen the trailer, you know what it's about, but interested or not, go check it out, you won't regret it. If you have seen it already, well, then let's just agree on the film being a very good homage to the old days of cinema. I won't go into plot details or anything similar, since it doesn't even have an original or interesting plot.
But it's the magic that's so fascinating about this film. It's like a time travel, but then it's not. Hazanavicius masterfully creates this 20s feeling, but at the same time makes this movie very 2011 - which is a very good thing. It's a silent movie that constantly makes comments on silent film. And the characters advance just as the history of film advances. The film can easily be seen as a metaphor of film history. Jean Dujardin's main character is the personification of the old, the pioneers if you will. Bejo's character is the new, younger and more beautiful. But at a time when everybody forgets the old that's past and dated, she - due to her love (for cinema) - is the only one who remembers it. Just like in today's times where the audience forgets about the true magical meaning of cinema and rather chooses a mediocre big budget flick a la Harry Potter or Transformers over an old classic such as Godfather or City Lights.
Obviously, for someone who is a more experienced film viewer (like myself), the film gives a lot to think about (or rather, a lot of support and legitimation of one's own thoughts).The Artist works on many levels - like a great piece of art should. It's beautifully crafted, has a great score, great acting and a very beautiful mood.
I'll have to go with the masses on this one and say: Just give it the damn Oscar and that's it!