DvDs watched in 2010

January 2010 - It is alwasy hard to explain poetry and how it affects us. The images and the words in Solaris are of the same nature. You don't need a logic or straight story but you feel it and you cannot ignore its attraction.

January 2010 - A fantastic documentary. It is centered about this game but it is much more than that. It tells you so much about the people involved in it, the time where this was played and the atmosphere around it.

Jan 2010 - A very funny and witty look at the ridiculous rhetoric of the cold wary by Billy Wilder. Very attractive and wonderful performance by James Cagney.

Jan 2010 - An interesting noir which is distracted by the little bit of the american hatred toward communism. The happy ending also is fake and puts the movie behind other great noirs of the same era. It is interesting to compare this with Bresson's masterpiece The Pickpocket and see how Bresson manages to penetrate the character of the pickpocket in a much deeper way.

January 2010 - This is an amazing movie where Bunuel's usual tricks with the audience work very well. The surrealist view is mixed with a comic and satirical narration of the story.

Jan 2010 - Obviously does need meet your expectation if you keep looking for the good old Resnais but still I found it a light sweet portrayal of the characters. The dissolves and the music gives the movie a dreamlike quality and the very mild humor of late Resnais is present through the movie.

July 2010 - This is a very realistic portrait of southern Italy and the very disturbing picture of the gangs and how they affect the community. The pictures' honesty is very impressive but is not as attractive and memorable as a movie like City of Gods.

July 2010 - This is am amazing movie. For the first half I was wondering how this crazy story with that strange narration and the theatrical actings can merge and make a good picture. But all of a sudden it was as if I was watching a Greek tragedy set in a modern stage. It is poetic in such an intrinsic way that could be done by one and only one person who is of course Jean Cocteau. Obviously Melville remains a technician in the service of the novel and the movie has not much to do with his later movies.

July 2010 - This is a very sentimental romantic movie and perhaps the best example of that genera. As a movie has not much to offer except of course an nice view of the 60s, Harvard and Boston then. But as many such romantic dramas it is not so hard to let your emotions flow with the movie and be touched by the ideal, ferry tale sentimentality of the story.

July 2010 - This is another masterpiece of Ozu in giving you a realistic and memorable view of the urban middle class post war Japan in such a delightful manner. The humor is so appropriate and natural. The relation of the mother and child is very well developed and the men who try to marry off these two are also fantastic. The dialogs are simple, believable and sufficient. It was a joy watching this.

July 2010 - This is a very well developed family drama. The characters are quite attractive even though I don't think they are explained very well. K Douglas is always somewhere between a deceiving unfaithful husband and a true artist in love. On the other hand K Novak looks psychologically troubled and the only explanation for her strange behavior seems to be sexual deprivation. Other characters are rather shallow. But overall visually the movie is appealing and I liked the ending.

July 2010 - More than anything this reminded me of Amarcord and I felt like this was an Amarcord about Little Italy of NYC. As in almost all of Scorsese's movies, the characters are attractive, believable and very well played. Locations and the scenes are as good as it gets. It is hard to make something like this without a straightforward storyline. Scorsese does a good job but I am sure after some time you won't remember anything of the story but will be left with a persistent impression of the atmosphere and scenes.

July 2010 - Fuller is clearly trying to give us a striped, real and biographic picture of war. To some degree it works and we have an unconventional war movie without a single story and with scenes that makes it hard to draw a clear line between the good and the bad guys. But this gets mixed up with an immature development of characters that try to be more than ordinary soldiers. This emphasis on these characters and their weird friendship also stands on the way of making a semi-documentary about war and its ugliness. I should add that I liked the very first sequence of the black and white memories of the WWI with just the red ribbons; but that also remains irrelevant to the rest of the movie.

July 2010 - I feel Assayas was trying too hard to make a B movie and this end up a very bad one. The story remains shallow (as probably it was intended to be) but the actions and various unrealistic plots never unify to leave me with almost anything positive to say about the movie.

June 2010 - This is another one of the Taviani brothers' movies that leaves me more with nostalgia for movies of the past. The spiritual, humanist, new realistic and full of fantasy Italian movies of 50s and 60s that we miss so much. Unfortunately unlike some of the other movies of them, this one remains a bit scattered and different pieces of the movie don't match very well.

June 2010 - I had a hard time following the movie. I definitely prefer Minghella's adaptation of the same novel and the weakness of the characters in this one, was perhaps the main reason why I was quite bored. The action scenes are unimpressive and there was also the strange thing that everyone was speaking in English. Perhaps the only significance of this one was the darkness compare to the other adaptation.

June 2010 - This is definitely not one of the best movies of Bergman. I feel like he just wanted to make a horror/thriller. However the emotional and psychological state of Ullmann and von Sydow and their portrayal of the main characters leaves the movie with unmistakable touches of Bergman. I think this is a successful psychological drama and shows Brgman's usual fascination with the complicated nature of the human psyche but I feel it does not go as deep as his better works.

June 2010 - I find it hard to imagine any better family drama, any movie that can show the clash of different generations in a family and in the context of modernization so honestly and effectively. The character of Noriko is so fantastically played by Setsuko Hara (as in all the Ozu movies of this period) and describes the mentality of women of her generation. Her older brother and his wife on the other hand show a different mind set of the same generation. Then we have the grand parents who are also in their silences and unique way of mourning for their killed son exemplary for people of their own generation. Finally we have the naughty and rebellious kids who are phenomenal and bring so much to the movie by adding humor and showing what the society should expect in the next generation.

Aug 2010 - This is Ozu at what he does better than anyone. The modernizing urban japan and how exactly the families look. The children are amazing and make the movie so lively, so do the wives of the neighbors. (By the way why Ozu families almost never have little girls?) The humor is so natural and light. My favorite scene is when we see a very long corridor with a tv box in the middle and at the end there is the kids room, where they are celebrating the purchase of the new tv set.

Aug 2010 - It is interesting how much we miss the straightforward, maybe even cliche, crime/noir movies of that period. This is a good example of a mediocre Lang movie. How terrible he is in showing the ordinary life and how bad the actings are. Feels like there has been a rush in making the movie and you can even see some obvious mistakes in the scenes. But the movie gets better as it progresses and Lang is completely in charge when the characters are at critical points, when they are devastated and are subdued by the events and the atmosphere around them.

Aug 2010 - (Watched on the plane getting back to the US) The story is very well adapted and told. It is lovely to see Morgan Freeman play Mandela and it is hard not to feel jubilant when everything is finished in victory and happiness. But everything remains a bit superficial and shallow and will be easy to forget the movie after a couple of days.

Jun 2010 - (with Kia in Alamo) This was a masterpiece and a masterpiece in a genera that does not exist. Somewhere beween documentary, drama, comedy and experimental movie. It is a documentary but the element of fiction runs so deep that we know basically nothing about the movie and what is real and what is not. And the narration is so original that I admit watching it was like seeing the train enter for those people who watched it for the first time more than a hundred years ago. I left the theater as excited as I could get.

June 2010 - (with Kia) To begin with, this was way worse than the first one. The comedy is not original and there is not much attraction left in the comic style. Finally the story is quite lousy.

Jul 2010 - One of the best animations I have ever seen. The pictures look incredibly nice and the characters are lovely. Though inappropriate for children but the story remains so innocently real. Also I loved the presence of a realistic adult suffering from the aspergers syndrome. I suppose with a neighbor suffering from PTSD and Mary's struggle with depression, this is also a great movie about mental disease.

June 2010 - (with Kia) Another interesting action/thriller Australian movie of that period. The brutality and weirdness of the characters is very original and seems so ahead of the movies everywhere else. The scary picture of the villains is the most memorable image of the movie.

Jul 2010 - (on the plane leaving the US) A neat look at the New York of the 40s, its theater scene and most importantly a young Welles. The main character is likable and I suppose is necessary in Linklater's romanticism but I find him more like an obstacle to see more of Welles who I definitely care more about.

Jul 2010 - Another priceless trip to De Sica's unique new realism. The central character is again so bold and human that I think shadows the socio/economical statements of the movie. The friendship with the housemaid and more importantly the dog adds so much to this picture. We feel so close to Umberto in wanting him to stay in the apartment and more significantly in his love for the dog, it becomes so crucial that he finds the dog and despite all the hardship that ramins, I definitely consider this a happy ending when he decides to live and not let the dog go.

Jun 2010 - (with Hadi & Bahar) This is an excellent depiction of the turkish immigrants in Germany. Different possibilities for them and how they all get intertwined in a complicated and novel like drama. I loved the musical breaks in the middle of the movie. The reality is boldly presented and the acting is fantastic. The plot is a bit cheesy but if that's the price of showing so much, I have no problem with that.

Aug 2010 - (with Setareh) This will be definitely one of my favorite romantic movies. More than anything the scenes and the compositions were so splendid. Every scene is designed so carefully and esthetically that I was lef in awe for most of the movie. Also the story is as simple and as humble as it can be. The characters take over so early and they remain free of the events.

Aug 2010 - (with Kaveh and Setareh) The camera, the amazing interior scenes and the music all are excellent. The relationship itself feels frustrating at some points but we get drown so much into the two characters that we clearly feel for them. The facial expressions of the main actor is superbly appropriate. He does so much of his acting with these facial expressions and I doubt there is anyone this good in this type of acting.

Aug 2010 - It is a nice and powerful story following a young Memphis lawyer. The inexperience of the lawyer and the weird assistant played by Danny Devito make this different from typical courtroom movies and make the lawyer more emotional accessible. Yet the characters are a bit superficial and our view of the matters remain at most sentimental.

Aug 2010 - It is quite funny and provides a good parody of the cliche rock star life. I also liked John Reilly's acting. For me the problem is that the movie remains undecided if it wants to be a satire or a wholehearted funny comedy. Also the cartoonish moments are few and sporadic and again we are left wondering what type of comedy we are dealing with.

Aug 2010 - (Thanks to Setareh for the recommendation) This was good in so many unexpected ways. We see a decent crime movie and this is a crime movie in such an original setting and story. More importantly though is when it goes beyond a crime movie, it digs deep inside the mother and in some way inside us. It becomes surprising but not in an unreasonable and unrealistic way, in fact it surprises us in being realistic and avoiding the expected exaggerations or romanticism. The directing, cinematography and obviously acting, all play along and help the movie become another unforgettable recent Korean movie.

Sep 2010 - My first view of Ozu's early period and I was quite impressed. The lighting, camera and directing is superb but perhaps more mainstream than his later movies. The acting is very good but the setting and the story is way more theatrical. The drama is more intense and as perhaps normal with silent movies, the facial expressions are exaggerated. One interesting similarity was the humor, its light mood and natural appearance. Finally in the beginning I was surprised at the hostile view of the theater company and in fact a judgmental point of view of the story but it dramatically smoothened as the movie progressed and perhaps at the end these are the theater people who have the upper hand.

Sep 2010 - This is obviously not a good movie even though it is not terrible and one can follow it to the very end. It is more a ferry tale coming to life and there is an unrealistic dimension to this. This is emphasized by the innocent portrayal of the village and its people in comparison to the evil people of the city. This definitely was intentional on bergman's part but does not work so well.

Sep 2010 - This is another of incredible human dramas in the later work of Bergman. This time everything is focused so the relationship between a mother and a daughter. The movie is so much in control and so realistic that despite the limitation of an ordinary life conflict, one is faced with such a touching drama. It is also incredible to see Ingrid Bergman acting in the movie and how the two giants worked together.

Sep 2010 - A very simple story that fades appropriately when we want to see the personality of the main character and her efforts to get back to a normal life with her kid. The actin of Maggie Cheung is incredible and the scenes with the child are so well delivered.

Sep 2010 - (with Setareh) It is a smooth black comedy with an interesting religious spice of retelling Job's story in the modern time. The jewish elements are quite appropriate and add to the humor. Characters are also interesting and have the same comic portrayal as Coens' characters in their previous movies. For me this however was not much more than a week adaptation of their style of characterization in this setting. The comedy, religious background and the human drama are minimal and not quite effective and after about a week of watching the movie, I have a hard time remembering it.

Sep 2010 - It is hard to say what my reaction would be if I had seen this before Sep 2001 and probably I would not like it this much. Now it gets as close as you want to some sort of prophecy. The powerful selection of actors makes the movie very funny and even though at times I wished parts of the movie were cut or remade, I did enjoy watching it.

Sep 2010 - I cannot compare this to Resnais's masterpieces and formally this is definitely inferior. However something that compensates a bit is a successful and realistic portrayal of the leftist revolutionary groups of that period. We get to know the main character very well and through him we clearly see the shortcomings of the idealist approaches of these groups. His personal life entangles with all this and by the end, very naturally we are asking the same questions as the main character asks.

Sep 2010 - I was very much disappointed at the story and its very conservative point. I cannot tell if this is a conservative side of Lang (and I hope it is not) or merely an attempt to secure the box office success of the movie. The demonization of liberal views for women is in fact intolerable. So what remains is a bit of Lang's technic, his mastery in showing his characters at times of desperation and finally a very good performance by Barbara Stanwyck.

Sep 2010 - A naked and at times brutal portrayal of a German village at the verge of WWI and the rise of fascism and racism. The story and movie provides a very good view of all these in the actions of ordinary people, in a way that makes it more realistic than historic movies concentrated on actions of their leaders. The black and white cinematography is almost essential and so are the faces and the ugly landscape. A very important aspect of such a look at history is how it can reflect other conflicts as well. Here we see the class struggles at the end of the feudal era and also the chauvinistic culture all playing their part in what we all know happened later. The mystery and its unsolved end definitely remind me of Cache and other movies of Haneke where the motivations are there, not hard to find but they are completely out of the screen. Yet I think I still prefer Cache and the more controlled environment that made the movie more successful.

Sep 2010 - This ia obviously a very good story and so are the actings. It is very attractive and one of the best gangster movies. However what encouraged me to see this was to compare it to its remake by Scorcesse and I definitely like Departed much more. I agree that that movie's success owes so much to the story but this is, I believe, a very good example of how a mastro with is own signature and style can add to the dimensions of the movie. Scorcesse's version becomes so much cult like that you cannot call it an action movie any more. This is obviously also because of the influences of actings of the amazing cast and in particular Decaprio and Jack Nicholson.

Sep 2010 - It is of course very important to see this in contrast to the earlier, silent and black and white version of the movie made by Ozu. The story also has moved to the more modern period. The are certain dimensions added to the movie which makes it richer than the original. In particular the conflict between the generations is more apparent here. Also the colors are so fantastically chosen that despite my love for the expressionist scenes in the earlier version, I loved this one. There are more of the short stories beside the main story and in particular we see and understand other members of the troupe. There is however something that I missed hear and it was the theatrical, stylish and dark atmosphere of the earlier version. I think this matches the story more and for example Ozu's humor in his later movies is not so at home with this story.

Nov 2010 - This is a masterpiece. The perfection used in the decoration, in the music, acting, colors and the silences blew my mind. Delon's looks are absolutely penetrating and the story is so much in the service of delivering the characters and the atmosphere that I recall a handful of such movies.

Nov 2010 - I had read the book and seen the movie a very long time ago. Not much had remained with me sympathies of a very personal nature. Overall, I did not like the movie at all. It has all the mediocre characteristics of popular movies of hollywood in that period. Very shallow and black and white characters, bad dialogs and overdramatic acting and storytelling. The one thing that I can like in the movie is Uncle Elliott who happens to be the only grey character of the movie and brings something to the movie with his wit.

Dec 2010 (with Kaveh and Setareh) - This was a very good romantic movie and it got better and better as it progressed. The music is very good and integrates so well with the story. Also I couldn't be happier with the ending. The suspense is appropriate and I like the fact that there has been a careful choice to avoid lengthening the ending. I was a bit unhappy with English chosen as the main language and I also thought the beginning was a bit slow and made it easy to get distracted.

Dec 2010 (with Kia) - This is is Fuller's debut and it is amazing just as that. There is definitely an artificial feeling with the movie in the beginning. But it gets much better when we see ourselves deeper into the character of Bob Ford. We see how Jesse James' ghost follows him and how he cannot get away. I loved it at the end when in the duel like scene, we are reminded again that he shot Jesse James from behind. It was also fascinating to learn how much of the story has really happened.

Dec 2010 (with Setareh) - Watched this for the second time and it is still so fascinating. The charcter of Benigno is so strong and attractive that it is hard not to fall in love with him. Also it arose plenty of sympathy in me. A strong feeling for a love that looks as weird as other people can imagine. The music is heavenly and even though in the beginning may seem unfit becomes very essential later. I love the dialogs between the two men and how Benigno explains his views on women and love.

Dec 2010 (with Setareh) - Watched this for 6th time perhaps. It is one of the funniest movies of Allen and even though the quality of the story, acting and directing is not as good as his best movies but the dialogs make it so amazing that it is easy to forget all that.

Dec 2010 - This was a masterpiece. A nearly abstract portrayal of a relationship that realistically and at the same time symbolically shows a love, a marriage, a relation between a prisoner and the guard, a man and a woman and so many others. The images are nearly perfect and the poetry is so striking. Then it is amazing that how attractive the movie remains in its entirety. We follow these characters, feel with them and for them and we learn how to reach the same levels of emotions and reasoning. The people of village are so vivid. The scene where they show up with their masks and ask the couple to make love in front of them is one of the best scenes that I have ever seen in a movie and it is so touching, believable and beautiful that it is hard to find a competition for that.

Dec 2010 - This is a nice and entertaining movie. It does no make you involved that much and honestly the few remarks about the morality are boring at their best. On the other hand, the actings are reasonably well and the story is told in a nice narrative that the bits and pieces of it are revealed with a natural flow.

Nov 2010 - This is another fantastic work of Assayas. The dialogues and the characters are so real that you just know them personally and the actors help so much. The death is very central but it is never overdramatized. The lapses and chapters are also quite crucial and allow part of the story to take place where there is no narration for it and we don't see it. This of course reminds me of Ozu. From what the name suggests and also the realism of the characters and their relationship, I see a tribute to him. Finally the character of Gabriel (Mathieu Amalric) is fantastic. He has the love, doubt, egoism, superficiality of almost any want to be artist that one can imagine.

Nov 2010 - I liked the expressionist style of the movie. The torment that is visible in the pictures, actings and the lights. The story however is not as good as I expected. Caligula is an interesting character and twisted but his portrayal remains suspended between a surrealist aspet of a horror movie and a realistic psychological drama.

Nov 2010 - Took me a while to recognize I have seen this before. A not very successful attempt at a thriller. Robert De Niro is quite good and especially the relationship with the daughter, Danielle, adds a bit of a spice to the movie but overall it remains a mediocre thriller about a crazed revengeful criminal against a corrupt lawyer who is not convincing as a family man either.

Nov & Dec 2010 (with Setareh) - Watched it twice in the space of a month. The wit and ease of the story makes it so easy to watch and follow. This is definitely far from Bergman's best but yet you see some of the amazing aspects of his style that make it so attractive.

Oct 2010 - The characters are not very well developed. The dialogs are not so good and all this makes it hard to connect to the movie, to believe the changes that the characters make and also understand where their positions are. This however may have strengthened the movie's attack on the hypocrisy of the people of a small town and their degrading of the women. I was not happy with the actings either.

Oct 2010 - This is an early attempt by Bergman to show the ups and downs of a troubled relationship. Characters engulfed by their pasts have to reach an understanding that keeps them together. The death of Gertrud seems to provide such a possibility. Bergman's portrayal of the psychological tension is something that reminds one of his masterpieces later but here they remain raw. Among all these I liked the scene were we experience the pain that Gertrud goes through and how it touches other major characters of the movie.

Oct 2010 - The narration of the story through comedians sitting in the Jewish deli is quite an original style that makes the movie very interesting. Also the relation between Rose and Tina is an unexpected friendship that keeps us attached to the movie and the story. This is not Allen's best but the light and simple story with very good actings makes it a joyful experience.

Oct 2010 - The central point of the drama is obviously the amazing character of Mark Whitacre. The super complicated lier that leaves no way of understanding what makes him behave the way he behaves. It is all acceptable and realistic for the important reason that this is based on a true story and this makes this so fascinating.

Sep 2010 - This is a very experimental movie but it is hardly anything else. There is obviously the revolt agains the political system, standard styles of film making, standards of decency and I am sure many other things but they remain very shallow and on the surface. The movie may have been a controversy at its time but I find it only a temporary success and a piece of the history rather than the art.

Dec 2010 - It is a good example of a relatively successful political drama. The movie fails to give a realistic picture and its populism can be annoying at times but the story and the picture bring back a nostalgic feeling of the nostalgic leftist idealism of that period.

Nov 2010 - A nice romantic movie. The beginning, where we see the appearance of the old man and the development of the love, is the best part of the movie. Later on the movie falls into the trap of sentimentality especially with respect to the old man's memories. It would be much better if he would remain his quite distant schizophrenic self.

Dec 2010 - This is a very interesting musical. The story is not that interesting but the style and how the music gets integrated into the movie makes it very thrilling. Steve Martin does a very good job and he clearly became a jerk in various parts of the movie.

Dec 2010 - This does not measure up to the best of the Taviani brothers yet I like the atmosphere and for weir reasons it has a similar texture to some of his older work which is surprising for a movie made in 1996. I was more excited about a novel in the 19th century that speaks of the issue of relationships with so much liberty and questions the institution of marriage with such an ease.

Jan 2011 (with Kia, Marisa, Setareh and Kaveh) - I watched this twice within a week and I could easily have watched it once more. These were all after 6 years since the first time that I watched the movie. The comedy is fantastic and more than anything the characters become so real that you understand them, you see them and you love them. It is amazing how the movie starts from a community of ideologically driven people and moves you into seeing them as very typical human beings. It is so interesting that the humor is so suited to the movie and not only adds to the entertainment but also prevents the movie to fall into a melodramatic drama.