Dedaland

I am watching many movies lately, a lot of them are european, so hard to get around here... some other I go the movies.

If I were to make a list these are the movies I watched in the last few weeks: Hellboy, Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind, Kill Bill 2, Elephant, Secret Window, The Barbarian Invasions, League of extraordinary gentlemen, L'auberge Espagnole, My name is Tanino, I fiumi di porpora 2, L'imbalsamatore, Mi piace lavorare, No man's land, Le fate Ignoranti, Agata e la tempesta and Home on the Range.

Let me see, I got the impression I am developing immunity to special effects so in a way I am not impressed by them anymore and I am able to fall asleep during an action movie. So far I was so craving for movies with a good script and good dialogues and an unusual story, I don't feel appealed by the way a movie looks anymore. It is not enough.

Thinking this I have to say Hellboy was probably the worst movie I saw this year. First of all I don't think it was even close to the mood of the comicbook (which I don't really know well, but I read some of it... and frankly I think it's one of those stories that work pretty well as a comicbook but is not cinematic enough). If you haven't seen it dont' read this it contains big SPOILERS. Take on hellboy was that the movies tried to move forward without an engine. Hellboy spends hours fighting demons in the subway, we don't see him defeating all of them but we see him going to Russia to hunt the big guy instead... so my thinking was: what about the guys you left in the subway? Once he gets to Russia it takes the pyro girl nothing at all to burn the demons down... duh... and in the end.... when the big Bad guys, the squid comes out, one things... there goes the huge battle scene, but no, we get fried calamari in less than 5 minutes.
Plus always the same kind of jokes: how many times do I have to kill you? Haven't I killed you already? Ouch, this is gonna hurt....
Boring! I fell asleep. Beside all action heroes movies dun have twist anymore in the end, he kicks ass and kisses the girl. that's it. LXG was no execption... or maybe it was a bit worse then HB... at least HB had milk and cookies on a rooftop discussing his love problems with a kid.. throwing rocks at his rival.
I so don't want to go see Spider man 2, I-robots and Van Helsing now...... as for the other movies.

I was very much impressed by Barbarian Invasion, great story, great dialogues, great display of culture and great observations of the surroundings. Maybe the movie just lacked a little bit of emotional crescendo in the end, but the lack was due to inadeguate soundtrack I suspect. definetely an oscar winner.

Same goes for No man's land which ran and won against Amelie. Now Amelie is an adorable movie, but no man's land is one of those stories that truthfully tells you in a war, no one is right, everyone is wrong, enemies cannot become friends even after they discover they both are human beings and the third party can only but watch as a helpless spectator. The ending was astonisling brilliant. Another oscar winner.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. there are no words to describe genius. My friend's comment on the movie was: nowadays it's so easy to figure out when a movie begins from its end. Well, yeah< iw ould say Kauffmann really gave enough hints to the public, and he knows how to play his game of making the spectator feel smarter than what he really is. The spectator things "i know wha't going on!" they feel smart but truth is... all the hints were there, left behind like thumbelino little crumbs. What I like was the sane pessimism with a vein of sudden optimism, hidden again pessimism again. When the protagonist decides to erase his girlfriend, there's good and bad memories he wants to get rid of, of course when the whole process begins the bad memories are the first ones to go. As a results Joel (the protagonist) begins his race against the process of erasing to keep what's left of his good memories. Of course we hope with him that he might do it, that he might stop and keep the memories... but is a mere illusion: first of all his desire to suceed is dictated by the fact his bad memories are gone, so the idea of love and good relationship now in his brain is not a whole image of what the relationship truly was. If he were to succeed and keep his memory of his girlfriend we would be wishing him bad. But at the same time the movie was telling us that maybe we love with our body as well, not only with our heart and mind and maybe as a quote to Chomsky, Joel's body retained the informations of the image of her body and definitely felt attracted to her all over again and fell in love all over again. Are we maybe destined or condemned to fall in love with the same person over and over again, if we were given second chances? I dunno, but truthfully, no matter how many time we were to start over we will still be lead to the same conclusion: if it did not work once, chances are it never will unless we change along the way. Maybe that was the meaning of that little repeated scene in the end.... maybe Joel and his girlfriend went over the same processo of losing and finding each other over and over and over again. a gorgeous movie!

Kill Bill 2 is not as entertaining as the first one, for the action movies lovers.... but somehow is smart pants enough to put you in front of the dilemma... should BB really kill Bill? Well, there are no way out, first of all because that is the name of the movie after all, second of all because there's no room to forgiveness in a revenge story, but only room for understanding. I was amazed to see Tarantino thank so many Italian moviemakers in the end, included Leo Corbucci, and frankly some scenes I enjoyed more than other cuz they reminded me of italian mafia and western movies from the 70's. Also I think he was leading the public by the nose, giving them what they wanted.... but making fun of it, although lots people still think Kill Bill is an action movie.... Tarantino is a second picasso to me.

secret window is a nice King's story, with the usual lack so typical of King: the impossiblity to wrap it up nicely and in satisfactory way. My thinking on the movie was... they revealed too soon and too much the truth about Morty. I would have exploited the creepy Turturro longer... used Shooter more, to haunt down the wife, until a few seconds before he hits her, when he says the line: it was his idea, it was Morty's idea. She should then say: you are morty. The the camera turn around TUrturro, we use is shoulders as a transition/wipte thingy, wee see Johnny Depp with his hat on and we realize.... shit it's split personalty. The we put the we put the flashbacks of how he killed everyone else and then he hits the wife he hits the lover and he gets away with it. Nice and clean. the ending was way too quick at revealing you the truth.