krisrox

French cinema has always brought us empathy and intuition over logic and plot. Which perhaps explains why "Le 4eme Pouvoir" - nominally an American-styled political thriller featuring international gangsters, police, high-ranked politicians, buzzing news rooms and live TV broadcasts - ultimately shines most as an unlikely love drama.

Leads Garcia and Noiret are very convincing, despite having some less-than-stellar dialogue to work with. Serge Leroy proves to be a very capable director, moving the story along briskly, even if sometimes at the expense of plausabiilty. As a bonus, there is a grainy VHS tape and generous dose of cool 1980s fashion - I particularly enjoyed Garcia's haircut, her outfits, and the interior design of her apartment.

A truly unique movie, the closest you'll get to seeing Breughel or Hieronymus Bosch in cinema. Tarkovsky shows us the life and times of Russian painter Andrei Rublev (±1365-1430) in a way that only Tarkovsky can, his trademark meandering camera hypnotizing the viewer, enabling an almost meditative state that allows us to gain deep insights into art, religion and the human condition. Parts 4, 6 and 8 in particular are fantastic, revealing the chaos and trials of medieval Europe in haunting fashion. The payoff comes in the form of the gorgeous, timeless finale - so well executed.

Still, this is not as perfect a work as Stalker or Solaris. I found parts 5 and 7 to be outright boring, perhaps because some orthodox religious themes were lost on me. But these are minor quibbles - take your time to absorb this movie, even if you don't consider yourself the type to enjoy 3 hour allegories about obscure Russian icon painters. For better or for worse, it will be a once in a lifetime experience.

As humans, we just can't resist a juicy story. And the infamous Meredith Kercher murder case had it in spades: the gruesome killing of a beautiful young girl, a picturesque Italian village, a throwback Sherlock Holmes-style detective-philosopher, and an interconnected web of young, multicultural, possibly sex-addicted suspects, headlined by a knockout American student with icy blue eyes - the titular Amanda Knox.

Somebody had to make a documentary about it, and here we are. Netflix covers the bases: they get all of its principal actors on camera, stylishly photographed, as is the norm today for true crime; they weave in surprisingly detailed case footage - including that of the actual crime scene, moments after the murder had taken place; and they let the story unfold chronologically, making sure the intrigue is as strong as ever.

What emerges is the dissection of a modern-day witch hunt. The main adversaries are "hot property" Amanda and the pipe-smoking Italian lead investigator, who are both captivating in their own right, even if for completely different reasons. But the crucial insights come from Nick Pisa, the British journalist who broke the internet with his scoops during the case. Halfway, he sheepishly smiles at the camera, and then sums up the whole mess in one line: we just can't say no to a juicy story.

Recommended if you like true crime, done well.

Dear hypocrites: If "Amelie" and "Forrest Gump" can be mainstays of the top 250, so can "3 Idiots" - a movie that similarly gets away with a lot of silliness because it's truly endearing and has an unbeatable joie de vivre. It also features a genuinely uplifting message that only hardboiled cynics will fail to appreciate.

Yes, it's probably 45 minutes too long, but on the flip side: the songs are fun, the directing is dynamic, and Aamir Khan pulls out his best Indian Tom Hanks performance. Also, unless you're xenophobic, it's fascinating to see love, dreams and life from an Indian perspective.

If you want to see one Bollywood movie before you die, make it this one. It will make you feel better.

Greetings from the galaxy, where we get yet another semi-realistic, big-budget space exploration movie from an A-list director - following the very good and very successful Interstellar (2014) and Gravity (2013). So - how does The Martian fit in? There is a bit of overlap, but overall, Ridley Scott has succeeded in adding a completely different perspective.

Where Gravity and Interstellar felt like big leaps forward in movie-making, The Martian does not. It is the least ambitious of the three, lacking a deep philosophical undercurrent or breakthrough visual effects that made the other two so compelling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however. The Martian features - by far - the most well-developed cast, acting performances and characters, and comes with an unexpected, almost Spielbergian sense of pace and storytelling. The movie and its leads are upbeat, resourceful and have a lightness that prevails in the most trying of times. It is, far more than the others, a people movie, and a popcorn movie at that. It's up to you if you like that, and can stretch your suspension of disbelief accordingly.

Without giving away any plot details - let's say that, in the end, like its two blockbuster predecessors, The Martian is about survival in the face of overwhelming odds. But while Interstellar focuses on the abyss faced by an entire race, and Gravity on the depths faced by one person, The Martian shows us the joy of survival through old-fashioned team spirit. In that sense, it is a very American movie.

"De Surprise" marks the long-awaited return of Mike van Diem (of 1997 "Karakter" acclaim). I had no idea what to expect, but wasn't disappointed: it's a clever, self-written, self-produced dark comedy, that surprises with its off-kilter locations, developments and characters.

Starting with a funeral and quickly progressing to boy-meets-girl, the setup is of the well-traveled romcom variety, but the story heads for loftier territories after this and keeps us engaged throughout. Van Koningsbrugge and Verbaan acquit themselves well in parts that require a more understated, highbrow approach than their usual brand of comedy, and - essential for this genre - I rooted for them all the way through.

What kind of bugs me, though: the main characters in "De Surprise" exhibit a Wes Anderson-ish formal approach to emotions, which, combined with a distinct Wes Anderson-ish quirky world view, setting and storyline, almost made me feel like I was watching a WA-movie, only one without Wes' exceptional talents for art direction and editing.

This is not to say "De Surprise" lacks originality: but the day after, it did impress me more as a tight exercise in style than a profound exercise in storytelling - quite unlike the superior "Karakter". It does re-establish Van Diem as an independent, original filmmaker, and here's hoping he'll stick to cinema the upcoming decade.

There's only one thing worse than a ludicrous, shallow, artificial movie, and that's a ludicrous, shallow, artificial movie that everybody seems to adore.

Whiplash wants to be about the love of great art, but is actually about the hate of great art. It has JK Simmons - a brilliant actor - playing a disgraceful character, stitched together from completely unrealistic, inconsistent motivations and actions, only conceived to bludgeon the viewer into thinking we're watching something profound. It casually tosses in assault, depression and suicide in a way that only a clueless, opportunistic director could. It has a big finale that would be powerful if only it made some sense for the main characters involved - it doesn't.

Even worse, the finale leaves us with this unmistakable message: sadistic leadership is the way to greatness. Don't take your kids to see this.

Going in - as an AI major, nonetheless - I was pleasantly surprised somebody actually dug up significant money to make a film about such a niche subject. Having actually seen it, I'm a bit torn.

The good news: "The Imitation Game" is a well-meaning biopic about a great, complex man most people haven't heard about but absolutely should. It's highly recommended if you have a passing interest in either computers or WW II.

The bad news: the film has been considerably dumbed down to make it suitable for mass consumption, leading to far-fetched dramatic setups, nonsensical science, forced dialog and a simplistic rendering of pretty much all of its characters. Knightley and Goode have little to work with, and Cumberbatch fails to fully tap into his inner nerd: Turing's social awkwardness is never real, and neither are his autistic mannerisms. You'd probably be best served to skip "The Imitation Game" if you know a lot about computer science or related fields, as it will leave you either underwhelmed or slightly insulted.

Northern European literature is rife with family tales and coming-of-age stories told against the backdrop of Lutheran austerity. During its heyday - he 1970s and 1980s - Dutch and German filmmakers translated several of these novels to the silver screen, with reasonable results. But here comes Michael Haneke, an Austrian(!) director with the superb, original "Das Weiße Band" to belatedly capture Calvinist cinema's crown.

Shot in stark black and white, "Das Weiße Band" transports us to a German village in the 1910s, where people work hard, pray hard and go nowhere, literally. If you squint, there's a touch of Twin Peaks here: Haneke's efficient script wastes no time introducing us to a variety of villagers, all of them struggling in one way or the other. Instantly, ominous things start to happen. Right from the opening credits, the atmosphere is captivating and believable. My grandparents grew up in the 1910s, and Haneke's sets look completely like their family photographs.

Without giving away too much of the plot: this movie is very pretty, but contains some painful images. It is restrained and formal, but emotionally draining. It is not recommended for viewers who can't stand to see children get hurt. At the same time, it features some great, lighthearted scenes illustrating the social customs a century ago. The scenes with the schoolteacher and his fiancée are particularly priceless.

Highly recommended.

Bringing an intellectual's approach to the ultimate visceral subject - the Vietnam War - Kubrick fails to imbue Full Metal Jacket with authenticity.

Belying its ambition, parts of the movie feel cheap and TV-like: the story is very episodic, the no-name actors try valiantly but lack pizazz, and the sets are so obviously not in Asia it's a bit painful to see. (In fact, the entire movie was shot in the UK, making use of (among other things) fake palm trees neatly planted in every scene. It's a bit amateurish, especially compared to the Vietnam masterpieces of Coppola and Stone.)

You should still see it - it's Kubrick, for heaven's sake, and he does deliver compelling cinema in the final 30 minutes.

I've always loved movies that are morally ambiguous - they lead you to places Hollywood usually avoids like the plague. In "Gone Girl", director Fincher and writer Gillian Flynn boldly go there - deep into Hitchcock territory. "Gone Girl" a throwback dark mystery in which a flawed alpha male butts heads with an icy, manipulative blonde... In other words, it's Fincher's "Basic Instinct", which was Verhoeven's "Vertigo".

Like the aforementioned films, you should read as little as possible about plot or storyline, and just go see it. At the least, you'll have an opinion about it. Even if it's not a perfect film - Fincher's style gets a little too exacting at times, obscuring deeper layers - it's my top movie of 2014 so far, boldly dark and always unpredictable. The entire cast excels. It's not often 149 minutes fly by.

Oh, and a fearless prediction: Rosamund Pike will win an Academy Award.

Checked "Life of Crime" in Amsterdam and loved it, as did most of the audience... Unlike many of the reviewers here, who may have gone in expecting something different.

Starring Jennifer Aniston, Mos Def and Tim Robbins, "Life of Crime" is NOT a romantic comedy or straight crime story. Rather, it is an Elmore Leonard-derived caper tale set in the late 70s, with the soundtrack and mustaches to match. Staying true to the author's ethos, the dialog is smart, the jokes are hilarious in quite subtle ways, and the storyline gently bends until the protagonists end up in an entirely different place than they were planning to.

Actors usually love doing Leonard scripts - he prefers to let mouths do the talking, not fists - and the cast pretty much nails it here. I loved Mos Def, Isla Fisher and Robbins in particular, but it is Aniston who steals the show. All those years post-Rachel, her comedic timing is still impeccable, and she still has the capacity to get you to care for her, even when cast as a hopeless housewife.

The verdict: I thought "Life of Crime" was just as enjoyable as other recent Elmore Leonard adaptations (that had way bigger budgets and box office mojo): Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" and Soderbergh's "Out of Sight", and would recommend "Life of Crime" especially to people who loved the latter.

"Greed" is a naturalistic, gritty silent from 1924, directed by Erich von Stroheim. Its storyline centers around three very unremarkable people who slowly lose their minds over money, and culminates with one of the most powerful, desolate, haunting closures in film history.

The fact that it provides a street level view of life 90 years ago makes it a fascinating film by default, and one of the main attractions of the movie is seeing life through the eyes of - perhaps - your great-grandparents. The overarching story is fairly strong, but is told at a leisurely pace that resembles actual life more than tightly scripted drama. Which is fine, if you have an evening to spare, and like that sort of thing.

Of course, "Greed" is famous for being 9 hours long before the studios butchered it. While I can imagine a 9-hour version of this story to be very immersive and rewarding, I can also imagine it to be extremely tedious and over-the-top. I watched the pretty good 239-minute restoration, but there was no way I could devour it in one session... Von Stroheim is consistently faithful to his realistic ethos, but the dynamics are often lacking. (Which is particular to this movie, not to 1920s movie-making in general.)

The verdict: Landmark movie with a unique feel and a few moments of genius. Recommended for fans of realism.

Positives: interesting take on the rise and fall of Dutch crime lord Klaas Bruinsma, with strong performances by Frank Lammers and Marcel Musters in supporting roles. High production values, nice art direction, obviously a labor of love of sorts.

Negatives: ham-fisted storytelling, clunky dialog, utter miscasting of Muller and Janzen as the leads.

Overall: I could care less that the writers invoked their artistic license to re-imagine Bruinsma's life, but they should have gone ahead and cast a lead capable of projecting larger-than-life ambition. The opening and climax are OK, but the 110-minute running time feels like 220. Muller is not a bad actor - it's just that he's completely devoid of a dark side.

I'll come out and join the vocal minority: "Commando" is sheer genius. It's loose, it's funny, it's irreverent. It has more memorable scenes than many top-250 movies. It casually immerses us in a parallel universe where cartoon logic rules, and doesn't bat an eye along the way. Schwarzenegger is funny, intimidating, ruthless and endearing at the same time - name one other actor who can do this!

You could actually write a thesis about the tricks that take this flick to the next level. The direction is completely tongue-in-cheek from the opening montage onwards. The pace never lets up. The script appears shallow but is actually quite clever: it doesn't make any attempt to make sense from the start, goes left where other action flicks go right, and then introduces the Rae Dawn Chong character to point this out for us in this classic piece of Arnie dialogue...

Cindy: You steal my car, you rip the seat out, you kidnap me, you ask me to help you find your daughter which I very kindly do, and then you get me involved in a shoot out where people are dying and there's blood spurting all over the place, and then I watch you rip a phone booth out of a wall, swing from the ceiling like Tarzan, and then there's a cop that's going to shoot you and I save you and they start chasing me. Are you going to tell me what's going on or what? Matrix: No.

PS - I'm not driven by nostalgia. Watched it on Netflix last week, and was astonished how much I liked it. Had to watch it again today.

I'm not the type to hand out a 1-rating to bring a movie's average down, but Django seems to receive more accolades than it should. From Reservoir Dogs on, I've seen every single Tarantino release in the theaters. This is the first time my friends had to carry me out - literally sleeping.

Django starts off well enough, with a great opening salvo that locks down the Oscar for Cristopher Waltz in about 15 minutes. But after an hour, the script starts to drag, and the snappy one-liners disappear. By the time DiCaprio and Samuel Jackson enter, the movie is effectively on life support. Neither can save it, with the plot spelled out and the pace gone. The death knell comes from Waltz, who has to relinquish his lead role to the good - but not great - Jamie Foxx. Foxx is promptly sent into a revenge-by-the-numbers routine we've seen several times from Tarantino.

Which is where I fell asleep. In the end, Django gets bonus points for its clever tackle of a tricky subject, and for a first hour that ranks among the most entertaining I've seen this year. But it's not in the league of Inglourious Basterds, which isn't in the league of Jackie Brown, which isn't in the league of Pulp Fiction.

I've read "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis three times, and consider it a modern classic. It's both a brilliant satire and a psychological thriller with David Lynchian ambiguous elements thrown in, and as such, it seemed destined to be butchered by Hollywood: satire and ambiguity don't sell, while the superficial elements that the book so hilariously portrays - gore and luxury - do.

Lucky for us, the adaptation was passed around by the big players, dropped a few times and finally scooped up by the semi-obscure Canadian director Mary Herron. Left with a relatively small budget, she decided to build her movie around Christian Bale, who - believe it or not - was also very much a struggling B- or C-lister in 1999.

In my opinion, it couldn't have worked out better. Free from the pressures of a big budget, Herron expertly translates the essence of the novel to the big screen without resorting to unwarranted commercial stylings. She allows the movie to define a genre of its own: "American Psycho" is equal parts black comedy, 80s homage, slasher movie, and thriller, brought to us by its very unreliable narrator, the infamous Patrick Bateman.

Which brings me to Christian Bale. I am by no means a member of the Christian Bale fan club, but his work here is fantastic and I cannot imagine another actor nailing Bateman this perfectly. No hyperbole needed: this is one of my 10 favorite movies of all time, with one of my 5 favorite lead actor performances of all time.

Just a great movie - instantly entrenching itself in my personal top-50 of all time. Scores high points on acting, atmosphere and plot.

My advice to fellow moviegoers: see it. And should you have any reservations over watching this 50s, subtitled, noir masterpiece, put them aside. Specifically: If you didn't enjoy Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear", don't worry: this is an entirely different animal. I wasn't a big fan of "Fear", either. If you're put off by the comparisons to Hitchcock, believe me: they are warranted. The point is not that Clouzot is a better director than Hitchcock, the point is that this is the best movie Hitchock never made. And if you think the first 30 minutes lack pace, keep it up: this is a movie that turns the screw slowly but surely - going from interesting to intriguing to suspenseful - with a final 15 minutes that are downright terrifying and pay off in a big way.

I can't help myself: I greatly respect Dick Maas. He directed three self-penned movies to Dutch box office success in the 80s, all three fast-paced, original stories permeated with a typical Dutch brand of humor. You could make a case that Maas is the Low Countries' equivalent to Luc Besson or Quentin Tarantino, even if his work doesn't come close to a quarter of their production values - or their international recognition.

With its faux-English title, touristy Amsterdam settings and serial killer/hardboiled cop storyline, "Amsterdamned" (1988) was made with an eye on international success. As always, Maas' direction is instinctively entertaining, doesn't waste time and doesn't mind sacrificing logic for pace and shock value. It results in trashy 80s fare. Personally? I love it. Don't expect "Seven" or "The Silence of the Lambs", but enjoy the lewd sex scenes, speedboat chases and blood stains. Time will fly; Maas and lead Huub Stapel know what they're doing.

But does "Amsterdamned" work for an international audience? Only if you're prepared to appreciate the irreverent, self-deprecating sense of humor as part of the movie's charm. Maas' shtick as a writer/director is so fundamentally Dutch that his international ambitions were probably doomed from the start. But let's give the man his due: he wrote his own stuff, put his own money on the line and drew big crowds to the theaters, creating popular culture at a time when other Dutch directors were busy adapting 19th-century novels.

My wife and I had been looking forward to this family epic, mostly because everybody seemed to lapse into hyperbole while describing it.

Well... There's certainly nothing wrong with La Meglio Gioventu, but we did wonder what the fuss was all about. As other reviewers have pointed out, it's a made-for-TV mini-series masquerading as a 6-hour movie; this means the story lines are sweeping, but the production values are not. The actors are so-so, and it should be noted that "Italian" does not equate "arty" or exclude "soapy". Really, you could splice together 6 episodes of "North & South" and achieve similar results.

Our advice: if you're into European family histories, see the German series "Heimat" instead. This actually is the cinematically brilliant, absorbing, life-changing experience La Meglio was cranked up to be.

For a high-stakes, fast-paced conspiracy tale with gorgeous international settings, "The International" is a surprisingly dumb movie. Clichés are rife. Nonsense is rife, too. I can't imagine anybody sitting through this without having several "what were they thinking?" moments... The screenwriter in particular seems to have had trouble weeding out the good ideas from the bad.

Having said that, it's still a good popcorn movie because the direction is dynamic, the locales are pretty and the actors non-intrusive. Yes, that's damning with faint praise, but Watts and Owen don't seem terribly inspired by the one-sided characters they're portraying.

Oh, bonus points for shooting scenes in modern Istanbul... You'd be surprised how few modern movies have found their way to this vibrant city with its beautiful hues.

"Incendies" is a movie I really wanted to like. It's refreshing on several levels, featuring pleasantly strange locales (Quebec and Lebanon). It has a good sense of pace, and covers hitherto unseen moments in modern history with a good eye for detail.

Still, I was tempted to give this movie the lowest score possible. Primarily for butchering its own story towards the end, going for the type of plot that only amateur screenwriters fall for: exciting on paper but hopelessly shallow in practice. (Go see it for yourself - it's so contrived it completely undermines the realistic feel the director has fought so hard to establish.)

Furthermore, I'm sick of movies that create "drama" by graphically depicting violence against children. We get that mid-80s Lebanon was a hell hole, Denis. Refrain from using the sledgehammer unless your story absolutely needs it; it will make your movie more intelligent, too.

This movie annoyed me to no end. A middling script is one thing, a middling script with a fancy director and 10 A-List actors is truly something else.

At times, I felt like I was watching a private hobby project, an inside joke movie, a pet farce Soderbergh put together as a gift for a friend getting married. I'm pretty sure none of the stars REALLY cared - after all, none of them had to carry the movie! It was like an NBA All-Star game without anything on the line. They probably did enjoy their European vacation, their relaxing getaway from the responsibilities of having to be The Man. (Or The Woman, in the case of Julia R.)

And Soderbergh... He is at the point in his career where he can direct in his sleep, and it shows. I used to think of him as a genius, now I think of him as a caricature of himself. Dud.

This is a flawed if fascinating movie with "future cult classic" written all over it.

To begin with, it doesn't look like anything else, only then it does. "Drive" shows flashes of prime David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive), spaghetti Sergio Leone (Fistful of Dollars), Hong Kong ultra-violence and 1971 Kowalski, lacquered with the gloss of a sleek car commercial. I'm not sure if director Refn really designed it that way, I'm not sure it works, but it is interesting, to say the least.

In such a high-concept environment, the actors seem almost secondary. You'd be hard pressed to call Ryan Gosling the star of this movie; he hardly stars. The script is astonishingly weak. If anybody should win an Oscar, it's sound designer Cliff Martinez.

About the score... A lot of reviewers cite its "80s retro" sound. I'm not sure if they were thrown off by the opening credits (which are very 80s), but the music has the analogue synth sound which is a hallmark of the 70s. This sound made a comeback in the late 90s with Air and Boards of Canada, but was notably absent in the 80s.

There's no sense fighting the general consensus about this uber-classic. I refuse to use words like "overrated" and you probably don't care that I don't care for mob movies, because I consider thugs in expensive suits no more heroic than thugs without expensive suits.

Having said that, I was amazed with Pacino (stunning performance) and particularly Coppola, who was such an amazingly slick and accomplished director at such a young age. His use of light and music is superb. His framing makes the atmosphere intimate and believable. This movie is laced with iconic scenes, has great pacing and is blessed with great production values throughout. Wow.

The bad: Brando is a joke (as he often is). Also, I didn't think the storytelling was particularly tight; you could find more holes in the plot than in Sonny C's body. Again, I find it hard to root for any racketeering don, and I'm bewildered by the world's continued fascination with mafia types. But a very good movie it is.