The Casual Movie Critic

Uh, oh - it's been a year! February 24, 2008

The last entry on this blog happened exactly one year ago. It's as if after the 2006 Oscars, everything faded to black. It's true, most people know that the march-april months are pretty much dead when it comes to good movies, the exception being only the Cannes festival. But this whole year, neither Cannes, nor the summer blockbusters, nor the Oscar hopefuls from fall and winter managed to get me back to writing.

Oscar Predictions February 21, 2007

The 2006 Oscar prediction pages are up. It's now or never if you still want to catch up with some of the nominated movies, now is the time to watch them.

I also have a few reviews to write as I have managed to watch After the Wedding, Half Nelson and Sherrybaby.

The Oscars are knocking January 22, 2007

I just realized (or actually been told) that while I was still updating the reviews and Oscars sections of the site, I have not really said anything about it in the main section :)

Well, January is when the Awards are afoot and lots of catching up happening with all the limited movies (and not only) which will ultimately contend for an Oscar. Nominations are announced on Tuesday morning, after which all the speculation will become more focused. And who knows, maybe we'll get some time to have a look at some early 2007 movies.

Summer draught August 25, 2006

Hmm... so what happened this summer? Did I spend all my time sunbathing on a tropical beach with no time for my movie addiction? Yeah, right. Were all summer movies so terrible that I couldn't bring myself to write about any of them? Well... there've plenty bad movies, but that's not the reason either.

I guess we'll blame it on an undefined notion of draught and try to play catch-up at a very fast pace.

2006 Cannes Festival Winners May 29, 2006

The 2006 edition of the Cannes festival announced its winners on Sunday. The Palme D'Or went to Ken Loach's international co-production The Wind that Shakes the Barley, a story about the pain and sacrifices of the Irish independence war which turned, in only a few years, into a an even more painful civil war.

The Grand Prix was awarded to Flanders by Bruno Dumont. Flanders, another movie set in time of war, takes a different approach to its story-telling: in Dumont's own words: The landscapes come first, it is as of there that the story commences. They are a determining element of inspiration.

The direction and screenplay awards went to the hispanic world this year. First off, Alejandro González IÑÁRRITU received the Best Director award for Babel, the third movie in the conceptual trilogy that includes Amores Perros and 21 Grams. "With Babel," explains Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu, "I wanted to explore the contradiction between the impression that the world has become quite small due to all the communication tools which we have, and the feeling that human beings are still incapable of expressing themselves and communicating amongst themselves on a fundamental level."

Cannes Festival 2006 May 18, 2006

Wednesday marked the debut of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival which started with the world premiere of the quite anticipated Da Vinci Code. With Tom Hanks leading the celebrity parade, the festival its on its way to another interesting mix of movies, both by classic art directors as well as young talents, with a total of 55 movies including 48 world premieres, representing 30 countries.

This year's Jury is lead by the masterful Wong Kar Wai and has an... interesting componence: Monica Belluci (!), Helena Bonham Carter, Lucrecia Martel (ARG), Zhang Yiyi (!), Samuel Jackson, Tim Roth, Patric Leconte, Elia Suleiman. Presiding over the Un Certain Regard section is Monte Hellman.

What are the most expected movies of this year? Starting with the heavyweights, we have Pedro Almodovar's Volver. Richard Linklater presents both his new movies Fast Food Nation and A Scanner Darkly. Sofia Coppola shifts gears with Marie Antoinette while Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu promises to follow 21 Grams with Babel another mix of complex intertwined stories in the powerful style that he used us to. Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (The Man without a Past) is also returning to Cannes with Lights in the Dusk; Nani Moretti returns as well with The Caiman. From Romania we have Catalin Mitulescu's The Way I Spent the End of the World. Asian cinema is also well represented with movies by Jong-bin Yoon, Chao Wang and Lou Ye among others.

So for now... enjoy the wait until these movies will get the appropriate distribution.

101 Movies you've got to see before you... April 30, 2006

Well, time to step up to the plate and go through the list and see how many essential movies I've seen. As bc mentioned the list was posted on Roger Ebert's site, but it's not actually Ebert's list. The list was picked by Ebert's editor, Jim Emerson, whose overall expertise in movies I am not familiar with, therefore I will try to avoid commenting on whether I agree with the selection as being representative of the entire cinematic spectrum. My list would certainly be different...

As I went through the list I found a large number of movies that I have seen but however I have almost completely forgotten, some to the point that it's not even worth listing them as "seen". What a shame...