The World’s Fastest Indian (2005) -

As tear-jerking feel-good movies go, this one could be worse. Anthony Hopkins plays an amiable old mechanic from New Zealand who has little else left in his life than his Indian motorcycle (or ‘motorcicle’ as he keeps referring to it). He’s been tweaking it for speed for as long as anyone can remember and his ultimate dream is to set landspeed records with it on the saltlake flats of Bonneville. Read more

Notorious (1946) -

A classical spy movie and an undeniable Hitchcock. It has it all, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, oodles of suspense, intricate and complicated cinematographic novelties, the works. If anyhting is wrong with this movie is that a lot of movies like it have been made over time, including quite a few by Hitchcock. In its genre, it has some original twists and it makes effective use of a love interest to drive the plot, but I still feel it falls well short of a masterpiece. Read more

Rope (1948) -

What never ceases to amaze me about Hitchcock pictures is that they seem so modern. Rope is no exception. The acting, the camera work, the dialogue all seem well beyond 1948 - though not quite 2008 of course. It’s an amazing feat of cinematography, shooting a psychological thriller in only 5 shots (did I miss any cuts?) with clever transitions. Rope follows all three Artistotelian unities: it takes place in a single appartment, sometimes even shooting other rooms from within the main living room. It takes place in the timespan of a single afternoon and evening. And it just deals with the murder that the movie starts with. Read more

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) -

B-movies, impossible to rate. If you look at this movie with modern eyes, it hard to see any quality at all. The plot is shaky and incredibly stereotypical. The special effects are limited to a sliding door in a big metal box and a big ray of light emanating from the eyes of a robot that makes weapons disappear. Stuff you can reproduce with garden-variety toys available to everyone today, even without the use of a PC. And there’s not a lot of acting going on either, though that’s not the worst part of the movie, considering other contemporary pieces. Read more

Waltz with Bashir (2008) -

In this animated documentary, Ari Folman makes very effective use of animation. It’s not just stylistic, though many of the scenes are sleek, colorful or even hallucinatory thanks to the style of animation that reminds me of woodcut prints and Flash animation. But by showing you scenes with extreme violence or under poor circumstances in stark animation, the movie takes away the grit and filth that would just detract from what is going on and why people are acting the way they are. Read more

Burn after Reading (2007) -

After No Country for Old Men, this definitely feels more like a ‘classic’ Coen-brothers production. The characters all seem to be confronted with situations that are outside their ability to deal with things. Greed leads otherwise innocent characters down a dark path of punishment, which I think is a recurring theme in their movies and everything is soaking in a fairly bleak humorous light. Read more