Buried, 2010

Buried, 2010
Director: Rodrigo Cortes
Cast: Ryan Reynolds


Stage: home theatre


Buried in short: Waking groggy in pitch darkness, Paul Conroy, an American truck driver working as a contractor in Iraq in 2006, slowly realizes he is trapped inside a wooden coffin, buried alive. With his cigarette lighter, he can see the trap he is in, and he quickly realizes that there's not enough air for him to live long. He finds within the coffin a working cellphone, which allows him contact with the outside world. But the outside world proves not to be very helpful at finding a man buried in a box in the middle of the Iraqi desert. Paul must rely on his best resource--himself.

Preps: Wanted to see this piece on LIFFE, the movie festival, but I missed it. Heard a great deal about it and wanted to see it badly. Now I get it at home..


Reality: A strong reminder, how little we are to the society and how the importance is being measured as long as we are valuable. To be blackmailed is nothing really new, but to be buried underground, figuring out how long your cellular is going to hold and not being able to get to anyone that could help, is another story indeed. The plot seems vague and empty in the beginning, but later on the movie turns out to be a critic of US staying in Iraq, all the innocent people trying to get money for their service, turning out in hands of terorrists to be blackmailed - the movie is filled with negative pesimism, that can drive the viewer mad in thinking, how did we get this far.

Having governmental bureacreacy up to this level, tailored to serve the citizens, ending up in serving themselves, is simply to ironic to handle. Too much of black humour /irony - or shall we say or admit truth in this piece it will rock your soul. What would you do in order to get out of the box is one thing - Paul in this case can do nothing really important. Who to call, who to say goodbye from.. those are the questions popping in Paul's mind. How unimportant he really is, is shown by the attitude of various institutions that he tries to call. The main idea I am left with is, may I never turn up in a situation like this. With only government with its great attitude to help me or to assist me with something. The administrative procedures that serve themselves are simply too much. Vividly shown in the piece, dramatically cast by Ryan Reynolds.

One of the masterpieces, made on a very static position. It is extremely hard to fill in the movie if you are limited to one position or one location (for instance, brilliant job at Phone Booth). Nevertheless, I keep wondering, what the government is all about. About citizen not, for sure.



My personal rating: 8,0 (a truly unique piece of work, showing us, how little and unimportant we are..)


Buried on IMDB

Buried official page

The Grudge, 2004

The Grudge, 2004
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Clea DuVall


Stage: Home theatre


The Grudge in short: Karen Davis is an American Nurse moves to Tokyo and encounter a supernatural spirit who is vengeful and often possesses its victims. A series of horrifying and mysterious deaths start to occur, with the spirit passing its curse onto each victim. Karen must now find away to break this spell, before she becomes its next victim.


Preps: none in perticular. Another one to follow in my movie line


Reality: Nothing is what it seems. In the movie, the basic plot is easily understood. The essence isn't. In a sense, that you absolutely don't have a clue, what is going on in the house. The whole horror is based on the viewer's imagination, which proves to be a great thing, only done by best horror japanese directors. In this piece, somehow american people are being mocked, I sense this in ways young girl is shown and ways she presumabely intelligently follows the mystery in the house.

In my opinion, a lot of blood doesn't make a horror movie. A lot of unseen and predicted scenes in the eyes of a beholder, well, this makes an excellent movie, filled with terrifying horror. Japanese are the experts in the field and I must admit I have never seen a truly great (remembering type) horror, done by an american director. No disrespect whatsoever, but I see that US is building horror on blood, whereas asian countries build on fear of unknown and unproved.

For this piece.. It is said that houses are being haunted sometimes and noone would like to experience something like that. Being a girl, alone, trapped in a house like that - the mere idea of this makes my blood chill.

Is the house secret revealed? Yes, to some extent it is. After leaving some bodies, burning imagination of a viewer, horrific music (in a good aspect as in a good horror movie) and a cat, running around, to make your body shiver in terror. Briliantly put two-dimensions between a cat transforming into a boy. The leftovers from prior life that went on in this house. The scene is obscure to the point that even a simple walk on the stairs seems difficult to handle (without something terrible happening inbetween).

I am more than impressed by the piece. And the fact, that I recognize "Nathan" from the series Lost, gives me a homerunning feeling.



My personal rating: 6,0 (for the sake of following japanese style of horror - it seems to be more effective than any american horror movie)

The Grudge on IMDB

The official site

Alice in Wonderland, 2010

Alice in Wonderland, 2010
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway




Stage: Movie set under the stars, The castle of Ljubljana

Alice in short: 19-year-old Alice returns to the magical world from her childhood adventure, where she reunites with her old friends and learns of her true destiny: to end the Red Queen's reign of terror.


Preps: Well, besides reading the book when I was really young and knowing Johnny Depp was to star in this role, I didn't know anything. I could expect a good movie though. I trusted Depp's choice. He always falls for the weird extraordinary roles. And Alice is precisely that.


Reality: What a huge mistake in the way I was thinking.. My god. The movie is a wreck. In the first tenth of the movie, I thought it would be something like Monty Phython scene. The scenery is good, the presentation of Alice is just like I imagine and the people are lame as expected. However, the main thing you don't want to miss is the moment when she falls into a hole. And afterwards, it's just a downfall from that point on.
The movie loses its edge and the joy or excitement I had when going up the hill to the castle to see this, was burning and made to ashes in an instant. The crowd, however, seemed to enjoy the setting, cast and was laughing. Something wrong with me? I don't think so. I didn't even recognize Depp, and he was at that point the only thing that I was really looking forward to see.
Nothing happened but a huge dissappointment. The story didn't have the edge and for sure didn't fulfill my adventurous expectations. I stood up and went home after one hour. I thought it was torturing my brain cells. I prefer book version in this sense.

How did Depp see this treasure island in the movie?
The Mad Hatter: There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter.


My personal rating: 1,0 (not worth your time, do something more useful with it. Even the deepest Depp fans :) Needless to say, I wanted more out of this piece.


Alice on IMDB
Alice Home page

In the Electric Mist, 2009

In the Electric Mist, 2009
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard



Electric Mist in short: Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before.


Stage: Local art cinema Dvor


Preps: The piece is recommended by a friend of mine, whose opinion counts a lot. Furthermore, I get to see the synopsis and seems like a good thriller or at least a good crime movie. Therefore, a must-see.



Reality: Well, it has a good start and push of the imagination. The scenes change so quickly you need to focus quite hard to follow. Then after a while, the main float of the movie, the main theme just somehow vaporizes in a shape of different scenes that don't seem to be connected at all, but in the end you figure they are (or at least to some extent, your brain discovers the unrivaled truth that maybe you just didn't pay the needed attention to get your puzzle pieces stick together). Well, one thing is certain and true from the very beginning; this is one of unusual movies you get to see when choosing a non-american director. This is also a plus to the movie. And of course, also the reason for my dissappointment. Normalwise you would get the movie to reveal the murders and to chase the criminals and in its end, you would get your curiosity satisfied.

In this case you don't get anything like this. However, you get to play with the connections that chase you from your past (is it that past describes the way you will evolve or explains the kind of person you are?) The movie implies that it does and also has some christianity hidden inside - you will be punished for your sins, sooner or later.

The good point of the piece would be bringing attention to something that americans wanted to brush under the rug - the crimes that noone seems to admit they happened, the natural disasters (Katrin) that influenced people's lives in so many ways and last, but not the least, the civil war that happened and got a lot of people to suffer.
In the movie, the resemblance or the memoirs of the civil war seem like a cartoon inside the movie. But in reality, right at the end, you see the vision the director had in how to connect both worlds as you see the Robicheaux in a photo with all the other soldiers - as you had the impression it was a movie set. The passing between a movie set (filming of a movie in that city) and the civil war soldiers, just running around, is smooth, the director doesn't pull a distinctive line between past/forgotten past and reality - to the viewer it just seems somehow awquard and visionary - as Hood seems to know what happened, what is happening and what is going to happen - like a bad conscience of Robicheaux.

Maybe worth seeing another time to get to the bottom. Am not sure. Left the movies with mixed feelings. And somehow empty in the result department (answers that were never there, questions that popped out.. like it wasn't supposed to end like that).


My personal rating: 5,0 (I guess despite the superb cast and superb scenes in the movie, too many riddles remain unsolved and a big stretch from the main story doesn't inspire me the way it was supposed to. The expectations for this piece went another way. )


Electric Mist on IMDB

Electric Mist home page