ZNAK SAGITE — više od fantastike — edicija, časopis, knjižara...

Quote"I am going to come and burn the f--king house down...but you will blow me first,"

Čovek ume da ispostavi svoje prioritete.

Opet si me preduhitrio u nameri ta citiram tu ključnu misao koja je višeslojna, nudi nagoveštaj pomirenja, potvrdu da je Melster pre čovek Erosa nego Tanatosa...

Pogledao sam KOTU 905 Mata Relje, film koji bi se uslovno mogao nazvati partizanskim iako se zapravo bavi fazom "jurenja bande" po vrletima.

Mate Relja je snimio film po scenariju Milutina Jankovića koji je u našoj kinematografiji scenaristički opus koji obeležavaju efikasni, žanrovski filmovi smešteni u udbaški milje. Janković je pisao OPASNI TRAG koji govori o aktivnostima Službe na Kosovu dok KOTA 905 govori o mladom operativcu OZNE koji se infiltrira u četničku grupu koja se krije na planinskom području i vešto koristi podršku lokalnih gazda, ucenu i geografski položaj.

Zaplet je vrlo jednostavan ali precizno koncipiran, kada OZNA presretne radio signal četničke grupe, ona infiltrira svog čoveka umesto predstavnika emigracije koji im je poslat. Stvari se komplikuju kada u posetu ocu, inače četničom jataku, dođe devojka iz grada koja je prethodno sasvim slučajno srela kapetana OZNE koji se sada predstavlja kao Major kraljevske vojske.

Likovi su izloženi efikasno, i na nivou zapleta KOTA 905 spada u red uspelijih "malih" partizanskih filmova. Relja se naročito istakao sa odabirom glumačke podele pošto je ulogu leading mana dao Dušku Bulajiću, jednom od najupečatljivijih lepotana naše kinematografije tog doba, dok se u sporednim ulogama među četnicima mogu videti Pavle Vujisić, Milan Srdoč, Stole Aranđelović i Dušan Janićijević koji likovima četnika daju jednu humanu dimenziju. Štaviše, četnici su u ovom filmu prikazani kao ljudi koji ne mogu da prihvate poraz, ali su izgubili iluzije i motivaciju, žele da se vrate kući, ali su ometeni deluzijama svojih oficira (Majora Momira, vođu četnika igra Ilija Džuvalekovski) ili psihopata koji su okusili krv i ne mogu da se adaptiraju na bilo šta drugo (lik kog igra Stole Aranđelović).

Jedan od osnovnih dramaturških problema je zapravo u tome što maltene veći akcenat daje skrivanju četnika nego operaciji protiv njih, ali se film svakako i izdvaja po tome što četnici nisu prikazani crno-belo kao u mnogim drugim filmovima.

Relja je realizovao film prilično kompetenetno, uz pomoć čuvenog DPa Tomislava Pintera, ali ne može se govoriti o nekim naročitim rediteljskim obeležjima koja bi izdvojila ovaj film. Ipak, za pohvalu je to što iako se ne izdvaja KOTA 905 spada među kompetentnije realizovane filmove svog žanra & vremena.

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Pogledao sam LASSITER Rogera Younga, drugi pokušaj Golden Harvesta da učini Toma Sellecka bioskopskom zvezdom uz pomoć studija Warner. Selleck u to vreme još uvek nije uspeo da preboli odbijanje Indiana Jonesa, pa ne čudi da je LASSITER heist film smešten u London 1939. u kome britanska policija ucenjuje američkog lopova da ukrade dijamante iz nemačke ambasade.

Roger Young je reditelj koji nam je poznat po televizijskoj verziji BOURNE IDENTITYja sa Richard Chamberlainom, a ovaj film je snimio u saradnji sa starim iskusnim DPjem Gil Taylorom koji je je overio reditelje od Polanskog do Donnera, tako da je LASSITER jedan vrlo stylish film koji sjajno koristi epohu i londonske lokacije.

Tom Selleck ima leading man potencijal. Iako se može reći da on sam ne nudi ništa novo i da u to vreme već ima nekoliko glumaca tog profila, i sa takvim mogućnostima, on sasvim dobro igra glavnog junaka i uspeva da postigne sve obavezne figure kada je reč o šarmu, neposrednosti hitchockovskih junaka iz TO CATCH A THIEF stila,

Scenario Davida Taylora je jednostavan, opterećen svim mogućim klišeima, ali Young u saradnji sa Selleckom i Bob Hoskinsom koji igra policajca ucenjivača uspeva da te klišee plasira efektno. Ono što Taylor donosi kao novinu jeste bizarna seksualnog nemačke negativke, njena sklonost ka prljavom i bolnom seksu koja je nagoveštena u nekoliko dosta direktnih detalja. U tom smislu LASSITER je efikasan i uprkos tome što na kraju niti nudi išta novo, niti pred glavnog junaka postavlja neko ozbiljno iskušenje, funkcioniše kao sasvim solidna zabava koja nije samo za one koji žele da gledaju špijunske i lopovske intrige iz predratnog Londona.

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Pogledao sam UI-HYEONG-JE Hun Janga, poznat i kao SECRET REUNION. Film mi je bio izuzetno zanimljiv i lepo mi je legao. Kada je SHIRI uspeo da omasovi i internacionalizuje visokobudžetni korejski repertoarski film uvodeći koncept rip-offa na visokom nivou kao koncept, nešto što je delovalo kao dead end na kraju se pretvorilo u početak razvoja jedne vrlo kvalitetne i autentične filmske industrije koja će potom iznedriti Chan Wooka i Bonga. UI-HYEONG-JE je povratak na liniju te rip-off koncepcije, ali sa iskustvom vrlo kreativne kinematografije nastale u međuvremenu.

Ono što karakteriše UI-HYEONG-JE je pre svega utisak da taj rip-off više nije samo mehaničko preslikavanje američkog uzora već i da uspeva da funkcioniše na nivou karaktera i emocije što raniji filmovi tog tipa nisu uspevali. Sigurno je tome doprineo i Song Kang-ho koji je uostalom almunus SHIRIja iako ga prevashodno znamo po radu sa Chan Wookom i Bongom.

Song ovde ima ulogu sa kojom želi da se nametne kao korejski Bruce Willis. Njegov lik počinje kao južnokorejski Jack Bauer a potom ga sudbina učini tamošnjom Joe Hallenbeckom. Buddy formula se sprovodi spajanjem njega sa starim severnokorejskim rivalom. Pošto je obojicu napustila matična služba, oni su primorani da rade kao private dickovi na ponižavajućem poslu lova na odbegle mail order brides, iako zapravo pokušavaju i da rade jedan drugom o glavi.

UI-HYEONG-JE što se mene tiče, ima koncept pravljen za lokalno tržište ali uspeva da se nametne kao sasvim pristojan dodatak internacionalnoj tradiciji buddy cop filma. Svakako da kao i inače sa azijskim filmom ima tih nekih uneasy promena u tonu između ozbiljnosti i komedije, ali to je svedeno na minimum. Doduše, sasvim je moguće da mi je film lepo legao jer sam sucker za buddy cop filmove.

Interesantno je koliki stepen uvažavanja prema pojedincima iz Severne Koreje pokazuju južnokorejski autori. Ako imamo na umu stepen zaoštrenosti odnosa, čini se da su ovi filmovi pravljeni ne samo kako bi pokazali empatiju prema narodu, nego kao da postoji i svest o tome da se gledaju na Severu. Znamo da je Kim Jong Il ozbiljno potegao da nabavi SHIRI u vreme izlaska, a ovaj film će mu biti još zanimljiviji jer se deo zapleta odnosi i na ubistvo njegovog odbeglog rođaka.

Film nudi dosta male bondinga i bromancinga za one koji to vole ali i dva izvanredna akciona set-piecea u kojima Hun Jang radi onu vrstu akcije po kojoj je Holivud poznat i pokazuje da to itekako može dobro i ubedljivo da se uradi u Koreji.

U krajnjem zbiru, što potvrđuje i odličan rezultat sa blagajni, UI-HYEONG-JE nudi odličan crowd pleasing, u jednoj formi koju je proslavio Holivud ali joj se sve ređe vraća na pravi način.

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Pogledao sam ČUDNU NOĆ Milana Jelića, rediteljev pokušaj da se posle godina lutanja i tezgarenja vrati ozbiljnom filmu. Ovu melodramu iz savremenog života, posvećenu mladim ljudima koji pokušavaju da zajedno sa celokupnim društvom pređu iz komunizma u kapitalizam, napisala je Maja Volk a Jelić je za DPa uzeo tada još uvek mladog Predraga Bambića, starog kinoamatera i redovnog saradnika Milutina Petrovića od koga je tražio da snimi film u jednoj poludokumentarnoj/gotovo novotalasovskoj fakturi.

Nažalost, ishod je više televizijski i to u smislu RTBa iz tog vremena, s tim što su ipak najveći problem glumci. Peđa Bjelac, koji je kasnije postao poznat po epizodama u američkim filmovima i upečatljivom kameu u KAD PORASTEM BIĆU KENGUR u ovom filmu izgleda kao jedan od najslabijih leading manova našeg filma, i upečatljiv izgled ne uspeva da isprati iole ubedljivom glumom. Njegova direktna partnerka je Olivera Ježina koja ponavlja svoju misguided "ozbiljnost" koju je pokazala kod Jelića još u MATURANTIMA.

Dakle, osnovni problem ČUDNE NOĆI je jako loša i neubedljiva gluma koju ne uspeva da nadomesti već tradicionalno osrednji scenario koji se na kraju od jedne potencijalno zanimljive priče o mladima u sred društvene promene i pitanju ostati ili otići, na kraju svodi na jednu od najprisutnijih trauma u jugoslovenskom filmu a to je problem trudnoće i stambenog pitanja.

Jelić je očigledno predugo tezgario da bi se mogao vratiti onom nivou koji je pokazivao u BUBAŠINTERu i zato je ČUDNA NOĆ iako pokušaj respektabilnog filma zapravo još opskurnija od nekih njegovih šundova.

Pogledao sam izvanredan kratkometražni film INFLUENZA Bong Joon Hoa.

Film je koncipuiran kao kolekcija CCTV snimaka jednog čoveka koji od tipično socijalno ugroženog nezaposlenog pojedinca postaje beskrupulozni lopov i na kraju ubica sa psihopatskim ponašanjem.

Bong je maestralno režirao ovaj film ne samo zbog sjajne postavke mizan kadrova koji se beleže CCTV kamerama već i zbog poigravanja sa samom percepcijom unutar prizora, naročito u slučaju kamera koje nude mogućnost split-screen slike ili švenka.

Štaviše, INFLUENZA je film koji je naizgled jednostavan ali zapravo poziva na više gledanja kako bi se uhvatili svi detalji u Bongovoj egzekuciji.

Naravno, u osnovi svega je izuzetno britak humor ovog reditelja & scenariste od koga INFLUENZA vrca i crni humor izbija iz samih situacija. INFLUENZA je aposlutna preporuka za sve one koje zanima kratki film a naročito one koji žele da se bave filmom.

Influenza je zapravo film u kojem se mozhda i najbolje vidi veshtina i umece Bonga kao rezhisera. Lako je kad sve mozhe, kao u bioskopskom filmu, ali ovde su mu alati za pripovedanje gotovo nepostojeci, a opet uspeva da napravi sjajan film. Influenza je primer toga kako veliki rezhiser pravi film sa, u filmskom smislu, bukvalno obe ruke vezane iza ledja.

Posle duže potrage uspeo sam da pogledam film WUSA Stuarta Rosenberga, snimljen po romanu Roberta Stonea. Reč oe Newmanovom pet projectu iz 1970. godine u kome je želeo da kanališe svoj liberalni angažman kroz ekranizaciju intelektualističke, ali pomalo i junkie proze Robert Stonea i priču o lutalici i prevarantu, u duši liberalu koji postaje DJ na ultradesničarskoj radio stanici i postaje deo jedne šire rasističke političke zavere.

WUSA se dotiče brojnih tema, života na margini, hipi pokreta, rasne segregacije, evangelista šarlatana, političkog oportunizma i sl. ali na kraju svega film se svodi na masu polu-pretencioznih dijaloških scena postavljenih između nešto efektnijih dramskih čvorišta.

Rosenberg u rediteljskom smislu kombinuje ekspresivnost Novog Holivuda naslonjenu na francuske uzore i klasičnije pripovedačke tehnike, a Newman gradi karakter koji je ubedljiv ali polako počinje da opterećuje praćenje celine. Pa ipak, WUSA iako je evidentno reč o promašaju, i najsabijoj saradnji između Newmana i Rosenberga, ne prestaje da bude izuzetno intrigantan do samog kraja i vredi ga videti kao jednu od manifestacija holivudskog liberalizma sedamdesetih.

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To je, pretpostavljam, objektivan rivju iz neutralne perspektive. Ali koliko to stvarno može da se svidi jednom prosječnom ultradesničaru?

Ne može da se zaista svidi nikome, ali neće uvrediti ultradesničara.

Pogledao sam KILLER VS KILLERS odstupan i pod naslovom DEATH COMMANDO pozni rad velikana italijanskog krimića Fernanda Di Lea iz 1985. godine. ovaj naslov mu je i poslednji u bogatom opusu i ne može se reći da se Di Leo oprostio vrhunskim ostvarenjem.

U žanru italijanskog krimića koji je tada već blizu izdisaja, sa Henry Silvom u glavnoj ulozi, što je u tom trenutku već poprilično bizarna odluka i tehničkom realizacijom koja je na granici amaterizma, Di Leo ipak uspeva da sprovede nekoliko inventivnih rešenja i da snimi film koji se u izvesnom smislu izdvaja.

Henry Silva kao leading man je bizaran jer naprosto nije leading man, mator je i pogrbljen a to ne nadoknađuje glumačkim talentom. Di Leo međutim konstituiše njegov lik kao ćutljivog usamljenika - plaćenog ubicu koji ima svoj vlastiti zoo vrt i voli da ljude ubija bazukom čak i kad su sami i nezaštićeni što je vrsta ekscesa kome čovek eventualno može biti sklon u igri kada ima manjak protivnika i višak protivtenkovskih raketa, a na one koje ne raznese pušta životinje. Nažalost, ovo je zanimljivije na nivou ideje nego što je Di Leo uspeo da realizuje.

Isto važi i za ostatak filma koji je daleko manje ekscesan ali podjednako slabo realizovan.

Di Leo nudi i neku vrstu političkog stava na nivou samog zapleta, KILLER iz naslova je plaćeni ubica sa, očekivano, tvrdim moralnim kodeksom koji se sukobi sa naručiocima posla, velikom naftaškom korporacijom koja iako se bavi legalnim tokovima, u stvari nema nikakav etički kodeks. Ipak, u vreme izlaska ovog filma, to je već bio dobro poznat etički obrt.

KILLER VS KILLERS je dinamičan, ali ipak nedovoljno kvalitetan film kojim bi se oprostio majstor tog profila.

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Pogledao sam film ROMA VIOLENTA Marino Girolamija, reditelja čije je najznačajnije ostvarenje u istoriji filma to što je napravio Enza Castellarija. Ovaj film snimio je u svojoj 61. godini i bez ikakve sumnje, sa oxca je dosta talenta prešlo na sina. Dok je Enzo radio kanonske bitne polizioteschije sa Francom Nerom, otac u ovom filmu režira Francovog dvojnika Maurizio Merlija, u priči koja je svojstvena italijanskom policijskom filmu.

Ponovo imamo glavnog junaka policajca koji je nezadovoljan sistemom jer je sud nesposoban da osudi počiniocenajtežih dela, i svoju nesposobnost da razdvoji pravdu od zakona počinje da ispoljava kroz vigilante akcije, prvo ubijajući zločince na zadatku a potom i pridružujući se grupi građana koji su nekada u životu bili žrtve nekažnjenog zločina i sada se organizovano posvećuju istrebljivanju kriminala na rimskim pločnicima.

ROMA VIOLENTA je u tom smislu parafraza brojnih američkih filmova o samoorganizovanju građana protiv kriminalaca, a pošto je policajac umešan u to, oseća se i eho MAGNUM FORCEa Teda Posta iz 1973. godine.

Girolamijev film donosi hammy glumu i heavyhanded melodramu kao osnov za zaplet a akcija je nasilna, efikasna i kao što je svojstveno italijanskom policijskom filmu puna odličnih automobilskih potera. Ono u čemu su Italijani iz ovog perioda generalno slabi jeste stuntwork u tučama pa u tom smislu Girolami nije izuzetak.

Scenario je dosta epizodičan i slabo je strukturiran jer se razočarani policajac tek duboko u drugoj polovini filma pridružuje vigilante grupi a na nivou celog filma ne postoji glavni negativac koga policajac progoni, a reklo bi se i da su likovi svih prekršilaca zapravo dosta slični i mogu se pomešati.

Dakle, VIOLENTA ROMA kao filmska celina nije skladno izgrađen. Međutim, kao exploitation film je sasvim kompetentan i efektan.

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Pogledao sam IL GIUSTIZIERE SFIDA LA CITTA Umberta Lenzija. U ovom filmu Lenzi sarađuje sa Tomasom Milianom koji igra ulogu Ramba (navodno scenarista je čitao roman FIRST BLOOD pa se inspirisao) ali ukupni rezultat je slabiji od filma MILANO ODIA.

Prvo Milianov lik bajkera-sociopate-usamljenika-pravednika je mnogo manje zanimljiv od negativca iz MILANO ODIA a zatim i zaplet je krajnje konfuzno izložen, sa ponovljenim Lenzijevim problemom da podjednak akcenat stavlja i na pozitivce i na negativce. Međutim, u ovom filmu, zapleta je prosto previše za film u kome on ne može da se isprati zbog nejasnoća u pripovedanju, tako da filmu nedostaje dinamičnost.

Publika koja je kupljena u prvih desetak minuta filma pričom o bajkeru izuzetne borilačke snalažljivosti koji odlučuje da pomogne privatnoj kompaniji za obezbeđenje da pričuva neki tovar i/ili pronađe jedno oteto dete, svakako ne želi da se kasnije film bavi time kako ovaj junak stvaru zavadu među mafijaškim porodicama.

Naprosto Rambo nema dovoljno akcije, a i to što ima nije naročito upečatljivo. Ako uzmemo u obzir da su reditelji italijanskih krimića stavljali naročit akcenat na motorcikle (uostalom zar likvidacija sa motora nije poznat italijanski stil ubijanja) onda je ipak prilično mali broj bike stuntova i uopšte akcionih situacija.

Ako tome dodamo nekonzistentan ton i slabe likove, dobija se utisak jednog osrednjeg filma u žanru koji se samo u svojim vrhunskim izdanjima može podičiti relevatnošću u širim okvirima.

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Pogledao sam THE ECLIPSE Conora McPhersona. Posle ogromne količine italo-šunda koju sam gledao ovih dana, pretpostavljao sam da će mi bilo šta od anglosaksonske kinematografije ostaviti utisak potpunog remek-dela, i to je tek delimično tačno.

Naime, THE ECLIPSE je film koji ima dosta stila, dosta kvaliteta, nekoliko maestralnih scena kako na rediteljskom planu tako i kad je reč o glumačkim bravurama. Nažalost, ono što McPherson jedino nije uspeo da realizuje jeste smislen spoj jumpy priče o duhovima i vrlo solidne studije karaktera.

To čini THE ECLIPSE jednim filmom koji se raspada pod pritiskom preambiciznog žanrovskog hibrida u kome je horor element apsolutno suvišan i samo smeta ubedljivoj i emotivnoj priči o usamljenom piscu-amateru iz malog irskog mesta u kome volontira na književnom festivalu.

S druge strane, THE ECLIPSE je pogrešno tumačiti kao horor nadograđen odličnom dramom, a to je učinio deo kritike, jer ovaj film naprosto nije to.

Ipak, uprkos ovom vrlo ozbiljnom problemu, smatram da je reč o filmu koji treba da pogledaju ljubitelji solidne britanske drame u kojoj je Conor McPherson svakako jedan od potvrđenih kadrova.

Ciaran Hinds u glavnoj ulozi je izuzetan, ostvaruje odličnu savremenu ulogu i pokazuje da itekako može sam da iznese film. Aidan Quinn nudi zapaženu epizodu.

Šteta je što ECLIPSE nije nastavio pozitivan trend koji je počeo (McPhersonov zaštitnik) Neil Jordan sa ONDINE kada je reč o irskim genrebending naslovima.

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In an exclusive interview with In Touch, Mel Gibson's former mistress, Violet Kowal, claims that Mel was terrifying and threatened her life. "His threats scared me so badly," Violet tells In Touch, "I left town and went into hiding for almost a month." Violet says she met Mel at the Hotel Bel-Air in 2007, when he was still married to his wife, Robyn. Two years later, in July 2009, after Mel was divorced but dating Oksana, Violet claims she got a call from the star. "I agreed to go visit him at his Malibu compound," she explains. The two had sex for the first time, though Violet was uneasy. "He didn't want to use protection, but I insisted," she says. "He seemed paranoid and anxious. He chain-smoked before and after we had sex. It was weird." Mel's attorney has said that Violet's story is an "absurd fabrication." Violet and Mel had "passionate" sex six more times, but she claims his dark side was bubbling under the surface. "He would get very aggressive and angry if I was not available," she explains, "even yelling and demanding to come to my home when I refused to see him."

Ovo mi deluje fejk

Recording of Mel Gibon's Alleged Racist Rant

Pogledao sam AD OGNO COSTA Giuliana Montalda, poznat još i pod nazivnom GRAND SLAM, jedan od najboljih i najznačajnijih italijanskih krimića u istoriji.

Reč je o ambicioznom i, za italijanske uslove, pedantno realizovanom heist filmu o internacionalnoj grupi lopova čiji je zadatak da obiju sef banke u Riju a sakupljaju se u Njujorku, Londonu, Parizu, Madridu da bi se završnica desila u Rimu.

Masterminda iza cele pljačke igra Edward G. Robinson, ikona američkog gangsterskog filma, devojku zaposlenu u banci u parafrazi svoje role iz Hitchcockovog PSYCHOa igra Janet Leigh a tim pljačkaša predvodi Klaus Kinski. Montaldo je skupio odličan tim rezervista za glavne uloge i odsustvo pravih zvezda nadogradio je strpljivom režijom, ulaskom u radni proces i sirovim suspenseom čiju energiju ne može da pokvari ni sporadično aljkava egzekucija, svojstvena Italijanima.

GRAND SLAM je film koji apsolutno zaslužuje kultni status koji ima. Montaldo nažalost posle ovog filma nije snimio delo takve ubedljivosti, radio je niz biografskih i/ ili istorijskih filmova a okušao se i u brojnim korpodukcijama sa američkim glumcima koje međutim nisu bile prava stvar jer nisu bile ni Holivud ni Evropa. Zanimljivo je da je Montaldo snimio nekoliko svojih filmova na prostoru bivše Jugoslavije, a da je u njegovom biografskom filmu o Dostojevskog iz 2008. glavnu ulopgu igrao Miki Manojlović. To što u svom opusu nema filma tako prepoznat kao što je GRAND SLAM ne znači da Montaldo nema ugled i on je jedan opd retkih italijanskih reditelja koji su overili žanrovski film a posle stekli visoku reputaciju.

Ovaj film je svakako vrlo jasan primer da je reč o ozbiljnom reditelju.

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Quote from: crippled_avenger on 10-07-2010, 13:54:14
Pogledao sam AD OGNO COSTA Giuliana Montalda, poznat još i pod nazivnom GRAND SLAM, jedan od najboljih i najznačajnijih italijanskih krimića u istoriji.
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GRAND SLAM je film koji apsolutno zaslužuje kultni status koji ima. Montaldo nažalost posle ovog filma nije snimio delo takve ubedljivosti, radio je niz biografskih i/ ili istorijskih filmova a okušao se i u brojnim korpodukcijama sa američkim glumcima koje međutim nisu bile prava stvar jer nisu bile ni Holivud ni Evropa...

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A 'Gli intoccabili' (Machine Gun McCain)? На жалост, ако изузмемо non-English-friendly њемачки DVD, до сада је овај филм није имао одговарајућу презентацију на видеу. Срећом, ствари се мијењају...

MACHINE GUN McCAIN je film koji sam mislio da pomenem, ali ipak nije klasa kao GRAND SLAM.

Posle 16 godina reprizirao sam film WOLF koji sam gledao na VHSu u vreme premijere. Ovaj film Mike Nicholsa mi je ostao u sećanju kao nešto što mi nije pružilo ono što sam očekivao tada ali na novo gledanje zapravo mislim da sam tek sada postao ciljna grupa za taj film. Deo kritike je definisao WOLF kao film sa vukodlacima koji nije za publiku koja inače gleda vukodlake i ta definicija stoji. WOLF je posle Coppoline ekranizacije DRACULAe, bio još jedan od high profile filmova koji se u eri kada je horor bio na margini bioskopske ponude doticao horor mitema.

U WOLFu je pre svega reč o trileru, horora zapravo i nema, a likantropija je prikazana kao postepeno i ireverzibilno transformisanje čoveka u vuka, dakle čitava mitologija je drugačije konstituisana. Ono što Nichols međutim radi sa temom likantropije jeste da je aktuelizuje u miljeu visoke srednje klase i koristi je kao simbol transformacije pojedinca i njegovog drugačijeg snalaženja u toj klasnoj formaciji.

U tom smislu, slično TEEN WOLFu paradoksalno, likantropija nije problem glavnog junaka već rešenje za njegove probleme utoliko što otkriva neke njegove sakrivene zatomljene potencijale, i to ne u smislu animalnih instinkata ili sposobnosti da sprovodi nasilje već pre svega u pojačanoj percepciji koja pored fizičke dovodi i do većeg emotivnog zapažanja.

U tom smislu, iako je po strukturi svakako reč o trileru, i preuzetio si mnogi lementi ranijih WOLFMANa, Nicholsov film zapravo nije tipičan film o vukodlacima već pre svega ljubavni triler u kome čovek kroz kletvu postaje bolja verzija sebe i onda neumitno strada.

Jack Nicholson je već dosta uspešno i na sličan način doticao temu žanra, fatastike i horora u Millerovom WITCHES OF EASTWICK u kome je bilo reč o sličnoj primeni žanrovskih obrazaca. WOLF je neobično sveden film i u tom smislu ne može se porediti sa živopisnim Millerovim ostvarenjem ali Nichols zato isporučuje niz izuzetnih dramskih scena, znatno pomognutim sjajnim scenarijem koji je napisao odd couple Jim Harrison i Wesley Strick. Strick je u to vreme bio specijalista za skuplji triler tipa CAPE FEAR ili FINAL ANALYSIS dok je Jim Harrison književnik potpruno drugačijeg senzibiliteta koji je obogatio Strickovu žanrovsku kompetenciju.

Michelle Pfieffer je žena oko koje se bore dva vuka i seksualna dimenzija je majstorski podcrtana, a seksualnost koju emituju vukodlaci jack Nicholson je snažna i izopačena, tako da se uprkos Nicholsovoj pitomoj ekranizaciji, ne može sakriti ta iskra.

Zanimljivo je kako se kao dva ključna elementa koja muče savrmenog čoveka i popravljaju zahvaljujući likantropiji podvlače posao i seksualni život, i u izvesnom smislu većina emocija u ovom filmu proističe iz tog dualizma. WOLF je i rediteljski i ideološki nesumnjivo film osamdeetih u kojima je posao po prvi put u tolikoj meri bio povezan sa seksom, pre svega u likovima koje je tumačio Michael Douglas kod Stonea, Lynea i Levinsona.

Iako je Rick Baker radio masku, nje zapravo u ovom filmu i nema puno, odnosno nema punih transformacija, likantropija se više manifestuje kao vampirizan nego kao nastanak monstruma u pravom smislu.

Nicholsov WOLF je u svakom slučaju film koji zaslužuje reprizu.

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Gledao sam Wolfa u vrijeme kad se pojavio i čini mi se da sam bio prilično zadovoljan, al u svakom slučaju si u pravu da zaslužuje reprizu. Sjećam se da mi je tad bilo apsolutno nevjerovatno da je Džek Nikolson pozitivac a Džejms Spejder negativac

Quote from: crippled_avenger on 11-07-2010, 20:07:37
U WOLFu je pre svega reč o trileru, horora zapravo i nema, a likantropija je prikazana kao postepeno i ireverzibilno transformisanje čoveka u vuka, dakle čitava mitologija je drugačije konstituisana. Ono što Nichols međutim radi sa temom likantropije jeste da je aktuelizuje u miljeu visoke srednje klase i koristi je kao simbol transformacije pojedinca i njegovog drugačijeg snalaženja u toj klasnoj formaciji.

Wolf je vrlo dobar film, jedan od boljih filmova Majka Nikolsa i boljih te godine, koji se može (naročito uz vremenske pauze) gledati više puta.

Ali citirana rečenica mi je vrlo interesantna. Ukazuje na to da sve one rasprave, da li horor postoji kao žanr ili ne, nisu ni malo bez smisla. Ponajviše validnih argumenata da horor nije zaseban žanr vezano je za književnost (koliko se sećam ZŽ je se u glavnom vezivao za literaturu u odbrani takvog stava), a ponajmanje za film, jer filmski horor žanr pored tematske ima izraženu stilsku (režija, način snimanja...) karakteristiku, pa ako se teme vukodlaka, vampira, zombija itd mogu tumačiti kao (mračniji) deo žanra fantazije, postoje čisto karakteristike filmskog jezika koje odvajaju horor kao žanr.

Te karakteristike nema Wolf, kao ni Kopolin Drakula, zato ih neki i ne svrstavaju u (čiste) horore, mada znamo da bi oni koji sve svrstavaju u horor to učinili bez problema.

Pogledao sam IL BOSS Fernanda Di Lea iz 1973. godine koji spada u njegovu kanonsku fazu u kojoj su nastali najbolji filmovi. Za razliku od njegovih filmova smeštenih u Milanu na severu, ovaj se dešava u Palermu na Siciliji. Di Leo se ovoga puta fokusira na tradicionalnu mafiju i njene unutrašnje obračune kojima prilazi sa kombinacijom realističnog, gotovo angažovanog izlaganja sistema korupcije i grešaka u sistemu sa exploitation elementom usamljenog i beskrupuloznog ubice koji se poput Westlaekeovog parkera uspinje kroz hijerarhiju amoralnih bosova i njihovih sluga.

Ćutljivog asasina koji pridobija ceo klan samo za sebe igra Henry Silva prema kome je Di Leo očigledno imao afinitet i ponovo imamo neubedljivog leading mana, koji opet, voli da gađa ljude preteranim kalibrima, u konkretnom slučaju pojedince ubija tromblonima, ali i drugim oružjima.

Sama inscenacija je inače veštija i fokusiranija nego inače kod Di Lea, sa kompetentnijim izborom planova i pokretima kamere, i generalno više elegancije.

Ono što je tipično za Di Lea a i izdvaja ga to je odnos prema ženama koje su tretirane istovremeno kao seksualni objekti, žrtve seksualnog nasilja ali i i bića vrlo često sposobna da u tome uživaju. Kod Di Lea je seks često na ivici silovanja ali se i silovanje često pretvara u seks u kome oba partnera uživaju. IL BOSS donosi ovo drugo kroz lik mafijaške kćeri koja je sticajem okolnosti narkoman i nimfomanka pa joj ne smeta što je otmičari siluju, čak naprotiv, ona u tome uživa.

Italijanski krimići obiluju silovanjima i objektifikacijama žena, međutim, Di Leovi se među njima naročito izdvajaju.

Di Leo uspeva dosta solidno da uhvati atmosferu nepotizma i porodične atmosfere među mafijašima sa juga, ali u tom realističkom ključu ne ide previše daleko, i generalno ima veliki problem sa odvajanjem važnog i nevažnog tako da uprkos brojnim idiosinkrazijama njegovi likovi ostaju krajnje tipski.

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Pogledao sam BEYOND THE POLE David L. Williamsa, britamsku mockumentary komediju u kojoj se ismevaju eco-disaster dokumentarci i filmovi poput TOUCHING THE VOID. Ne samo da ovaj film ne uspeva da dosegne sam VOID ili pak bilo koji od uspešnijih eco-disaster filmova, i na kraju deluje samo kao manje uspešan predstavnik žanra koji pokušava da parodira. U filmu je slabo šta meni bilo smeštno, ali čini mi se da ni nekom drugom gledaocu ovaj film neće ponudtiti više smeha. BEYOND THE POLE je kompetentno realizovan što se hardvera tiče, ali to nije dovoljno za preporuku bilo koje vrste.

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Pogledao sam ILUZIJU Krste Papića iz 1967. godine, urbanu melodramu o ljubavnom trouglu, između dva brata, jednog starijeg inače ratnog veterana i njegovog mlađeg brata i devojke zbog koje stariji rasturio svoj brak ali joj je mlađi bliži po godinama i senzibilitetu.

Iako je u prvom planu melodrama, ILUZIJA je tek blago prikrivena socijalna kritika koja se zapravo bavi, tada već dosta aritikulisanim konfliktom "boraca" i posleratnih generacija odnosno idealima mladih koji shvataju da socijalističko društvo koje je izgrađeno zapravo nije onoliko pošteno koliko režim sugeriše da jeste.

U tom smislu, stariji brat je tipičan primer đilasovske "nove klase" ali mlađi brat nije primer studenta "šezdesetosmaša" niti nekoga ko bi mogao postati ta vrsta buntovnika. Ovde su studenti prikazani više kao bunovnici kojima ni ulica nije strana, u smislu kafane ili tuče, ali ideali nekih od njih su čisti.

Papićeva režija je sigurna, bez neke vizuelne raskoši ali vrlo efikasna i precizna u glumačkom smislu. Zanimljivo je da mlađeg brata igra Slobodan "Lobi" Dimitrijević, jedan potcenjen glumac iz tog perioda a da njegovog druga u epizodnoj ulozi igra baš mladi rade Šerbedžija, koji iz današnje vizure deluje kao prirodna podela za tu ulogu.

Papić je u ILUZIJI uspeo da isporuči najbolji primer onoga što bi se u istorji SFRJ filma moglo nazvati problemskim filmom, ali ovaj naslov se isto tako može rangirati i među uspešnijim urbanim melodramama. Ovaj naslov vrlo dobro zarobljava osnovne društvene i generacijske kontradikcije tog doba i jedno društvo koje počinje da mutira i udaljava se od svog bazičnog ideološkog narativa na čjem braniku ostaju oni koji bi trebalo da ga napadaju iz generacijske pozicije.

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Mogao bi zapamtiti da mi i to nasiječeš, to jest ako se radi o diviksu.

Radi se. Biće nasiječen.

Alan Moore se obraća javnosti

http://thequietus.com/articles/04603-alan-moore-interview-unearthing-2

Virus srpstva ga i dalje drži

QuoteHave you turned your back on superheroes now?

AM: I'm interested in the superhero in real life, but not the comic book version. I've had some distancing thoughts about them recently. I've come to the conclusion that what superheroes might be — in their current incarnation, at least — is a symbol of American reluctance to involve themselves in any kind of conflict without massive tactical superiority. I think this is the same whether you have the advantage of carpet bombing from altitude or if you come from the planet Krypton as a baby and have increased powers in Earth's lower gravity. That's not what superheroes meant to me when I was a kid. To me, they represented a wellspring of the imagination. Superman had a dog in a cape! He had a city in a bottle! It was wonderful stuff for a seven-year-old boy to think about. But I suspect that a lot of superheroes now are basically about the unfair fight. You know: people wouldn't bully me if I could turn into the Hulk.

Ali inače solidan intervju.

Lep intervju, ali realno, već je zašao u duboko ponavljanje.

Jeste, mada me rajca da iščekiram ovaj Unearthing. Mislim, Alan Moore, uparen sa nekim mojim omiljenim muzičarima, moglo bi to biti valjano.

Hm. Imam utisak kao da sam ovaj post već pisao na Corneru, ali pošto ne mogu da ga nađem, pepričaću šta sam prvobitno zabeležio.

pojeden u crashu ili ne, ovaj post je govorio o gledanju filma KILLERS.

Sinoć sam posle dužeg izbivanja iz bioskopa pogledao film KILLERS Roberta Luketica koji mi, priznaću nije ni bio liste prioriteta, i gledao mi se a i izbegavao, no prelomila je činjenica da nije bilo A-TEAMa u odgovarajućem terminu. Kako bilo, nije mi žao što sam pogledao KILLERS, to nije dobar film, nije film za preporuku, ali svakako nije neprijatno iskustvo ako se slučajno naleti na njega.

KILLERS je označio ponovnu priliku da uživam, u radu dragog DPa Russella Carpentera i pisanju Ted Griffina koji je bio second-billed iza Bob DeRose, a Ashton i Katherine su star pairing koji mi je mnogo atrakticniji od Cruisera i Diaz u KNIGHT AND DAY, filmu upadljivo slične tematike.

KILLERS se nadovezuje na seriju filmova u kojima junak otkriva da mu je supružnik/kolega/komšija plaćeni ubica/superagent i naslove poput MR. AND MRS. SMITH Doug Limana (koji mi je bio cool) ili WHOLE NINE YARDS Jonathan Lynna. U ovom nizu, KILLERS ne nudi ništa novo ali to što radi sprovodi prilično pristojno.

Pre svega, Ashton i Katherine su zvezde u punoj formi i sve dobre replike sprovode do cilja kako treba, tako da čak i one koje evidentno ne funkcionišu ne deluju kao preveliki promašaj. Njihova gluma se može uporediti sa hemijom zvezda u sitkomu i film ima malo tog televizijskog utiska u sebi, ali u ovoj vrsti žanrovskog hibrida gde se mešaju akcija i komedija - komedija itekako može da opravda TV look.

Posebno lep detalj u podeli je Tom Selleck u ulozi njenog oca koji pokazuje da je odličan igrač sa klupe i glumac koga se ne treba olako odreći.

Luketic nije akcioni reditelj ali Russell Carpenter jedte jedan od najvećih snimatelja akcije poslednjih decenija tako da oni u saradnji sa stuntmenima isporučuju prilično solidne, sporadično čak i duhovite akcione sekvence i obračune i film je u tom smislu vrlo pošten i što je još važnije dobra akcija ne odudara od tona filma.

U stvari taj hitchcockovski ton filma sa screwball elementom gde je Ashton kao Cary Grant a Katherina kao Kim Novak predstavlja adut filma. Koliko god sama priča bila neoriginalna, Luketic ne odstupa od tona koji je postavio i u tom tonu akcija i komedija idu zajedno.

Iako je šteta što KILLERS nije upečatljiviji film, svakako da nije zaslužio takvo iživljavanje od strane kritike koja kao da ga je iskoristila da počisti prostor pred izlazak upadljivo sličnog KNIGHT AND DAY koji je doduše imao skoro dvostruko veći budžet, premda će po zaradi na kraju ta dva filma u Americi proći maltene isto.

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Hm, ja sam taman mislio da to ne gledam, a sad...

Ketrin Hajgl je Ketrin Hajgl, ali Cripple je Cripple...

Nemoj sad da bude da sam te ja naterao da gledaš i da me posle pozivaš na odgovornost.

Quote from: crippled_avenger on 16-07-2010, 23:37:56
Nemoj sad da bude da sam te ja naterao da gledaš i da me posle pozivaš na odgovornost.

Too late!

Reprizirao sam GUNMEN Derana Sarafiana, jedan od nezaboravnih B-akcijaša sa početka devedesetih, iz onog kratkog vremenskog raspona kada je B-akcioni film bio prisutan u bioskopima a da je imao u sebi nešto A-rediteljske kompetencije. Iako je Sarafian preko oca Richarda deo holivudske aristokratije, pa je možda bilo malo popuštanja prema njemu, on je imao sreće da je uspeo da se izvuče iz guttera B-priodukcije, omiriše A-produkciju i dožiovi svojevrstan hepiend kao reditelj prestižnih televizijskih serija.

U fazi rada u A-produkciji, on je radio filmove koji su imali snažnu exploitation akcionu notu, setimo se izvanrednog akcijaša TERMINAL VELOCITY sa Charlie Sheenom. Ono što je bila karakteristika Sarafianovih A-filmova jeste da je s jedne strane nudio izvanrednu tehničku egzekuciju, prepoznatljivu po in-your-face rešenjima i potpuno odsustvo bilo kakva pretenzije koja je itekako počela da se javlja u ovom žanru pod uticajem Camerona i McTiernana.

U tom smislu, televizija je hepiend za sarafiana, iako bi famovi svakako voleli da ga vide kako opert radi neki skup akcijaš.

GUNMEN je srednjebudžetni akcijaš sa početka devedesetih, nezavisno finansiran, u kome glavne uloge igraju Christopher Lambert, Mario Van Peebles, Denis Leary i Patrick Stewart a cameo uloge ostvarili su Learyjevi MTV drugari Dre i Lover plus Big Daddy Kane.

Dešava se u Meksiku i govori o odd coupleu, prevarantu i policajcu u potrazui za stashom drug moneya koji je sakrio veliki narko baron.

Film je sačinjen od potere, hapšenja, torture, bekstva i tako u krug, sa svim očekivanim mačo ritualima koji se mogu pojaviti u ovoj DEFIANT ONES formuli pomešanoj sa tradicijom špageti vesterna, uključujući i epigonstvo i plagijate svojstvene tom žanru. Inače, zanimljivo je da je scenario pisao Stephen Sommers, koji je potom uspeo da se nametne i održi kao prepoznatljivi autor infantilne holivudske zabave.

Kada film krene, sarafian pruža 90 minuta neprekidnog exploitationa, trk, pucnjave, stuntova i prljavog humora, i iako GUNMEN ne uspeva da sve to složi u nekou koherentniju celinu, nesumnjivo je da ovako prijatnih filmova više gotovo i da nema.

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Wow, to zvuči odlično!

Pogledao sam REPO MEN Miguela Sapochnika, snimljen po romanu Erica Garcie, SF akcijaš koji pokušava da bude savremeni pokušaj filma na tragu BLADERUNNERa ili LOGAN'S RUNa, pa u krajnjoj liniji i SOYLENT GREENa. Jude Law i Forest Whitaker su glumci koji su upravo potvrda visoke umetničke ambicije ovog filma, koji u izvesnom smislu i jeste jedan od onih filmova o kojima se stalno priča kao nekim mnogo ludim, edgy projektima za koje se studiji i reditelji attachuju a na kraju ih nikada ne snime.

REPO MEN u principu ima sve odlike takvopg projekta, dovoljno "oneobičene" akcije da privuče glumce-elitiste, a opet dovoljno konvencionalne da ih podrže studio i veći finansijeri. Konačno, studiji nesporno možda i najveću slobodu dopuštaju kada je reč o SF projektima, i na neki način, jedini žanr koji se dosta ozbiljno i ambiciozno shvata u studijima je SF te mu se dopušta nešto transgresije i originalnosti.

REPO MEN međutim na dosta mesta pokazuje kako postoje dosta solidni razlozi zašto se ti izvikani scenariji ne snimaju. Naime, sve ono što je originalno u ovom filmu svodi se an nivo vica i usiljene ruštvene kritike koja je jasna na nivou loglinea filma. Ideja je dakle da u budućnosti, ljudi često menjaju obolele organe a da ih biotech firme daju na kredit, te da postoje repo men koji te organe ako isplata ne stigne na vreme, oduzimaju.

To je interesantno kao ideja za novinsku kolumnu, ali na nivou celog filma, pisci i Sapochnik ne uspevaju da postignu utisak da je reč o ičemu dubljem od malo groteksnijeg SF akcionog zapleta koji pak na nivou akcije ne funkcioniše jer autor ipak misli da ima nešto da kaže pa film usporava u mnogim deonicama unoseći banalne i predvidljive dramske scene.

Osim te pretenzije koja utiče na trajanje i ritam filma, osim jedno 15 minuta viška i celih komada filma koji su se mogli izbaciti, i generalno pretencioznog tona, REPO MEN iza sebe krije pristojan akcioni B-film.

Možda bi neko mogao reći da on u sebi na podjednakoj dubini krije i podjednako zanimljiv kontemplativni SF, ali ja nisam od tih. Mislim da je REPO MENov društveni angažman izuzetno jasan i čitljiv već u ovoj formi i da ga ovi autori ne bi mogli bolje pdorubiti, između ostalog i zato što je ovo film sa mehaničkim razvojem karaktera - recimo glavni junak shvata da je reposession organa ružna praksa onda kada on postaje srećni posenik transplantiranog srca.

Glumačka ekipa je odlična, Jude Law i Alice Braga nose filjm bez problema a fanovi Carice Van Houten će biti razočarani koliko je njena uloga mala i beznačajna.

Sapochnik kao reditelj sa iskustvom u svetu videoklipova i meksički DP Enrique Chediak nude visokoestetizovano nasilje i interesantne ambijente i dizajn likova. Meni je lično smetala sapochnikova okrenutost upotrebi pop muzike kao zvučne slike između ostalog i zato što se oslanja na savremenu muziku a film se dešava u budućnosti.

U svakom slučaju, u proporciji sa nekritičkim uživanjem u provokativnim sadržajima koji su sami sebi svrha, utisak o ovom filmu nekome može biti još i povoljniji. Sasvim sam siguran da ima ljudi koji će mnogo više ceniti završnicu u kojoj se hirurgija i seks bukvalno izjednačavaju dovodeći Cronenbergovu paradigmu na ekran u najvulgarnijoj formi.

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Malo Popboksa u senci

http://mislitemojomglavom.com/?p=1101

Could Mel Gibson Go to Jail?
By Ken Lee

Sunday July 18, 2010 02:30 PM EDT



Dominique Charriau/WireImage

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As the all-out custody war between Mel Gibson and ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva roils on, sheriffs continue their criminal probe of the actor for domestic violence allegations. Five experts discuss what's at stake.

Could Gibson be facing jail time?
"I doubt it," says former L.A. prosecutor Jeffery Rubenstein. "At most, Mel will probably be charged with misdemeanor domestic violence. Oksana's alleged injuries don't seem to rise to a felony level and because Mel has no serious prior convictions, that'll also lessen his chances of a felony. His alleged threats, while horrifying and completely over-the-top, aren't necessarily a crime; there has to be evidence of a real intent to carry them out. If convicted, he'll probably get probation and counseling."

Gibson has accused Oksana of extortion. What are the chances she'll be convicted?
"It sounds like a far-fetched accusation and more of a basic defensive reaction by his legal team," says L.A. criminal defense attorney Trent Copeland. "Extortion will be very difficult to prove. It's completely routine to use incriminating evidence as leverage against another in a legal proceeding. But if she's found guilty of this, it'd be a felony, and punishment would be upwards of one year in jail."

Will the leaked tapes purportedly of Mel and Oksana be admissible in court?
"In general, it's illegal to tape someone without their knowledge but it's sometimes allowed in domestic violence situations," says L.A. criminal defense attorney Steve Sitkoff. "But the law in that regard isn't clear cut; there's lots of gray area. If the tapes are deemed illegal, they won't exist to a jury. The motive of the taping appears suspect; Oksana is extremely calm and appears to be provoking him. And if Mel was under the influence while making his threats, that would make it even harder to prove criminal intent."

Are the tapes authentic? Could there have been parts edited out?
"I wouldn't be surprised at all if the tapes were altered in some way, but that doesn't mean they aren't authentic," says Dallas-based forensic tape analyst Herbert Joe. "It's all up to the judge to determine the [overall] trustworthiness of the tapes on the whole."

Grigorieva reportedly asked the court to strip Gibson of all custody rights last Thursday, but she was denied. Why?
"It's clear the judge didn't feel Mel was any imminent threat to the baby," says L.A. family lawyer Scott Weston. "As terrifying as the tapes sound, it doesn't necessarily mean he's a danger to his daughter – and that's the judge's main concern. The judge is certainly going to want to determine if he committed any domestic violence, and if so, the judge can extend restraining orders against him and order him to counseling. This is going to be a long slog of a case with many hearings ahead; there won't be a quick resolution."

• Reporting by SARA HAMMEL

Jim Carrey is set to star in the $20 million comedy "Pierre Pierre" reports Deadline New York.

Carrey plays an extremely obnoxious Frenchman smuggling a stolen painting from Paris to London.

Jason Reitman was previously slated to direct when the project was setup at Fox Atomic. Now Larry Charles ("Borat") will take the helm.

Edwin Cannistraci and Frederick Seton penned the script.

Pogledao sam CHERRYBOMB koji su režirali Lisa Barros D'Sa i Glenn Leyburn. Reč je o britanskom youthsploitation filmu smeštenom u Severnu Irsku koji se nadovezuje na tradicije započete filmovima poput KIIDULTHOOD i serijama poput SUGAR RUSH ili SKINS ali sa dosta serioznim pristupom, bez previše humora ili žarenja & paljenja kojih ima u navedenim serijama.

Ono po čemu se CHERRYBOMB izdvaja jeste glumačka podela koju opredvode Robert Sheehan koga znamo iz serije MISFITS i Rupert Grint koga znamo iz HARRY POTTERa. Dok je Sheehan u MISFITSu zapravo već dao jedno viđenje SKINSa, Grintu je ovo odličan iskorak iz POTTERa i u ovom filmu pokazuje da se odlično snalazi u omladinskoj drami koja zarobljava frustraciju, strast i gnev svojstvene ovoj grupaciji.

Sheehan i Grint zaista uspevaju da sa svojim likovima postignu sve ono što treba i da uz pomoć vrhunskog dizajna kako na nivou scenografije tako i fotografije Damien Elliotta iznesu ovu "malu" priču na nivo jednog vrlo efektnog "malog" filma. U tom smislu, CHERRYBOMB sasvim ispunjava svoj domet. Ipak, nisam siguran da može biti naročito interesantan onima koji ne vole omladinske filmove i navedene serije.

Naslov filma inače nema veze sa pesmom severnoirskog power pop sastava Ash iako je i sam smešten u njihov rodni kraj.

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Pogledao sam quirky indie triler CARELESS Petera Spearsa u kome Colin Hanks igra mladog nesnađenog ljubitelja književnosti zaposlenog u prodavnici detektivskih romana koji jednog dana u svojoj kuhinji pronalazi odsečen prst i pokušava da razreši misteriju kako je taj prst uopšte dospeo u njegov dom.

Od tog trenutka postaje vrlo zanimljiva mešavina romantične komedije, misterije i slacker indie postupaka, realizovan u dosta tvrdom indie duhu, ali sa dosta dobrom atmosferom koja nadoknađuje grubu tehničku realizaciju koja je verovatno i onemogućila ovom filmu da postane bioskopski naslov ozbiljnijih ambicija.

Pa ipak, softver na nivou podele i scenarija pokazuje na koji način se mogu nadomestiti ozbiljni tehnički nedostaci i u najmanju ruku snimiti solidan showcase film.

Colin Hanks je odličan u glavnoj ulozi everymana uvučenog u misteriju na tragu Lynchovog BLUE VELVETa koja kasnije doduše ima više pynchonovski nego lynchovski rasplet. Od svojevrsnih zvezda u filmu se pojavljuje još i Tony Shalhoub u ulozi njegovog oca, nažalost bez omaža Monku, njegovom detektivskom liku. Ostatak ekipe čine indie glumci koji su na sasvim solidnom nivou.

Inače, knjiga koju tokom čitavog filma Hanks pokušava da pročita je MOVIEGOER Walkera Percyja.

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Film
Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone and the politics of film-makingThere's no let-up for Hollywod's most controversial director – the sequel to Wall Street, a documentary about Hugo Chávez and his most ambitious and personal project to date, the secret history of America
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Carole Cadwalladr The Observer, Sunday 18 July 2010 
Oliver Stone photographed near his Los Angeles office. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer

Oliver Stone is a man's man. Of this I have no doubt before meeting him. Not just because of his status as a sort of latter-day Ernest Hemingway, an action man with a reputation for women and drugs who won the Purple Heart for bravery in Vietnam, and then an Oscar for reproducing his experiences on celluloid. But because the most compelling sequences from his latest film, a documentary called South of the Border, show him hanging out with Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, chewing the cud about politics and war, talking very much mano a mano.

It's an impression that's reinforced moments before I meet him in his Los Angeles office when the photographer appears and shows me some of the portraits he's taken. They're slightly startling because Stone has a new moustache, a big, bristling, Zapata number, and in the tiny digital frame on the back of the camera, he looks like it's him who really ought to be dressed in military fatigues and running his own small South American regime.

Then he ambles in, distractedly. "Suzie!" he calls to his co-producer. "Where are my glasses? I think I've lost my glasses."

We both look at him. He has one pair of glasses on the top of his head. And another pair on a piece of cord around his neck.

"They're on your head," says Suzie.

"Do you think you could go and look for them? They're very valuable to me."

Suzie hesitates and then, having seemingly witnessed this sort of situation before, says: "OK!" and disappears out the room. Two minutes later, Stone puts his hand to his head. "Suzie! I've found them! They were on my head!"

Suzie reappears at the door. "I know," she says. "I told you."

"Did you? Jesus! What, now I can't even hear?"

It's a rather nice surprise, this. The bumbling, the self-accusation, the absentmindedness. On paper, he's so much the alpha male that, as one interviewer put it: "One expects to find antler stubs under his thatch of suspiciously too-black hair." As well as his war record, there are his various arrests for possession of drugs, as well as his well-rehearsed views on monogamy ("unnatural"). But, mostly, there's the work.

There seems an almost hyper-masculinity to Stone's oeuvre. He's the director of Platoon, one of the most highly rated Vietnam films of all time, a film that was based on his experience. The war spawned a further two films, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven & Earth. He made one of the most violent and controversial films of the 90s, Natural Born Killers. And he's had a fascination with some of the most powerful men on earth, having made films about no fewer than three American presidents: the Oscar-winning JFK, Nixon and, most recently, W, about George W Bush.

In the flesh, however, he's more like an amiable professor. There's a sort of otherworldly air of distraction and he reminds me of one of those old-fashioned Marxist academics who have now all but disappeared. Although he's not a Marxist, he has a strictly Stoneist view of the world and to this end he has facts, figures, theses, arguments, names, dates, an entire view not just of contemporary politics but also history.

But one of the most appealing aspects of Stone is the sheer depth and breadth of his interests and ambition. In addition to tackling socialism (and how Chávez has fanned its flames across South America) in South of the Border, he has also, this year, taken on capitalism in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the much-awaited return this September of Gordon Gekko to a Wall Street where greed isn't just good, it's legal. Two films, two ideological systems, and yet this pales in the face of his next project: a 10-part documentary series for HBO, Oliver Stone's Secret History of America.

He's right in the throes of it. "It's my big project. It's something I want to leave behind. And we're now in the third fucking year of it," he says. "It's a war. They're in that room next door working on it right now. It's an ongoing odyssey."

It's a truly massive project, a personal mission, the encapsulation seemingly of all that Oliver Stone has thought and read and felt in the 63 years of his life so far, and by the end of the interview I feel slightly anxious about it on his behalf. After all, Stone's passion projects haven't always ended well. Platoon did. It was the film that he had to make, a heavily autobiographical account of his Vietnam war, "a grunt's-eye view", and won him his second Oscar (his first was for writing the screenplay of Midnight Express). But Alexander, his magnum opus, a biopic of Alexander the Great that he at one point calls "his life's work", was savaged by the critics.

The reception of South of the Border in the States is, I imagine, a small taste of what is to come. If Platoon was a grunt's-eye view of war, South of the Border is a leftie's-eye view of South America and he's spent the last few weeks fighting off criticism: that he's a patsy; a Chávista; that he didn't speak to any of the opposition figures. "But that wasn't what we set out to do!" says Stone. "I let him talk. That way you see him as he sees himself. It's a psychiatrist's technique."

It's interesting that he brings this up. He's been in analysis three times, he tells me later. But the biggest surprise about Oliver Stone, and perhaps his greatest contradiction, is that for somebody who is such a doer, who has such a relentless drive to work, who has done and accomplished so much, who started his career writing scripts for Scarface and Midnight Express and has gone on to direct nearly 20 feature films and several documentaries – is that he's also an introvert and a self-critical one at that.

He can quote, verbatim, unfavourable reviews he's received years after the event. More than this, there's an introspective aspect to his nature that is quite at odds with the macho persona. And, for all the argument and theorising, it becomes apparent that Stone is a creature of his emotions. He makes the films he does because he feels he has to. Many of his career decisions seem to be motivated not by good sense, money or the esteem of his peers – he's driven by something far more internal than that.

In an old interview, Stone once said that his films are an "emotional barometer" for him. The violence of Natural Born Killers came out of the anger and sadness he felt when his second wife and mother of his two sons, Elizabeth, left him. So, I wonder, what attracted him to the competing issues at stake in South of the Border and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps?

"My father was a Republican. And he hated Roosevelt. And that's sort of been the battle of my life, I think. You have to understand that I grew up a Republican conservative. I hated Castro. And I put my money where my mouth was because I went to war, but I understood pretty quickly that this was another place, another culture, and we would never fit in there.

"It's the same story in Afghanistan, Iraq and South America. It's white people meeting people who they think they are better than. And I feel that this war is the war of my life. I've seen it over and over again and if I can do one thing with what's left of my remaining years, it's just to cry it out and say it, I hope, with enough entertainment that people will want see it."

In this context, South of the Border is simply another variant on this, his life's work. What the film makes clear is how much of a bogeyman Chávez is in the United States. The first half of the film, a not-altogether-successful Michael Moore-esque homily, features clips from the US news media (or "the missile shield", as Stone refers to it) with Fox News declaring that Chávez is "as big a threat as Osama bin Laden".

It's in the second half that the film comes to life, though, where Stone meets Chávez. "I liked him. He's very warm and very gracious. And he's a bear. I've always said that if he looked like Woody Allen he'd play a lot better with the world press. I think men are threatened by his physicality."

The affection seems to be mutual. At one point, standing on a runway in the dark, Chávez points to a building where he was imprisoned during a coup and where some of his men lost their lives. "As an ex-soldier I understand," says Stone and Chávez rests his hand upon his shoulder.

Making a documentary "was the last thing I wanted to do," says Stone. "It was Fernando Sulichin who I worked with on Comandante [the 2003 documentary of Stone interviewing Fidel Castro] and who is funding Secret History who suckered me in. And we went and we talked to Chávez and he said, 'Don't just take my word for it; go and talk to these other presidents.' So that's what we did, we went on this road trip." He jaunts off and chews coca and talks socialism with Bolivia's Evo Morales and meets Brazil's Lula da Silva, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Cuba's Raúl Castro. "The result," says Stone, "is this weird little thing. What is it? It's not a documentary."

It is, just not an entirely sane one, with two halves that don't quite fit together, but it's still a fascinating glimpse of Chávez and an overview of a massive popular movement on one of the largest continents of the world.

"I'm not an interviewer, I'm a director. And I go to these places and take advantage of the status that I have as a film-maker and can treat the person like an equal. And I'm not hostile. I give them face time. We don't even know the names of these guys in the United States."

Fundamentally, Oliver Stone is doing it his way because he can and because he's spent his life doing things his way. He's as idiosyncratic as they come, jumping from genre to genre, from indie documentaries to studio blockbusters. Hitting spectacularly with some (he's won three Oscars), missing spectacularly with others (Nixon, like Alexander, was brutally panned). He's always been impossible to pigeonhole, to predict quite where he'll go next.

There are high hopes for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. I rewatch Wall Street on the plane over and enjoy it as much as I did when I first saw it years ago. It's completely of its time – mobile phones the size of breeze blocks, an array of kitchen equipment so dazzling it gets its own special sequence (I give you the microwave and the hand-held blender). But it has stood the test of time.

Released in 1987, it was a brilliant, prescient taste of what was to come: the crash later that year; the insider trading scandals. I also spot Stone in a cameo I hadn't noticed before. He's plays a moneyman, a financier.

"I was playing my father, Lou," he says. And, had the 60s and Vietnam not blown him off course, it's what Stone might very well have become. It was what he was born to. His father was a stockbroker, who met Oliver's French mother in Paris during the second world war. Stone had a privileged, if emotionally austere, upbringing at an east coast boarding school. His mother was often absent and then disappeared altogether: aged 15, his headmaster called him into his office and informed him that his parents were getting divorced.

He went to Yale – he was in the same year as George Bush – and it's here that his conventional, bourgeois upbringing breaks down. He dropped out, deciding first to try to write a novel and then to enlist.

I read a quote, I say, where he says that he felt he wouldn't be properly human if he didn't know what war was. "There was something bugging me," he says. "Yale was a problem for me. I was not a happy young man. I didn't feel good in my skin. I'm glad I left but it was very painful at the time. My father thought I was pissing away my life. I was becoming an infantry soldier and I was going to become one of life's unfortunates. I wasn't going to amount to much. He was worried. And frankly so was I."

You've spent the rest of your life proving him wrong? "In a way, although it took me years. Coming back from Vietnam was extremely difficult. My father did, towards the end of his life, believe that Vietnam was a mistake, but we had many, many fights about it."

What would your father have made of the Wall Street of the last few years? I ask. "Look, he was pissed off when we left the gold standard in '73, although'73 is actually very interesting. It's a really crucial year, because the income of the average working man flattened out in '73 and never went up in spending ability. But meanwhile the productivity of America went up like this. Where did that money go? It went to CEOs and stock holders. It went to the banks."

The most remarkable aspect of Wall Street was that the villain of the piece, Gordon Gekko, became a hero to a new generation of moneymen. Michael Douglas claims that he's unable to go out for dinner in New York without having a hedge fund manager slap him on the back and thank him for inspiring him to enter Wall Street.

But if the first film was an old-fashioned, rite-of-passage story about a young man, Bud Fox, corrupted by greed, is there a take-home message from Wall Street 2?

"It's a fun movie, an entertaining movie. The first one I think you'd say is a morality tale and I think this one is too. In the sense of what is important? Are there more important values than money?"

Were you wary of glamourising it, given what happened to Gekko?

"It's 23 years on and greed will go on for the rest of times. And envy. Envy plays a big role in this film too. If you pass all the regulations in the world, they'll try and get around that. I have no problem with people wanting to make money. But don't make the banks into hedge funds, which is what they did.

"There's something Douglas says in the movie. He says that in 2008, of the corporate profits in the US, 47% were from finance-related companies. In the old America, it was 17%. It became the main business of America. We became a giant casino."

There is a father and son at the heart of the first Wall Street, as there is in much of Stone's work. It's a relationship that has clearly preoccupied him. But Lou Stone was perhaps not your standard, uptight New York stockbroker: he paid for Stone to lose his virginity to a prostitute at the age of 16. Stone has raised two sons himself now – Sean, 26, and Michael, 18. Has that made him see his father differently?

"Sure, but even before I had my sons, I was very father-oriented. He was a very powerful man. But you must remember my mother was very powerful too."

Ah yes, his mother. Jacqueline Goddet met Lou Stone when he was working as an aide to Eisenhower. She does sound like an extraordinary character, I say. "She still is – she's 88 and a party animal. She loves people and they love her. She called me the other night and she'd been out on the 4th of July weekend until two in the morning."

Perhaps Stone's greatest exploration of his relationship with his mother is in his novel, A Child's Night Dream. He started writing it when he was 17 and returned to it at 50, a period that he refers to as his midlife crisis. "I'd been criticised and loved, and criticised and loved, I mean, really, extremely... Nixon had just come out and had flopped. And I loved Nixon. I thought it was one of my more mature works and it had not been well-received. But it didn't matter. I returned to the book. I knew that it would never have a big circulation, but it mattered to me and I got it out. I just stopped making films for two years and basically did that. I think I lost my way and I felt like the book was putting me back."

Was writing the novel a way of reckoning with the past and in particular his mother? After all, there is a character called Oliver Stone who is sexually obsessed with his mother... "Yeah, well, there were two Stones, William and Oliver; they were two sides to me. But, yes that's correct. There was no incest, but my mother was very French and very free. It wasn't a big deal to walk around naked in the house and stuff like that."

I tell him about an extraordinary quote I have found from her a few years ago, where his mother says" "Oliver didn't just love me. He was in love with me."

"Is that right?" he says. "Ha, ha, ha. Well, she was a great tease. If that's the case, it's a classic Freudian case, the frustrations of an Oedipus complex. The son wants the mother but never gets her because she's the first woman in his life."

"Does that make sense to you?" I ask. "The Freudian explanation?"

"Absolutely. Your mother's body is the first thing you know and, frankly, it's very attractive and it turns you on. But you don't know what to do so it's a tremendous puzzle."

Usually, when an interviewer discovers something interesting about a subject, it's repeated in every article thereafter, but I find only one piece from the mid-90s, an interview with Elizabeth Stone, in which she claims that it was his mother who initiated him sexually. She says that Jacqueline had told her: "He couldn't relax and I had to show him."

"It's not clear," the interviewer goes on, "from detailed interviews with Elizabeth, Oliver and his mother, Jacqueline, what actually occurred. Elizabeth claims that Jacqueline Stone touched her teenage son's genitals and masturbated him. Jacqueline heatedly denies it."

So, I ask him straight out: "Did your mother teach you how to masturbate?"

"Well, I can't live with denial – sure."

"She physically showed you?"

"It was no big deal. It's not English. It's French. It was no big deal. I wasn't attracted to her. You have to understand. After a certain point, I grew up and I moved on. And I've had successful relations – with everybody!"

He says this a joke, but it's also true. He is a self-confessed womaniser. Elizabeth, his second wife, (his first, Najwa Sarkis, was Lebanese ) is said to have left him after having finally run out of patience with his extramarital dalliances. "It's on the record," says Stone. "And I don't like to lie. That's bullshit. It's not a big deal... I'm not running for office."

The Asian mentality is very different, he says, to the Anglo-Saxon one. "That's why I loved Asia when I was young. When I went over there, it was a revelation. I could never quite come back. I always had difficulties readjusting to the Anglo-Saxon mentality with women."

It is why his third wife, Sun-jung Jung, understands him, he says. "She's cool. She's Korean. Different mentality. Mutual respect... she laughs and trills and she sings when she speaks. I love the sound of her voice."

Their daughter, Tara, is 14. "She's part of that new generation, Asian-American. We're really going through it now. I mean, she's 14 – she does respect me but she does give me a hard time. But it's fun. She's smart. We go to the movies. She loves talking about movies."

Has having a daughter changed his attitude to women? "Yes it has. It's harder to be blind. Sometimes, you have to be blind to jump into some of these things, but when you see your daughter in some of these women... you see the human side more clearly than before."

I wonder aloud whether his relationship with his daughter will inform his female characters. His films have always seemed to me to be explorations of masculinity, of male relationships, in one form or another, but then his world, for years, was male. He was an only child and incarcerated for years in an all-male boarding school, before going to an all-male Yale. Discovering women in Vietnam, he says, he felt like Gauguin in the South Seas. "They were these ripe fruits."

He starts reciting his female characters, finishing with Olympias, Alexander's mother. It is abundantly clear from everything he says that Alexander was the project of his life. "It was. That's why I went back three years later and did a third version of it. If you could ever see it – it's the right version of it. The editing was rushed... I was never able to... frankly it's a complicated vision and I'm fighting to get it recirculated. In England, there is a release of it, but it's very little known because it was so slagged at the time. It was very painful to me."

Of all the films, it's his most autobiographical, he says. That's a strange statement given that its subject concerns the greatest emperor who ever lived, but then he is also the vulnerable son of all-powerful parents. He first dreamt of making it as a film student, he says, and it was during that midlife period of reflection that he came back to it again.

"I remember feeling like I had lost my way. The book was important and so was Alexander. I do think that there is the idea what you are when you're young, you must stay faithful to something in there."

This is one of his core beliefs. His teenage years are still the crucible of Oliver Stoneness on which he draws. They were so extreme, in almost every way. From the emotional barrenness of boarding school ("For years, I thought it was a disaster; it had taken the love out of my life; there was no sense of humanity"), those odd experience with his parents and sexuality, through the privilege of Yale and finally, apocalyptically, Vietnam. You really don't need to be a Freudian to read something into this. His ex-wife, Elizabeth, has put it more bluntly: "That little boy didn't stand any chance of any normal sort of life."

He's an assiduous diary-keeper and regularly rereads ancient entries to check up on himself. In 2000, he even decided to relive the acid trips of his youth. Under the supervision of three psychoanalysts, he sat on a mat, put an eyemask on and took LSD. It lasted nine hours and was, he says, because he wanted to relive past experiences with the drug "under more scientific conditions".

He's gone through various stages of taking drugs, mostly psychedelic ones. "Heavy trips," he calls them – in Oliver Stone there's a small part of the 60s that never died. He tells me about being "frightened to death" on one of them. So why did he do it? "Because of the adventure."

Ah yes. The adventure. That other Oliver Stone hallmark. His cousin James says that Stone went to war because: "Anything he could do to be at the edge, and to experience more than other people had experienced, and to shock, he was likely to do. It was consistent for him to want to experience the most intense thing that was going on then in the world."

Even now, there seems to be no letting up. The hell-raising days may be over – although I wouldn't bank on it – but there still seems to be this lust for experience, as evidenced by South of the Border. At an age where most men might start thinking about golf, Stone is chasing socialists across South America.

He's as committed as he ever has been, if not more so. Politically, workaholically. There's still a relentless drive to work, work, work. It's coming up to 9pm by the time I leave his office and nobody seems to be making a move to go home. His film editor has been waiting patiently for him in the room next door, ready to attack yet another section of Oliver Stone's Secret History of America. There's another documentary on Castro to come – the third part of his trilogy. He'd like to do an update to his novel, he says, some sort of epilogue. There are the final edits on Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. And then there's South of the Border to launch in London. And defend from attacks all over again.

I fear for Oliver Stone's Secret History of America. Oliver Stone will do it Oliver Stone's way, whatever the critics think. He exhibits an artist's singlemindedness, an ideologue's obduracy. If his ambition occasionally exceeds his talent, it's not because his talent is small, but that his ambition is so very, very large. The Alexander comparison is really not as far-fetched as it might seem: he really is trying to remould the world according to his vision. Watch out, world.

• This article was amended on 21 July 2010. The original referred to Suzie as Oliver Stone's assistant. This has been corrected.

Pogledao sam INCEPTION Chrisa Nolana. Reč je o jednom od filmova koji će sigurno izazvati masovnu histeriju i egzaltaciju, i to sa pravom jer na savršen malograđanski način manipuliše publikom. INCEPTION je film koji prilično slabo prodaje svoju priču, on mnogo bolje prodaje svog autora i sliku samih sebe publici. INCEPTION je film koji laska publici, kao banalna pop pesma koju mudar pesmopisac proda zvezdi ne zato što će to biti mega-hit nego zato što je zvezda našla sebe odnosno idealnu sliku sebe u toj pesmi. Tako i INCEPTION ostavlja utisak da čovek nije baš protraćio dva i po sata u bioskopu, da je gledao nešto interesantno i sadržajno, da se zamislio, da je tu bilo nekih teza, poslovica i emocija, karaktera sa traumama i sl.

To što su traume nacrtane, poslovice i emocije iskazane kroz simboliku svosjtvenu francuskom stripu (tipa, gde čovek u snu krije svoju podsvesnu tajnu - u sefu) i što se najveće mentalno naprezanje troši na pokušaj da se dokuče a zatim ostave na miru zjapeće rupe u zapletu (ko kada šta sanja) nije zapravo ni važno jer INCEPTION je uspeo da aktivira gledaoca na sličan način kao što je to uradio i THE MATRIX.

Kao što ni Braća Wachowski nisu svoj high concept smislila baš sama, tako je i INCEPTION u stvari razrada Rubenovog DREAMSCAPEa, jednog istinski sjajnog B-filma iz osamdesetih, sada dignuta na nivo simfonije čiji potencijal u određenoj meri Nolan uspeva da ostvari. Međutim, pitanje originalnosti nije važno, no ipak, važno je naglasiti da INCEPTION bilo kom prilježnijem gledaocu žanrovskog filma ne može delovati naročito mind-blowing.

Sam ton priče je Nolan dosta dobro profilisao, međutim INCEPTION ima jedan problem u tom domenu - naime, film deluje kao jedna dosta casual avantura. Iako, Nolan, nesporno intrigantan scenarista, ima sve pokrivenme ključne tačke u postavci likova i priče, INCEPTION naprosto ne odaje utisak te "once in a lifetime" priče koju je hard SF uvek imao i sve vreme postoji osećaj kako bi recimo ovaj skript bio sjajan predložak za jedan od filmova o agentu 007. Iako se filmu mora skinuti kapa za to što je po "originalnom" materijalu i što ne pretenduje da bude deo nekakve trilogije, serijala i sl. on nema to nešto što bi ga izdvojilo kao upečatljiv događaj.

Isto važi i za vizuelni aspekt. Nolan napreduje iz filma i iako ni u ovom nije postao velikan bioskopske akcije, napetosti i uzbuđenja, milje u kome se INCEPTION zbiva mnogo bolje leži reditelju njegovog rukopisa - dakle dosta oslonjenom na jedan vrlo konvencionalan pristup kadriranju i montaži. Sigurno bi neki filmski upečatljiviji autor uspeo da izvuče još više iz same postavke kakva je sada i još čisto filmski atraktivnije žonglirao paralelnim tokovima.

Posle ovog izrazito defetišizujućeg uvoda čiji je cilj bio da Nolanov INCEPTION baci u blato u kome inače obitava većina filmova treba reći i da je reč o jednom izuzetno zabavnom i u krajnjoj liniji pozitivnom dodatku savremenom bioskopskom repertoaru. Koliko god INCEPTION bio "običan", svakako se izdvaja od blokbaster mentaliteta prisutnog poslednjih godina i to pre svega zbog smrtne ozbiljnosti sa kojom ekipa prilazi ovom materijalu. Iako je INCEPTION pulpčina u vrlo čistom smislu, Nolan i saradnici rade to kao vrhunski masterpis, i ta njihova ubeđenost i samozaljubljenost svakako da na nekom nivou zavode publiku. Iako nije ništa smisleniji od SHUTTER ISLANDa i iako je Scorsese neuporedivo veći mag od Nolana, INCEPTION će mnogo bolje proći upravo zbog te smrtne ozbiljnosti koju Marty nema u svom skorašnjem polemisanju sa žanrom.

INCEPTION je u ritmu filma koji ima nešto da kaže, i iako u suštini nema šta da kaže, taj ritam svakako imponuje gledaocu a Nolan ima dovoljno kompetentnih glumaca da sve to održe gledljivim uprkos vrlo kabastom trajanju i potpunom odsustvu istinske emocije. U tom smislu, načpomenuo bih Scwentkeov film TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE kao primer filma sa snažnijom emocijom, sličnom premisom koja izmiče tlo pod nogama, ali i manjom sposobnošću da se proda publici.

Na kraju pune porjekcije u Koloseju u četvrtak uveče u 21, sala je kolektivno izbacila jedan uzdah oduševljenja i aplauz. Iako mislim da ja lično nisam imao razlog ni za jedno ni za drugo, premda sam se lepo zabavio, ne mogu da osporim da takav efekat na publiku zaslužuje puno poštovanje.

INCEPTION ima još jednu dodatnu dimenziju u kojoj će lepo komunicirati sa srpskom publikom a to je sam McGuffin u zapletu - ostavinska rasprava koja asocira na Šijanove MARATONCE, svet u kome ljudi rade dok spavaju i mogu neograničeno da grade bez dozvola i konačno ultimativna emo-replika ponovljena nekoliko puta između Lea i Amrion a to je želja "da ostare zajedno" plus mizogini element priče "vrhunskog stručnjaka koji je sve znao osim da sebi izabere ženu" što je tradicionalni bluz u našem poimanju stvarnosti i međuljudskih odnosa.

Leo mi je prijao u ovom filmu. Posle SHUTTER ISLANDa već postaje neka vrsta običaja da se u nekoj vrsti halucinacije njegovi likovi sureću sa ženom i decom i da mu formiranje porodice stoji kao eksplicitno traumatsko jezgro. S druge strane, Leo u ovom filmu produžava i lepu tradiciju iz TITANICa da tokom totalnog klimaksa i rasula ostane nasamo sa predmetom svoje neostvarive ljubavi. U svakom slučaju, mislim da će Leo ovde biti podnošljiv Leo-haterima.

INCEPTION je film od koga ne treba očekivati previše ali se zato treba radovati što publika oseća kako je dobila više nego što zaslužuje.

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Dobro da si me podsjetio, Dreamscape je u svakom slučaju vrijedan vrlo skore reprize.

Quint has seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. It's past one in the morning as I start his review and I got to sleep right now I could have 7 hours of sleep... but after having been privileged enough to be in attendance at the big sneak peak Comic-Con screening of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World I had to get some words down on the flick.

I love Comic-Con because I can explain away a shoddy review to exhaustion and time crunches!

Oh, and I also love it because I can have a day like today... where I saw 8 minutes from Tron, randomly bump in to Robert Kirkman while on my way to a sit down interview with Bruce Willis (WalterB himself!) before going to the first ever public screening of the finished Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

For all the hassle and hustle and ass-pains of the Con (and there are a ton... they sell about 25,000 more tickets than they have room for, as an example) it's still an experience like no other.

So, that was my day leading up to the screening. After I found my seat at the Balboa theater, I noticed Peter Serafinowicz two rows in front of me. I didn't intend to bug the poor the dude, but the route to get refreshments was literally through his row and I stumbled across him talking to Beaks.

Turns out he's an AICN fan... the feeling was mutual. On my way out to grab something to drink I brushed past Superman (since it's Comic-Con, I have to clarify that to mean Brandon Routh because it could have just as easily been a dude in a Superman costume) and on my way back in I was nestled amongst the core of the Scott Pilgrim cast.

From the moment the 8-bit Universal logo popped up along with a midi version of the Universal opening music to the cartoon THE END letters breaking of in chunks as a video game Scott Pilgrim (in full Bryan Lee O'Malley design) jumped up and hit it all Mario style the movie had me.

The easiest thing to say about the movie is that it's a quick watch. It flows, it has a lot of laughs that I have a feeling are going to live past the first viewing. And it's just flat out fun. Not silly fun, although it does get pretty silly, but real deal imaginative filmmaking driving pure entertainment.

That's a whole lot of hyperbole and I acknowledge that. No denying I was caught up in the moment, in a perfect geek crowd that cheered for every video game reference, no matter how subtle, but I'd hope after nearly 15 years of doing this I could spot a stinker hiding under a super warm reception.

There's too much at work here for it just be a few geek jokes that work on the audience. Wright's assured and kinetic filmmaking is first and foremost to be admired, but so is the cast he gathered, particularly his spot-on perfect casting of Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, the love interest. He had leverage with every other character, but if you don't want to see Scott get this girl, if for one moment you feel like she's not worth the baggage thent he whole thing falls apart. Not only is Winstead gorgeous and perfectly pixie purty, but she does a ton of subtle work with her eyes in this movie, revealing a much deeper character than I expected.

Because when you get down to it, Scott and Ramona are pretty fatally flawed people. Scott is kind of a prick to those that love him and Ramona has so many commitment issues that she's almost like going out with a loaded gun.

They're both fun to behold, but that added layer of depth, originating from O'Malley and translated by Wright, his co-screenwriter Michael Bacall and, finally, Michael Cera and Winstead, is what gives the movie just enough genuine heart that the experience doesn't feel hollow.

Cera plays a convincing Scott and I think he's as sharp as he's ever been with his comic timing and the likability he oozes. Again, Scott's actions are pretty screwed in this story. He treats some really sweet people like a complete bastard and doesn't feel badly about it, but it's not out of some menace or villainy... Pilgrim has the innocence of a child, wide-eyed at the world and constantly falling in and out of love.

I'm going to bet that Cera doesn't get much credit on this first pass by viewers, who will think he's putting too much of himself in every role (So did Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Marilyn Monroe, but people don't seem to mind it with them), but he does some really great work here.

Lots of credit is due for the great supporting cast, especially Kieran Culkin as Scott's gay roommate Wallace (he's very close to being my favorite character in the movie with his dry timing). Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons and Ellen Wong round out Scott's group and each work great in the group.

The evil exes are also a blast of fun, as each bring their own unique dynamic. Again, a lot of credit goes to O'Malley for the core of those characters, but when you see super-powered Vegan Brandon Routh levitating and beating the shit out of Michael Cera while fumbling poorly thought-out witticisms you see how one tip in the wrong direction could have made it just plain stupid.

That's probably the real success of this movie. It's constantly riding that fine line between ground-breaking and fucking stupid and it does it with such an effortless flair that it made me a big fan.

I'm really curious to see Ebert's take on this, especially knowing his stance on videogames. The whole flick is a love-letter to gaming, but since I could tell you what 1-up means and the reason why people turn into coins when they're killed I can't really tell if it's too much inside baseball or not. I'd suspect the love story and sheer, unadulterated fun of the movie will prove to win over non-gamers and non-ubernerds, but you never can tell.

Alright, that's enough from this tired nerd. More geek shit tomorrow. Stay tuned!

-Quint