Most nem fogok belemenni, melyik film mennyire és miért képezte egyszer csak szerves részét az életemnek az elmúlt héten, (bár igazából ezek közül csak kettő igazán releváns és remélhetőleg előbb-utóbb ez is elmúlik majd), inkább, kérlek, csak elégedjetek meg azzal, hogy egy próbamunkára megírtam életem első (három) cikkét angol nyelven, és erre nagyon büszke vagyok. Igazából nem tudom, milyenek lettek, de én elégedett vagyok velük, és így, ahelyett hogy kárba vesznének, inkább közlöm őket itt. Akinek van kedve, olvassa el. Akik nem beszélnek angolul, azoktól elnézést kérek. Azoknak világbékét kívánok.:)

A Crime

Director: Manuel Pradal

In a world so full of empty promises, saying something like ’if you didn’t see this movie in 2006 it will be the best you’ll have seen so far in 2008’ might not mean too much, but it’s still worth giving it a try. You might just be surprised.

Relatively unknown French director (who ’only’ has four movies under his belt) Manuel Pradal shows in this slow-paced, old school crime story (or ’modern noir classic’, if you like) that despair is the worst counsellor. And that women in love can truely be dangerous. Especially to themselves. And others. (Dogs are not in danger.)

Vincent (Norman Reedus of American Gangster and Blade II) goes home one day to find his wife dead. Three years later in Brooklyn we find him depressed, deprived, just about existing. The only thing that he lives for is illegal dog races. His neighbour, Alice (Emanuelle Béart, 8 Women, Mission Impossible) is beyond depressed. She is just the silhouette of a blond messed-up alcoholic French femme fatale. But she falls in love with Vincent. Wait, no. She gets obsessed with Vincent and sets out finding the killer of his wife so that he could finally put the murder behind him and they could live happily ever after. So she goes out the door, gets in a cab (driven by the mezmerizingly brilliant Harvey Keitel) and what happens after, well, is the best movie you’ll have seen so far in 2008.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Director: Andrew Dominik

The outline of the DVD says that this is an action western. Well, there is about as much action in it as in watching monks doing sand mandalas. And for two and a half hours, too. That’s not why anyone should watch this film. Well, not anyone, anyway, but you guys. Even though, it would be degrading to call it a „guy movie”, this is definitely not for girls looking for some hot stuff on Thursday night. Or looking for a piece of Brad for that matter. He doesn’t even take his shirt off in this one, so there’s really nothing in it for you, ladies, we’re sorry. This is a „man movie”. And they should watch it if they wish to sit by a bottle, have a quite night alone and get in contact with their inner selves. To finally be able to come out and confess: „I want to be Brad Pitt.”

This (anti-)western of the Don Corleone of the Wild West is rather in the line of the beautifully haunting epic Dead Man (by director Jim Jarmush) and the wonderfully cruel The Proposition (by John Hillcoat) than in of, say, Once Upon a Time in the West (by Sergio Leone), and will appeal to those who don’t just ’like’ films but like to indulge in them. The long paintinglike pictures are poetic, the three main characters (Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Pitt) are really superb, the dialogues will send any linguist to heaven and will make you tough enough to go through summer in a ski-jacket, the ever-so-slowly creeping tension will make you not answer your phone while watching and the music created by Nick Cave and fellow Bad Seed, Warren Ellis is just so fitting for this long funeral of a movie in its sinister yet angelic mood that by the end you’ll be ready to bury the wussy in you. And awake the Brad Pitt wanting to come out for so long.

Painted Heart

Director: Michael Taav

This ’John Waters meets Steve Buscemi’ movie originally came out as The Paint Job in 1992 in the USA, but none of that should bother you.

It is a timeless, demented, absurd, yet frightully real tragicomedy set in small-town Mid-West America, where statements such as „sometimes being alive is just enough reason to murder your family” are meant from the heart. The plot and (especially) the characters are simple. Serious nutcase falls for his weirdo boss’ wife and then things get a little psycho. In fact, whoever came up with that paintfight scene, should go for a check-up himself real quick.