Shutter Island

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Michelle William, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Haley

Year: 2010

Genre: Mistery / Thriller

Rating:

Cinema-Reader – 8.0

MDB – 8.1
FilmAffinity – 7.3

Cinema-Reader Synopsis:

When US Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) lands on Shutter Island, a small island off the coast of Detroit used as a high security hospital for dangerous insane inmates in order to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Sorondo, he couldn’t imagine what he was about to be involved.

All nurses, guardians and the warden, an enigmatic doctor played by Sir Ben Kingsley, are hiding secrets from Daniels, something valuable enough not to allow anybody, including Daniels, to jeopardize it. Plus a storm affects the electric supply of barracks releasing all inmates out of control around the premises.

Therefore, Daniels will be pushed towards the edge of his own sanity making difficult any attempt of solving the mystery.

Cinema-Reader Review:

When Leonardo DiCaprio gathers Scorsese, ever since they worked together for their very first time a bunch of years ago, everybody expect a new great piece.

And is worth mentioning no feeling of disappointments could be felt between the audience after the projection.
Scorsese’s raid on mystery can be deemed as a great piece. Thus I still consider Shutter Island and despite being a great film is far from prior movies such overwhelming as The Departed, Casino or Goodfellas.

In any case, the film is full of tension which peaks of maximum climax involves the viewer within the halo of mystery surrounding all happenings that take place in such a disturbing island.
In addition, a cast full of great names (DiCaprio, Kingsley, Von Sidow, Ruffalo, and Mortimer) helps holding the whole responsibility when gaps in the script (no big enough to screw the whole thing) show up.

Having said that, and alongside other releases which opened early this year and all those coming up, seems to be a great year within film industry, leaving behind a year to forget, 2009.

Green Zone

Director: Paul Greengrass

Cast: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Said Faraj, Amy Ryan, Brendan Gleeson

Year: 2010

Genre: War / Thriller

Rating:

Cinema-Reader – 7.6
MDB – 7.2

FilmAffinity – 6.7

(Click picture for Trailer)

Cinema-Reader Synopsis:

Chief Warrant Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is an US army official on charge of a squad which target is aim at the search of WMD (weapons of massive destructions) in Iraq.

After months of unsuccessful search, Miller and his crew are getting pissed. However a local gives them a hint of where to catch red-handed one of the most notorious personalities within Hussein’s army in a high level meeting of revels. Breaking on during the meeting, and despite the target manages to getaway, Miller gets a vital piece for the ingoing of the whole war; a notebook with spots and save houses of all revel’s high commands.

All of a sudden, Miller finds himself between a war full of lies and false patriotism that will push him to re-define his principles and in which side he’s.

Cinema-Reader Review:

Paul Greengrass, filmmaker that brought us the brand new Bourne saga (all but Bourne Supremacy, the only forgettable within the whole sequel), comes along with Matt Damon once again to barely adapt a novel describing the shameless fact of the lack of proofs and evidences of WMD within the arguments submitted by US High Command in order to justify the invasion carried on Iraqi soil.

Shot in a fantastic way that makes viewer enjoy the action of the movie (Greengrass trade mark which already shown in the frantic car scenes of Bourne both blockbusters), is worth saying the director doesn’t lose the aim of the plot diverting the looking glass far from what is really important, the complex web behind the reasons given to justify the US army intervention.

Besides what can seem at first sight, and after prior attempts that failed in the goal of taking Iraq conflict and all controversial along, Green Zone brings a different approach as well as an appreciable and uncommon point of view in which American and the white collar that command the power of the US army and where the good are at least as villain as the villain themselves.

About the performances, I must confess I do fancy Matt Damon more and more (no sexual meaning implicit at all!!!) due to his wide assortment of different performances and characters. However handling a rifle is even more credible.
Along comes Greg Kinnear normally seen on comedies (Little Miss Sunshine, Stuck on you, As Good as it Gets) but hardly ever seen within thriller/drama contest. And seems this genre suits on him quite well making a convincing role of a jerk US Army command trying to hide which are the real reason behind the occupation of Iraq.

Having said all these, here comes my open question.

Filmed with terrific technique and surgeon accuracy for action scenes, with a solid and credible script with no gaps on the plot in all movie, and with performances such worth mentioning as fulfilled by Kinnear, Damon and Gleeson; why this film ain’t as worth deserved for an Academy Award acknowledgement?

Is Hurted Locker a deserved winner? Or just acknowledged for the fact of being the only movie over the average in a year with no major and awesome film in which the only movie highlighted (for several and different reasons) has been Avatar?

The Lovely bones

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon

Year: 2010

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Rating:

Cinema-Reader – 7.9
IMDB – 6.7
FilmAffinity – 6.2

(Click picture for Trailer)

Cinema-Reader Synopsis:

Susie (Irish young actress Saoirse Ronan) is a 14^th year-old girl murdered under brutal circumstances by her enigmatic and sombre neighbourhood Mr. Harvey (Stanley Tucci). However, she remains in the in-between, a world full of magic and beauty from where she’s watching over her family and even her murdered which keeps haunting her even in the afterlife.

However, Susie’s devoted father (Mark Wahlberg) still determined to find out who’s her daughter assassin even if his marriage with Abigail (Rachel Weisz) falls apart due to the sorrows caused by the cruel happening.

When finally all fingers points towards Mr. Harvey, just a clue proving he was involved within Susie murder is missing.

The final countdowns started as his evil and perturbed mind has led him to set his eyes over a new victim, Susie’s little sister.

Cinema-Reader Review:

Lord of the Ring Director Peter Jackson is up again with a film based on a novel (Alice Sebold's bestseller). However, in this adaptation he rules out epic to focus on an inner story full of magic and imagination.

Although panned by both critics and public, his visionary conception of filming makes this movie stand out from other clapped previously by critics within the same contest.

For instance, last year Spike Jonze’s Where the wild things are also spins around an imaginary world that blossoms out of the imaginative mind of a child. Nevertheless this movie deals with afterlife and death, the magic of this in-between world made up by Susie (Saoirse Ronan) and captured by Jackson seems more fulfilled, more imaginative rather than Jonze’s.

Plus the performance on Stanley Tucci’s side (aka Devil weras Prada), acknowledged with Academy Nomination on Supporting Role category, boosts the whole movie to an upper level that no many people has been able to see so far.

For the record, by saying this I’m not saying that The Lovely Bones is a master peace and the audience is a bunch of yahoos with no clue about what cinema is. Nothing further than that.

However, I’d like to add that, and despite other comments posted by the one writing defending the value of a good script over the visual impact of a movie, here the visual beauty through Jackson’s glass deserves more than rotten tomatoes.

The Crazies

Director: Breck Eisner

Cast: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson

Year: 2010

Genre: Horror / Thriller

Rating:

Cinema-Reader – 7.0
IMDB – 7.4
FilmAffinity – 7.1

(Click picture for Trailer)

Cinema-Reader Synopsis:

Ogden Marsh is a small town in Iowa in which everybody is friendly and life is peacefull and quiet.

However, Sheriff Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his deputy (Joe Anderson) discover a plane crashed onto the reservoir that supplies the whole town with water. Owing to this mysterious crash that no telly channel reported and nobody seemed to care about, people start behaving in a weird way; start going mad.

Since the first happenings, Sheriff noticed that a kind of biological disease contained on the plane and transmitted by the water supply is turning all Ogden Marsh inhabitants in psycho killers.
Is then when both law enforcements along Sheriff’s pregnant wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) begin a frenetic getaway from their former “lovely” neighbourhoods as well as the army which is trying to secure the perimeter and isolate the disease by using heavy hand methods.

Cinema-Reader Review:

Blur adaptation of film upon horror’s king George A. Romero classic of the same name (in which Romero himself takes part as co-writer).

Although this movie doesn’t bring nothing new to such an eyed nicked genre horror has became in recently years, is worth mentioning that this film is able to do something that previous “horror” movies (i.e. Dairy of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Resident Evil sequels…) didn’t get: scare the shit out of me.

Besides still far from the tension and anxiety created in moments by Danny Boyle in 28 Days Later, however overtakes what Fresnadillo made afterwards in 28 Weeks Later (despite the promising as well as thrilling beginning of the 28 sequel).

And this is because of the touch given by a genius of this genre; the person that set the standard on all horror movies that came up after him: George A. Romero.

And this might be seen in how the viewer feels the anxiety of the characters in some scenes. This might be noticed in how viewer is involved in the fear like being within the motion picture.

Summing up, this is ought to what George A. Romero means, an aurea of greatness printed within the perturbing script.

A Single Man

Director: Tom Ford

Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Mathew Goode

Year: 2010

Genre: Drama

Rating:

Cinema-Reader – 8.0
IMDB – 8.0
FilmAffinity – 7.2

(Click picture for Trailer)

Cinema-Reader Synopsis:

George (Colin Firth) is being drowned in a life full of sorrows and loneliness since his lover Jim (Mathew Goode) passed away in a car accident.

For him, life is no longer worth living, and therefore he prepares himself to join his beloved boyfriend in the afterlife with a suicide.

However, when life couldn’t seem more pointless and dark; is when one of George’s students, Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), shows up changing radically his point of view about future and fate.

Cinema-Reader Review:

Technically a beauty for all senses, the very first raid into film industry of Tom Ford (fashion guru that boosted Gucci’s back in the 90’s placing its name once again within the Olympus of top fashion brands) left a work full of details that labels the viewer with a feeling of perfection in every frame that makes all candidatures on Academy Awards this year more than deserved. This perfection is clearly featured on the suits and clothes, and the obsession of Ford with the human beauty transmitted by the eyes, lips, gestures…

Plus, Colin Firth is on with his all time finest performance of a tormented medium age man seeking desperately for an exit of a world completely unbearable for him which dark and hopeless vision of future is changed by the appearance of a young, lively and adventurous Kenny (Hoult).

However, regular public has a division in opinions regarding the film. Although by moments a bit slow, I do believe this is the right speed for driving this esthetical master piece. An upper gear would have messed up the detailed way in which was shot that contains indeed the full beauty of this film.