#30

Christmas Update:

So I've been really lazy during the last weeks, but I decided to enjoy everybody who might be reading this blog with a Christmas Update. So here are a couple of quick reviews of films that I've seen since "Wanted":

Quantum of Solace:



Since I wasn't expecting a movie as good as "Casino Royale" I wasn't as disappointed as some of the reviewers and critics. I liked the way Marc Foster varied between fast Action and slow dialog-heavy parts. It may be that this was also present in "Casino Royale" but I only noticed it in "QoS". The plot, nevertheless, was a bit sparse. It didn't electrify me, but I was never bored.
But seing as it as still a Bond film I was really disappointed in the "Bond Girls".
Strawberry Fields? Come on, seriously? Poor Miss Arterton was more than underchallenged. I think there is a lot more to her as an actress than shown in "Quantum of Solace".
I liked Olga Kyrilenko though. She wasn't as tough and emancipated as Eva Green in "Casino Royale", but she still had an aura of independence which I really fell for.

7.8 out of 10 Martinis



Thirteen:



As a huge fan of both, Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter, I was surprised that I hadn't bought this beautiful movie about the problems of a teenage girl who wants to be more popular at school, but has to deal with parental and familial problems at home, where her mother accomodates everybody who needs to crash for a couple of nights, because she cannot say no.
This movie is more of a social analysis of destroyed families than a mere Hollywood movie, and I love it. Holly Hunter and especially Evan Rachel Wood have an incredible onscreen presence which makes it feel more like a documentary than a drama, if it weren't for the perfectly lit and aranged locations. "Thirteen" is not a feel good movie, but it shows the world as it is in a nearly perfect manner which makes it impossible not to be impressed by the fact that actress Nikki Reed, who plays the popular girl who's even more emotionally damaged than Wood and Hunter, wrote the script at age 14 together with director Catherine Hardwicke.
At first it seems to be an ordinary film about a girl wanting to be the popular girl, and we've surely had enough of these flicks by now, but it turns out to be so much more. If you want to learn something about how families really work, watch this movie.

8.6 out of 10 homemade navel piercings



Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium:



It's always nice to see that there are still movies made which make you feel like you're a child again. This is absolutely the case with "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", a movie about a 243-year-old man who owns a magical toy store. Edward Magorium (played by a wonderfully sweet Dustin Hoffman) has only turned 243 because he was never bored in his life and most of the time he lifes his fantasies. And now, in 2007, he is looking forward to his next big adventure: death. He wants to leave his store to young Molly Mahoney, a pianist who has never lived up to her potential due to lack of self-confidence.
But when Magorium tells Molly that he is leaving the store gets upset and looses his magical powers, because Molly doesn't believe in magic without Edward Magorium. Luckily she has little Eric Applebaum and Henry Weston to make her believe in herself.
"Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" is the first movie from director Zach Helm, writer of the wonderful film "Stranger than Fiction". It is a movie that lives from two things: a) the love to detail that Zach Helm shows and b) the warmhearted performances by Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman, which make the movie feel like a modern fairy-tale.
Of course it is a movie that mostly children will like and of course it is difficult to fall for such a movie when you're a rational adult, but given the fact that I always try to keep my rationality to an acceptable level and preserve my childishness to a certain degree, it is no surprise that I really enjoyed this movie. It simply is a feel good movie and thus it lives up to the expectations.

8.2 out of 10 stupid zebras

That's all folks!