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To watch or not to watch? I will tour around Amsterdam’s cinemas and answer this crucial question every Friday. Without mercy, of course. Sucky films will be slaughtered, cinematographic pearls will be appreciated as such. Or the other way around. After all, good taste is in the eye of the beholder.
360
We’ve seen a lot of this mosaic films the last couple of years: Love Actually, Babel and Crash, for example. Director Fernando Meirelles (Cidade de Deus) added another one to that list. The main theme of his film is adultery. Adultery in Bratislava, Vienna, London, Paris, Denver and Phoenix. Jude Law and Rachel Weisz play a couple not that honest to each other, Anthony Hopkins is a worrying father and Ben Foster is great as a just-released sex offender. Then there is also the story of a Slovenian prostitute and her sister, a French dentist, a Brazilian couple in London and a Russian driver who works for a criminal. Of course, many characters are connected in the end.
360 is beautifully shot, the characters feel real. Every scene seems to have a dark lining, like everything is going to collapse in the next coming seconds. It’s the edgy brother of Love Actually. One of the best scenes plays at an Airport Hotel. A Brazilian girl, who just broke up with her boyfriend, meets Tyler (Ben Foster as the sex offender). The tension rises to a climax when she almost forces him to have sex with her. I won’t tell more.
Other than this scene, the film is pretty easy going. Only in the end there is some real excitement again. That’s ok, 360 is good entertainment.
Watch this film in Cineville‘s Studio K. Also in Pathe (City and Tuschinski).
ParaNorman
I like going to children’s films, not afraid to admit it. The only thing I don’t like about going to children’s films is the fact that it attracts a lot of children. They ask a lot of questions about the storyline. They eat stuff that comes out of plastic. They wiggle a lot. In short: they make noise. Anyway, for this new Laika film I’ll go into the trenches again. After Corpse Bride and Coraline, now comes ParaNorman. The 11 year old Norman loves horror and talks with ghosts. He lives in a town that is famous for the witch hunt that was going on 300 years ago. But now, a witch cursed the village and Norman is the only one who takes this seriously. Good for him!
There’s supposed to be a lot of zombies and other undead things in this film. So parents, leave the small kids at home. It’s better for them.
Watch this film in Cineville‘s Kriterion.
¡Vivan Las Antipodas
Did you think, back in the days, that if you would dig deep enough into the sand you would reach China? Congratulations, you had a childhood.
The Russian film maker Victor Kossakovsky compares four territories with their geographical counterparts: Argentina with Shanghai, for example. His film is eye-candy at its finest. It makes you realize how diverse and vulnerable the world and its inhabitants are. Sounds corny? Well, Kossakovsky doens’t care and that what makes it very un-corny. Go see this one.
Watch this film in Cineville‘s Eye and Kriterion.
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