To Rome With Love

Director/Writer: Woody Allen
Stars: Woody Allen, Penélope Cruz, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page and Jesse Eisenberg
Year: 2012
IMDb

My Rating: 4/10

This is my own theory: I personally believe Woody Allen secretly made a contract with EU, to produce films based on popular cities in Europe to promote tourism. Due to his obligation, he has to make these films, good or bad. However, these films need to have public appeal, so there you have all the stars, in Barcelona, Paris, and Rome. Woody Allen himself doesn't really give a shit about his films. It's just for a laugh. Mr. Allen said so himself " I’ve never been satisfied or even pleased with a film that I’ve done." That's why he keeps on doing it...

In fact, I was in Rome few days ago. I know almost all those places in the film. There's comfort in knowing those places, but it doesn't necessarily make me like the film better. If there's another European city series... I am not going to see it.

Moonrise Kingdom

Director: Wes Anderson
Writers: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Stars: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Frances McDormand, and Harvey Keitel
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Year: 2012
IMDB

My Rating: 8/10

Lovely. Few reasons: 1) awesome cast; 2) a sweet love story of between two 12-year-old quirky kids; 3) wes-anderson-style humor; 4) beautifully shot and edited. Wes Anderson is actually getting better and better. Go see it.

推手

導演／編劇：李安
主演：郎雄，王萊，王伯昭
年份：1991 (Taiwan)
IMDB

評分：7/10

李安首部執導的電影，挺不錯。我很能理解這文化上的差異，所以我覺得這事應該不會發生在我的身上。如果真的發生了，我會先拋棄的絕對是中華傳承千年的家庭傳統。時代已經不一樣了，我們或許很快的適應了新的社會模式，謀生方式，這也代表家庭的概念也要改變。但，我們卻還是被這 "孝" 字給纏住。

Solaris

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky,
Writers: Stanislaw Lem (novel)
Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis and Jüri Järvet
Year: 1972 (Soviet Union)
IMDB

My Rating: 11/10

I mean seriously... this is one of the highest cinematic achievement. Definitely much better than any other sci-fi films I've ever seen. Odyssey 2000? Not even close. What makes human human? What makes human inhuman? What makes inhuman human? The thing about Tarkovsky film is that he doesn't just show you a film, he tries to tell the stories of/for all mankind. Perhaps not all mankind (obviously not everyone likes or gets his films), but man of his kind.

The Last Days of Disco

Director/Writer: Whit Stillman
Stars: Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale and Chris Eigeman
Year: 1998
IMDB

My Rating: 7/10

I love disco.

Barcelona

Director/Writer: Whit Stillman
Stars: Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman and Tushka Bergen
Year: 1994
IMDB

My Rating: 7/10

I really enjoy Whit Stillman's trilogy, and the way he approaches film-making. I think he really knows how to make intellectual and entertaining movies. I love how his characters talk and behave. There's something fascinating about modern aristocrats, because frankly there's no such things anymore. I mean there are, people who dress to kill, have money readily to spare on whatever things he/she fancy, talk intellectually interesting stuff, are my ideas of modern aristocrats. It is a way to live, vanity to keep sanity. Oh, I see I mention nothing about the movie...

Zabriskie Point

Director/Writer: Michelangelo Antonioni
Stars: Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin and Paul Fix
Music: Pink Flyod and Jerry Garcia
Year: 1970
IMDB

My Rating: 8/10

A movie about dreamers. I love how Antonioni uses the stark desert landscape, looks incredibly beautiful. Also, the explosions look wonderfully poetic. I would suggest that by blowing up luxury condo and material goods is a way of saying "fuck you" to the right, to the power, to the capitalism. One of Antonioni's most accessible movies, in my opinion. Oh, did I mention the music? killer soundtrack!

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Director: Robert Altman
Writers: Edmund Naughton (novel), Robert Altman, and Brian McKay(screenplay)
Stars: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and Rene Auberjonois
Music: Leonard Cohen
Year: 1971
IMDB

My Rating: 7/10

Robert Altman's take on the wild west. Refreshing. Western is not really my type of genre, but this is a good one. Beautiful, great music, Julie Christie.

The Fire Within

Director: Louis Malle
Writer: Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (novel)
Stars: Maurice Ronet, Léna Skerla, Jeanne Moreau and Yvonne Clech
Music: Erik Satie 
Year: 1963 (France)
IMDB

My Rating: 9.5/10

Based on the same novel as Oslo, August 31, I prefer this version. The impossibility to touch, to love, to understand the very life I'm living in. Suicide is not an option for me, but I understand his agony and devastation very well. We're all struggling to get through life, aren't we?

The Sacrifice (Offret)

Director/Writer: Andrei Tarkovsky
Stars: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood and Allan Edwall
Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
Year: 1986 (Sweden)
IMDB

My Rating: 10/10

Like always, Andrei Tarkovsky's final film leaves me speechless... Erland Josephson, who passed away earlier this year, will always be remembered for his terrific performance in this one, as well as in other films by Ingmar Bergman.

Amores Perros

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Writer: Guillermo Arriaga
Stars: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal and Goya Toledo
Year: 2000 (Mexico)
IMDB

My Rating: 8/10

Love's a bitch. Indeed. Unrequited love... especially.

Before Sunrise, 2012

Seven days in Paris... my life has a whole new chapter.

Dead Poets Society

Director: Peter Weir
Writer: Tom Schulman
Stars: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke
Year:1989
IMDB

My Rating: 8/10

You can say this is a typical school drama, but I like it cuz it's got good some context. Teenage boys, poems, dreams and hopes, carpe diem... Another reason I like it is because the context is quite personal too. I went to private boys school, and have a strict family, I know exactly what Neil went through, but I didn't do anything he does... I didn't pursue my dreams, didn't live to seize the day, didn't make my life extraordinary. Now, the light has faded away. Life tastes tasteless.This tedium I've created, I hate it but have to live with it. God knows, someday someone might light the candle for me.

Metropolitan

Director/Writer: Whit Stillman
Stars: Carolyn Farina, Edward Clements and Chris Eigeman
Year: 1990
IMDB

My Rating: 9/10

It's getting serious, I'm getting incapable of seeing movies. With shit movies, I get bored after 1 or 2 minutes. But, Metropolitan is an exception, because of its talkative nature and extravagant style. There is almost too much conversation in this film, but they are all interesting ones. Nothing bores me more than uninteresting conversations.

Though the conversations are amusing, the story itself isn't. I don't really care though. The movie itself is interesting enough for me to ignore the storyline.

Stalker

Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy
Writers: Arkadiy Strugatskiy & Boris Strugatskiy (novel and screenplay)
Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy and Anatoliy Solonitsyn
Year: 1979 (Soviet Union)
IMDB

My Rating: 10/10

Faith, hope, belief, religion, truth, meaning of life...

My top three directors of all time: Bergman, Tarkovsky, Fellini.

"A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?"

I Am Curious - Yellow

Director/Writer: Vilgot Sjöman
Stars: Lena Nyman, Vilgot Sjöman, Börje Ahlstedt and Martin Luther King
Year: 1967 (Sweden)
IMDB

My Rating: 7/10

I wasn't sure whether I was watching a documentary or a movie. It's bit of both I think, which makes it all the more interesting. That's why even it's not a great film, I still give it credits for trying something different. It's a documentary about social movement and Swedish society at the time, and a film about a girl's life with a mix of reality and fiction.

About social issues, Is a social class system good for our society? Is income a good way to separate social class? How come women still don't have equal job opportunities as men? Can we really defend ourselves with non-violence? Why are these questions still fucking relevant today? Because, we haven't advanced that much I guess. Not even in the Swedish society, though they are already way ahead than most countries, with general gender equality sense and flat social structure, things are still not perfect, male violence just to name one thing.

Ok, I'm not Swedish, and I don't mean to criticize. Quite in contrary, I love living in Sweden. It's just that something don't ever change...

Olso, August 31

Director: Joachim Trier
Writers: Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (novel), Joachim Trier, and Eskil Vogt
Stars: Anders Danielsen Lie, Hans Olav Brenner and Ingrid Olava
Year: 2011 (Norway)
IMDB

My Rating: 8/10

I love Reprise. That's why I was so eager to see this when I found out that Joachim Trier had a new film coming out, but it seems like I never had the luck to see his films in cinema. So, as soon as the DVD came out, I bought it on Amazon.

I love the minimalism and neo-existentialism in this film. For me, it doesn't even feel like I'm watching a film, I feel like I'm watching a "based-on-true-story" movie about me, except that the writers had to skew the facts a little as if to avoid being too personal. What do I get out of this film? Nothing, but it's good to be reminded that people like me still exist somewhere in the trap they made for themselves.

Summer With Monika

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Writer: Per Anders Fogelström
Stars: Harriet Andersson, Lars Ekborg and Dagmar Ebbesen
Year: 1953 (Sweden)
IMDB

My Rating: 8/10

Bergman's early work, and it showcases Harriet Andersson, an innocent and erotic beauty.

I'm going to Stockholm next week for the first time, hoping to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and to see the beautiful archipelago featured in this film.

Weekend

Director/Writer: Andrew Haigh
Stars: Tom Cullen, Chris New and Laura Freeman
Year: 2011 (UK)
IMDB

My Rating: 7.5/10

A love story of the stubborn cynic vs. the idealistic romantic. In my past love affairs, I think I played both roles, or just a cynical romantic, but how is that possible?

Someone wrote "Nothing here feels forced, there is a naturalness about the acting and dialogue, real chemistry between the two leads and a sense of lightness about the filmmaking that yet never feels trivial." And I agree. It's just a very nice indie gay film.

Andrei Rublev

Director:Andrey Tarkovskiy
Writers: Andrey Tarkovskiy, Andrey Konchalovskiy
Stars: Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov and Nikolay Grinko
Year: 1966 (Soviet Union)
IMDB

My Rating: 10/10

No words could describe the emotions I have been going through while watching this...