Monthly Archives: joulukuu 2014

Alice in Wonderland (2010) is a movie directed by Tim Burton, one of the most known directors in America. Despite the name the movie isn’t the original movie about little Alice dropping in the rabbit hole. It’s about 19-year-old Alice who finds herself being proposed to all of a sudden. She’s unsure how to respond to the marriage proposal given by her late fathers colleagues son Hamish. All confused she ends up chasing a rabbit wearing a blue waistcoat. While chasing the rabbit Alice drops in to a very large rabbit hole and gets transported to Underland. In Underland Alice meets talking flowers, White Rabbit, Dodo birgd, Tweedledee and Tweedledum which are arguing about if Alice is ”the real Alice”. The real Alices job in Underland is to slay the evil Red Queens Jabberwocky. Alice immediately declines and is accused to really be the wrong Alice. From here on she gets in a wonderful adventure with Mad Hatter, White Queen, blue Catherbilar and lots of others.

In the end Alice realizes she has been in Underworld before when she was little. Then she called the place Wonderland and from then on she had had ”nightmares” which really had been real. From this memory Alice gets courage to battle against Jabberwocky. She slays it and bring clory and grown to the White Queen.

Alice had run from the marriage proposal to think about her future. In the Wonderland she realizes what she wants to do in her life. Alices father had also told the young Alice that only the best best people are crazy. She then realizes that she should follow her  dreams. It’s also a good lesson to anyone who watches the movie.

Alice in Wonderland is a absolutely wonderfully made movie and it’s story is well told. Sad thing is that it is well seen that the movie is made to be 3D. All the special  effects are made so that they come straigt to the viewer and doesn’t look all that good in 2D. The movie is still thrilling and keeps every one in audience exited. This movie is a great pastime and I recommend it to every one interested in fantasy and old but gold stories.

Out of all films by Studio Ghibli, Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro, 2004, Japan) has affacted me the most. Based on an English fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the film is almost a five star experience. It happens to be also the most finacially succesful Japanese film in the history.
The story is about Sophie, an 18-year-old young woman, who consideres herself ugly and mostly unwanted. She is the oldest daughter in her family, so she will inherite the family’s small hat business. Her future looks rather settled.
Yet, the life of the little wallflower is about to change. One day, heading to meet her younger sister Lettie, she encounters a strange and charming stranger, Howl, who is a powerful and commonly feared wizard. Later that night, as she is closing the hat shop, a mysterious woman comes in. Sophie refuses to serve her after closing time but the woman, who turns out to be The Witch of The Waste, curses her.
Now Sophie gets to experience life from a different perspective: she is now trapped in a body of a 90-year-old woman. Not being able to tell anyone about her curse, she leaves her hometown, and ends up wandering in the ”Wastes”, a wasteland up in the mountains. When the sun is setting, she has no place to spend the night. Luckily, a scarecrow, whom Sophie names Turnip-head (I believe you can all guess why), leads her to Howl and his castle.
So far, we’ve already seen two diffirent sides of Sophie: although the curse didn’t affect her personality, the new body gave her a chance to finally be free of her family and their expectations towards her. She is finally free of the anxiety. She doesn’t have to care what others think of her.
Throughout the film, Sophie’s age changes with her mood as she gradually learns to control her curse. The change can happen in one scene; in just a few seconds she can turn from a 30-year-old to a grey-haired granny. The youngest she is when she’s with Howl.
Howl is the diva of all divas. He’s vain and stubborn and a coward. Still he is the most intriguing (and in my opinion the most lovable) character in the whole movie, probably because of the character developement. He grows to love Sophie and at the end he is willing to risk his own life for her.
Calcifer the fire demon, to whom Howl has sold his heart, is the main power source of the castle. At first he seems like a minor character, but in the end, he is the one that saves everyone, with Sophie. He also brings humour to the film.
The last member of this odd family is Markl, the assistant of Holw. He is an adorable little boy, perhaps 12 years old.
It’s very hard to tell the where and when the story is set. The world is filled with magic and early 19th century inventions. And every Miyazaki fan knows the director loves flying and airships, so why wouldn’t there be a ton of them in Howl’s world too? Even the castle flies at the end.
First time I ever saw this film was at the age of 10. At that time I was mainly enchanted by the story and action, and the dream-likeness of the whole film. What I mean is that even the strangests things, such as doors with multiple exists and Sophie’s changing age , feel completely normal. These days I’m even more charmed by the music. The amazing soundtrack is composed by Joe Hisaishi, who has made music and main themes for many Ghibli classics. Secondly, as always in Miyazaki’s films, the scenery is amazingly beautiful and animation good.
One of the best details of the film is the castle itself. Beautifully drawn and build from diffirent-sized pieces of metal and wood, from time to time it seems to have feelings: for example, it gets offended when Sophie says it doesn’t look like a castle at all. Nevertheless, it is still willing to help Sophie in the end and even gets destroyed just so she can see Howl again.
My favourite part is the flashback to Howl’s childhood, to the very moment he sold his heart to Calcifer. The scene is a bit scary, in fact, with all the star-shaped demons firing down from the sky. That is not all, music for this scene is only a simple trumpet solo, and since it’s both a dream and reality at the same time, Sophie’s panic is conveyed to the viewer and the whole atmosphere becomes strangely ominous. The demons are also seen in Mrs Suliman’s court, where they’re used to remove sorcerers’ powers with their grim, sinister singing.
Because the film has some peculiar themes, it can be slightly intangible at first. The main plot is understandable, of course, but some little things (e.g. the story of The Witch of The Waste and Howl) may be hard to grasp But after watching it for the second or third time, the entire story opens and you’ll see its true beauty.
I honestly have almost nothing to criticize (except for Howl being a lil bitch sometimes), most likely because this film is so meaningful for me. Similarly to other Miyazaki’s films, the main themes are friendship, loyalty and love. Even though the war rages on, there are still mothers, fathers, friends, and lovers, who will always try to help and protect you. These are of course extremely used and worn out themes, but I believe that means that they, after all, are valid to everyone at anytime. Therefore I recommend this film to everyone. I had my perconceptions, for this is a Japanese film, but year by year I have learned that everything with Miyazaki’s name on it is worth watching.

The Host is a movie based on the novel written by Twilight’s creator Stephenie Meyer. Instead of vampires there are now some kind of aliens called ’souls’ in the spotlight. The Host is directed by Andrew Niccol and it was published in 2013. In the leading roles act Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Diane Kruger and Jake Abel.
The genre of the movie is both scifi and thrill. The milieu gets a place in the future’s earth. Creatures that capture the mind of their human hosts have invaded the earth and almost every people. There are only a few individuals that have succeeded to escape the souls including Melanie Stryder, the main person of the movie. However, Melanie gets caught by souls which set in Melanie’s body the soul called Wanderer. Usually human’s mind just moves over and fades away from the soul, but Melanie’s mind is strong and it refuses to alienate possession of her mind. Reason for that is Melanie’s love to her little brother and her beloved Jared. Practically, there are now two souls inside one human’s mind. At first it’s quite shock for both of them and they hate each other, but at the end they have become almost like sisters.
As a movie The Host is largely typical science fiction movie, because events get place in future and there’s lot of supernatural things going on in the movie. Moreover there’s features of thriller and it’s also romantic. Relationships of the characters are quite interesting, not only between Melanie and Jared but also between Wanderer and ’full-human’ Ian, who Wanderer falls in love with.
In my opinion The Host is great movie, even if I’m not usually the biggest fan of the scifi or any kind of supernatural movies or TV-series. Despite that the story is interesting, compelling and totally unique. I like the blend of different genres which complement one another. The actors are great and they fit in their characters very well. Especially I like Saoirse Ronan’s quite casual appearance. At some parts of the movie it’s quite hard to understand which one of the minds is speaking. Especially in a dialogue between Wanderer and Melanie you must stay observant. On the other hand that’s just a good think as then you won’t miss any scene.
In summary could be said that even if you don’t like scifimovies, The Host is worth watching.

Django Unchained is a western film directed and written by Quentin Tarantino. Django Unchained is one of the best movies i have ever seen and Quentin Tarantino is one of my favorite director and the movie has won 2 Oscars.  The film was published in USA on 25 December 2014. The lead actor Jamie Foxx’s acting surprised me positively, I didn’t expect too much out of him but he played Django exceptionally good. And the other actors Christopher Waltz, Leonardo Dicaprio, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson were amazing aswell.

The film takes place in the old Texas. It follow Django who teamed up with a German bounty hunter to save his wifre from a cruel plantation owner inn exhange for helping the bounty hunter catch three criminals. Film is very brutal as seen in the first scene where Django shoots a guy in stomach and blood and organs are spilled everywhere. This is very normal to Quentin Tarantino’s movies. The movie is also very hilarious, intriguing, provoking and brutal. The film is also very touching. It really shows how bad the slavery was 150 years ago, the slaves are treated so badly. If they disobey or do a slight thing wrong they might get killed and they are constantly being whipped. It really angers you and makes you feel compassion towards them.

Samuel L. Jackson (Stephen) plays Leonardo Dicaprio’s (Calvin Candie) houseslave. Stephen is kind of an evil slave who is the boss of other slaves that Calvin owns. He makes funny ironic comments which lightens the mood a little bit. Calvin is a ruthless rich white man who doesn’t really feel compassion to anyone and just wants to get richer.

The movie’s soundtrack was brilliant, music brought extra excitement for all the action scene and for the more dramatic scenes. Camera work was also amazing it was great to see the wild west. In overall this movie is a brilliant work of art from Quentin Tarantino

Girl fight is a movie which is inspired by true events, but names has been changed and history of every character is fiction. It’s released in 2011 and from genre it’s full of drama. Girl fight was wrote by Benita Garvin and directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal.

Story is telling about the girl, who’s name is Haley Macklin (Jodelle Ferland). She is successful and hardworking sixteen years old high school student with bright plans for the future. She didn’t have much friends and that irritated her. But suddenly she find herself around with popular senior girls, whose habits and bad influences affected to her. Before Haley get to know those girls, she wrote her opinions of them on internet (she didn’t like them at all then). But when senior girls found out everything what Haley has wrote, they wanted to teach her a bit. And so they did, they beaten her and took that on video, just for fun. That video also ended on internet and spread all over the media. Haley’s parents started demand justice for their daughter in courtroom.

Even this movie is released in 2011, the quality of that isn’t so good and sharp than others movies from that time, but that is just my opinion. Despite that, all the situations were filmed well. Movie does include violence, but those scenes have been given to imagine yourselves mostly, so it didn’t shown violence that much. In that case, this is appropriate for more sensitive viewers too ( but not for little children though ).

For actors I could only say good things, because they did their job more than well. Every character were realistic and they were like from real life. Haley’s dad Ray’s ( James Tupper) behavior was something that I could suppose, if someone’s child changes like Haley did without any expect. He just wanted to pull Haley back to home and keep her there until she behave better. In Haley’s mom Melissa’s (Jodelle Ferland ) case, she shows the other side of parenting. She tried to understand more Haley and be like friend to her. But when girls caused injuries to Haley, Melissa started war in courtroom against them. Her determination was something that I respect.

After seeing this video, I can’t stop thinking about the girl, who was victim in real life for this. After beating, hospital and with all the traumatic memories, there is every kind of media behind you with hundreds of questions. It’s of course important, that people knows what happened in that kind of cases but seldom anyone thinks how media affects to victims and their family. Aren’t they suffered already enough without every hours of day’s attention? With that and other things in Girl fight, it gave me a lot of things that I haven’t before contemplated. Everyone should have seen movie like this and learn about it.

Brothers is a very emotional film directed by Jim Sheridan. The main characters are Tommy, Sam and Grace Cahill. Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a brother of Sam and he just got out of prison after robbing a bank. Sam (Tobey Maguire) tries to help his brother to move on with his life and to forget his past. Their father doesn’t appreciate Tommy because of his life choices. He makes it clear that Sam is better and he thinks Tommy should learn from him. Grace (Natalie Portman) is Sam’s wife. They have a beautiful relationship and two sweet little girls, Isabelle and Maggie. But she is afraid that someday something bad is going to happen because of Sam’s dangerous work. And someday it will.

Sam is a Marine Captain. He has never been injured seriously because of his work, not until something horrible happens. Sam heads for Afghanistan, where his helicopter is shot down. Everyone, including his family think he is dead. Luckily, or in this case i may say unfortunately, he was the other of the two men who stayed alive. They were kept prisoners, tortured and forced to do what the kidnappers wanted. The most horrible scene of the movie was when Sam had to kill his friend, Joe. He was threatened that either he kills Joe, or they will kill him. It made me feel terrible. But so did him. After being rescued he was withdrawn. He just couldn’t be the same man he was before because of what he had to do.

Before the accident Grace had always hated Tommy because of his rude behaviour. However, the sorrow creates feelings between them, when Sam is considered dead. But nothing more happens. Step by step the girls become attached to Tommy. When Sam gets back home, everything has changed. He believes something has happened between Grace and tommy, even though that’s not the truth. After having a professional help because of his traumatic experience he decides to go back to work. Still, his life is different than before.

The film was horrible but at the same time i liked it. By horrible i don’t mean I hated it. It was just violent and showed what kind of life some people have to live. Their life may be a constant struggle of survival in the middle of war. I experienced a lot of feelings. Mostly anger and sadness. I even cried. I was relieved that the most awful scenes weren’t shown, at least not entirely.

The casting I think was perfect. The actors did their job very well and they were just right choices for this film. Considering their looks, the brothers looked a bit same. At times I even pondered if they really are related, but afterwards checking their names I noted they aren’t.

The soundtracks of the movie were chosen well. One of them was for instance United States Navy Hymn. That song really highlighted the theme. Most of the songs were slow and kind of sad. Three of the eight soundtracks were from the albums of U2.

I don’t usually like this kind of movies very much. But in this case it didn’t hold true. So, in conclusion I can say the film was very well executed and worth to watch.

I watched a movie called Sinister which is directed by Scott Derrickson. It is a horror movie starring Ethan Hawke. The movie was released on October 12 2012 in United Stated.

I am not really an aficionado of horror movies but i always end up watching them. Although this movie surprised me positively because it had no jumpscares which i really don’t like. Instead the plot gathered and held on tension all the way through the movie.

The plot was quite simple. Let’s open it a little bit. The film starts by a pretty creepy way. With a one whole family hanging from a tree with ropes around their necks in their backyard. Months later a true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves into that same house with his family to write about the murders. He knows about them but his wife and children does not. But his wife, Tracy will soon find out (like women always do). Oswalt finds a box from the house’s attic containing an old projector and films. He find also some drawings. The drawings and the film are about the same thing. A demonic character called a ”Boogieman” killing people with many different disgusting ways. Oswalt starts to investigated the murders from the film and he will find out that the murders were made in different times and in different states, but there is one thing that’s same in every murder, one child is always missing. Oswalt goes to talk with a local professor whose expertise is the demonic phenomena. The professor find from the murder films some symbol about a pagan Babylonian deity named Bughuul who would kill whole families and then take one of their children. That’s when things start to go totally wrong.

My opinion about the movie is that it is very good horror movie. It does not have a boring hour-long beginning like many other horror movie. It goes straight to action and starts to gather up thrills. Although it has a shady part somewhere in the middle which i had to watch twice to understand what was really going on.

Music in the movie was maybe a bit too simple. But it also raised some goosebumps occasionally. The actors also did a great job casting Sinister, which is also a big plus,because usually horror movies have kinda bad actors.

In summary i really recommend this movie to anyone who likes horror movies. Sinister is very exciting and surprising scary movie with a great plot.

Repulsion was released in 1965. The film was directed by Roman Polanski and the story was written by Roman Polanski and David Stone. Some of the leading actors were Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser and Helen Fraser. It was a mix of drama, horror and thriller.

The movie tells about Carol, a girl that is really beautiful in a classic film star way but highly sensitive. She finds it difficult to deal with things like her sexuality and sex, and attention from men is just too much for her. When her sister and roommate goes away for a trip, she starts losing it.

I thought the film was aesthetically pleasing and edited well, though some scenes were maybe too long for my liking. Black-and-white suited it well and was part of its magic, and I can’t imagine it being half as good if it was a colour film. The language of the film was a bit oldish – most likely because it was after all filmed in the 60s – but it was still easy to understand so that didn’t bother me too much.

The actors were all great, especially Catherine Deneuve as Carol. I kind of identified with Carol, being also a somewhat sensitive person myself. She was also really easy to sympathize. Her sister was also a well written character, offering some contrast since the sisters were like night and day. The relationship between them was great and they cared a lot about each other even though they also fighted a lot and had their differences.

I enjoyed the movie quite a lot, in fact I think it became one of my favourite films. I would recommend it to people who like films that really make you think about things and who don’t have a problem with old films.

source: imdb