Breathless

I think the pace of this movie isn't "breathless" at all. It begins abruptly and takes a while to get going,  Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a character we barely know, drives a stolen car around, talks at the camera, and shoots a police officer who has tried to pull him over. Then he goes to Paris and tries to borrow money from some friends, while the police-shooting plot goes undeveloped. I only became fully engaged with the introduction of Patricia (Jean Seberg), a young American who sells newspapers on the Champs-Elysees. The relationship between Michel and Patricia is the heart of the film, especially a 25-minute-long scene in Patricia's apartment where the characters smoke, flirt, and laze around in bed, though nothing really happens. That's where I really started to admire "Breathless,"

Eventually the police catch onto Michel and launch a manhunt, but this doesn't really ratchet up the suspense. Instead, Michel is aimless and nonchalant about the whole thing—this is not a typical "man on the run" movie. The cool jazz score adds to the hip, laid-back tone.

Since I didn't care for the movie too much until the scenes between Michel and Patricia, I believe a lot of the credit for the film's success has to go to the charismatic performances of Belmondo and Seberg. Belmondo, with a perpetual cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, is the archetypal cocky criminal who models himself after Humphrey Bogart (there's a great scene where he sees some Bogart photos and gets a vulnerable look in his eyes, as though saying "I'll never be as cool as this"). Seberg plays Patricia as a confused girl who is delighted by the attention she gets as an American in France.

It's easy to see why "Breathless" was so influential—the jump cuts, the ragged style perfectly match this story about amoral, aimless youth. Definitely a movie that expanded the range of stories the cinema can tell, and perhaps a major precursor to youth-oriented '60s culture. Nearly fifty years later, it still seems "hip," and still challenges our expectations of how movies should behave.

Old Boy

Old Boy is surprising and savage, but I don’t quite get the ridiculous amounts of love being showered on it. It’s almost as if the film looks better on paper. Director Chan-wook Park’s visual style is interesting, but hardly the explosion of orgasmic artistry it’s being touted as. The homemade Kung-fu fighting is  wire-free, and enjoyable. The story is certainly original and fresh, but also full of holes and inexplicable jumps that require intuitive leaps of logic to catch up. The story’s pieces don’t all fit neatly together, though the character motivations driving it do.

What most sells it is the no-holds barred attitude Park Chan-wook takes to the film. He’s willing to do anything to get your attention. The result is moments like one in which Dea-su devours a live octopus. Chan-wook’s camera lingers on him as the tentacles wriggle and wrap around his mouth, an external symbol of the lead’s tortured madness. The movie’s final dilemma is equally shocking, a razor sharp knife of pain and self-sacrificing loathing into which Oh Dea-su readily flings himself, misery be damned.

In between Oh Dea-su’s escape and the film’s sadistic ending, there’s a bit of a sag in which the movie wanders around with love interests and exposed breasts. But the stomach turning ending makes it easy to forget how goofy the villains sometimes seem and makes that lull in the middle feel shorter than it actually is. I didn’t forget, others did. Perhaps that explains all the international furor. Old Boy is a compelling and ambitious film that journeys into stark territory. Flawed and prone to gaps in logic though most of it may be, it’s worth some attention as a unique endeavor topped off by a punch in the gut, unpredictable ending.

City Of God

I finally saw this movie after hearing a lot of buzz about the film. I can see why it got a lot of attention, because it is a great film for many reasons. The characters develop perfectly as the story unfolds in a non traditional "tarantino" type order of events. The cinematography was so beautiful that I look forward to seeing the film again. On the other hand, the content is extremeley disturbing. Our main characters come from poverty, and live a life of violence, death, drugs and cruelty. One of the most disturbing aspects of this film is that children are becoming gangsters and "hoods" at a young age, hoping to follow the footsteps of the older gangsters. Although this content is so sad and disturbing, I respect the fact that non of it is glamorized.

City of God is one of the most controversial, inspiring and most gorgeous film adaptions in the movie cinema, and is a powerful story of crime and redemption. However, City of God contains very graphic and brutal domestic violence throughout, especially towards children and which some kids whom are resembled to be shooters themselves. Several acts of violence include shooting, sexual assault, torture, stabbing, beatings, and other aggravated acts of crime, mostly depicted from gangs (most involve teens and children). Language is strong and frequent, including explicit references to sex and vulgar dialogue said throughout  and there are several sex scenes which include people having intercourse in an hotel with orgies loudly present, and a disturbing implied rape scene where a man thrusts onto the camera. There's sequences of graphic drug use where children derived from gangs are seen smoking and doing illegal street drugs . City of God is one of the best, most brilliant films out here today, but be aware of the shockingly graphic violent content, pervasive and offensive language, strong sexual content including the infamous rape scene, and drug use in which children are also present doing. Adults only.

Run Lola Run

' Run Lola Run ' by Tom Twyker is the final step for German film-making towards a professionality and technical perfection that used to be Hollywood's alone. 80 mins. of brilliantly shot action will keep the viewer enthralled with the love story of Manni and Lola who have to fight against time: 20 mins. to be exact. It is 11.40 a.m. and Manni who is into smuggling diamonds across Eastern European borders has to turn over 100.000 DM at 12 o'clock sharp to Ronni, a 'gangster' par excellence, who would kill anyone for stealing a bottle of beer from him. Unfortunately, Manni forgot the money in the tram and is now more desperate than ever. He calls the one person who has always taken care of him: the love of his life, Lola. She asks Manni to wait for her as he is going to rob the 100.000 DM from one the shops in town as he knows that turning up at Ronni's without the money would be his immediate death. Lola starts running immediately thinking of a million different ways how to help the man who is the most important person in her life and she runs and runs..... The quality of cuts and camera shots, innovative techniques at the top of modern filming practically unknown to German viewers up to now will hopefully make this film a blockbuster in the cinemas as it fully deserves it.

MEMENTO

I can say that Christopher Nolan, the director, has done a stunning job of telling a story in fragments, giving the audience a sense of how Leonard must feel. He also wrote the screenplay (based on a short story, 'Memento Mori' by Johnathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan's brother; the story is one of the 'Special Features' on the DVD, and worth reading), creating a tight, fascinating plot that hooks the audience in and keeps us guessing. The fragmented technique is one that rarely works...but in Memento, it fosters the atmosphere of a puzzle -- a mystery that we see as an investigator might see. When the movie starts, we know what happens at the end. We have no idea how or why it happened.The purpose of the movie is not for us to solve the murder of the wife. If we leave the theater not sure exactly what happened, that's fair enough. The movie is more like a poignant exercise, in which Leonard's residual code of honor pushes him through a fog of amnesia toward what he feels is his moral duty. The movie doesn't supply the usual payoff of a thriller but it's uncanny in evoking a state of mind. Maybe telling it backward is Nolan's way of forcing us to identify with the hero. Hey, we all just got here. Leonard Shelby is a man who cannot remember. Quite literally -- his brain, due to head trauma Leonard sustained during a break-in in his home, cannot create new memories. His wife is dead, and he is searching, through a system of notes and photographs, for her killer.I can say that Guy Pearce is excellent in this; as good as he was in LA Confidential. He does a fantastic job of keeping the viewer's attention and sympathy all the way through the film; he makes you care about the character. He takes what was a very difficult role and pulls it off beautifully , he portrays the mix of purposeful patience and frantic urgency of a man who desperately needs to remember and will never be able to.I can also say that although this movie can be very confusing at times, it is never distracting or unpleasant. The intensity of the plot and Guy Pearce's well-balanced portrayal keep the viewer's attention, until the powerful ending, and the sense of confusion only heightens the tension and suspicion we feel as the movie progresses.