3DD!3

Michael Mann wrote and directed something I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. He showed us precisely the line separating good and evil and the entire movie balances on that thin line. It isn’t clear for a long time who is good. Is anybody? Or is everybody good in their own way? Al Pacino certainly doesn’t come across as a positive hero and the same goes for De Niro. Even so, you find yourself crossing your fingers for them and the ending is incredibly nerve racking. Plus the action and mainly the big shootout is so wonderfully raw that your eyes are glued to the screen. If he manages to pull off something like it with Miami Vice, it’ll be Christmas in the summertime for me.

Puzo's book was once recommended to me by my grandmother and, it completely captivated me. I felt the atmosphere of the family and from the first page it was as though I already knew them all - it felt like they were my own family. Still, I was a little worried about what the movie would end up being like, but Coppola handled the adaptation perfectly. He preserved the atmosphere, honed all the details, and, with amazing precision, made sure to keep the fans of the original happy. Marlon Brando, as Don Vito, made an indelible mark on cinema history, and Al Pacino gave one of the best performances of his career. The Godfather is a legend, and I'm glad I finally got to see it.

"Simon's going to tell Lt. McClane what to do, and Lt. McClane is going to do it." Unlike the first two, Die Hard With a Vengeance isn’t set at Christmas time and, after Los Angeles and Washington, tries its luck in New York. The position of director was taken up again by the tried and tested maker of part one, John McTiernan and, instead of being cooped up in a skyscraper, this time we career around one of the largest cities in the USA. The story harks slightly back to part one, but in a completely different style than to what we were used to in previous Die Hards. Even Willis’ McClane is more like Joe Hallenbeck from The Last Boy Scout. And we also have Sam Jackson, who is excellent as McClane’s involuntary partner. Plus, the original dubbing on the VHS is almost as perfect as the dubbing of the cult Pulp Fiction and wisecracks are reeled out left right and center.

A gem polished by time and the furnace of hell. Sidney Lumet is good at this type of movie and this exhaustive and exhausting depiction of a military prison somewhere in the Libyan desert is one of his best. I’ve seen lots of prison movies, but this one goes one step further than the others. The Hill doesn’t show a prison, but a nightmare. If prisons today were like this, the homeless would think twice about stealing rolls from the supermarket and would choose to eat rats instead. Sean Connery excels, but so do all of the actors. No shortage of dry, British one-liners. A really powerful ending that stays with you even after the end. ...but the army is good for nothing if you don’t follow orders!

Perfect, movie of the year. For the first time in a long time Marty does a comedy, and he can swim in this medium several times better than today’s would-be Kings of Comedy. The Wolf of Wall Street is a new generation Goodfellas, however strange that sentence sounds. A classic rise and fall of one menial swine with the gift of the gab (and a stock trader license), is served in a lively, entertaining form and the three hours in the theater pass by like nothing. Cocaine, hookers, the language of money (fuck, shit, cunt), all entertainingly delivered, also of course due to the involvement of DiCaprio who found himself here in terms of acting after all those years and gives the best performance in his career. Hill is an incredible slob - in a good way. In terms of effects, a little wobbly, partisan cutting, but it’s hard to say if that wasn’t Marty’s intention. Otherwise, the scene with Matthew McConaughey, where the two of the best actors of last year are in the restaurant... A hymn to capitalism is resounding in my heart. Hmhmhm... boom-boom, hmhmhm... boom-boom, hmmmhmmmhmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmhmh... oh yeah. P.S.: Yes, of course they were incredible swines, I condemn what they did and they should rot in the hole till they’re dead, if they robbed the state like that, they’d get the electric chair. But they don’t mind regular people being robbed.