Movie reviews

GHOST IN THE SHELL 3D AT IMAX

Watchable. Very good, especially the graphics, but plot-wise made about 20 years and technology-wise made about 10 years too late. Basically, while the original comic books were created in 1989-1990, all their elements have been thoroughly exploited by the movie industry already. Also, the amount of action quells much of the potential for the psychology of Major's identity. On the plus side it's realistically futuristic: holograms and solidgrams, multi-level elevated roads and flyovers (shot on location in Shanghai) instead of flying cars (like in earlier SF) and replacable mechanic body parts. Scarlett Johansson looks good as a Japanese and moves like a cyborg but is a bit on the fat side. All in all good fun, with decent 3D, to be watched on a big screen, clever even, but game-like. The last scene is before the credits.

GUZAARISH (2010)

Watchable. The title petition is for euthanasia - Bollywood way, although quite westernized. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is not my favourite director - the film is relatively short (for Bollywood) but feels lengthy. The court case is good, with a brilliant "magic trick" the petitioner plays on the prosecutor. The rest is well made but the movie's just too slow for my taste.

LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (THE GREAT BEAUTY) (2013)

Recommended. It's more of a series of loosely connected pictures which are all beauty to behold - by Luca Bigazzi, also responsible for the cinematography of later "La Giovinezza" ("Youth") - accompanied by sublime music of two different yet fitting genres: classical and disco/techno interchangeably. A swimming pool scene, an animal scene and a few nudity scenes resemble the later movie too. While the main protagonist claims to have failed to find great beauty, we see it every minute of the movie: the beauty of architecture, clothing, body, nature, mind, emotions and life itself. There's no void in the lives of the upper class - there's beauty in its pure form.