☞☼☜

"Zero Motivation" is funny and candid. However, beside its formal partition into three stories, it feels very much episodic, like a collection of short stories rather than one whole. Sure, the characters thread all the stories and there are evolutions inherited from one story to the next (one of which is very enjoyably Gogolesque, in my opinion), but otherwise they don't cohese into a unit. I say "beside" because there are other films that are also formally partitioned, yet the parts transcend their separation, as it were, like they do in "Pulp Fiction" (to take an example of an extremely good film). This lends to the idea (in my mind, that is) of making this film a tv series, though I'm afraid that it would make it lose its filmish quality completely, and make for just an alright series*. Though this cohesiveness is generally speaking extremely important for a film, I think this lack is of the easier foibles to overcome in film-making, and the only thing in this promising debut film of Talya Lavie that inhibits it from being the kind of a masterpiece film that I am sure she is able to, and hopefully will in the future, make: it's frank and unpretentious; it's funny, its humour spanning a spectrum from parodical slapstick to very subtle witticisms; it's cleverly written; it operates on many layers (or perhaps, contains aesthetics of different kinds?), from its familiar verisimilitude to the Israeli military service, to cinematographic quotes (or what I thought was one); heck, I'd say I even very much appreciated certain choices in regards to casting and makeup. While not in itself a masterpiece, it very much alludes to Lavie's potential to make such, and I very much look forward to see what she comes up with next. Otherwise, it's a very enjoyable film and I highly recommend it. * Frankly I have not watched in my life many series, and those that I like I tend to almost exclusively put into two dichotomic categories: "alright ones", and "extremely amazing eternal masterpieces". Now that I think about it, it seems that the distinguishing factor is whether the episodes create a whole, or rather remain "episodic".

Good. In this film, too, one cas sense the script's origins in a novel; it contains this, if not depth, then complexity that most written-for-the-screen screenplays seem to be devoid of. Acting was not its best aspect (though I do not intend to say it was very bad), but it was often very touching (not in a melodramatic gooey kind of a way) and heartfelt. I recommend. Also, I tried to find subtitles for the ASL parts, and failed. It didn't, however, hurt the watching experience for me.

This film is a great achievement, in my opinion. Go watch it, please!

I really enjoyed this one, "Wild Strawberries". I recommend!

This makes me fear also that the official subtitles (as in, the ones coming with commercial releases) are wrong---- perhaps somebody should take the task to investigate and if it is indeed so, to produce an accurate translation.

I think this is the first Bergman I had watched which actually intrigued me. Go for this one.

I used to think it slightly amusing, that despite the fact that -- quite arbitrarily -- Kundera is the author of whose books I've read the most, I haven't read his schlagers. But now that I read one that seems to be by reputation the "one big hit", I don't think my reading order of his books was anything like "from worse to best". "The Unbearable lightness of Being" is a good and interesting book, for sure, and provides good food for thought (I always find it hard to convey this one specific notion---- I often think of books and movies and media in general, and sometimes about the content of conversations, as "exercises of the mind". Well, some exercises are better (for certain minds) and some are worse. This book provides a good exercise). But I didn't find it to excel over his other books. I write this at a distance of three months from having read that book, but I think I'd remember if it was otherwise. I remember dwelling on the ideas of the book, but I think that Kundera's "La Lenteur" ("Slowness") is a much more remarkable book, and I'd recommend it before I'd recommend "lightness of being", which I almost think became his biggest hit because of the successful title. 

I think this film goes better than those others, precisely because it has a solid story/plot at its center, instead of being a representation of the unfolding of the relationship(ic) forces between a cast of characters.

While watching this film, I changed my mind about it several times, because it tricked me several times. I thought, "this is bullocks!" only to realize I had fallen into a deceit. This is one film I'd really like to discuss with somebody.

Well done again, Tarantino. I highly recommend.

I really liked this one of Bergman. It was funny and entertaining, I can say for sure.

Really.

I liked "Sawdust and Tinsel", it contained some very enjoyable/delighting (so to speak) moments, but overall this movie of Bergman, too, didn't quite penetrate. I'm not even quite sure why. Perhaps it still the resemblance to the theatrical form, which lacks the verisimilitude of more... mature (as in, ripe, not "adult movie" adult) cinema. Theater is fine to convey plot and the actions of characters, but you have to care for them first to care for their actions. When the actions are heroic or great than they take care of themselves, but when the "plot" is intimate than you have to provide the feeling of intimacy, the sense of the private. The similarity to one's own experience of the private. When it lacks then the actions are of out concern. People don't act in private they way they act in the political public realm, but the theatrical form is the quintessential representative form of public action. Surely theater can present and represent the inner world, but there is some sphere of intimate life and events that theater cannot hold, and this film, too, is still very much theater-like.

Bergman's Autumn Sonata is very dramatic, perhaps melodramatic, but it also deals about those things that people tend to become "dramatic" about. Either way it is very theater-like, and while I liked it I don't find it extraordinary.

Good. This is another film I have seen a while back, but I remember finding it somewhat unpolished and not without its foibles, but laudable for trying out (what I see as) new cinematic techniques. But I don't want to make it sound like some "experimental film", which it's not. It's good, funny, interesting, and pertinent (to what? To me, to the current world). I do recommend watching it.

Rather angering (by reflecting the frustrating current world--- though I think the pillars are already shaking. Just let the kids of the 90's to graduate their law schools, ripen as thinkers, and find each other in the world), it deals with important issues. I don't remember exactly what it addresses in the film (it was a little while back), but it sent me to ruminate these issues and I'm thankful for that. Check it out. Download it from the pirate bay, it's probably well seeded.