My cinema: latest celluloid adventures

No country for old men by Ethan and Joel Cohen

Yes, the last Coens' film is an intense, effective and nearly flawless thriller-western. It keeps you glued to the chair with the tension rising while it takes its unexpected twists. But it is much more than that, with its provocative, philosophical, premonitory and nearly mythical approach, encompassing some sort of critic on the American way of life, and of the present American soul. After all this is yet another film that tells in its own way, that something is wrong with America today. And that message is synthesized towards the end, when one of the characters says "You can't stop what's coming."
But is this film really such a masterpiece, one of the best of the Cohen brothers' films, as most of the critics are writing? Or a bit of a disappointment?
Maybe it's a bit of both, I will need more time to think over it. In the meantime the excellent photography and landscapes remain, with some great acting, in particular by Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem, unforgettable in his role of a psychopath assassin. Maybe I sense something wrong with the philosophical statement especially towards the end, maybe it was just the many week points of the script with things that seem a bit forced (okay it's a film and they are following a book...) or because things happen too fast and not necessarily well at the end, when for instance one of the three most important characters just disappears like that. [4/5]

Smiley Face by Gregg Araki

After The Doom generation and Mysterious skin, Araki comes with Smiley Face, portraying a young dull would-be actress who gets stoned by eating her roommate's pot cakes by mistake, which triggers a series of misadventures… It’s not a road movie but some sort of an L.A. streets movie…
This is a big disappointment since I expected something very special from Araki after the two mentioned films. This might be some sort of a social critic of modern-day America and the so-called American-dream, of a whole generation corrupted by drugs and apathy… some scenes are funny and it is never boring, because one wonders… what next? Yet the humour is never excellent and the film really fails to convince. Maybe Araki is just trying to tell that something is wrong, as in the quotation from Stella Adler: “A junkie is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong.”
The soundtrack is however quite good, featuring tracks by the Chemical Brothers, Belgian group Ladytron, Scissor Sisters and also Talking Heads' "Memories Can't Wait," which goes (There's a party in my mind and I hope it never stops…) which underlines Jane’s (main character state of mind. [2.5/5]

Lust, Caution by Ang Lee

The romanticism of Ang Lee’s new erotic espionage thriller could linger in our minds for a while, with its erotic Kama-Sutre style images, yet I think it fails to be the grand epic Lee wished to make. So the film is a bit of a disappointment, and I would expect a bit more from Ang Lee. Yet the film is special and does not fit to ‘mainstream’ standards, served by excellent acting by the two main characters. But it is more about style and less convincing on the content side. Photography is excellent, however, as Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "There is not a frame of the film that is not beautiful, but there may be too many frames.” And the 158 minutes are a bit too long. Lee is a great director and he proves it here, but I think he could do better, much better. [3.5/5]
.