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Mission London (2010)
Bold attempt at making a commercially successful movie
This is the first Bulgarian movie that has done everything professionally - the producing, the marketing and advertising, the vision and sound of the film etc. The commercial success of Mission London is of great importance because if there is profit - more companies will be attracted to invest in Bulgarian cinema. Therefore I really hope the movie gets a good revenue and for now it seems like it would succeed in this mission due to the record breaking audience that it attracted during it's first week. Thanks to a very good advertising campaign and extensive media coverage everybody in Bulgaria is talking about Mission London.
So everything involving the organization and the promoting of the movie was executed fantastically. However the movie itself in my opinion fails to live up to the expectations set by the trailers. Some of the acting is poor due to the casting. The screenplay is too chaotic and the directing only amplifies this feeling. In a few words I could describe Mission London as a mediocre attempt at reinterpretating Guy Ritchie's modern British style cinema of the previous decade (Snatch, Lock stock and two smoking barrels) and mixing it with some typical Bulgarian absurdness. Sadly though the result is neither as intense, complicated and funny as Ritchie's nor is it thoroughly exploring the absurd Bulgarian characters and modern politics. It's a movie that tried to imitate and be original at the same time and unfortunately it didn't succeed at both. Another problem is that Guy Ritchie's style has passed it's time and is already too exploited and Mission London doesn't bring anything new to it. On the contrary the director even picked Alan Ford to play a similar character as he did in Snatch.
In the end I would like to say that i'm hoping Bulgarian cinema will attract more sponsors and the producers will try to make movies at a bigger scale. Mission London is the first bold attempt and it's a good start. For those who are really interested in modern Bulgarian cinema I really want to recommend them watching "Zift", "The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner" or "Eastern Plays"! New films from young directors that really impress and show that there is a lot of talent here that just needs to be given the chance to work. Because even though the three movies I mentioned were done with very low budgets the results are really fascinating!
Cloverfield (2008)
Great idea but not such a great execution
I just got home after watching the movie and I was probably the only one in the theater that liked it. The idea of shooting the whole movie from the eyes of ordinary people and their cam is just great. The best example is of course "The Blair witch project".
The movie is full of tension, suspense, great action, great sounds and the view of the ruined Manhattan is very convincing! The atmosphere is recreated so realistically, that you can almost feel yourself involved in the action. This movie is definitely one that you MUST see at the theater, at your home I'm sure you'll miss the whole action and thrill.
So that is for the good stuff - now let me tell about it's weak sides. First is the emotions and human relationships involved - they were so fake and so full of clichés, that there were some people laughing in the cinema. I know it's hard to enact true human emotions and feelings through the eye of a home camera, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible and definitely doesn't mean that director Matt Reeves should just place them there full of clichés and so fake and boring! The second serious fault is the monster - when will they learn that even the best computer made monster isn't even 1% as scary as our imagination, and believe me the monster is very well executed, but that is still not good enough, I would prefer it if it was left for me, to torture my imagination what king of thing is attacking them!
So to sum up - I liked the movie but at the same time I felt it could've been done better! JJ Abrahms has come up with great idea and approach of making the movie, but director Matt Reeves was not equal to the challenge!
No Reservations (2007)
A parade of clichés
I'm really not going to waste my time with in depth analysis, i'm just going to say that i'm extremely disappointed that Catherine Zeta-Jones made the mistake of being in the main role in this absurd, nonsense, in this full of clichés boring to death thoughtless pathetic try in film-making! There is no point in trying to find the positive sides of this movie, because as a whole it is poor in every single way, and the saddest thing is that Zeta-Jones is dragged so uncompromisingly into the clichés, that she has absolutely no chance of showing even 1% of her talent!
Avoid this movie even at the opportunity of spending the night at home starring at the wall!!!