tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137541602011-05-07T21:24:45.985+02:00My blog! Mine! Mine! All mine!Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.comBlogger711100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-60854575731305933282007-01-07T01:45:00.001+01:002007-01-07T01:46:07.149+01:00

“Clerks 2”: do we really need it? Some say that Kevin Smith vouched to make the sequel if Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay and Silent Bob) ever got off the drugs. Others notice that there’s a streak of selling out all values and squeezing all capital out of the charm his earlier films have and that he made his last really good film back in... was is 2000 or 2001?Anyways, “Clerks” was definitely one of

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1165557002414413322006-12-08T06:47:00.000+01:002006-12-08T06:50:02.430+01:00

Long time no see, eh? Well, I’ve been busy and all. Busy like hell.Well, here’s a book I’ve read recently, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of champions”. I discovered this fella back in high school when I was an SF fan and thought that his “Cat’s cradle” was one of a kind. Amazing thing was, it was a book at the same time apocalyptic and cheerful. That combination was hard to get a hold of back then,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1159808057331185432006-10-02T18:53:00.000+02:002006-10-02T18:54:17.350+02:00

Checked this film on TV the other day, it’s one of those nice things you can see on TV, because it’s too cheap for cinemas, too artistic for video clubs, etc. But really, it’s one of those apparent cases of clever people saying “Let’s make a film on a shoestring budget”.Film is most often advertised for having Steve Buscemi, John Turturro and Samuel Jackson. However, they all play supporting

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1159306757051669632006-09-26T23:38:00.000+02:002006-10-02T16:58:38.223+02:00

We all know about those dirty teenage sex comedies of eighties, many of us grew on them. We know that over nineties, they progressively developed into gross-out comedies, turning the center of attention from sex to physiological processes. We know that as the first of such comedies is usually considered “Animal House”, produced by National Lampoon and directed by John Landis, later known as

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1159094291376028962006-09-24T12:27:00.000+02:002006-09-24T12:38:11.390+02:00

Reading "Master's voice" reminds me why I loved science fiction. In fact, like many science geeks, in high school I was eating and drinking science fiction. Why I stopped being science geek, and why I stopped being science fiction fan?First thing came somewhat naturally, as I enrolled university with lots of applied science, enough to overload greater science fans than I was. Science fiction on

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1157673204570298742006-09-08T01:36:00.000+02:002006-10-02T17:01:16.156+02:00

Recently, someone asked me if I had a copy of "The Professional", recent Serbian film (among many unrelated films of that name). I said that I don't, and barely managed not to add "what do you need that piece of crap for anyway?"... To each their own, this film has ability to hit the weak spot, especially to Serbs, permanently poisoned with politics. To me, a proof that master of one craft is not

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1157548513323759982006-09-06T15:13:00.000+02:002006-09-06T15:15:13.340+02:00

When starting my first blog entry about music, i have to note that I’m writing articles about what's considered classics in rock music these days for my university magazine and that's pretty much draining my inspiration to write about music - thus I was delaying blogging about music even though it's a pretty important part of my life. Hover, things ought to change being that for the sake of

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1155595442228014202006-08-15T00:39:00.000+02:002006-08-15T00:44:02.240+02:00

It’s very hard to guess whether a person is going to like a film, regardless of how good you know that person. I’m often getting recommendations by people, the “it’s just a kind of films you like” and usually realize how much they generalize my taste. Sure, I love high art and philosophy of Tarkovsky, but then, I don’t like Bunuel or Lynch for any kind of “deep-ness” in their films. I like them

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1150494853061579762006-06-16T23:25:00.000+02:002006-06-16T23:54:13.086+02:00

Many people like to write œuotes from books they particularly liked into a notebook. First time I was inclined to start one such notebook and write down a couple of articles was when reading Robert Coover's wonderful novel „Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears?“, it really contained a few memorable paragraphs and quite a bit of emotion that i wouldn't've expected from such

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1150326945185057172006-06-15T01:14:00.000+02:002006-06-15T01:15:45.210+02:00

There are books that are, I strongly believe, pulp literature missplaced into the grand literature. Take "Gone with the wind", the book that owes fame to the fact that a very expensive film is based on it; Some will mistake this book for great literature though it's always been just a love story written for housewives to spend idle afternoons, with a bit of popular history thrown in to make it

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1149548116253244682006-06-06T00:54:00.000+02:002006-06-06T00:55:16.270+02:00

Somewhere along the way of film history, violence, gore and bizarreness has been mistaken for break-through, originality and visionary. Just think of films that are popularly considered landmarks in past few decades: “Reservoir dogs”; “Pulp fiction”; “Lock, stock and two smoking barrels”, “Se7en”, “Fargo”, “Sin city”, “Old boy”, “Fight club”... All primarily oriented to breaking limits in

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1145101442262244742006-04-15T13:40:00.000+02:002006-04-15T13:44:02.276+02:00

John Schlezinger is a man who made a few good films at the beginning of his career and then went on to routine (and sometimes even lower) road of a man who does films because he doesn't know how to do anything else. First of a few films that were good is, of course, "Midnight cowboy", socially engaged, yet artistic and trippy. And generally hailed as masterpiece. It is very dissapointing, looking

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1144365717912236122006-04-07T01:21:00.000+02:002006-04-07T01:21:57.966+02:00

Quite a few films I find as boring as "Voyager", directed by Wolfgang Schlendorf known by his older film "The tin drum", and staring Sam Shepard, drama writer turned screenwriter turned actor. That the film is limping slowly tough the story is not a broblem: I like slow films and I find a lot of dignity in the fact that such films don't rush to occupy viewer's attention every second of it's run,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1144086276112974672006-04-03T19:41:00.000+02:002006-04-03T19:47:36.206+02:00

I realised that I'm not a big fan of classic Hollywood; not that dramatic approach of 40ies where heroine falls on her knees while dramatic violin music screechs on the soundtrack. Lars Fon Trier notices in his infamous "Dogme" manifest that directors often use music to pump up otherwise empty, context-less, emotion-less scenes, to cover up for his and actresses unability to evoke something out

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1143998089582366102006-04-02T19:13:00.000+02:002006-04-02T19:14:49.606+02:00

Now it's time to write about Jim Jarmush, who might be American director with the most consistently good films. Lately, he's being cheered for his latest Cannes jury award for "Broken flowers", but I'll return to his perhaps the most reckognizable, "Night on earth", also known as "that film with five taxy drivers in five cities".Jarmush, like his colleagues Kubrick, Woody Allen or Wenders, is a

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1142400328476975392006-03-15T06:24:00.000+01:002006-03-15T06:46:13.856+01:00

To understand David Lynch. People are always trying to understand David Lynch but the fact is, to get that essential intention of his, the line that draws through all his films, you don’t really have to understand him. The simple thing is, Lynch is a successor of a honorable tradition of filmmakers who were fascinated by dreams and trying to reconstruct that feeling of wonder and irrational

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1134750269609719962005-12-16T17:23:00.000+01:002005-12-16T17:24:29.633+01:00

Cameron Crowe went from the underrated director of “Jerry Maguire” whose contribution to this film was undeservedly overshadowed by one of the star, Tom Cruise – to the director whose name stands for quality. Not always deserved, though. I liked meticulous sense of detail in “Jerry Maguire”; it’s the first film to have a character hit a lantern hanging from the low ceiling with his head; this

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1133570063786933522005-12-03T01:32:00.000+01:002005-12-03T01:34:23.803+01:00

Brian de Palma is particularly clever director. He had to be: with his plotting style and some directing techniques, he indirectly proclaimed himself Hitchcock’s successor and Hitchcock was clever as well; in later years, with string of biting comedies and gangster films, De Palma managed to build the image of a director with various interests. His name, though, remains mostly related to

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1132005740207393972005-11-14T23:01:00.000+01:002005-11-14T23:02:20.236+01:00

D you want to know who is the director that I consider the greatest of them all? It’s Russian genius Andrei Tarkovsky. Died too soon, in his 54, he left seven films (not counting one early short); Seven films, seven masterpieces whose every scene is crafter with such attention, such detail and such regard to the surrounding scenes and the entire film, that you could spend days on watching each of

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1131709609516743982005-11-11T12:45:00.000+01:002005-11-11T12:46:49.540+01:00

“Fight Club” was bound to be very popular and cult film. Because it pets macho, I suppose every male has at least a little bit of it left in him; Because it has a cool pose; Because it’s morbid; And because it shoots in many targets and if a viewer doesn’t step back and look at the big picture of it, he might think that it aimed in his target in the first place. First time I saw it, I was

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1130694761718746572005-10-30T18:51:00.000+01:002005-10-30T18:52:41.736+01:00

Some would say that Oscar for best foreign film for "Belle Epoque" marked the final revival of Spanish cinematography. Some will say that the revival happened much before and that Fernando Trueba just stole an Oscar from Almodovar, by offering well known Almodovar's vision in a tamed version, easier for consumption. However, revival of Spanish cinematography is a nice thing either way, it's just

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1130473779622772322005-10-28T06:28:00.000+02:002005-10-28T06:29:39.646+02:00

I’m gaining an ever-growing irritation with exploitation of sex covered by the mask of "art films" that's been going on in French cinema for some time now. "foreign film" or "art film" was, in USA video-stores always an euphemism for pornography. Long ago, this was for very different reasons: USA cinematography was burdened by ???'s code that was limiting display of sex, up to a ridiculous

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1128951313939024142005-10-10T15:32:00.000+02:002005-10-30T18:55:29.756+01:00

As far as laughter goes, this one is average film parody, not unfunny like “Spy hard” or “Scary movie”, but not in range of “Top secret” or “Blazing saddles” either. Well, all parodies are essentially hit and miss, ever since “Airplane”, the system is to cramp jokes, as many as you can think of in as little space as possible, and hope that some of them will work. In worst cases, all jokes are a

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1128466089615967092005-10-05T00:47:00.000+02:002005-10-05T00:48:09.626+02:00

As far as my counting goes, "Johnny English" is row Atkinson’s second attempt in major lead role. before that, he was seen in numerous small roles ("Hot shots II"), cameos ("Four weddings and a funeral") and one larger role in failed "Rat race". He is, of course, popular TV comedian and, strangely, his work I liked the best was in low-key police sitcom "Thin blue line". Whatever he does, that's

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1127730240080393992005-09-26T12:23:00.000+02:002005-09-26T12:24:00.090+02:00

Some say that the only criteria by which you ought to judge a comedy is whether it makes you laugh or not. On a subjective level where you pick films for your home DVD collection, I guess you have to account which comedy is funny to you, but there is so many different senses of humor, that we would be inclined to value some shallow gross-out comedy that gets it’s laughs by throwing feces at us or

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1127267729429297822005-09-21T03:52:00.000+02:002005-09-21T03:55:29.450+02:00

Though he didn't make a whole lot of films, it is hard to say which is Jean-Pierre Jeunet's best film: both of his masterpieces "Amelie Poulain" and "The City of lost children" have a positive, eccentric weirdness, unlimited originality, richness with ideas that could fill up several average films, in short, an unique sensibility; but they're two different, incomparable words: "Amelie" cheerful,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1126788589893766212005-09-15T14:49:00.000+02:002005-09-15T14:49:49.906+02:00

The way I figure it, I don't have to love something to respect it. After all, am a subjective human and just because something is good, significant, influential, doesn't mean it appeals to my taste. There's a lot of undoubtedly great work of art that I don't like very much: 19 century Russian writers, Virginia Wolf, Rauschenberg, most of Orson Wells, Fazbinder; I admit that I don't understand

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1126651362586878732005-09-14T00:23:00.000+02:002005-09-15T01:21:14.173+02:00

Those who followed my wade into webcomic reviewing know that this is the last comic in my queue. Being that the queue was formed by application, and noone else applied, I don't have any more particular reviews in mind. However, everyone can still apply for a review here. But before you do, please make sure to read previous reviews so that you know what you're getting into. So that there's no

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1126650185297954962005-09-14T00:22:00.000+02:002005-09-14T00:51:07.103+02:00

There is a notion that director Mike Newel and his often collaborator screenwriter Richard Curtis single-handedly ruined reputation of British cinema; Not far from true, today, British film is most known for such romantic comedies like “Bridget Jones diary”, films relying on hope that dry British accent sounds funny to Americans, more than on actual humor. Though Great Britain was home to David

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1126477473042048682005-09-12T00:21:00.000+02:002005-09-12T00:24:33.056+02:00

Well, when you see all those beautifully drawn comics, slick to perfection but with desperately empty, cliché story - I guess everyone, once in a while, wishes to make a comic that looks so bad, with lined paper in the background, with uneven lettering and with art on level of stickfigure - if nothing, just to spite all those beautifully drawn exercises. But it's a gimmick, really. It's something

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1126217615399624232005-09-09T00:13:00.000+02:002005-09-09T00:15:08.050+02:00

You may say that "Deliverance" was a "surprise hit" for me. I never expected that a film about four city guys, going on a paddling trip in wilderness and then being abused in the forest by a couple of highlanders, finally having to fight for their own lives - would be much to my liking. The way I see it, it could've been a Rambo-style action (if the accent was on survivalism) or a low-budget

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1126134544118074522005-09-08T01:06:00.000+02:002005-09-08T01:09:04.136+02:00

This a kind of book everyone has to have in their house; Kafka is, no doubt, one of the most influential, intriguing and exciting figures of literature. Czech writer who wrote in German (to be exact, citizen of Austro-Hungarian empire), insurance clerk, passionate observer of early, silent cinema, Jew, citizen of Austro-Hungarian empire in time of rising anti-Semitism, Kafka inhabited dark

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1125771989473899972005-09-03T20:25:00.000+02:002005-09-03T20:26:29.496+02:00

Oh, god, what has happened to the comedian trade? The title that was once worn by such enormous talents the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, by nearly choreographed tandems of Marx brothers or Abbot and Costello, by wonderfully nut Gene Wilder or weird to the point of scary Marty Feldman, is now worn by Jim Carrey! Jim Carrey jumps into your face and yells "Laugh, dammit,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1125705938044752132005-09-03T01:52:00.000+02:002005-09-08T03:57:19.986+02:00

I have my doubts toward horror comics, even with “Hellblazer” and “Sandman” on one side of the ocean, and “Dylan Dog” and “Martin Mystery” on the other side, I still think that comics lack the element of surprise that horror needs. They also lack sound that is important for horror. Also, while exchanging of viewpoints of the stalker and the victim is very important element in film horrors, comic

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1125569690912454972005-09-01T12:14:00.000+02:002005-09-01T12:14:50.923+02:00

I used to not give a heck for which actors play in a movie. I'm not a fanboy type, not really; I don't desire to meet Thom Yorke or Nick Cave and I definitely wouldn't struggle through a crowd just to get their autograph or something. They are just people, although more talented and skilled - but then there are talented and skilled people all around us, but we don't make a fuss out of it because

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1125484830566544152005-08-31T12:38:00.000+02:002005-08-31T12:40:30.576+02:00

You know, there’s that thin, vibrating line where something bad actually becomes good. There are bad films, and then there are so bad things that you just have to laugh at clumsiness with which they were made. And then there are films that are so bad that you can’t really say whether they were meant as a parody or not. Take “Signs”, for example, a film notorious for having aliens who can be

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1125363913386693852005-08-30T02:45:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:02:25.136+02:00

I think that, no matter how cruel it is, I should start with the worst mistake that “Herodoll” the comic makes (will be easier later). Well, the mistake is this: it starts with a story interesting, intriguing, with a lots of original touches, well-told even – and then it turns to some other story, keeps talking about it and returns to the interesting one only sparingly. To explain, I offer you

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1125006293540057932005-08-25T23:26:00.000+02:002005-08-25T23:44:53.553+02:00

Well, previous blog has reminded me of "lost skeleton of cadavra" which reminded me that I’ve seen this cute film only once. So I took it and watched it again. There has been a renaissance of old 40ies and 50ies SF/horror. Time gap has made us perceive these naive campy films with affection. Sure, one of catalysts of the renaissance was Tim Burton’s "Ed Wood", biopic of officially the worst

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1124920199878648782005-08-24T23:48:00.000+02:002005-08-24T23:49:59.893+02:00

Here’s an interesting question: what separates parody from an ordinary comedy? You can try to simplify it and say that parody has to parody something, some conventional genre or even a particular film. But there's more than that, what's the difference between parody parodying a genre and a comedy belonging to that genre? They both use conventions of the genre, they both put a comic twist on them

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1124803512274006452005-08-23T15:24:00.000+02:002005-08-23T15:25:12.280+02:00

“Segundo viaje” isn’t exactly an official collection of Julio Cortazar’s stories, but it’s a book as it reached to me through a Serbian publisher, “Rec I misao”. This book contains selected short stories published in various books of his from 1951 to 1983. Selection included stories with elements of fantasy, but with ground deep in reality. The book was my first serious encounter with Cortazar,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1124746834770467742005-08-22T23:17:00.000+02:002005-08-22T23:40:34.783+02:00

Terry Gilliam is one of directors whose artistic goal is mainly bringing us imaginative, stylish visuals; his main tool is imagination; that's why he's often put in the same group with Tim Burton, Coen brothers, even Joe Dante. Not unrelated, these directors have often been accused that their films are all style and no substance - they often get too overwhelmed with their imagination which is,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1124542966336097272005-08-20T14:53:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:02:58.136+02:00

I promised a review to superfightfight birdie too. Sff was a short read even though over a year of three-weekly updates; the reason is, i was able to slide over a comic without stopping to think about it; dialogues are usually short, repetitive, and a comic can be grasped in a second. One interesting kind of webcomics is the one where creator makes a small universum with limited population and

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1123721506546603132005-08-11T02:50:00.000+02:002005-08-11T02:51:46.556+02:00

There’s a scene with an airplane, we think that we saw something, a sort of a bird running into an engine. Our fears are confirmed when a plate starts tumbling around, as if caught by the storm. We see a loose screw on a steel panel on the plane. Screw finally falls out and we follow it’s long fall from a great height on which an airplane was flying, finally through the chimney and through

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1123519851679813112005-08-08T18:40:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:06:20.283+02:00

It took me more time than I expected to review Keon Brown’s “Angry D. Monkey”. Partly, because ADM is a tricky case, it verges on the thin line between not taking yourself seriously and not having anything to take serious. So it took me some time to figure out to which side ADM is closer. Besides, my review of “Reckless youth” seemed confusing to people, so I didn’t want to make same mistake and

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122787431274428572005-07-31T07:22:00.000+02:002005-07-31T07:23:51.286+02:00

Returning to old, very old, practically ancient films, often has a historical value; We are interested to see first stop-motion effects in “The lost world” or “King Kong” and we are surprised at how much is achieved with such technology, but such effects don’t cause the effect that they did then – the effect that was the purpose of making it, actually; These films aren’t thrilling, they don’t

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122603715099100492005-07-29T04:19:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:04:22.076+02:00

Hah. This one is gonna be easy to read, it has around ten pages so far. Which actually makes it hard to review, I think that most of reviewers wouldn’t accept it for reviewing, but then again, I am not a reviewer. It is a secret to me how writer, Netpoet, manages to find very good artists to work with him, when noone on the entire net doesn’t seem to manage it. In any case, I know that he has

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122603514906156812005-07-29T04:12:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:04:37.813+02:00

There should be a genre called “random". This genre, specific for webcomics, would include comics based as humor, but with little regard of actual humor – rather, expecting that random, irrational, anarchistic happenings would be a cause for laughing. This genre, very wide, would include comics that start with “I’m bored, let’s start a webcomic”, “talking heads” comics with two characters copy/

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122427308887635112005-07-27T03:20:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:04:52.630+02:00

Ok now, “Legostar Galactica” has a giant archive, daily updates since 2002. Luckily, you get the right impression of the comic right after first several comics. So you know whether to go on or to quit, unless you want to review it so you have to read all ;) But honestly, I had to skip chinks of archives on occasions because I wanted to do this review soon and because I want to save some read

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122426896006933572005-07-27T03:09:00.000+02:002005-09-08T04:05:08.986+02:00

Some friends asked me to review their comics here, knowing that I write long and labored reviews. As I started with it, I wasn’t sure whether to post those reviews on blog or to leave it on forum. The thing is, on blog, these reviews come out of content, after a long string of glorifying film texts, reviews where I chop these comics into bits come… well, I think that the overall impression that

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122340046010614872005-07-26T03:04:00.000+02:002005-07-26T03:07:26.020+02:00

Banner for "Oh! You pretty things" is requested. Here:Will do for now, I'll make larger ones too, but I think this one is the only one needed.

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1122081541174407102005-07-23T03:16:00.000+02:002005-07-23T03:19:01.186+02:00

In my eyes, Roman Polanski, Polish director residing and working all over the western world due to various circumstances, is the man. Him films are consistently good, in various genres and moods, and he worked in at least four different film industries (Polish, British, Hollywood and French) adjusting very well and with success to each of them. Polanski started as s wunderkind,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1121989640356893042005-07-22T01:46:00.000+02:002005-07-22T01:47:20.366+02:00

Buh? Franz Kafka involved in a conspiration-theory plot, partly in black-white, partly in colour? So then I guess that putting his objects of affection out of context and logic is not a new thing to Steven Sodebergh, he’s been doing it since the beginning. Yes, I dedicate my first negative text to Steven Sodebergh. This guy started his directorial career with “Sex, lies and

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1121295321273577622005-07-14T00:54:00.000+02:002005-07-14T00:55:21.286+02:00

"No one can retell the plot of a Cortázar story; each one consists of determined words in a determined order. If we try to summarize them, we realize that something precious has been lost."Jorge Luis Borges It’s not really a book that I'm going to talk about – well, to be exact, among various compilations of Julio Cortazar’s short stories, some have been named “Apocalypse in

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1121216321033020162005-07-13T02:56:00.000+02:002005-07-13T02:58:41.046+02:00

A difference between madman and a genius is very small, they say. But I don’t think that’s much of a problem. But the difference between genius and a merely talented eccentric person is sometimes even smaller. Take, for instance, the example of Danish director Lars von Trier: Career of this filmmaker culminated in 1991’s “Europa” (aka. “Zentropa”) that gained him world recognition -

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120865418961558442005-07-09T01:29:00.000+02:002005-07-09T03:42:38.550+02:00

Ok, there are bad directors, there are good directors, there are bad directors who sometimes manage to hit the good film like blind chicken hits the grain, and there are good directors who get involved in Hollywood-style system so much, that they don’t get enough creative freedom so produce something that’s not mediocre; And then there is a very frustrating case of John Carpenter,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120775054362293112005-07-08T00:22:00.000+02:002005-07-08T00:24:41.010+02:00

My entire aesthetic evaluation scale might just be based on a single story by Italo Calvino, a story that I’ve never even read. But the outlines of the story are known to me: A poet is spending his days on a tropical island far away; On said island, he finds two contrasting kinds of imagery, side by side: beauty of the tropical nature, ocean, landscapes on one side, poverty, hunger,

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120701541330935762005-07-07T03:57:00.000+02:002005-07-07T03:59:01.343+02:00

It’s sometimes awfully difficult to grasp ideas in films of Stanley Kubrick, and impossible to talk about them (which is, I suppose, why make movies about them instead of just telling them, eh?). I was intending to get the first peak at his work with his early, relatively simple film, “Lolita” (first film in which he had complete creative freedom). However, today I got an itch to

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120597500122448952005-07-05T23:03:00.000+02:002005-07-13T03:11:00.026+02:00

Shooting the entire film in one shot, that’s, well, I guess a challenge that many directors were intrigued by at one point. Or not, maybe, but after Aleksandr Sokurov made sensation in 2002 with his “Russian Ark”, complex work made entirely in one take 90 minutes long and unedited, many probably got caught by this concept. Particularly, “Russian Ark” is a walk through

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120398335547262602005-07-03T15:44:00.000+02:002005-07-04T12:11:45.370+02:00

A single word with which you can describe Woody Allen: intelligent. Everything else, including his sense of humor, erudition, knowing of film language, comes from his indisputable intelligence. His was one of the most brilliant, most prolific and consistent career in American filmmaking, he manages to make almost two films a year, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but never bad and

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120349240078787872005-07-03T01:53:00.000+02:002005-07-03T02:07:20.090+02:00

Nicholas Ray, old master of Hollywood cinema, was taken for granted for a long time. Little did people see anything rebellious in his films, even though they were inhabited by deeply unadjusted and inadequate people – and even though his greatest commercial success was named “Rebel without a cause”. People failed to see the end of the movie as fitting the characters into the norms of

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120262903897217072005-07-02T02:07:00.000+02:002005-07-02T02:08:23.913+02:00

Why am I talking about “Butterfly effect” now? Well, apart from that it is a good movie. Perhaps I want it to represent current good movies, and even more so, made in the middle of Hollywood. Despite some interesting Hollywood manners. Ok, now, the other day, my friend commented how there’s very little films with fresh, original ideas made, and how he mostly likes films

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1120001791753888342005-06-29T01:34:00.000+02:002005-06-29T01:36:31.763+02:00

To add a bit of variosity, I’ll talk about one book. Heinrich Boll’s “The clown”, or in more literal translations, “Thoughts of one clown”. It is a damn good book. Formally, a story is placed in no more than couple of hours during which the main character, a heavily-drinking clown is trying to set some of his financial problems straight. A lot of flashbacks (pardon – in movies and comics it is

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119634862050187972005-06-24T19:40:00.000+02:002005-06-24T19:41:02.060+02:00

Several years ago, I was sitting with my friend after watching a film in cinema, arguing about some huge artistic subjects. Basically, he was claiming that film should be a product of one person, director, result of his personal vision as much as the novel is a product of one writer, or a musical piece of one composer; Even though there are many people involved in making a film, they

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119550257442362542005-06-23T20:08:00.000+02:002005-06-23T20:10:57.453+02:00

20th century turned the ideal of artists as tortured souls who die a young age upside down. Nowadays, artists end up as old men, not prepared for dying because they still have so much to say and to many ideas. I recall of the picture taken late in Matisse’s life, where he is too week to stand up, but he attaches brush on a stick to that he could paint on the wall while laying in bed.

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119476999392711242005-06-22T23:48:00.000+02:002005-06-22T23:49:59.406+02:00

Two omnibuses of the name “Ten minutes older” were assembled from short movies by such respectable directors that I keep wondering how producers ever managed to get them all on the project. There are some of the greatest living director’s names on the list, and from all around USA and Europe (only one Asian, though).The task was simple: make a movie, no longer than ten minutes, with the theme of

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119337197973825492005-06-21T08:58:00.000+02:002005-06-21T08:59:57.986+02:00

Wayne Wong, Hong-Kong-born, USA-educated, is the director you have to pay attention to. He made films in switching between indepedent USA production and Hong Kong (being just one of exponents of Hong Kong cinematography – a cinematography that, not so long ago, gave Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan, half-dancers, half-warriors, now brings up some of the most interesting film authors, such is

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119281165167306122005-06-20T17:24:00.000+02:002005-06-20T17:26:05.176+02:00

Eh, eh, after hearing the name of this film, many people asked me whether it’s porn. It’s not porn, it barely has any sexual content, and yet it’s one of the weirdest and kinkiest films I’ve seen. But Jan Svankmajer seems to be a very weird man anyway. He is Czech stop-motion animator who dedicated his stop-motion skills to bringing to life grim world of man’s deeply hidden fantasies

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119190510490441822005-06-19T16:02:00.000+02:002005-06-24T19:43:04.226+02:00

A biography book of Krzysztof Kieslowski, great Polish director, is sitting on my table for months now (well, it’s actually a chronological collection of interviews). It’s cooking up for the right time to read it. Anyway, a fair warning: Later in this text, I couldn’t help but retelling the entire film in details. This might ruin watching the movie to someone who intends to see it soon, specially

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119135652953508732005-06-19T00:59:00.000+02:002005-06-24T19:42:54.033+02:00

I get a kick out of recognizing films that I watched as a kid and then later forgot about them. Well, not actually forgot – I spent a lot of time as a kid, sitting near TV-set. I glanced a lot of movies passing by and some of very impressive sequences carved into my brain. I get a kick out of recognizing such scenes.Some of those scenes were really terrible. I can recall a horror movie where a

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119106266602014942005-06-18T16:48:00.000+02:002005-06-24T19:48:44.723+02:00

I don’t like musicals very much. Not the old golden age ones, I never knew how to enjoy in long sequences of Gene Kelly or Fred Astair displaying their dancing skills. I enjoyed some Boliwood musicals (and in Boliwood, every movie is a musical) but more for the awkward and campy fun of their music, coreography and moviemaking altogether. I dig older Disney animated movies, even those with a lot

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13754160.post-1119047255414733602005-06-18T00:23:00.000+02:002005-06-18T00:27:35.420+02:00

Hello and welcome. I am Srdjan Achimovich, Serbian, EECS student, webcomic artist and I’m led to believe that I’m a nice guy. Either that or they’ve been lying to me all this time. From now on, I’m going to use this blog to write about various things, movies, music, books, the least of all comics. That’s because I am writing about comics elsewhere, but I don’t really think that my competence

Srdjanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684639273021876672noreply@blogger.com0