Category: Movies

Most of the day today I am enjoy the “The Evolution of Rallying – 50 Years Sideways” DVD. This is the best film about rallying that I have seen so far. It is an excellent documentary by Helmut Deimel, which brings everything into one single film – sports, fans, cars, speed, excitement, glory, tragedy, history, innovations, etc.

This movie covers 50 years of rally sport development. There are rare shots, interviews, spectacular moments, crashes, information about cars, drivers, safety, technology, and coverage. It shows how the rally sport evolved from the simple “drive from here to there” kind of thing to an advanced and challanging sporting activity of today.

All rally fans and people interesting in the history of auto and moto sport must see this one. 10 out of 10 and an extra point for the soundtrack. :)

Just came back from the movies. Watching “Van Helsing” this time. This is one of those times when IMDB’s rating is totally screwed. 5.2/10 is completely unfair. I would give it a solid 7/10 or even 8/10. Both Hazard and Olga liked it even more. :)

There are many nice things about this film and very few mildly bad ones. Effects and computer graphics are excellent. There is lots of style. There is lots of action. Soundtrack is excellent, and especially the orchestra that performed it. Somehow I didn’t notice these guys in the first half of the movie, but closer to the end they are getting really enthusiastic. And if all of that was not enough, they even do kill one of the few main characters in the end, so it’s not so happy as it is usually. Additionally, you have this “good guys are going to loose” feeling during most of the movie. :)

The only displacing part for me were those kind of stupid dialogs in the first part of the movie. I stopped noticing them later, but at first they were rather disturbing.

Everything else was very close to perfect. :)

I’ve just watched the “WRC 2003 Showdown” DVD (Hazard’s present for my birthday). It’s an excellent coverage of World Rally Championship’s year 2003. Most of the information presented is widely known by now, but the rally video clips are always a pleasure to look at. Apart from the usual display of cars, spare parts, drivers, team styles, stages, crashes, etc there are 3 (boasted unseen) full stage videos from in-car cameras. Though a bit boring without a soundtrack, they do provide an insight on the driver/co-driver experience during the special stage.

I do recommend to get this DVD for all the rally fans out there – it’s a quality collection of the favourite, atmospheric, and rare moments.

P.S.: Subaru are the greatest ever! :)

Somehow I ended up watching “Heat” on DivX today. It’s a very fine movie and I’ve seen it few times before, but for some reason, the title doesn’t stay in my memory.

The movie has a nice dramatic story underneath, while having a lot of crime action with bank robberies, shootings, fights, and the like. The drama part is very well delivered by Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and a few other well-known actors and actresses. There are few boring and overdone places (like the dialog in the caffee between a cop and a leader of the gang), but overall everything places nice.

There is no way that Hollywood will ever produce a film without happy ending, so there is one here too, but it is as dramatic as it could be. :)

Recomended watch if you didn’t have life for the past 10 years. :)

I’ve just seen “Runaway Jury” in the movies. This is a very nice film with a lot of familiar faces, good acting, interesting plot, and a not bad soundtrack.

This is film is one of the million that are based on or related to some huge case in court. This time it has to do with US gun industry and victims of gun shooting. Chances are as usual that gun industry will win, due to an enourmous amount of money they can spend on their lawyers and information acquisition teams. Good guys are usually week. No exceptions here. It’s just that this time there are two independent groups of good guys, one of them being the lawyer (Dustin Hoffman) and the other – some afferists (John Cusack, Rachel Weisz) who wanted to get back to another lawyer (Gene Hackman) for winning another shoot-them-up case in the past. The whole setup earned them also 15 million bucks, so they were double interested.

There are few interesting points raised in this movie about gun control (obviously), law, justice, money, social engineering, etc. Overall, a film is interesting, entertaining, and rather active with an unavoidable happy end, as usual. :)