The Weather Man

Yet again another very long break from movies. But this time I’ve got a backlog of good films (read: highly recommended by people, who’s opinions I respect) to watch. So, I started off with “The Weather Man“.

Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Genres: Comedy, Drama
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Gemmenne de la Peña, Nicholas Hoult, Michael Rispoli, Gil Bellows, Judith McConnell, Chris Marrs, Dina Facklis, DeAnna N.J. Brooks, Sia A. Moody, Guy Van Swearingen, Alejandro Pina, Jackson Bubala
IMDB raintg: 7.2
My rating: 8.0 [rate 8.0]

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Back to the Future Part III

Movies! I love movies! I got home from the cinema just in time to see “Back to the Future Part III” on TV.

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Western
Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson, Elisabeth Shue, James Tolkan, Matt Clark, Dub Taylor, Harry Carey Jr., Pat Buttram, Christopher Wynne, Sean Gregory Sullivan, Mike Watson, Marc McClure
IMDB raintg: 6.7
My rating: 4 out of 5

This part is slightly weaker than the first two. While the first two parts were dealing more with the future, which is always more interesting to watch, this one was about the westernish past. And as much as I appreciate a joke or two about the old stuff, I still prefer my time travelling movies to deal with the future.

Nice film none-the-less and fits the series exactly as it should.

The Legend of Zorro

There are some films that I just can’t miss – I have to see them and I have to see them on the big screen. “The Legend of Zorro” is one of them.

Directed by: Martin Campbell
Genres: Action, Adventure, Western
Cast: Alberto Reyes, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Gustavo Sanchez-Parra, Adrian Alonso, Nick Chinlund, Giovanna Zacarías, Carlos Cobos, Antonio Banderas, Michael Emerson, Shuler Hensley, Pedro Armendáriz Jr., Mary Crosby, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mauricio Bonet, Fernando Becerril
IMDB raintg: 5.7
My rating: 7.0 [rate 7.0]

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Back to the Future Part II

The television is getting better. Apparently they decided to show the complete trilogy – one part every day. Today they showed the second part – “Back to the Future Part II“.

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue, James Tolkan, Jeffrey Weissman, Casey Siemaszko, Billy Zane, J.J. Cohen, Charles Fleischer, E. Casanova Evans, Jay Koch, Charles Gherardi, Ricky Dean Logan
IMDB raintg: 7.0
My rating: 4 out of 5

This part is somewhat weaker than the first film, but it’s worth seeing anyway. Some of the ideas for the future were really cool – others sucked completely. 15 years later it’s easy to say though.

The atmosphere of the film follows the first part very closely and that’s what counts, isn’t it?

Strongly recommended too.

Primer

Working down the list of movies to see, I can across “Primer“. Again, I don’t remember the reason I added it to the list, but I can think of a couple…

Directed by: Shane Carruth
Genres: Drama, Thriller, Sci-Fi
Cast: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya, Carrie Crawford, Jay Butler, John Carruth, Juan Tapia, Ashley Warren, Samantha Thomson, Chip Carruth, Delaney Price, Jack Pyland, Keith Bradshaw, Ashok Upadhyaya
IMDB raintg: 6.6
My rating: 6.5 [rate 6.5]

There is something magical about $7,000 USD. I guess this is exactly how much money you need to have to make a good movie. Robert Rodriguez proved it some time ago with his “El Mariachi”. Shane Carruth proved it very recently with “Primer”. And although the films are completely different and very separated by the genre, there is something that unites them. The feeling of hard work and fun in the process.

“Primer” is another good take at time travelling. But instead of fancy and expensive visual effects it goes for the phylosophy of the issue. Everyone knows that time travelling is a very confusing, dramatic and plain dangerous activity. But movies usually avoid the confusing and dramatic parts to make more room for dangerous stuff that is easier shown with computer graphics. “Primer”, while being a very low budget film, concentrates more on the confusing part. And in does the job so good that the film itself becomes pretty confusing. It is very difficult to follow it sometimes.

And although it gets a bit too slow in several scenes, I really enjoyed the film. For once there is a movie that makes you think and figure out things instead of providing cheap popcorn entertainment. I’m glad I saw this one.