John Cusack

I just came back from the movies, where I watched “2012“. Initially, when I heard about this film, it sounded awesome. I even posted the trailer in the blog, when I first saw it. But then, it came to the cinemas and pretty much everyone I know went to see it, and I haven’t heard any exciting reviews yet. Yes, the special effects are awesome. Yes, they destroy the US and even pretty much all current Earth population. Yes, it’s breath-taking at times. But there was no excitement in those comments. No thrill. No sparks. It almost felt like the movie was boring. So, I wasn’t hurrying to see it. But today I finally did. First, because I had to. Second, because all the other movies I’ve either seen or they suck.

So, I went to see “2012” with lower expectations than I initially set. And maybe that was exactly what I needed. Because I quite enjoyed the film. There were, of course, a few tongue-in-cheek moments, such as mobile telephony working when everything was falling under ground or a doctor with 2 hours of practice flying planes or a computer simulation being able to predict wave impacts up to the second during the time when nothing was certain. But that doesn’t matter. You get these in pretty much every movie these days.

What’s important is that the movie had something to show that you haven’t seen before. Yes, everyone saw the end of the world movies. But not at this scale. Ground was falling, building were collapsing, giant waves were playing ping pong with huge ships, trains were flying over airplanes, and on, and on, and on. Some of the scenes were so realistic, that I was grabbing my armchair’s handles. And that happens rarely.

If you are not into huge scale special effects films, then this one still has some drama, romance, and comedy to offer. Comedy especially. I think it actually made the film so much better. If everything that happened in the movie would have been given with the serious attitude, it would be way too boring and unrealistic. But an occasional joke here and funny face there brought this film to life. As did some of the acting.

Overall, I’d recommend this film to anyone who expects entertainment from a movie. 4 stars.

P.S.: If I still haven’t convinced you to see this film on a big screen, consider this: it was directed by Roland Emmerich, who also directed movies like “10,000 B.C.”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, “The Patriot”, “Godzilla”, “Independence Day”, “Universal Soldier” and a few others.

Noone in the shop could tell me anything about “Cradle Will Rock“. I couldn’t remember any trailers or posters either. The list of names on the DVD cover looked impressive, so I rented it.

Directed by: Tim Robbins
Genres: Drama
Cast: Hank Azaria, Rubén Blades, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Cary Elwes, Philip Baker Hall, Cherry Jones, Angus Macfadyen, Bill Murray, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Jamey Sheridan, John Turturro, Emily Watson, Bob Balaban
IMDB raintg: 6.8
My rating: 7.0 [rate 7.0]

I wasn’t wrong. The film turned out to be excellent.

I’ve seen several films that show theatrical play in development. As far as I remember, I liked all of them. I don’t know why. Maybe it is a theatre lover inside of me. Or maybe because theatre demands more acting and directing talent attention.

“Cradle Will Rock” is an original movie. It mixes the theatrical play development with pre-Second World War political tension and adds a lot of personal drama to the mix.

With all of that, it is a little bit difficult to follow in the first half of the film. Things get developed slowly and it is not always easy to make sense what is what and why is it there. Excellent casting helps the situation a lot. Actors deliver that personal touch that makes the film interesting to watch even without making much sense.

Towards the second half of the film situation changes. I could suddenly make sense of everything that was happening. All those many characters became clear to me. All story lines started to merge. The more they merged, the more I was sucked into the film. It was an amazing feeling.

Another good side of the film was that it was ver positive. Surely, it touched upon some ugly issues of life in society, but it never lost its huge positive charge. Happy ending was expected from within the first few minutes of the film.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. I can’t recommend this film to everyone out there as it is not a simple and easy going one like most of the Hollywood crap these days. But if you are in the mood for a good film, make sure you watch this one.