SOUNDS INTERESTING category

1.     Her

Director and writer: Spike Jonze

The director of such gems as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation. and Where the Wild Things Are is another one who likes to take things slowly.  After the looks of the trailer…

… it seems to be worth the waiting. The story of an introverted, heartbroken writer who falls in love with his intelligent operative system promises to be a thought provoking, bittersweet film, about human nature, about love and loneliness and the way we build things as projections of ourselves, utilising technology to fill the void we don’t know how to fill otherwise. Yes, I feel like I can tell how the entire movie is going to be after just seeing the trailer, but that doesn’t mean that I am any less impatient about watching the whole thing.

photo blogs.artinfo.com

2.     Inside Llewlyn Davis

Directors and writers: Ethan and Joel Coen

I don’t know why I’m not a fan of the Coen brothers. I greatly enjoy their films, I just don’t get extremely excited over them. With the exception of The Great Lebowski, perhaps. I love their style, their sense of humour, their beautifully imagined characters and I keep expecting to fall in love with them. Maybe it’s Inside Llewlyn Davis that will finally make that happen.

photo craigskinnerfilm.com

3.     Blue Jasmine

Director and writer: Woody Allen

The man is like a clock. It’s like he never suffers from writer’s block, like he has an endless bag of ideas and an inexhaustible energy to make them happen. His 2013 film is about an egotistical socialite facing a midlife crisis and looks very promising from the trailer.

Cate Blanchett is amazing (Mr. Allen has great taste in actresses) and I’m always happy to see Louis C.K. acting or talking or anything, so I can’t wait for this one to finally hit theatres, which is in a very short time.

4.     Venus in Fur

Director and writer: Roman Polanski, after a play by David Ives and a novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

About manipulation, sex and power, this is, just as Carnage, Polanski’s previous film, based on a play and filmed in a confined space. The director has a way of building tension that makes his movies almost unbearable to watch at times and I think this one won’t disappoint, either.

photo ropeofsilicon.com

5.     The Grandmaster

Director and writer: Wong Kar Wai, also writers Jingzhi Zou and Haofeng Xuefully

The story of Ip Man, the man who taught Bruce Lee martial arts, might not have interested me too much, were it not for the director of the lovely In The Mood For Love, which assures me that it is at least going to be a visual treat, and hopefully more than that.

6.     Nymphomaniac

Director and writer: Lars von Trier

I can’t help but expect von Trier’s films with a smirk on my face. I know it’s going to be dark and disturbing, but I also know it cannot be bad. A nymphomaniac recounts her erotic affairs. What more is there to say? I don’t even think anyone is even going to get offended by it, but I really hope they do. That way I can imagine this brilliant Danish troll devilishly chuckling to himself with sick satisfaction, already thinking of new ways to push the boundaries of what is appropriate and acceptable in modern cinema.

7.     Only Lovers Left Alive

Director and writer: Jim Jarmusch

He’s been a hipster since before it was cool and that says it all. I enjoyed some of his works, I detested others (not going to say which are which), but the fact that his last movie is about vampire love has to make one curious. I can only assume that immortality is just another way for him to talk about loneliness, which seems to be his theme of choice. This should be interesting.

8.     L’ecume des jours

Director: Michel Gondry, writer: Luc Bossi, after a novel by Boris Vian

From the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and La science des reves, this film promises to be as touching and beautifully surreal as his earlier works.

9.     The World’s End

Director and writer: Edgar Wright, also writer and star: Simon Pegg

The creative duo that is also behind such movies as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the popular TV series Spaced guarantees a fun watch. If you really must know, their newest production is about five friends trying to finish a drinking marathon they failed at 20 years before, while fighting for the survival of the human race. Just go see it.

10.     Don Jon

Director and writer: Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Before you roll your eyes and think this is here just because JGL is a good looking actor, I have to stop you and show you the trailer

Now, doesn’t that look interesting? They are having so much fun, how can you not want to see it? I, for one, am happy he decided to try his hand in directing, he seems like a smart guy and I hope he’ll turn out to be at least as good a director as Ben Affleck and George Clooney.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Behind the Candelabra

Director: Steven Soderberg, writer: Richard LaGravenese, after books by Scott Thorson and Alex Thorleifson

There’s already an article here about it:

http://inhalemag.com/behind-the-candelabra-palatial-kitsch/

Only God Forgives

Director and writer: Nicolas Winding Refn

Also reviwed here: http://inhalemag.com/only-god-forgives-beyond-neo-noir/

The Monuments Men

Director and writer: George Clooney, also writer: Grant Heslov, after books by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter

Speaking of actors turned directors, Clooney’s latest film looks very promising, despite looking like a mix between Ocean’s Eleven and Inglorious Basterds.

Trance

Director: Danny Boyle, writers: Joe Ahearne, John Hodge

About an art auctioneer who has become mixed up with a group of criminals, and who partners with a hypnotherapist in order to recover a lost painting.
http://inhalemag.com/trance-psychedelic-travel/

Nebraska

Director: Alexander Payne, writer: Bob Nelson

From the director of About Schmitd, Sideways and The Descendents, a movie about an aging man who makes a trip with his estranged son, in order to claim a million dollar prize.

photo awardsdaily.com

The Wolf of Wall Street

Director: Martin Scorsese, writer: Terence Winter, after a book by Jordan Belfort

Is this the film that finally gets Leonardo di Caprio his goddamn Oscar? We’ll see.

The Bling Ring

Director and writer: Sofia Coppola, after an article by Nancy Jo Sales

About a group of teenagers who rob celebrities’ homes.

NOT FEATURE FILM BUT I DON’T CARE

How and Why

Writer and director: Charlie Kaufman

A comedy series from a brilliant man, it could have been a wedding video of his favourite pet and it would still be one of my 2013 highlights.

photo indiewire.com

Louis C.K.: Oh, My God!

Writer, director, star: Louis C. K.

An HBO special from a great comedian, here’s a glimpse:

QED

It looks like a good year, I think. I’m sure there are other films that are not on the list, feel free to say which ones in the comments.

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.

The post 13 REASONS WHY 2013 IS A GOOD YEAR FOR CINEMA – PART 2 appeared first on INHALE MAG.

HALLELUJA! category

1.     The Wind Rises

Director and writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Oh, blessed be the gods of film!  Why, oh why, Mr. Miyazaki, can’t you follow Woody Allen’s example and make a movie a year? I sometimes go again along the list of films he wrote or directed, hoping against hope that there’s one which has escaped my eye the previous hundred times I’ve done that. Unfortunately, I have the eyes of an eagle. But not in 2013, no, sir. In 2013, I can bask in the exquisite feelings that precede and follow the release of a much awaited movie. That great anticipation, the thrills of seeing the trailer, the careful planning of the perfect place, mood, friends to see this film in, on, with.

photo vulture.com

Hayao Miyazaki is a well known Japanese animator, co-creator of Studio Ghibli, an animation studio Westerners refer to as Japan’s Disney, because of its great success. But Ghibli is no Disney. As much as I love the latter’s films, it’s impossible not to see the huge company behind everything, the polls and social studies that obviously play a big part in constructing a story to the liking of millions. I see no such background in Ghibli movies. They are not afraid to break the rules, to forget about a happy ending, or an uncomplicated plot, or about the necessary love story, or about the presumed patience span of its public. They trust their viewers with the intelligence and emotional maturity to understand and appreciate a complex narrative, heavy themes such as war and ecology, or anything unfamiliar, for that matter.

photo blogs.indiewire.com

Returning to Miyazaki – obviously all of the above apply to him, but no matter how wonderful Ghibli’s films usually are, the ones he himself authors are remarkably superior and some of the loveliest, most meaningful and imaginative works of art I have ever seen.

That is why the news that this movie

is out in 2013 caused me such uncool fangirl giddiness.

Keeping with one of his dearest motifs – flight – Miyazaki decides to tell the story of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of a fighter airplane which served in World War II and has apparently managed to upset pretty much everyone in Japan. Which is not to say the film is not popular with the general public, who has flocked to see it in movie theatres. I, for one, can’t wait to do the same, or, if (as it’s to be expected) nobody is going to distribute it in my country, put my trust in good old Internet to see it.

 2.     The Zero Theorem

Director Terry Gilliam, writer Pat Rushin

Gilliam is great. He is weird, funny, dark, absurd, playful, philosophical, inquisitive, fantastical. He’s always surprising and never boring.  He’s instantly recognizable, still he doesn’t repeat himself.

It’s always refreshing to see a director who’s not afraid to play. The fact that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is his most realistic film says a lot, I think, about just how much he likes playing with fantasy. Most of his films happen in two parallel universes: the “real” one and the “dream” one. In Fear and Loathing, the dream parts are the drug-induced sequences, in The Fisher King, they’re the visions of a madman, in Brazil they’re the main character’s dreams of freedom, and so on. This serves to show just how much value Gilliam places on imagination and the power of the human mind.

photo plus.google.com

These seem to be the main guidelines of The Zero Theorem, too, as it tells the story of a computer genius working on a formula for the meaning of life. Just think of how zany of a subject that sounds like. Of course no major studio would want anything to do with it. And thank those gods of film for that, too. At least we know that nobody pressured him into doing anything he didn’t want to do, we know the great actors in it got involved out of love for the story and the director and not for some monetary reward. It sounds snobbish, I know, but this is how great films (great anything, for that matter) happen.

“The whole point of cinema is to be surprised all the time” Gilliam said in an interview and that pretty much sums up his entire body of work. He rejects playing along with the public’s expectations in the same way Miyazaki does and the world of cinema is a happier place due to that. Which is not to say his films aren’t some of the most entertaining I have ever seen.

photo hotnewsgator.com

 3.     The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet

Director and writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet, also writer Guillaume Laurant, after a novel by Reif Larsen

I’m really not trying to be politically correct in any way, but apparently my most anticipated films this year come from people from three different continents. Like the previous two men on this list, Jeunet possesses a unique style, exquisite imagination and some noticeable obsessions. He also likes to take his time between films.

photo eyeforfilm.co.uk

One common trait of all his pieces of work is their innocence (yes, even Alien: Resurrection, shut up), as if everything’s seen through the eyes of a child. A child who is both a playful dreamer and a dark and cruel soul, combination which I believe is the essence of innocence. I don’t know how the man has managed to preserve this way of looking at things, but I’m grateful he did. His films are so perfectly balanced between light and darkness that they never become too sugary or too depressing, although they have more than enough elements to become both. Another common trait in his work is Dominique Pinon, this guy:

photo hotflick.net

The only thing I can say against him is that he declined the offer to direct a Harry Potter movie and I’m finding that pretty hard to forgive, given that he could have made it so much better than how it finally turned out. Oh, well…

The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet is his second English language movie (after Alien), but be not afraid, Pinon is still a member of the cast. It tells the story of a talented twelve year old cartographer who runs away from home and travels across country via a freight train, in order to receive an award at the Smithsonian Institute. I expect it to be as positive and charming as it sounds.

To be continued…

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.

The post 13 REASONS WHY 2013 IS A GOOD YEAR FOR CINEMA appeared first on INHALE MAG.

Synecdoche New York

written and directed by Charlie Kaufman

starring Philip Seymour Hoffman

This is my favourite film in the whole world. I hesitated about putting it in the list, because it’s just so wonderfully complex and simple at the same time, so unique and hard to compare with anything else, that I didn’t think I could possibly find a food to do it justice. And I was right, I didn’t. Keep reading.

photo aceshowbiz.com

The film

It’s the story of a theatre director who gets a funding of as much money as he needs to create his magnum opus. The man is socially awkward, hypochondriac, and generally unlikable, as all great artists are (at least for Kaufman, apparently, remember his previous movies, the artist is never cool). His dream is to make something great, as great as life itself, and that’s where the problems start. You see, as his life keeps changing and expanding, trapped between his ever present feeling that he’s dying and the ever growing sets of his performance, the artist finds himself incapable of completing what he had in mind. It’s complicated. If you haven’t seen it yet, go do that immediately, then come back and tell me how you would have summarized that better.

photo learninthecloud.wordpress.com

The dish

This is the tricky part. I’m going to slightly break the rules here, given they are my rules and nobody cares anyway, and say the only thing suited is a combination of alcohol and cigarettes. Not exactly food, but they still go in your mouth, so just be grateful I’m keeping it civil. Allow me to explain.

We start it off with the drink, and not just any drink, but the mother of all that’s pure and clean and metaphysically painful about alcohol: vodka. That will make them shiver in disgust, then almost at once feel a kind of inner warmth, bringing with it the promise of great things to come. They don’t know yet whether they like it or not, but their interest is, in any case, awoken, like a sleepy dragon from the distant jingle of a gold necklace.

photo rt.com

The drinks need to keep coming at a steady pace, for a couple of hours, until our trusting client has gone through almost all stages of drunkenness. First they laugh, poor bastards, unaware of what’s next. Then they are overwhelmed with the desire to go on the dance floor and get jiggy with it (is that still a cool thing to say?). Afterwards they should discover a sense of human connection with everyone around them, a love for their fellow man, as imperfect as they may be. As a simple precaution, it’s important that during this stage they are kept at a safe distance from people they might find attractive (that is, everyone), as they will be very willing to see what’s all the fuss about that make love, not war thing everyone keeps talking about. NOW is the time to give them that pack of cigarettes they were craving all night, but that you sadistically refused to take down from the upper shelf.

photo media.theiapolis.com

It will taste something like Monte Cristo’s first breath of air as a free man. Like the blood of a virgin for a starving vampire. It will be wonderful and disgusting and wrong. And each cancerous breath of delicious smoke will make them think, suddenly aware of what they’re doing, tragically incapable of stopping. Soon, all that previous love will turn to: everyone I love, including myself, are going to die. We are going to totally die, before we even do what we dreamed of doing when we were young and innocent and happy, and we’re going to be alone and sad and oh, God, why don’t you exist? Then they cry. They always cry, as they realize how they’re trapped in their own destiny, which they themselves are creating, unaware of how tragic and pathetic it all looks like from the outside.

photo billblog.blogspot.com

And, should they dream of maybe one day becoming chefs themselves, they will shed one extra tear at the realisation that, not only will they never be able to create the chef-d’oeuvre they’ve been dreaming of, as it is impossible to do so, but they won’t even match you and your devilishly combined dish. Or they will just puke and hate everything you carefully constructed for them, because they can’t hold their liquor, so they’re not prepared yet. Give them some time to grow and try again.

Read part one here:

http://inhalemag.com/six-more-or-less-delicious-films-and-their-food-equivalents/

Read part two here:

http://inhalemag.com/six-more-or-less-delicious-films-and-their-food-equivalents-2/

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.

The post SIX MORE OR LESS DELICIOUS FILMS AND THEIR FOOD EQUIVALENTS – PART 3 appeared first on INHALE MAG.

I don’t know if there is some filmophile chef out there who thought about naming dishes after films he enjoyed, so I’m going to go ahead and presume there is at least one such person, and to him I say: Bonjour (because, of course, he’s French), forget about all that Bande à part roast and the Une femme est une femme mousse and let’s concentrate on something a bit more recent and less snobby. Here are, for your free use, kind monsieur or madame, six films inspired more or less delicious dishes. You’re welcome.

3. Atlas Cloud

The film

It’s a bold try, really. I wish more film makers would take their job so seriously and try to be as innovative as the Wachowskis. That way, even when the result isn’t quite what it should be, you still find yourself rooting for them. At least they tried something different.

This film consists of several interconnected stories, happening a long time apart from each other and can be seen as some sort of anamnesis, the tracing of a soul (several, in this case) through different embodiments, until it reaches salvation. This is a really interesting philosophical issue, and maybe it would have worked in a series, definitely in a book, however, in Cloud Atlas it’s the separate stories that you’re more interested in.  Be it a dystopic Sci-Fi about clone slavery, a 70s thriller following a conspiration theory or a 19^th century story about the friendship between an attorney and an African slave, each segment is well thought and craftily put together in a way that manages to connect them all, if only with a thin line.

photo collider.com

The dish

Before starting preparing this dish, take a vacation. Don’t just call in sick for a day or two, because that won’t suffice. Just take a bloody vacation (Yes, I’m using a British “bad word” because it sounds cool, it’s not like you have to resume to American slang if English is not your first language, shut up. Also, I apologize for this really long aside, you can just reread the beginning of the sentence and skip this nonsense.), you’ll need it. Because it’s going to take an awfully long time to do this properly.

First of all, you need to sit down and think. I mean, really think, try to open up your mind to the mysteries of the universe, try to put some kind of order in this mess of a world we’re living in. After about a week and a half you should reach the conclusion that there is no such order, so just crawl out of your chair and do what you always do in times of despair: open the fridge. Take out everything inside, place all the items gently on your kitchen table and look at them. What do they all have in common? Well, peas and salad are both green. Great! We’re already progressing. What else? Corn flour (I won’t ask why you keep corn flour in the fridge, although it’s a bit weird) is made of corn… which kinda looks like peas. Wonderful! You need to dry up the corn before making corn flour, just like you need to do with grapes in order to have raisins. You know what else you can make with grapes? Grape cake. Who likes cake? Children, just like those baby squids in the freezer (except for the human or alive part, isn’t that a funny thing, we are all so alike). And what else could have become some kind of baby? Eggs. What used to be a baby, before getting really fat and dying horribly? Sausages! Amazing, so everything in the universe IS related!

photo www.razvang.ro

Now you just NEED to share this jolly piece of news with everyone you know, so invite them over for dinner in about three weeks’ time. Why three weeks, you ask? Oh, silly newcomer to the realm of fine cuisine. It’s not like you just throw it all in a pot and stir. No, no, no. You have to take all the 17,000 peas and wash them separately, then dry them with a towel made of butterfly wings. You have to cut every piece of salad milimetrically, so that each and every one is the perfect size for a fork to stab and roll around itself precisely one and a half times. Find out what Joan Collins is taking and inject that into the squids, so that they look more lively. We’re not playing here. I think you know what I mean, just be extra careful with every part of this recipe. THEN put everything in a pot and stir. There you go, Cloud Atlas Stew, everybody!

photo www.bbc.co.uk

Your costumers will be utterly flabbergasted. Their reactions will never bore you, because they will all be as individually unique as snowflakes. Some will enjoy the grape cake, others the peas, some will advise you to maybe make a different dish from every separate ingredient, most will feel frustrated that they didn’t actually get to enjoy any of them, given there was so little of each. A couple of people will even understand your point about the universe being connected and all.

But mainly, this one is mostly for you, for your inner growth and self image – you know you worked hard to produce a well thought, not cheap (it takes a lot of money to get eternal youth juice for those squids), barely comprehensible dish, which will stay with you forever. That’s more than we can say about the people eating it – it will go straight through them, if you catch my drift. It’s unfortunate, I know, because you’re a talented chef. Just keep it simpler next time, ok?

Here is a list of characters and stories:

Infographic
photo geektyrant.com

Here is the trailer:

Read part one here:

http://inhalemag.com/six-more-or-less-delicious-films-and-their-food-equivalents/

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.

The post SIX MORE OR LESS DELICIOUS FILMS AND THEIR FOOD EQUIVALENTS – PART 2 appeared first on INHALE MAG.

I don’t know if there is some filmophile chef out there who thought about naming dishes after films he enjoyed, so I’m going to go ahead and presume there is at least one such person, and to him I say: Bonjour (because, of course, he’s French), forget about all that Bande à part roast and the Une femme est une femme mousse and let’s concentrate on something a bit more recent and less snobby. Here are, for your free use, kind monsieur or madame, six films inspired more or less delicious dishes. You’re welcome.

1. Grave of the Fireflies

The film

This 1988 Japanese animation accounts the story of two siblings struggling to survive on their own during WWII, after they lose their mother in one of the bombings that destroys their home. With no news from their soldier father and with an aunt who, in a great imitation of Cinderella’s stepmother, unwillingly offers them shelter, the two improvise a „home” on the outskirts of the village and try to make ends meet until the end of the war. Being that this is an animation, one would imagine, as it is learned from the almighty Disney, that everything will be ok, the father will come back home with his arms full of sweets and rice and he’ll punish the evil aunt by stabbing her with his ship (kids do love a good bloody revenge) and everyone will live happily ever after. Right? Right?!

Spoilers ahead

Grave of the Fireflies
photo missnati.deviantart.com

No. They both die. Take that, dewy eyed children everywhere! The end.

The more or less delicious dish

In order to replicate this heartbreaking story for the taste buds, we need a beautiful looking soup, creamy and rich, such as is needed to draw children and childish adults close, before slapping the childhood right out of them with the harsh realities of life. The animation of this movie is truly beautiful, so our dish needs to be good looking, too.

The main ingredient of our recipe is the Wasabi sauce. Aside from providing the lovely green colour of the soup, it will also make you cry from minute 1 until the very end, which is a must if we want to stay true to the movie-inspiration. Even more, this miracle ingredient will make sure that you will be haunted by this soup for days to come, as it is sure to have some painful effects on your whole digestive system.

For the finishing touch, drop in there a few sweet dumplings – just to provide for a much needed relief from all the horror. You will see that this only increases the shock of having to return to the hot sea of pain the few sweet patches of hope seem to be drowning in.

Voila! The Grave of the fireflies hot soup, or, as I like to call it, Staring in the face of sorrow.

Grave of the Fireflies
photo www.badhaven.com

Here is the trailer:

2. The Cabin in the Woods

The film

It starts as just another horror movie, with the introduction of the characters who we all know are going to die horribly during the next 90 minutes, while we enjoy every second of their demise. Then, everything changes in an extremely unexpected way, which is the best thing that could happen to this sort of movie. I’m not going to say more, because, for those who haven’t seen it, it’s better to know as little as possible about it, and for those who have seen it, I’m sure they still remember it. Why? Because it’s like a pleasurable slap in the face, even for people who are not into that sort of thing.  You go prepared for some good old gore and you get so much more, like if you got all the presents from Christmas and your birthday on the day you celebrate six months since you’ve stopped looking at cat videos on the internet.

The Cabin in the Woods
Photo nardio.net

Without giving anything away (although, seriously, you should have seen it by now, even if you don’t like horror movies, just like you should see Star Wars even if you’re not into Sci-Fi), I can make a chart of the emotions an average spectator(which I consider myself to be) will go through:

1. Complete relaxation: a great part of the fun is guessing the order in which the characters are going to die. Of course, we’re probably going to get stuck with the most boring of them, the nice girl. At least the annoying blonde is a goner.
2. Puzzlement: there are some scenes that don’t really make sense and you can’t figure out the connection between the two segments.
3. Ok, so you start to understand a bit, but not enough, and alternate between feelings of excitement that it’s finally beginning (the action, that is) and frustration that nobody explains you what’s going on, thus ending the annoyance of trying to think and make assumptions.
4. The movie’s humour softens your exasperation: if it doesn’t take itself seriously, why should you?
5. A bit sad that your favourite character just died.
6. To hell with this!
7. You love where this is going.
8. Complete satisfaction. Now you need to light a cigarette.

The Cabin in the Woods
photo www.moviedeskback.com

The more or less delicious dish

This food needs to be tasty and weird. So in order to achieve that, we need to combine one of the cheapest ingredients, if we can even call it that, and one of the most expensive: I give you the whimsical and allusive Popcorn and Caviar.

It is important that there’s more popcorn at the top and more caviar at the bottom, so that the excitement grows gradually. Your costumer will be like “whaaat?” Or, should he be more of the well bred type, he’ll say something close to ”This makes me think about popcorn in a whole new light. It is, if you like, a postmodern approach to popcorn, where one is forced to contemplate the mechanics at work in the making of this apparently simple food, while being served with a reflection of ourselves as popcorn consumers or makers, all this while enjoying the strangest combination of delicious food.”

Merçi beaucoup, will then say your costumer, while looking at you as if you were some long estranged dear friend. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the magic of Cabin in the Woods Caviar Popcorn.

Here is the trailer:

http://youtu.be/7ENUBUdFswM

Coming next: Cloud Atlas and In the Mood for Love.

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.

The post SIX MORE OR LESS DELICIOUS FILMS AND THEIR FOOD EQUIVALENTS appeared first on INHALE MAG.

Director/writer: Alison Klayman

The film starts up strongly, with cats and wise words: ”Out of the 40 cats, one knows how to open doors. Where did this intelligence come from? All the other cats watch us opening the door. And I was thinking, if I had not met this cat [...], I wouldn’t have known that cats can open doors.”

Provided you came to this movie completely unaware of who Ai Weiwei was (and even then, you probably would have figured out that this talk about cats and doors is probably some sort of metaphor), you must have realized what the whole speech was aiming at. The question in our minds: are you that cat, Ai Weiwei? was to be answered in the following hour and a half of thrilling documentary, ably directed by first time documentarist Alison Klayman.

http://blogs.artinfo.com

Shortly put, Weiwei is a Chinese artist and social activist. That wouldn’t be a problem in the Western world, but turns out to be quite a perilous occupation in communist (though seemingly increasingly democratic) China.

The movie paints a realistic picture of this overweight man who greatly enjoys eating and casually mocks his own love of food, who has a loving wife of many years, on which he cheated with a younger girl, with whom he has a child that he actually asked her not to keep, a man who does not blink during his mother’s breakdown from fear that his ways will get him into trouble and who stubbornly refuses to meet with some admirers who “see him as a teacher”. He is anything but perfect and the movie is not afraid to show him fully. He is also, however, an innovative artist, a maker of incredibly profound conceptual art, deeply rooted in social issues, and a courageous and honest man.

http://www.giantrobot.com, The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds
Tate Modern

He is the second generation of strong-willed, free-minded (and mouthed) artists in his family, and by the looks of it, this could very well pass on to his young son, too. His father suffered greatly during the rise of the communist regime, despite his similar political views, for the crime of being an intellectual. Ai, educated in New York, the heart of the country that its inhabitants refer to as “the land of the free”, experienced this entirely different way of life, and the effects were deep: “once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it”.

With freedom now forever in his heart, he returns home and makes use of it as few of his countrymen dare to. Whenever he sees something he considers to be wrong, he speaks out, reaching out to people through the Internet (something he talks about with the highest regard, with bewilderment even: this kind of easiness in sending your message to thousands at the same time is for certain a thing of wonder). He tried it at first with a blog, but they shut that down. So he turned to Twitter. 140 characters or less, sometimes a photo, and the fight goes on. Like in a game of chess, he says, he makes a move, the government makes a move.

http://uk.phaidon.com/

He is just one man, but there are thousands inspired by his message, he is an international star and China wouldn’t risk exposing itself as a merciless autocracy if they just disposed of him as they have done with other, less known, free speakers. On the other hand, his obnoxious disclosures and comments about the government’s lack of transparency, about its abuses and suppressing of free speech doesn’t help with its public image either. One man has driven the power into a corner and that is probably the most important thing about Ai Weiwei. He has shown the importance of an individual inside a society built on the exact opposite of individuality. He has opened a door for the other cats to see that it is indeed possible, that doors are there to be opened and it is in their power to do it.

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.

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