Last night i watched a movie my brother suggested, Vexille. It’s a japanese cg movie with great graphics, nice storyline and about two hours of entertainment. It takes place in 2077, ten years after Japan has left the UN and isolated itself with an electromagnetic disruption net that prevents even satellite exploration, but limited trade was still going on. The reason for all this is that the UN banned the production of androids and too advanced robotechnology, of which Japan’s megacorporation Daiwa was a main manufacturer. But “now” in 2077 they want to open even broader trade connections with the US, and the story begins with a meeting of (possibly) head politicians discussing the japanese offers. And as usual from such movies, this meeting ends up a bit different from expected, due to the US’ special force SWORD showing up. They figure out that probably japan has developed very high level androids that could be mistaken for a living human, with even the bio-signature imprinted. They start investigating, and a troop goes to Japan–and that’s not simple with a securely isolated island. But what they find is not exactly what they expected. (Spoilers and personal opinion in the following.)

Remember there was that 1986 movie called Short Circuit, about a little robot who, thanks for a lightning, started to think and feel? Wall-e (i don’t feel like doing the official capitals and middot thing) is very much alike: a robot totally abandoned, with the duty to clean up the enormous amount of trash covering Earth, working for about 700 years non-stop, slowly learnt how to feel and how to think.

I watched Stardust for two reasons: first, i’ve seen ads of it at the swimming pool when we were in Dunaújváros on the EFOTT festival; second, it was written by Neil Gaiman. Sure this doesn’t guarantee that the movie would be good–but it was.

It’s definitely a fairy tale, but here don’t think of the kind of Nevewhere, which was labelled a “post-modern punk fairytale” by some newspapers–Stardust is a lot more of a traditional fairy tale, just with a few twists that make it enjoyable for anyone above the age of “oh Snow-white is such a great story!”, and a great movie (i haven’t yet read the book, but i plan to). It seems Gaiman has some addiction to worlds present but invisible or unreachable, just think of the mirror world in the MirrorMask or the London Below in Neverwhere.

Avalon is a 2001 movie directed by Mamoru Oshii. Are you familiar with Ghost in the Shell? He directed those films too, and i think that tells most of the story. In the not-so-far future there’s a new, addictive computer game named after the legendary island, where the souls of departed heroes rest: Avalon. The game is most likely what massively multi-player shooters will become as soon as complete neural connections will be possible. That technique makes Avalon extremely dangerous: there are some people who don’t awake from the game and become brain-dead, needing constant medical care. The main heroine, Ash is a professional player and was the member of the legendary “invulnerable” team Wizard, that after all proved to be not so invulnerable. In a pinch one of the members called reset (escaped from the game), and that led to the disbanding of the party. Ash only misses one of them: Murphy, their leader. From the past thief of Wizard she learns of a secret level (Special-A), where one can only get in by catching the Ghost (of a little girl) and from where there’s no reset if you fail. And there’s a possibility that Murphy’s in there too…

The first time i’ve seen parts of {proof} was about a month ago on HBO, and i thought it was really deep, so i watched it whole on sunday. I was right at first: it is a movie that strikes you, not the way the Titanic did but instead aiming at some undefined, unprotected point in your mind. Thus it’s not easy to write about it without revealing anything important of the plot–everything’s important–so i’d rather start with something easier to grasp: the starring. Three out of the top four characters are great actors (i’m sure they are, because even i know their name, being a total movies noob): Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins and Jake Gyllenhaal. Anthony Hopkins somehow again ended up with the role of a crazy man, though this time not a serial killer but a mathematician. As it’s often mentioned in the movie he revolutionised at least three fields of mathematics by the age of 21–though at 26 his illness started and that was more or less the end for him… The young Catherine, his younger daughter is taking care of him, this way taking a life-long maths lesson, constantly afraid of what if she inherited her father’s illness. The movie starts with her father dead, Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), his student searching through his papers for anything that may be of mathematical importance. Catherine decides to show him her biggest work, that solves a problem related to prime numbers present “ever since there are mathematicians”. But neither Hal nor her (extremely annoying) sister believes that she wrote it…

I won’t reveal no more of the story. This movie is great, in every bit of it. Yes.