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.

The evening brought me Romeo + Juliet, the 1996 movie made from Shakespeare’s play. I wanted to write in the sixteenth century english the whole film is in, but i couldn’t. It’s sometimes not easy to understand at all, but to reproduce it, far exceeds my english knowledge. In the first moments i was a bit surprised that i could hardly understand a sentence (naturally later i got used to it), but as soon as the Capulet’s car rolled on stage at the petrol station i realised that this movie features the very original text–well, almost: Wikipedia lists a couple of changes, such as editing down the text for “modern audiences”, but still it was a unique experience, somewhat like the first few scenes of Dead Poets Society. The acting was great, the screenplay too, and just everything worked out so well–except for one thing, naturally (won’t specify). To be honest, this was my first meeting with Romeo and Juliet–i haven’t read it, seen it or heard it before this time–and it was a charming introduction… I wish i’d seen this before i wrote that remake of Romeo and Juliet–i’d have done it very differently, i think: first of all, i would’ve taken the time to write it in verse.

In no relation with my earlier interest in chaos theory, i first met this movie at Mefi’s a long while ago. It took a while to get myself to sit down and watch it, but in the second run (in the first run on friday, i could only watch the first part of it) i watched it all, and it was great. In a sense… it’s just shocking how much a small difference change our lives–at least it could change the life of Evan a lot. He had the “same illness” as his father… Sometime he loses his conscience, and cannot remember anything. At least so he thinks.

I don’t think i’d suprise anyone by saying that he realises that his father may not have been that ill as he seemed. Evan was/is/will be–in my opinion–a lot more crazy than his father was back when they met. He realised that by reading his diaries he kept to save memories he could actually live through them again, though by that putting a huge strain on his body (the piling up memories of many possible lifes appeared as a blood patch (correct phrase?) in his brain). Worth it?

This movie is the exact opposite as what the Jurassic Park (in which the butterfly-effect is actually mentioned, by Ian Malcolm!) or the Terminator show: those movies say that time is a predefined, unchangeable thing, much like how Cromwell believed it, but the Butterfly Effect says that you could change the timeline if you went back in time–though the effects would be impossible to calculate. So very right. You should watch it.