A MOVIE LOVER

I bet you didn't know that TriBeCa Film Festival is not only about the traditional filmmaking. Yep, neither did I until I went to the TFI interactive event - an all day one day event during the first week of the festival that showcase the latest technologies in the filmmaking like virtual reality, holograms, 3D and etc. This year they brought robots and more virtual reality! Even Katie Holmes stopped by to check it out.

(Photo by Ellen DeGeneres ) And the Oscar goes to…Samsung. "Forget the commercials, Social Branded Entertainment is everywhere at the Academy Awards. From the Samsung device product placements throughout the Oscars to the famous Ellen selfie taken last year with the Samsung Galaxy Note, it’s clear that Advertisers and their paid campaigns for social content is where the real GOLD is." - Says the digital design agency, Vertic. The bloggers at Vertic argue that the Oscar's is becoming more about the advertisers and social media marketing than about the art of the film and celebrating the talents. Here's what they say: click here to read the full blog.

Courtesy of Paramyth Films by Nika Agiashvili. The last time I’ve seen a movie that somewhat reminded me of “Once upon a time in America” , a 1984 Italian epic crime drama film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods was last week, when I watched A Green Story , minus the mafia and crime. But what a delight and how refreshing it is to see a film that not only engages, but that also inspires!

It's been a while since I've been absolutely breath-taken away by a movie as I was just recently by the Ang Lee's latest story about the boy and the tiger - Life of Pi . Surprising enough, I actually knew about this movie way before it has opened in USA. The film critics from around the world were raving about this film-story for months, including the fact that the film got Academy Award 11 nominations: Best Picture, Best Direction, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Film Editing and Visual Effects! Should I say any more? The anticipation of the film has been, definitely, built by the time it arrived to the theaters in America and the world-wide recognition of the film speaks for itself. Here's what I'm going to tell you, aside from the fact that I'm a very tough movie critic - Life of Pi is nothing you've might have ever seen before, and not because the story takes ...

It's a common belief that a consequence to a movie would not be any good with an exception of just a few films that have proven to be not as bad as the first movie. Say, Meet The Parents - Meet The Fockers did live up to our expectations, and maybe even more. Say, Agent 007 . But that's from another category of the sequence movies - it's like a new movie every time they make a 'sequence', beautiful women change, villains change and even James Bond, once in a decade - changes. However, for the most part, as a general rule, one expects very little from the sequence, especially when the first movie was about the human trafficking and sex slavery, who would want to see the sequence to it? What's else new could have been done for the second part - a new villain? A new victim? A new  hero? Taken-2 - a sequence to the blockbuster success Taken - is a movie that has it all: love, action, family and - the locale!Although, this is definitely not the movie to pr...

What's the idea behind the movie? I kept asking myself this question throughout the movie "Shame"  , directed by Steve McQueen , as I watched a scene after scene of the main character's full frontal and endless sexual activities, including very graphic masturbation scenes. I wanted to 'read into the lines' to see if there's a point to all of it for the director to actually make a movie that is both disturbing, dark, sad and solves nothing. However, some of you might have no doubt, what the director wanted to show. A man's despair? Perhaps. A sexual deviance? Definitely. A today's modern family? I'd say so. A lonely New York City? This could be possible too.