“Stalker” and “Nostalghia” are cinematographic mirrors of Andrei Tarkovsky’s life. A study of Tarkovsky’s quotes about his movies and his elusive cinema poetry.

by Jessie Emkić

“Nostalghia.” That is the predominating feeling in the characters. The poet feels nostalgia. “What are you reading?” his cigarette tainted male voice asks.
“Tarkovsky. Poetry by Arseny Tarkovsky,” the woman answers.
“In Russian?”
“No, it’s a translation. Quite a good one.”
“Throw it away,” the poet says.
“And why?” she responds irritated. “The translator is very good, and an accomplished poet, too.”
“Poetry is impossible to translate,” he continues, “like all art.”

The question floats in the air: Is it she or he who doesn’t understand? Andrei Tarkovsky leaves the viewer in a daze. Five years prior to the release of “Nostalghia” (1983), Tarkovsky began with “Stalker” (1979) a series of movies underlined by one topic – the frontiers of human mind. “Nostalghia” is carried by a love affair between a homesick Russian poet and an Italian translator. He writes, she interprets. In “Stalker”, the love affair is of another type. The man is in love with his wishes. The rumor of a hidden place existing in the forbidden zone where all wishes come true, makes the man risk his life in order to have his wishes fulfilled, even though some of them are dark. Continue reading →

“American Reunion” movie is the fourth sequel to the teenage blockbuster hit “American Pie”. Credits go to it for being the first studio movie ever to show full frontal of male genitals.

by Jessie Emkic

“American Reunion” serves us a few surprises on a silver tablet. 13 years after releasing the first part of “American Pie” in 1999, the original producers decided it was time to relish and relive the laurels of the past. Stifler and Stifler’s mom, Jim and Jim’s dad, Oz, Michelle, and Kevin are back on the screen. This time with post-20’s traumatic syndromes.

The back then teenagers are now 30-somethings suffering from sexual confusions of various sorts. Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle Levenstein (Alyson Hannigan) live a desexualized post-baby marriage. Oz (Chris Klein), a popular TV star and wanna-be-husband, is bored with his ‘model girlfriend’ clichéd relationship, whereas Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy) is suffering from widower depression. Others, like Stifler (Seann William Scott), are serially single. Continue reading →

In “Super 8” (2011)?? a group of movie-obsessed kids discovers extraterrestrial life at the suicide mystery scene.

by Jessie Emkić

In J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8” movie, the US military is the ecstatically waiting to capture, bash, batter and perform cruel scientific experiments on an oversized extraterrestrial. The movie echos the early works of Steven Spielberg with the military being the villain and the alien being the haunted. This in mind, it comes as no surprise that Spielberg worked behind the scenes as the producer of “Super 8”. His plot recipe of bad military vs. good alien has proved a box office knock-out ever since he cunningly connected childhood innocence with extraterrestrial naivety in “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial”. Continue reading →