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Bulgaria ready with its nominee for the 2010 best foreign-language film Oscar award

The Sofia Echo Staff — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:05:00 +0300

The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner tells the story of a Bulgarian boy living in Germany whose grandfather cоmes to take him back home to Bulgaria on a bicycle in a what proves to be a spiritual journey.

Revolution up close

Yanko Terziev — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:00:00 +0300

Steven Soderbergh’s film about Che Guevara is as radical and as controversial as its protagonist

Гран Торино/Gran Torino

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:00:00 +0200

Gran Torino is defiantly over-the-top and unashamedly simple to a level where many other films boasting such attributes would be slain without mercy by today’s cynical and spectacle-hungry movie-going crowds. Yet when constructed by an old master on top of his trade such a film can be strangely and hauntingly affecting.

Здрач / Twilight

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0200

The closest challenger to the Harry Potter series of books makes its screen debut, with mixed success

FILM REVIEW: RocknRolla / Рокенрола

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:00:00 +0200

It has been six years that we've been hoping for another good Guy Ritchie movie. His 2002 collaboration with his wife (yes, Madonna) on Swept Away was not what the audiences wanted, to put it mildly, while 2005's Revolver was incomprehensible and pretentious beyond the point of tolerance. With that in mind, RocknRolla is saddled with the unwanted and unenviable task of either showing that Ritchie is still a filmmaker with plenty of energy and flair, or proving that he has finally lost it. Luckily, the former is the case and the wait for a new, good Ritchie film is finally over.

FILM REVIEW: Four Christmases/Четири Коледи

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:00:00 +0200

If everything else fails, there is one sure way to find out that the holidays season is getting closer: come Christmas time, studios are churning out their thematic ballast like clockwork. Quality is never a part of the production equation - the movie can be as bad as hell as long as it fixes issues in a dysfunctional family, is nominally a comedy, has the words "Christmas", "Santa" or "Claus" in its title and, well, is simply there on the screen.

FILM REVIEW: Body of Lies/Мрежа от лъжи

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:00:00 +0200

Watching a film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott is always going to be a mouthwatering prospect, but this comes with a more demanding yardstick as to what the end result has to offer. In the case of Body of Lies, this more rigorous standard is not very kind or forgiving. The film is smart, but not smart enough; it begs to be taken seriously, yet puts its protagonist in a series of situations even James Bond would have trouble surviving.

FILM REVIEW: Never Back Down/Никога не се предавай

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0200

Recycling ideas from 20 years ago in any chosen genre and dressing them up for the current fashion has always been a dependable moneymaking formula for Hollywood. After milking the best out of teen comedies, musicals and various 70s and 80s cult TV series, the studios are confident enough to put together a picture revolving around angry young men, revenge and martial arts and the result on display here is as refreshing as it is predictable.

FILM REVIEW: Mirrors/Огледала

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0200

Ironically, remaking Asian horror movies in Hollywood has come to develop a genre in itself, just as it is in danger of outstaying its welcome. True, at its onset it gave us arguably the most potent onscreen scares in recent memory (The Ring immediately comes to mind), but the most recent offerings charging from the Hollywood production line yield alarmingly diminishing returns - Mirrors, the latest American remake of a South Korean horror flick, is a fine case in point.

FILM REVIEW: Quantum of Solace/Спектър на утехата

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0200

The leanest and meanest version of the longest-serving MI6 agent in cinema returns to the screens in the leanest and meanest Bond film ever. Four minutes shorter than Dr. No, and 39 minutes shorter than Casino Royale, its immediate predecessor, Quantum of Solace, is a breathless, and even, at times, tiring, chain of hugely impressive action sequences packed in a plot about a relentless revenge mission. Bond is after the men and the organisation that took Vesper Lynd away from him in Casino Royale and he is in no mood to take prisoners, either onscreen or in the packed rows of seats in theatres.

FILM REVIEW: Pineapple Express/Ананас експрес

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0200

Pineapple Express, the blend, is a marijuana so sublime that smoking it "is like killing a unicorn", the dealer who sells it exclusively observes. It can also get you in a lot of trouble, get you hunted, bring you a couple of bullets in the stomach and cost you a precious part of your ear. Pineapple Express, the movie, on the other hand, is a deranged and unexpectedly sweet ode to male friendship, which is hilarious, bizarre

FILM REVIEW: Disaster Movie/Бедствие и други катастрофи

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:00:00 +0300

Disaster Movie is well on the way to being a self-fulfilling prophecy: a movie it is not, but a disaster - most definitely. It is an artless, cheerless, humourless insult to the parody genre, which I fear, has forgotten its job to be entertaining. We are left pining for the long lost days of Blazing Saddles, Airplane, The Naked Gun or Hot Shots; this is the age of Scary Movie, Epic Movie,

FILM REVIEW: Eagle Eye/Орлово око

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:00:00 +0300

Eagle Eye reportedly started as an idea of Steven Spielberg's, but ended up being an insult to the intelligence even of those who deliberately switch their brains off when entering the theatre. Preposterous is too benign a word for what passes for a plot here and the chaotic action crammed together, which passes for a suspense surrogate. That a movie is preposterously implausible is not always a

Film Review: Half-hearted devilry

Pavel Ivanov — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 15:00:00 +0300

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Gavin Rossdale Directed by: Francis Lawrence

Film Review: A complicated business

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 02:00:00 +0200

National Treasure Starring: Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger, Harvey Keitel Directed by: John Turtletaub

Film Review - Epic injustice for conqueror

Pavel Ivanov — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 02:00:00 +0200

Alexander Starring: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Rosario Dawson, Jared Leto, Anthony Hopkins Directed by: Oliver Stone

Film Review-Forever embers

Pavel Ivanov — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 13:00:00 +0200

For some time now, firefighters have been portrayed as the last bastion of unquestioned heroism in the public psyche.While Hollywood is happy to explore the wrongdoings of various other men in uniform, the axe wielding staff of the fire department seems to be permanently booked for the moral high ground.

Film Review - All-star charming hit

Pavel Ivanov — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:00:00 +0200

A n all-star cast is more of a curse than a blessing, as imbalance and on set goodwill compromise whatever good story there might have been to tell (remember Sleepers, Copland, or the recent I Like Huckabees).

Film Review-Enjoy the spy intrigue

Pavel Ivanov — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 13:00:00 +0200

Jason Bourne just wants to be left alone. Everybody else thinks otherwise. Hollywood suits and CIA execs bridge the fictional and the cutthroat business universes and are doggedly determined not to let the reluctant super-killer enjoy the comforts of the library bookshelves or the blue skies of Goa, India.

Film Review-Deserving of credit

Pavel Ivanov — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 13:00:00 +0200

The Hollywood lens usually adorns Los Angeles as an American-style dressed romantic or as a dogged just cop, either of whom is comfortable with the poetic or courtroom justice that the end credits dependably gift-wrap and present to the regular disciplined moviegoer the industry depends on.