PUBLIC ENEMIES

Public Enemies spune povestea legendarului John Dillinger, inamicul public numarul unu al Americii anilor 30. In timpul Marii Crize americane, cineva ca Dillinger, care se razvratea impotriva sistemului jefuindu-i bancile, primea tratament de vedeta din partea societatii americane.

Jafurile sale si evadarile din inchisoare erau pe prima pagina a tuturor ziarelor, iar sarmul sau castiga multi adepti si mai ales, aliati.

John Dillinger era un fel de haiduc al vremurilor, jefuia bancile celor bogati, dar niciodata nu lua de la oameni de rand. Era recunoscut pentru meticulozitatea cu care isi planuia atacurile si nu se ferea sa-si bata joc de autoritati dupa fiecare jaf incheiat cu succes.

Lumea il cunostea ca pe un om care isi traieste viata la maxim, fara sa se gandeasca la ziua de maine.

In film, John Dillinger este jucat de inegalabilul Johnny Depp, care exceleaza din nou abordand personajul cu acuratete. In anii '30, multi dintre acesti infractori (inclusiv Dillinger) aveau un comportament (limbaj, atitudine, fler) influentat de actorii vremurilor, cum ar fi Clark Gable sau Marlon Brando.

In momentul cand Dillinger devine un star, incepe sa semene tot mai mult cu personajele faimoase ale vremii. Aceasta transformare este redata perfect de Johnny Depp. Pe urmele lui Dillinger este un alt personaj faimos: Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), agentul numarul unu al FBI-ului, un tanar genial de numai 29 de ani care reprezinta un alt gen de erou.

El este legiuitorul fara scrupule, dur si impetuos, dedicat trup si suflet misiunii sale si reprezinta noua imagine a justitiei. Nici Purvis nu se fereste de aparitiile publice si de declaratiile indraznete, ceea ce face din disputa intre cei doi un adevarat spectacol ce tine cu sufletul la gura toata tara.

Aceasta atmosfera tensionata este redata ca la carte de regizorul Michael Mann (The Insider, Last of the Mohicans). Una dintre tehnicile pe care le foloseste pentru a reda suspansul situatiilor este cea de "hand-held camera" - filmat cu camera in mana - care confera autenticitate scenelor de actiune.

Totul este bine organizat, povestea isi urmeaza cursul firesc, tensiunea creste treptat, personajele evolueaza cu fiecare scena, iar muzica completeaza cadrul de epoca.

De remarcat este si personajul Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), iubita lui Dillinger ce intruchipeaza perfect romantismul si emotiile perioadei respective.

Chiar daca acuratetea istorica a filmului lasa de dorit, Public Enemies este un film de referinta din categoria "de epoca" si isi merita locul alaturi de tiluri ca Donnie Brasco, Miller's Crossing sau The Untouchables.

Biography

HIM frontman Ville Valo seems totally at home sitting poolside at his hotel in L.A. Sipping tea between cigarettes, the lead singer of the first Finnish band ever to go gold in the U.S. is happy to be back in L.A. after spending months at home recording the band’s follow up to 2005’s Dark Light, the aforementioned gold record. Then again, if the quintet hadn’t been at home during the dark, cold winter months they might not have recorded the aptly named Venus Doom, an album that Valo describes as being “Like a trip into my personal hell to a certain extent.”

Musically, the album is the dark, hard rocking soundtrack necessary to accompany Valo’s downward descent. “I felt that we needed a lot less keyboards and there was just going to be more punching to the face type of thing,” Valo says, referring to the differences between Dark Light and Venus Doom. “The whole vibe seems fresh cause the direction we had with the last album we couldn’t go further. So the album sonically is a bit more sparse. That’s the direction we’re heading; heavier, doomier, and gloomier, and it’s great to tour that kind of stuff.”

HIM will get the chance to see how the new material translates to the stage over the summer when they join Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, and more on the main stage of L.P.’s Projekt Revolution tour. “All the bands are kind of crossover in what they do, that’s really interesting,” Valo says. “This is the first kind of traveling festival type of thing we’ve done cause they don’t have anything like that back in Europe, so it’s exciting.” He’s also intrigued by the eclecticism of the tour. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to be there,” he says of the mix of bands.

When talking about the musical references in the album, Valo rattles off Sabbath and old-school Metallica. That rock authenticity and ferocity are evident from the opening match that kicks off the incendiary title track. The savage intensity is kept up in the machine gun style attack of “Love in Cold Blood,” a track that explodes in a vicious guitar solo. The trademark HIM sense of melody is found both in choruses throughout and in tracks like “Dead Lover’s Lane,” as well as the acoustic “Song or Suicide,” a track recorded at L.A.’s historic Chateau Marmont.

Working with producer Tim Palmer (U2, Hot Hot Heat, Switchfoot), who helmed Dark Light, and Hiili, the man behind the controls of the band’s first album, the quintet has created a journey through many moods and feelings. Often times, as on the title track, the epic 10-minute plus “Sleepwalking Past Hope,” and the Zeppelin-infused closer, “Cyanide Sun,” that journey is an intricate one encompassing a diverse series of sonic landscapes in the span of a single song. “In this one we have a bit longer songs so arrangement-wise there’s more differences within the song,” Valo says. “We wanted that contrast, having really nice beautiful melodies and then having that really crunchy guitar thing in there; so to have the balance between the right and wrong so to speak.”

The multi-layered tone of Venus Doom is something the band was striving for. “The idea to have nine songs was based on Dante’s Inferno, cause hell has nine layers, so it’s like going deeper down into hell and then coming back,” Valo says. “There are so many different vibes and moods in the album that it’s cool once you listen to it again, because you can’t absorb everything with one listen.”

While that complexity hearkens back to great albums, something Valo is very aware of, it’s also a fitting attitude for a band that continues to grow up. In fact, keyboardist Burton had his first kid last year, prompting the group to record Venus Doom back at home in Finland to allow the band members more time to spend with their families.

Valo, who reads a great deal for inspiration, this time turning to Scandinavian poetry, admits recording in Finland had some bearing on the tone of the record. “We recorded the album during the winter so that could be one of the reasons it sounds a bit gloomy and doomy; it’s always dark and super cold.”

Weather and dark poetry aside though, it was Valo’s own evolving life that had the biggest influence on the record. The lead single, “Kiss of Dawn,” was inspired by the death of one of his close friends. “One of my mates from here in L.A. committed suicide two and a half years ago, and that’s a tribute to him,” Valo says of the song. “It’s about how it is on the other side and how we react to it on this side. Just a young guy who had the world, everything is possible, but deep depression and too many drugs cause you to do stupid things. So the subject matter is not light on the album. But it’s good to get this out. It’s cathartic.”

Some of the stuff Valo says he can only get out through songs. “There are a couple of tunes that are too close to me personally, I can’t talk about, so it’s better to leave that stuff open for interpretation,” he says. Nowadays I don’t tend to write songs of just one story, there’s usually three of them going on at the same time. And it’s good to leave people pondering, because my story is as wrong or right as their story. If you find something that fits your life or situation you’re in, that makes it true.”

Don’t let the heavy topics and the self-proclaimed doom and gloom, requisites for any self-respecting hard rock record, fool you though. Valo says the making of this album was all about what would be fun for the band. “This one we were like, ‘Let’s just have a lot of fun and play as loud as we can,’” he says. “And most of the songs were originally on guitars so I was playing riffs differently. It was just me playing my Telecaster through a fuzz box and rocking out.”

So what does Ville Valo want fans to take from the album? “Nobody can say the album’s not heavy or that it’s not emotional or not melodic,” he says. “It’s got everything we’re all about and that’s where we are now as a band.”

Johnny Depp

Biography

Initially known as a teen idol thanks to his role on 21 Jump Street and tortured pretty-boy looks, Johnny Depp survived the perils of adolescent heartthrob status to earn a reputation as a respected adult actor. His numerous collaborations with director Tim Burton, as well as solid performances in a number of critically acclaimed films, have allowed Depp to carve a niche for himself as a serious, if idiosyncratic performer, a real-life role that has continuously surprised critics intent on writing him off as just another photogenic Tiger Beat casualty.



Born in Kentucky and raised in Florida,Depp had the kind of upbringing that would readily lend itself to his future portrayals of brooding lost boys. After his parents divorced when he was 16, he dropped out of school a year later in the hopes of making his way in the world as a musician. Depp fronted a series of garage bands; the most successful of these, the Kids, was once the opening act for Iggy Pop. During slack times in the music business, Depp sold pens by phone. He got introduced to acting after a visit to L.A. with his former wife, who introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who encouraged Depp to give it a try. The young actor made his film debut in 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street (years after attaining stardom, Depp sentimentally played a cameo in the last of the Elm Street series), and his climb to fame was accelerated in 1987, when he replaced Jeff Yagher in the role of Officer Tom Hanson, a cop assigned to do undercover duty by posing as a student in crime-ridden Los Angeles-area high schools, in the Canadian-filmed Fox TV series 21 Jump Street (1987-90). Biding his time in "teen heartthrob" roles, Depp was first given a chance to exhibit his exhausting versatility in the title role of Tim Burton's fantasy Edward Scissorhands (1990).



Following the success of Edward Scissorhands, the actor made a conscious and successful effort never to repeat himself in his subsequent characterizations. He continued to gain critical acclaim and increasing popularity for his work, most notably in Benny && Joon (1993), in which he played a troubled young man who fancies himself the reincarnation of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), which cast him as its title character, a young man dissatisfied with the confines of his small-town life. Following Gilbert Grape, Depp outdid himself in Burton's Ed Wood (1994), with his outrageous but lovable portrayal of the angora-sweater-worshipping World's Worst Film Director. The same year, he further exercised his versatility playing a 19th-century accountant in Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch's otherworldly Western. With his excellent portrayal of the titular undercover FBI agent in Mike Newell's 1997 Donnie Brasco, Depp continued to ascend the Hollywood ranks. After a starring turn as Hunter S. Thompson's alter ego in Terry Gilliam's trippy adaptation of -Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Depp tried his hand at sci-fi horror with The Astronaut's Wife in 1999. That same year, he again collaborated with Burton on Sleepy Hollow, starring as a prim, driven Ichabod Crane in the remake of Washington Irving's classic tale of gothic terror. Appearing the following year in the small but popular romantic drama Chocolat, Depp jumped back into the big time with his role as real-life cocaine kingpin George Jung in Blow (2001) before gearing up for roles in the Jack the Ripper thriller From Hell (2001) and Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).



In what was perhaps his most surprising departure since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Depp shed his oftentimes angst-ridden persona for a role as flamboyant pirate Jack Sparrow in 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean. Essaying the crusty role in the manner of a drunken, debauched rock star -- Depp publicly admitted Keith Richards was his inspiration -- the actor added a dose of off-kilter fun to an above-average summer thrill ride, and found himself with his biggest hit and first Oscar nomination ever.



By this point in his wildly varied career, even Depp's most devoted fans would be hard pressed to speculate on the trajectory of his future, and the only certainty seemed to be that whatever role he accepted, it would be chosen on his own terms. Shortly after making his maiden voyage into the horrific world of Stephen King with an amusingly disheveled performance in Secret Window, Depp warmed to a wider audience with another Oscar-nominated performance, as author J.M. Barrie in the critically acclaimed Finding Neverland. A tale of wonder based on the friendship that inspired Barrie to pen the classic tale -Peter Pan, Finding Neverland earned wide praise from audiences and critics alike. After once again re-teaming with director Burton for both a vocal performance in the animated feature The Corpse Bride and a role as mysterious candy magnate Willy Wonka in 2005, Depp reprised his popular role as Jack Sparrow in the first of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which shattered box-office records. He also made plans to again work with Tim Burton, this time on an adaptation of Sweeney Todd, which was released in 2007 -- a year that would also see the release of the third Pirates movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The former earned him his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and the latter maintained his status as a formidable box-office force.



In addition to his acting, Depp has also gained a certain amount of fame for his romantic involvements with several starlets and celebrities, including Winona Ryder, Sherilyn Fenn, and Kate Moss. In 1999, he fathered a daughter with French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis, as well as a son in 2002. He was also the owner of the Viper Room, a popular L.A. nightspot which gained notoriety when actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on its doorstep in 1993. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide