Simply A Masterpiece

People are voting emotionally.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA is a 2007 collection of 3-minute shorts by some 36 directors around the world on the theme of what cinema means to them. So many auteurs already make films about films inasmuch as they allude to classics, but here most of the shorts are actually set in cinemas, with audiences in rows of seating. You'll need to have a decent familiarity with the art-house canon before watching this, though. It's fascinating how so many of the directors, regardless of what continent they hailed from, choose to have French New Wave films playing in the background as their stories are told.It opens with Raymond Depardon's "Open-Air Cinema", where a crowd of Egyptians watched an outdoor projection in Alexandria, and in spite of the unusual writing and the women's veils, they seem to be just like us. Zhang Yimou later does much the same in a Chinese village.One of the remarkable aspects of this collection are the similar ideas. Two stories deal with thieves stealing purses in dark cinemas. Three deal with the blind and how they perceive cinema. Many look back to childhood/earlier eras. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's short recreates 1950s Taiwan on an elaborate set to show the typical visit to a cinema of his youth. Amos Gitai's film juxtaposes 1930s viewers of Yiddish cinema, a vibrant tradition destroyed by the Holocaust, with a modern Israeli audience in wartime. Youssef Chahine's looks back at his first visit to Cannes 47 years before.Some of the films deal with serious political themes: Amos Gitai on the Israeli-Arab relations, David Croneberg on anti-semitism ,and Bille August with Danish-immigrant relations. However, there are also a number of overtly funny shorts, like Takeshi Kitano's, where a working man's chance to unwind by watching a film keeps getting interrupted by problems with the projector. In Lars Van Trier's contribution, Jacques Franz plays an annoying businessman who can't stop bragging about his success, though the extreme gore and violence that follows makes for very black humour. Elia Suleiman's is Buster Keatonish physical comedy in the modern world.Some shorts are notable for continuing an aesthetic that the director had already established in an earlier film. Kaurismäki's short is his usual style of an ostensibly contemporary setting, but with 1950s rock music and working class people who speak utterly deadpan. (Unusually, however, it uses none of his typical troupe of actors.) Abbas Kiarostami's "Where is My Romeo?" is a sort of follow-up to his experimental film SHIRIN, which showed only the faces of numerous women as they watched a classic Iranian tale of love; here these women are watching "Romeo and Juliet" instead.All in all, this proved a continuously engaging film, whose 2-hour running time just flew by for me. Nearly all the shorts were entertaining, the sole exceptions for me being Jane Campion's oddball short, where an adult woman plays an insect that vexes a projectionist, and Gus Van Sant's film with a randy teenager entering into the film being projected. Nothing here seems a must-see classic, but if you like a few of the directors here, you're sure to enjoy this set.I am familiar with the Studio Canal (Region 2) release of the film. There are English subtitles, but the dialogue is rarely important: you can understand entirely what is happening from the movements of the actors. Only that small handful of shorts with narration really need subtitles. It should be noted that the Studio Canal release is missing the contributions by the Coen brothers and David Lynch. I'm not sure what is missing from other international releases.

As is to be expected from this kind of movie, it has its ups and downs. Some of the participating directors - pointing out Cronenberg, Salles, Polanski, Von Trier and Assayas as my personal favorites - did a remarkable job creating these three-minute-long tributes to cinema. A few of the movies are overtly pretentious, a few are just boring, and a couple - rolling my eyes towards Mr. Van Sant - were extremely disappointing works from excellent directors. Overall though, the majority of the films are enjoyable, and that alone is an impressive achievement. And even the weaker ones are short and varied enough to not be too demanding. I definitely recommend it for any film buff.

Chacun son Cinema is a collection of 33 short films, 3-minute long each, made by renowned international directors, which was released in 2007 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. The shorts revolve about the emotional connection of the director with movies in general, certain movies in particular, or some movie theaters.As you can expect from a collection of short films, there are good bits, so-so bits, and bad bits.The movies I liked the most were eight. I loved two of the Asian ones, "Movie Night" by Yimour Zhang and "Zhanxiou Village" by Kaige Chen, which really reminded me of my childhood and my relation with movies; they are beautifully shot and have special magical moments in them. I found hilarious "Cinema Erotique" by Polanski. "Cinema around the corner" by Lelouch is very stylish, while "The Foundry" by Kaurismoki and "Dans le Noir" by Konchalovsky are great concepts an thought- provoking films. I also liked the emotion (without the corn) in "Darkness" by the Dardennes and "Anna" by Iñarritu. Some of the others are still interesting an nice, some others a complete disappointment and waste of time.The main flaws of the movie, to me, are 1/ the length being limited to 3 minutes, the director has a time constriction that doesn't allow to do much, really, and the stories in the shorts resent it. 2/ The regional unbalance in the selection of the movie directors, very French on the other hand, with a complete shocking absence of Spanish directors! 3/ The only sub-Saharan movie is not even made by an African director... that's a sort of Colonialism... 4/ The presence of that mediocre called Moretti chosen to represent Italy.However, it is an interesting and enjoyable collection of stories. Cinema is full of magic and has shaped our lives since childhood, and this collection of shorts tries to honor that.

On last Thursday (6 November 2008) once again began the "Muestra International de Cine", certainly this year its selection is not as eye catching for me as last year and practically I really want to watch just two more films after watching Chacun son cinéma (Scorsese's Shine a Light and Chaplin's The Gold Rush, which I want to watch on the big screen!) but certainly this film was by far better than the first one I saw during last year's "Muestra" (it was Belle toujours). The organizers decided to bring the film that celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival and definitely was a worth watching opener, not all the short films are great works yet the ones that worked were enough for me. As many I was aware of the existence of this film since long time ago and definitely it looked as a very interesting work but as no information of a possible release as my interest decreased, in other words I knew that Takeshi Kitano was part of the film until I saw the poster yesterday at the cinema. Anyway, as you know this is a tribute to the cinema and by watching the second short film you know that this is a work that every film lover should watch. That second short film is the one of Kitano and with it quickly you forget about the uncertain opener, certainly Kitano's contribution One Fine Day is one of my favourites, it is a very simple short film with Kitano as a projectionist of a local little cinema where the film Kids Return is been "watched" by only one person. And is "watched" because that man will watch Kids Return in 3 "acts", problems with the projection and when finally seems to be everything fine the credits are on the screen and the man had smoke some cigarettes. This is perfect but if there's one word that can describe Chacun son cinéma that is inconstancy. I was expecting great stuff from certain filmmakers, very few, actually I only knew and know Kitano, Andrei Konchalovsky (only for Tango & Cash), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (only for L'Infant), Zhang Yimou, Gonzalez Iñarritu, Aki Kaurismäki, Lars von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Roman Polanski, Cimino, Cronenberg, Wong Kar-wai, Wim Wenders and Lynch (I also know the Coen brothers yet their contribution was not showed and don't ask me why). Of those directors I do can say if I loved their short films or if was disappointment; certainly Kitano has not make a bad work for me yet (plenty Kitano films still to watch), honestly I didn't recognize the short of Iñarritu and when I saw his name in the credits was both a surprise and a disappointment (the only Mexican director and he filmed in English, I consider that 21 Grams is his very best film however I didn't liked that on an international project like this one he was another director who's short is in English), Gus Van Sant's short is one of the worst (it contains a sort of tribute to Buster Keaton), I Travelled 9000 km To Give It To You is typical Wong Kar-wai only that it is my less favourite work of this brilliant director. David Lynch's Absurda is like an oasis in a desert that has certain water if that s*** that I have just write makes sense to you, I have to watch that short again! And there are some other short films that are quite bizarre, certainly Absurda is pure Lynch, and others quite tragic, others very funny and others that have everything. And the references to films are obviously everywhere, there are some shorts that are not only a tribute to cinema but also a tribute to a specific film like Fellini's 8½ in the contribution of Konchalovsky. Definitely that short, In the Dark, is not one of my personal favorites but it is the example of a short film that have all, you understand the passion of that woman to a film and you will laugh with her actions in order to watch again 8½. Chen kaige's Zhanxiou Village show to us a group of kids watching a Chaplin film and the problems of electricity will not be enough to stop these kids who were really enjoying the wonders of Chaplin. This short shares something with the one of Iñarritu and also with other short film (can't remember the name but I think it is The Last Dating Show) about a Danish man who "explain" to his date each dialog of the movie since she don't speak the language, it ends in a really great way....THANKS TO IMDb I LOSE THE OTHER PART OF THIS COMMENT BUT I WILL COMPLETE THIS ONE SOON