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Reviews
Face Addict (2005)
Creativity. Delusions. Nostalgia.
An insider's look into the creative world of NY downtown scene of the late 70s-early 80s filmed by one of the members of the party, a photographer Edo Bertoglio. No wave, new wave, Warhol's Factory, Basquiat, post-beat generation, poets, queers, freaks. Just a tip of the iceberg of various artistic phenomenas that were born in that time, when art blurred with life. Some of those remarkable characters died shortly before or after their work has reached wider public. We look at that period through the eyes of the people involved. Those who survived were visisted by their old pal. He opens his archive of photographs, shares it with his friends. And they're sharing common memories of that incredibly creative and crazy period. One of the common experiences were drugs and during the second half of the movie Bertolio is telling the story of his and his friends addiction and its role in total desintegration of the scene. From now on we're witnessing Walter Steding helplessly trying to fight his heroine addiction. But fortunately "Face Addict" is not just a documentary portrait of past era neither it's anti drug manifesto. It's also a great, intimate look into those fragile people's souls.
Dnevnoy dozor (2006)
So brainless it could have been made in Hollywood
After watching the first part of "Day Watch" i felt really surprised. Great action movie with interesting theme and, most importantly, with very Eastern European touch. And i mean it. The juxtaposition of crude Russian reality with hi-tech and superpowers reminded me of Kir Bulychov's novels. Funny, bizarre, surprisingly organic and fresh. My expectations were equally high when i started watching the sequel. To be honest, i turned it off after one hour. What a chaotic piece of cinema, it's much, much worse that the first part! I definitely agree with one of the posters below, who says this flick has virtually no dialogues, that the story itself is blurred, characters don't develop and that it's loaded with special effect just for sake of showing off the (presumably high) budget. Neverming the ugly product placements every 10 minutes, nevermind terrible music (sort of Limp Bizkit meets Biohazard Russian MTV style) the movie itself has no sense, it's transparent and pointless like some amateurish comic book. What a waste of opportunity. However i don't discourage you, watch it yourself. If you like brainless movies from Hollywood this one is slightly better. For those who want to see a good piece of bizarre Russian SF, check out Kin-Dza-Dza. This one make you thinking at least.
The White Diamond (2004)
A cubic zirconia
Having seen real documentary diamonds of Herzog, ("Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia", "The Dark Glow of the Mountains ", "Lessons of Darkness" and the thrilling "Ballad of the Little Soldier"), which were either visually stunning pictures, or were telling unbelievable stories, or both, i was a bit disappointed by the story told in this movie. Digital pixelesque on the screen did not help (it's one of the times i swear inventors of digital cameras), plus i felt being treated as a naive kid sitting in the front of a TV set. Again, we follow someone realizing his mad idea (wait a minute, haven't we seen that on most of Herzog's movies?). This time it's Dr. Dorrington who builds a helium balloon to fly over the rain forest in South America. We learn why he's so obsessed about it and whether he succeeds or not. There a couple of funny scenes here, my favorite ones when a local approaches the crew and gets eventually familiar with them, tossing almost philosophical remarks. Nevertheless the main character's obsession was not convincing enough to make a full time feature about it (ok, it's a really crazy idea, but firstly: i've already seen "Fitzcarraldo", secondly: the guy behaves and talks to you like a guest of "Sesame Street"). I'm not even talking about visual side, which suffers a lot from a low budget - those rare moments showing miracles of nature are blurry and look like my father's video trophy from his recent trip to Guyana. All in all I could see that on Wednesday noon on National Geographic channel. Sure, an average Herzog documentary is an above average documentary anyway, but I've got mixed feelings about this one. There are much betters movies of Werner Herzog worth checking so 5 out of 10 is a just note.
The Night of the Generals (1967)
don't learn history from this movie
the mask of peter o'toole is cold as death and the movie is worth watching just because of the grotesque faces of this character. i just wanted to add, that the director was terribly unaccurate when depicting historical facts. of course, it's just a background for a crime scene and some struggle between honour and ideals and a hunt of a german intelligence officer as a detective (funny looking omar sharif here) for a murderer, but sometimes it's better to stick to truth, otherwise you make a very funny movie. i guess it's typical for western directors, who show that, for instance, it were brave british soldiers who broke the codes of enigma (in fact it was polish scientists who did it), but here we've got a director from ukraine who cannot see a difference between warsaw's uprising and warsaw's ghetto's uprising. this is just a tip of an iceberg. so beware - don't take fiction for facts. 6 out of 10 for the movie, 1 out of 10 for historical accuracy.
Any Way the Wind Blows (2003)
Great form but nothing less
Some say it's a mixture of everything. True. A former dEUS' leader's effort is not as satisfying like the band's first albums. Neither characters develope in any direction, nor the story itself. Too many conventions mixed in one longish and rather uninteresting postmodernistic effort - at least from the side of storytelling author did not succeed. However one can really admire nice visuals, professional camera work and, of course, music. But really, if Belgian societies are as shallow and boring as the ones portraited, I'd rather stick to some other countries when planning my summer holidays. On the other hand, it's just a typical contemporary movie in vein of works by Tom Tykwer and others - nicely done, formally original, a little bit above average, but nothing less. If you're looking for a masterpiece, go somewhere else.
Young Adam (2003)
Subtle story about passions
Well, after watching mr. McGregor in "Star wars" productions I did not expect him to perform in such delicate films (well, to American censorship it wasn't, they cut out some sequences AFAIK). But fortunately he hasn't moved to Hollywood yet (or has he?). Anyway, I've just come back from the cinema and I must say it's one of the films I'm going to remember. Top camera work, interesting characters, original plot and fine, detailed set and setting (Scotland in the 50s or so, reminding me the atmosphere of 'Spider' by David Cronenberg). I don't want to spoil you the pleasure of watching the movie, so I'm not gonna write about the course the story is going to develope, but a statement that this movie is just about working class people is simply unjust :-). Underneath is much more hidden and McGregor works hard to express his fight with memories, with pongs of concience, etc. Go read about Alexander Trocchi himself, his novels were so far from working class ethos and so was his life. Sort of Burroughs meets Genet meets bohemian junk.
and oh, i'm not a big fan of David Byrne but his soundtrack here is simply great. 9 out of 10