Reviews

"Edderkoppen" (The Spider) is definitely one of the best Danish television shows in years - if not ever. It beats "Riget" (The Kingdom) in everything, except originality, because The Spider is above anything else an exercise in style. It is very clear that the makers of this 6-episode tv-show know their film noir and they put this knowledge to good use!

Based loosely on a true Danish criminal case, the series centers around a young reporter, Bjarne Madsen, who picks up on black market dealings in the years 1949-50 in Denmark - a period where police corruption flourished and a real Danish mob seemed to exist. His struggle for the truth results in events he cannot control, and before he knows it more than black market dealings are the issues and the stakes are high indeed.

I have nothing but respect for the makers of this mini-series. As I mentioned it is not particularly original - most of the ideas and the action has been seen before (albeit not in a Danish context) - but is is incredibly well-produced. A staggering 6 million Danish crowns (about 1 million dollars) was spent on each one-hour episode. This may not seem much by US-standards, but in Denmark 6 million crowns is a lot for a TV-production. And it pays off: the production design is wonderful, the acting is mostly brilliant (certainly better than in The Kingdom), the directing almost flawless, and the script is well-written and thrilling until the end. Søren Hyldgaards orchestral score (performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra) is wonderful too, although it is very clear that he was inspired by foreign film composers, especially Jerry Goldsmith and his score for "L.A. Confidential".

In all, "The Spider" is one of the best TV-productions ever to come out of Denmark, and it is highly recommended!

I've never quite understood why Cutthroat Island was such a commercial failure. The movie is pure fun, and then some. And furthermore it is in a genre which is much too-little visited. Frankly, the only other pirate/high-seas movie I can recall seeing is a tv-series chronicling the great Captain Cook's journeys. And that isn't even a real "pirate"-thing. True, Cutthroat Island is nothing than a saturday afternoon adventure yarn, but that's exactly why I think it was so great. Stereotypical characters, an incredible truthfulness to the genre and an *incredible* score - I mean, it's Indiana Jones in the pirate era! The general flaming this movie has received goes beyond my understanding...

The insane idea of having Bill Murray play a tv-weatherman who has to go to a small backwater town to cover the appearance of the Groundhog makes for some excellent laughs in this Harold Ramis/Bill Murray-comedy.

Bill Murray obviously enjoys himself playing cynical weatherman Phil Connors and it is without a doubt Murray's dry, cynical performance that saves Groundhog Day from being just another Hollywood comedy.

The underlying morality of the movie to me seems a bit over the top. Far from disliking movies with a message, at times it was simply a bit too moralizing. I definitely watch this movie for the excellent performance by Murray, and others should as well. If they get a kick out of the moralizing undercurrent it's just great - I just don't dig it that much (but yes - I *do* agree with the message of the movie!)..

JFK is probably one of the most important movies to have come out in a long time. Not because it tells the truth of the Kennedy-assassination (who can purport to do that?), but because it alerts people to the mysteries surrounding the murder of JFK. The movie cannot be said to tell a true story; indeed the weaving together of fact and fiction is a dangerous path, because some people may believe that the movie is *the* truth.

Nevertheless, for people who are aware of the problems concerning the investigation into Kennedy's assassination, the film is an interesting summing-up of the major theories, concerning the reasons for and perpetrators of Kennedy's murder. Sometimes the movie does go a bit overboard (the implication of LBJ to me seems to be unfounded), but overall it remains quite truthful to most of the theories.

Personally I believe that Kennedy was the victim of assassination. I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject, and far from being able to tell "the truth", I do believe that Jim Garrison was onto something, and the Garrison-theories still seem to me like the most likely.

For people who are aware of the ethical problems of weaving together documentary footage and fictional film as Stone does, JFK is a great movie to sum up the major theories about the Kennedy-assassination. For those who aren't aware of these problems, the movie is dangerous in its manipulation of "the truth".

I clearly remember thinking that Frantic was quite boring the first time I saw it (when I was about 12). However, in recent years I have seen this movie several times and it just blows me away! First of all it's nice to see Harrison Ford in a movie where he isn't typecast (also check out Presumed Innocent), and his performance is flawless. Secondly, the whole theme about being alone in a foreign country where you can't understand the language and nobody seems to take you seriously gives me the creeps every time I see the movie. And thirdly, the movie manages without much of the typical thriller-material (gunfights, car chases etc.) - yes, I know, there IS a carchase in Frantic, but it's a car chase with a twist. I can't recommend this movie enough, and I'm frankly somewhat surprised that it's overall rating is so low. Go see. Now.

John Candy - along with Bill Murray and Rick Moranis - remains my favorite comedian of all time. And in Who's Harry Crumb, Candy's talents are at an all-time peak. Both under- and overplayed, the movie itself is rather uneven with both absolutely hilarious moments and rather more dull passages, but whenever Crumb and/or Eliot Dreisen are on the screen it is great fun. "You know what Eliot? That WAS a break!". Crumb's complete ignorance of his surroundings make for the greatest fun of all. I mean, he cracks this case IN SPITE of himself, and all along there is a slightly tragic shade to the character as well. In all, Who's Harry Crumb is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Most of the comedy is in the dialogue. The physical antics aren't nearly as spectacular as in the equally magnificent Naked Gun-movies, but they are present. See it and enjoy the talents of a great comedian who is now, sadly, no more with us.

IT just isn't a good movie. Read the book, it's so much better. I read the book at the tender age of fourteen (which is now eight years ago) and it really impressed me. Maybe because I read the book so many years ago and it really meant something to me (it still does), I am so disappointed with the movie. I've read the book twice (once in Danish, once in English) and I've seen the movie two or three times, and every time I am left with the feeling that IT would have made a great tv series if it had been in 10-12 parts and with a different adult cast.

I'm surprised at just how many people actually like this movie / tv mini-series. Stephen King remains my all-time favourite author, and IT remains the best book I've ever read, but very few King-novels have translated well into movies. The only two I can think of is Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, actually. IT is no exception to this rule.

Perhaps it's because I read the book before I saw the movie, but I can't help but feel that compared with the book, the movie isn't very good. In fact, it's outright bad. It's just not possible to compress more than a thousand pages into a movie of less than four hours. Many of the best moments in the book are missing, entire characters have been deleted and much of what makes the book so special doesn't really translate into film (it's just too subtle). If you try to disregard the book, and look at the movie alone, it does have certain things that count in its defence. First of all the kids are pretty good (even compared with the characters in the book), Tim Curry makes for an excellent Pennywise the Dancing Clown and there are moments of actual terror in the movie (for instance when Mike Hanlon wakes up from his nap at the library and discovers one of Pennywise's balloons just next to him).

The first half of the movie is acceptable (although nobody will make me say it's actually "good"), but the second half is just terrible. The adults are not very believable in their portrayals of the characters and the action is still extremely condensed. The final scene with the giant spider doesn't live up to the same scene in the book which is a thousand times better. In the movie the spiders comes out like something from an old 50s movie. I mean, you almost see the men operating the damn thing. The entire concept of the Deadlights isn't used to its full potential (and why on earth did the Deadlights have to be some kind of protruberance on the belly of the spider?) and the Ritual of Chüd which is what actually allowed the Losers to defeat IT is completely erased from the movie. Same goes for the Turtle.

Had it been a series in 10-12 parts IT might have worked on-screen. Also you'd have to replace the adult actors with better actors (unfortunately Richard Masur, which is the only good adult actor to appear in the movie played the part of the unfortunate Stan Uris who was destined to commit suicide after less than three minutes on-screen). Also I've always wondered why it is that the adult Bill Denbrough is bald in the book but has long hair (!) in the movie. The creators of the movie were obviously restrained by the fact that they had to compress the action of the book into only four hours of playing time plus the limited budget of a television production. More playing time and a larger budget would have allowed for a decent adaptation of IT.