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Vesper (2022)
Well done sci-fi
I am always on the lookout for sci-fi movies and I liked the visuals of the posters and gave it a look. Right off the bat I think it has similarities to the post tech or post apokalyptic vibe I see in Simon Stålenhags art, albeit Vesper being more glomy in its outtake than e.g. Tales of the Loop based on Stålenhag. However, Vesper stands on its own feet even though it is clear where multiple inspirations are drawn from.
If you are looking for an action packed sci-fi this is not it. It is character diven story with some nice visuals. For sure one of the more interesting independant sci-fi's I have seen in a while.
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
It doesn't cut it
The first ST was a good action packed ironic movie. ST2 was a low budget not too good sequel although with some good ideas wasted away. The third one doesn't have much of a story or a script. It could easily be summarized in a few lines but I won't do that as I will give away the entire movie. How come it is that bad then?
First of all the script is terrible. The lines are not good and the actors, most of them are amateurs, deliver them even worse. Not a good start. Also the lines are missing the snappy and witty style of the original movie. Many times it feels like watching a badly rehearsed school play. Actors waiting for their turn to read their line. Well, it doesn't cut it.
Second, the action which was of very high standards in the first movie is very bad in this one. For example, there are many scenes where you see bugs attacking and you hear weapons fire but there are no muzzle flares or ricocheting, even though the actors act like they are shooting. Also the CGI is worse than the original even though it has 11 year of advances in computer technology. That is quite poor. The puppets are of better quality, but still not at the level of the first movie.
Third, the actors and acting are of very varied quality and it seems that the bad actors pull down the "skilled" instead of vice versa. Or could it be that they don't put in the effort? In any case the director should really get a slap on the wrist as he is not doing his job.
Finally, this movie could have easily been much better if someone with wit and humor and an ironic satiric sense were to adjust the script. Now it falls flat. All that is good in the first movie is bad in this.
If you like Starship Troopers, don't watch this it will just make you sad that you wasted 90 minutes of your life.
It sad to see a talented actress as Jolene Blalock take part in crap like this.
Zeitgeist (2007)
Nicely wrapped but not factual and certainly not a documentary
First of all, lets just make one thing clear. This is NOT a documentary. It is not the truth, even the producer on the movies own homepage says it isn't! Zeitgeist is a very nicely wrapped money scam, nothing else. Hey if someone is stupid enough to buy the books, T-shirts and DVDs the makers of this movie should have credit for that. It is a well made scam and I bet they are making money. It is easy to get sucked in as the message in cleverly displayed. However, the movie is loaded with factual faults and lies. Many of the quotes are taken out of context, changed, or even made up!
So should you watch this movie? YES, I think you should as an exercise in how easy you could be manipulated by a well wrapped message. You can yourself disprove many of the "facts" in the movie yourself without much effort. You can also have a look at various pages debunking the movie for example "conspiracyscience com". I think everyone in social sciences and history class should have this video and then debunk it as a part of the curriculum so people learn to think for themselves. That is in a way ironic considering it is one of the main messages of the film ...
Vote 2/10. Why? Well the movie is a nice potpourri of various conspiracy theories and bundled as "truth". It is very well made I will give it that. However, I have little respect for "documentaries" that first of all don't have any credits. The source list on the web page is laughable at best and if you actually should get hold of any of the listed books you are lucky. If you know anything about how to present sources to be credible this is NOT how to do it.
What makes me most worried though is the wast amount of comments (not only here) about how the movie "changed their life", "I immediately denounced my fate" etc. Yes the movie IS an eye opener. It shows how gullible people are. If that was the true intent of this movie it would be a masterpiece!
[Rec] (2007)
OK but not scary
I was tipped about this movie from a friend and he suggested that I should just watch it without reading anything about it. So I did. The only thing I knew about the movie was that it was Spanish and a horror flick. To begin with I must state that I am not easily scared and there is only a few movies that I have felt scared or at unease e.g. Ringu, Jacob's Ladder, and Sixth Sense.
Spoiler warning The premise is that a local (Barcelona) TV team consisting of a man (camera guy) and a young woman reporter joins a firefighter station to make a show/documentary named "While you are sleeping". Everything is showed through the camera view so there are no other angles shown. It is documentary style that you may have seen in e.g. Cloverfield or Blair Witch Project (none of them made me scared btw). This also means that you get the odd shots of the floor and shaky movement while running around.
The TV team tags along on a routine call to an elderly woman that have supposedly fallen and neighbors have heard screaming. Once there the story starts to unfold and pretty quick you realize that it is a zombie type movie. The disease is transmitted by saliva and bit by bit (no pun intended) the puzzle is revealed. Then there is running and chasing and suspicion. Well, the only good thing is that they all die in the end. ;)
The movie is well made but it doesn't scare me. There are a few logic flaws in the movie which for me takes the scare edge out of it even more. I think this movie could be very scary if you are easily scared. Also I think it is better to watch in the cinema than on DVD.
If you like zombie flicks and are easily scared then this is your kind of movie.
5 of 10 because it is well made but the story is thin and so is acting in some places.
Smile (2005)
Slow movie that isn't worth the wait
The pace of this movie is quite slow. It takes about 70 minutes to get Katie to China (which we know that she will) and leaves 30 minutes to wrap things up. The storyline is so predictable that you know everything after about 5 minutes. Nothing surprises you. I guess that the movie is a coming of age movie but the movie is full of stereotypes that are quite over the top:
Katie - A beauty that realizes that looks, boys and shopping isn't everything. She realizes that she can "feel" and "see the real world". Touching.
The mother - high strung, nervous, screaming mother (wow very innovative) that need taking care of by a strong man.
The father - patient and always understanding and takes care of the incapable woman.
The boyfriend that only wants to get into her pants.
The comedian clown Chinese guy that doesn't know how to speak English properly and made a laughing stock. Thought Hollywood dropped those characters in the mid fifties.
The nurse that at times knows everything how to get around in China that in the next moment is a carbon copy of The mother i.e. a woman who cant handle the situation or knows anything.
The deformed Chinese girl that with the help of us westerns get help and become a beautiful girl. Because in China (a third world country according to the film) don't have anything and hence needs our charity. Gah, wake up and smell what you are shoveling.
Sure that there are some poverty in China but the portrayal of the aid from western countries (read USA) is so shallow and happy ending-ish that it is sad and revolting. Shanghai (where the movie is set) is the most expanding and evolving city in the world at the moment.
The Chinese father that is so nice and goodhearted that in the end has one wish ... to be a cowboy with a white hat ...
The teacher (Sean Astin) that has this really heart ripping story (not) that he tells without feel. Why Sean? WHY!?
Etc etc. It is difficult to actually finding a "real" person in the entire movie.
This is nothing but a feel good movie for Americans below age 15. If you want to learn anything about the world watch e.g. Hotel Rwanda instead. For a better life story or coming of age movie I suggest you watch the Italian "Cinema Paradiso" that won the best foreign film academy reward some years back.
The only nice thing in the movie were the small town sceneries that truly capture some (not all) of the beautiful Chinese country side. I have been there and seen some of it.
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Top 5 worst film ever
I had read the newspaper reviews of this film and I must say my expectations were very low before watching Ocean's 12. I really enjoyed the first movie but this successor is one of the worst movies ever. I would rate it top 5 of the worst movie I have ever seen. Why do I say that? First of all there is a story so thin that Britney Spears Crossroads looks like the perfect action thriller. The fragments that could be assigned the term "story" is loosely held together at times but most of the time the movie just moves along with no purpose or drive. The entire story seems forced and the script surrounding the story is even more forced that it become farce at times.
The actors show up but doesn't do anything to deserve any credit or appraise. Most embarrassing are leading ladies (Roberts and Zeta-Jones) that either overplay or are extremely plain. Damon, Clooney and Pitt aren't brilliant either. To be honest I really don't understand how they would want to be associated with something as bad as this movie.
=== May contains spoilers ==== Camera and editing, sigh where should I begin. There are many unnecessary camera movements that just make the experience painful. Combine that with extremely untactful editing and you start looking for a wooden spoon to carve your heart out. Especially the scene where the entire gang is moved out of the prison to be transported away by car. The camera zoom to each person just get boring and when you are at number 3 of 12 you got the message: wow you are cool and can do simple zoom effects - NOT. I understand that the scene with Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts) playing Julia Roberts is supposed to be funny but it just gets extremely embarrassing and you turn away to avoid experiencing the mess. Bruce Willis. Why? Please explain it to me! WHY???
To summarize ... if you have to choose between root canal work and watching Ocean's 12 I recommend the former. Make sure they do all the teeth while you are at it ...
Fargo (1996)
Fargo is a black comedy, maybe even a tragedy
In the beginning of the Coen brothers film Fargo a sign tells us that we are about to witness a true story. The sign fades to white and from within the white a car emerges. The car tows another brand new, light brown car on a country road covered in snow. The story, in its simplicity, is based on an authentic criminal case: A failed car dealer hires two villains to kidnap his wife in order to collect the ransom himself and thereby solving his economic troubles. But the kidnapping goes wrong and a series of innocent people get killed and soon the police is on his and his accomplices' tails. The man that tows the car is Jerry Lundegaard, the car salesman. He's on his way to meet the two villains, whom are the ones to kidnap his wife, in Fargo, North Dakota. The towed car is a down-payment of the kidnappning.
Carter Burwells musical score and the snow softly falling down contributes to amplify the fateful mood. The Coen brothers last film, The Hudsucker Proxy (called Strebern in Sweden) was a wonderful story with actors as Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Robbins. The movie wasn't a success. At least not in the USA. Joel and Ethan Coen refers to the movie as "Coen brothers big flop" and doesn't deny that Fargo is a deliberate step into a new filmable manner, maybe to once get the home audiences approval. Fargo is a low budget movie without any stars and with a modest length of 93 minutes with which the Coen brothers finally have conquered the american audience.
Fargo is a kind of tragic comedy. Jerry Lundegaard is an average familyfather who once was every mothers dream that gets pushed around by his wife's father. The kidnapping is as much a way for him to solve his economical problems, as it is for him to speak his mind. When he decides to go along with his plan, it's probably the first in a long time that he takes an inititive. Gaer Grimsrud and Carl Showalter are the villains he hires. The one is the talkative, and you believe he will never end, and the other says less than 15 lines in the entire movie!
Together they make an odd couple that only argue when they talk to each other. They are extremely clumsy and it's sometimes hard to believe the ferocious and violent acts that are carried out by them. The people in Fargo aren't evil even though they do evil actions. They're not comedians but they end up in comic situations. The kidnappning is brutal but the events just before, during and after are extremely funny and it is hard not to laugh. Likewise when the hand over by the ransom money end up in a shooting; and instead of blood it's feathers that pour out. Marge Gundersen, the pregnant police officer that with her thick winter clothing looks like a penguin, is the antipole of Jerry Lundegaard. But Marge isn't a person that you laugh at. In difference to Jerry she knows exactly what she is doing and has no problem in dealing with the situations she encounters. Marge is more charming than comic and is no regular movie hero. It takes 40 minutes before we encounter her for the first time. It's the events before, that introduces her.
Fargo is a black comedy, maybe even a tragedy. The Swedish actor Peter Stormare makes a great performance as the strong silent smoking villain, Gaer Grimsrud. My advise is to see the movie.
La cité des enfants perdus (1995)
A visual experience, a perfect illusion
Surely every child has dreamed that it should be Christmas every day, a continous flow of joy and happiness. But when Santa shows up, not in one or two, five, ten but hundreds of copies, the child doesn't laugh anymore, the child cries with fear and agony. Then the dream transforms into a nightmare.
In La cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children), Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caros' latest movie, an evil man and his companions, consisting of a sect of blind men and a brain in an aquarium (!), kidnap children to steal their dreams. The good is represented by "the strong man", called One, who is looking for his abducted baby brother (in fact a child he had found in a garbage can). Soon we meet a little girl. Through a nightmare landscape filled with torture-looking dream laboratories, dirty alleys and slough sewer water, the hunt for the dream thieves is conducted.
The story resembles, in some parts, a well known children's story, Alice in Wonderland (AiW). In this story we also meet a little girl, in this case Miette, who is walking through a dream like landscape and, just like Alice, Miette meets the most grotesque figures like the laughing Siamese twins (a sneering cat in AiW) and the opium smoking stooge (an opium smoking toad in AiW). But this is a disillusioned and cunning Alice, an Alice in Wonderland roving in a futuristic nightmare. In contrast to Alice, Miette is not filled with expectation and curiousity of what to come in the new world, which easily could be the world of grown-ups. You get a feeling, from all the children, that they, including Miette, are more disillusioned than the grown-ups. To grow up is not a goal for these children. A dream forms into a nightmare and La cité des enfants perdus becomes a metaphor and not only for the children's lost illusions but for the entire world's lost innocence. This movie is a visual experience, a perfect illusion.
The musical score was made by Angelo Badalamenti, who made the score for Blue Velvet, a movie by David Lynch. And the amazing costumes were made by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988)
A celebration to the movies and true love
A movie theatre in the small town Giancaldo, Sicily, Italy, is what mesmerizes a young boy, Toto (in the years following WW2). He pursues a friendship with the crusty but warm hearted projecionist, Alfredo, who is played by Philippe Noiret, a French actor. He is, since the early sixties, one of the leading character actors in French film. We follow Toto and Alfredo through happiness, disaster, Toto's first love and the life of the villagers of Giancaldo. Captivating, bittersweet film, with a perfect finale; Noiret and the boy (Salvatore Cascio) are wonderful.
The director Giuseppe Tornatore also wrote the screenplay for this Oscar winning film. After abortive Italian release in 1988 (at 155 minutes), film was shortened by a half hour and at the film festival in Cannes, 1989, Cinema Paradiso was awarded a special jury prize. Music was made by Ennio Morricone and Andrea Morricone. If you like movies like Dead Poets Society, The Remains of The Day etc, then this is absolutely a movie for you.