Mara's Movie Page

Marriage on a leave

2011-05-28T21:47:00.001+03:00

Hall Pass (2011)

It's clear that the Farrelly brothers have shaped the modern comedy, wether it's a good thing or not, I'll leave that up to you to decide. But their warm hearted comedies with gross out content surely left their mark. Their last movies however have been quite bad, showing signs that old dogs can't learn new tricks. This one started off very well. The story in itself, with two married men being granted a week off from marriage to explore their desires, wasn't that special, but the comedy at the start was surprisingly good. It didn't involve any bodily excrements, drugs or handicapped people, which I found to be a pleasant surprise. Though of course towards the end it covers all of those and some others as well but the start was actually truly funny. And even though it falls to the old tricks towards the end, I must admit that one particular exploding shit joke actually cracked me up pretty good. So it surely was better than their last two efforts as this one actually made me laugh at parts, but still it wasn't exactly a good movie either. The good mood and even smart comedy at the start goes way too much over board towards the end and the old jokes didn't make me laugh anymore. The cast is fairly ok, though only Richard Jenkins really stood out from them as the rest were kind of playing it safe. Guess the movie did what it was supposed as it kept me somewhat entertained and made me laugh at parts, but still it didn't leave any kind of good impression either.
51%

A lizard with a six shooter

2011-05-28T21:09:00.001+03:00

Rango (2011)

Rango is a domesticated pet chameleon who dreams of big stardom as a great actor. But his aquarium gets thrown out of a car and he ends up in the desert of the wild west. Fighting his way through the scorching heat of the desert sun, an eagle looking for a meal and other dangers on his way, he winds up in a little town called Dirt. Dirt is an outlawed town where only the strongest survive. It's filled with all sorts of critters and everyone seems to be after water. Soon Rango finds himself as the sheriff of Dirt and needs to figure out what has happened to the water supply. The story follows familiar paths from spaghetti westerns and that homage to the genre one of the best aspects of the movie. Spaghetti western fans will find tons of references to pretty much all of the classics and quite a many jokes related to them. Another thing I liked about this were the characters, they aren't the usual cute little animals, these are reptiles, amphibians and other critters that usually don't pop in mind when thinking of something cute. But they are not nasty looking disgusting things, there's still enough character in them that they actually turn out to be quite cute. And most of all they fit the spaghetti western story very well. The comedy was aimed mostly at the adult audience, so don't know if kids can get as much out of this, but at least I surely had fun. Though there is enough of slapstick so I bet the kids can enjoy it as well. Johnny Depp puts on a brilliant show and genuinely seems to enjoy his part, so that was of course a great plus. Unfortunately the rest of the cast didn't shine out as much, but then again there wasn't much of a script for them either. Though I must mention that I was actually surprised that Spirit of the West wasn't played by Clint Eastwood, so props for Timothy Olyphant for the Clint impersonation. The look was quite good also with many shot setups straight from the classic spaghetti westerns and at parts even the music sounded like it would have been made by Ennio Morricone. So there are lots of great things in this one and surely it was a refreshingly different kind of animation, but would have hoped a bit better casting on the smaller roles and a bit tighter script.
70%

Lost my mind in Berlin

2011-05-27T21:20:00.001+03:00

Unknown (2011)

Doctor Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Elizabeth (January Jones) arrive to Berlin for a conference on biotechnology. As they arrive to their hotel Martin notices that he has left his briefcase at the airport and takes a taxi to retrieve it. However the taxi gets into an accident and ends up to the bottom of a lake and Martin wakes up four days later in a hospital. His memory is a bit vague but he remembers all the important things to him. But as he returns to the hotel he notices that someone else has taken his spot and even his own wife doesn't seem to know him. He begins to wonder wether he really is losing his mind or if this is some kind of conspiracy. He of course goes for the conspiracy theory and sets out to expose the whole thing with the help of the taxi driver (Diane Kruger) and an ex Stasi agent (Bruno Ganz). The story is actually quite intriguing, even though towards the end it falls apart quite a bit. It keeps you guessing and even though it doesn't offer that much new to the genre, it actually manages to bring some surprises. The cast is very strong and they are given enough space to shine through. Especially Bruno Ganz steals the show as the old Stasi agent, though I did see some similar manners he did as Hitler, but then again they fit the role quite well. The direction is quite good and the mood fits the story very well. And Berlin as a setting looked quite brilliant. This would have been a great action packed thriller, but too bad it gets a bit silly towards the end. It loses it's edge and turns into a naive formulaic thriller, which is a shame as the first half promised a lot better movie.
64%

Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything

2011-05-27T11:55:00.002+03:00

Sin City (2005)

When I first saw this I loved it to death, but as time has passed and I hadn't seen it in about 4 years, I decided to watch it again. Well I still loved the ultra-noir style of it, even though this time I noticed a couple of shots that didn't really fit the mood that well. I love the comics and I must say this is the best adaptation possible. The visual style is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a live action movie adaptation of the book. Can't say the same about the music, then again as comic books don't have soundtracks, it's all in what you personally prefer. I always imagined a jazzy soundtrack to it, but the one it has wasn't that bad either. The cast is stellar and mostly fit the characters brilliantly. Though I thought that Clive Owen didn't really match Dwight from the comic, he was a bit too emotional for the role, but luckily he is a good actor so it wasn't that big of a deal as he manages to pull off a good performance. The stories aren't the best of the comics, but they mix together nicely so I can understand why they chose these. Marv's story steals the show as he is by far the most entertaining character of the comics and Mickey Rourke does a brilliant job at the role. In fact that story steals the show so much it makes the other stories seem a lot weaker than they really are. And that kind of makes the movie uneven at times. But then again as the pace is fast non stop thrill ride you won't get bored for a second. It didn't work as well this time as it did before but still it's one of the best comic book adaptations and a brilliant movie in itself.
90%

The dead shall walk the earth and go shopping

2011-05-22T17:36:00.002+03:00

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

The original Dawn of the Dead (1978) is one of the best, if not even the very best, horror movies ever made. It's as near perfection as a movie of it's kind can be, so there really shouldn't be anything to add to it with a remake. Once I heard they were doing a remake and saw that it was done by a commercial director and written by the guy who wrote Scooby-Doo (2002), I almost screamed in anger. I condemned the movie to be the worst piece of crap ever made, before it was even made. I didn't want to see it for a long time even though it seemed to get quite good reviews, but I'm glad I finally did see it. It's actually a great remake. It only takes the idea of the original and builds around it, not trying to top it and actually not even trying to be like it. It doesn't have any of the criticism towards society like the original, it doesn't even want to make a statement of any kind. It just takes the entertainment values of the original and brings them to today. And it does a very good job at it. The movie starts up fast and never really stops after that, but it's not exhausting and the constant action doesn't get tedious. The characters are a bit one dimentional, well at least few of them are as there is some proper depth to a couple of them, but even the smaller characters are all quite interesting. The style and the mood fit the movie very well and the dark comedy supports it brilliantly. Now it's of course not as good as the original, but as it's so different from the original and not even trying to imitate it, it works great on it's own. One of the best remakes I've seen and a very entertaining movie.
78%

The filmography of Michael Bay

2011-05-21T17:56:00.004+03:00

I was thinking which director's filmography I should go through next and at first I thought I'd take some other master of the art out of the best of the best. But then I thought it's not good to just focus on the brilliant directors as watching a masterpiece after a masterpiece tends to raise the bar too high for everyone else. So that's why I decided to take a look at Michael Bay. The man who is associated with explosive hyper active action, racist type casting without any character development and idolizing Americana. Not forgetting helicopters flying slow motion in the sunset, the light streaks and flares to spice up dull conversations or the camera that just doesn't stand still for a second. I must say I have a hate/love relationship towards the man. At best he does properly funny action movies which are very entertaining, but at the same time he has no idea how to tell a good story or build drama or characters for that matter. Even the action has been bad in his later films where it's just a CGI mess with no sense of what's going on. But I must say they are still fun, intentionally or not. His commercial and music video background shines through his movies, and that's what they basically are, a mix of commercial product placement and music video. So for what ever it's worth here's Michael Bay's filmography.

Bad Boys (1995)

His first movie actually already has everything he became famous for. There's the sunset, the low flying helicopter, no character development, product placement, light streaks and big explosions. The story is simple crap and surprisingly even Bay himself has said that he didn't like the script. But that's not the point in this movie, it's the action and the comedy. Which it has plenty of both. The chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is quite great and they actually put up a buddy act that's one of the better ones I've ever seen. And that's the real driving force of this movie, without it this would be just another crappy B-action flick. Speaking about the action, it's nice to see that at start Bay didn't have his hyper active shooting style and the action actually makes sense on screen. So yes the action worked quite well also. What didn't work in addition to the thin story was the character development. Or the lack of it, there is absolutely none. Luckily the characters are so strong to begin with that you really don't need it that much, but that did leave the characters way too one dimentional to bring any drama into the action. The main duo is certainly great and Joe Pantoliano and Tcheky Karyo were quite ok as well. But the damsel in distress, Tea Leoni, was completely useless, her role was basically to look good. It's actually hilarious in the end where she's inserted in all those slow motion shots where the two cops walk with their guns drawn. Just what's her purpose there? Well that gave me laughs, even though I guess it wasn't intended that way. Despite it's quite serious flaws, it's still an entertaining and especially fun action movie. So it does what it's supposed to do even though it doesn't give you anything extra.
66%

The Rock (1996)

Say what you will but this is one of the best action movies ever made. Having said that, this movie is also the movie where Bay first introduced his frantic editing style with most of the shots not more than 2 seconds long and rarely visiting the same angle twice. Something I've later started to hate from the bottom of my heart. But for some reason this is one of the very few movies where it actually doesn't matter at all. This movie is just tons of fun. The overly cheesy patriotism of USA turns into comedy and supports the movie as an extra comic punch very nicely. And believe it or not I really like the story behind all the explosions. I don't mean the story of a lab rat and an old fart fighting a team of highly trained marines, that's pure comedy, but the driving force behind the characters. The bad guy is actually a good guy with a noble cause but with bad means for it, the old Brittish agent wrongfully imprisoned for most of his life and even the lab rat were all genuinely interesting characters. Something you can rarely say in a movie like this. The casting is one of the best of it's kind, Ed Harris, Sean Connery, David Morse and even Nicolas Cage back in the days when he at least still tried to put some effort into acting. Add to those the old legends like John Spencer and Philip Baker Hall and of course my favourite hero actor from the 80's, Michael Biehn, and you have a stellar casting. Another thing that I absolutely love about this movie is the soundtrack, Hans Zimmer's best by far and one of the best I've ever heard. Pure brilliance every note of it. The movie has some idiotic moments that are not saved even by the comedy, but to tell you the truth I can't remember them even though I've seen this movie about 10 times already. That's saying something about the entertainment values. And even though this movie kind of populised the highly annoying fast cutting in action movies, I still can't stop liking this movie, it just works.
98%

Armageddon (1998)

So after making one of the best action movies of the 90's, Bay decided to make a movie about rednecks saving the world. I could write a novel on how hideously horrible this movie is, but to be honest it stinks so much that I don't want to waste my time and energy on it too much. First of all the whole concept of the movie that astronauts, some of the world's smartest and most technically trained men, couldn't drill one god damn hole in the ground is just silly beyond belief. But no, rednecks are the guys who can drill anything, drilling holes is an art after all, so they rather send them in space. The rednecks are of course stereotypes with no depth at all to them, you have your over protective father, reckless hero type, a cowboy, a divorced father with a gambling problem, a sex addict, a dumb fatso who lives with his mother and a big black man right from the days of slavery. It actually made me angry how insulting this movie is towards people, if Bay's world would be the world we live in, then please just let the asteroid wipe us all out. And it's just not the rednecks and the racism towards black people and rednecks themselves, the Russian cosmonaut was just as appalling. It says a lot about the movie that Billy Bob Thornton, a great actor but quite characterized as a redneck, is cast as the director of NASA. Fuck yeh! Ok, so the characters are horrible and even though there are some good actors in this most of the cast is horrible as well. Though at most parts I blame the script and the direction, not the cast. Of course Ben Affleck is hopeless no matter what, but for example I have never seen Steve Buscemi giving out a worse performance. He's a fucking character actor, usually playing himself, so that has to be an achievement. And when I say the script is bad I mean it stinks so bad it makes dog shit smell like roses. Just one example, the pilot pulls a gun on Harry and Chick says "What are you doing with a gun in space?". Nothing wrong with that except that they have freaking miniguns on their spacebuggythingies. Oops, guess they forgot... Well it's just one example out of hundreds, but as I said I'm not going to waste more time on this shit. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen and actually now seeing it for the second time it borders on being brilliant as it really is so bad that it becomes funny. But I'm not going to give it that honour just yet. Though one thing I must still mention, for some weird reason this movie is in The Criterion Collection, a collection of historically important movies from around the world. The Rock (1996) is in there also from Michael Bay and that I can understand why as it really is one of the best action movies, but why this movie is in there I have no idea. Maybe those people at Criterion have a very twisted sense of humour or something.
1%

Pearl Harbor (2001)

Ok, this movie is supposed to be some kind of a big homage to the soldiers of the war and the people involved with it. I saw an overly long cheesy piece of crap that does nothing even remotely like that. It's just about the same as if Bay would have taken a dump on the entombed U.S.S. Arizona. The thing is that the only sympathetic characters in this movie are the Japanese, now I must say I was surprised that they weren't depicted as monsters and for that I have to give it some credit. But really everyone else seems to be one dimentional obnoxious idiots. Anyway, the movie starts off with a quick buddy establishment, we are given glimpses of the past to make us belive that Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett are good friends. Well I kind of missed that part which should bind them together, at a later point it didn't matter much as they are supposed to be mad at eachother, but then they are supposed to be buddies again and it just doesn't work. The buddy bit just a small problem compared to the "romance" that is what I would imagine a 12 year old girl might write in her diary. And we have to endure this torture for the next hour or so. I can see that they are trying to go for the 40's romantic movies with that, but really why would someone even try to do that? The modern audience expects a bit more depth to the romance than they did back then. The concept of a romance hasn't changed one bit since then, but the way people buy it surely has, so I just have to wonder what the hell were they thinking with this horse shit. So then the bombs start to fall and all hell breaks lose. Luckily the sound effects were loud enough so people who fell asleep in the first hour and a half should wake up by now. But what we get is not a dramatic recreation of the attack, there's certainly no drama in it, hell there's no feeling at all. It's nothing but an explosive war masturbation by Bay. I can imagine him getting all excited like a little kid about all the shit he can blow up while making it look as "cool" as he can. What's "cool" about an attack that killed more than 3000 people? Well unfortunately after the overly long action sequence the movie isn't over and we have to endure an hour more of this utter garbage. There of course needs to be a payback from the attack so the movie can end with an up note, not that there was any tragedy in the attack in this movie in the first place, but lets just imagine there would have been for good sport. Well the two "buddies" are supposed to bind together again, but again I missed it. Was it after they beat eachother up and woke up in the car? Was it while they were killing the Japanese in the air? Was it when they got recruited for the secret mission? Or was it when Doolittle asked them if everything was ok? I mean come on, the viewer has already lost every bit of interest to these characters at this point so why even bother going further. Well they bomb some Japanese factory, Hartnett gets killed, Affleck gets the girl and USA kicks ass, woo-fucking-hoo. They conviniently "forgot" to mention the real reason why Japan surrendered, the two a-bombs. But then again as that would make the audience see how the mighty US of A answered a sucker punch with quite an inhumane act of monstrosity and you can't have that in a movie about heroes. Saddest thing of it all is that the total amount of money spent on production and promotion of this movie roughly equaled the amount of damage caused in the actual attack. They would have made a better homage by spending that money on the veterans themselves and some new history books for the schools.
2%

Bad Boys II (2003)

Bay takes another swing at the Bad Boys and of course the budget is now a lot bigger so there's tons more of everything. After the last two monstrosities this movie actually feels like a breath of fresh air and seeing it right after Pearl Harbor (2001) it feels like a masterpiece. But it's certainly not a masterpiece, it's just an ok action flick. So how does it compare to the first part? Surprisingly well actually. The chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is still there, even though it not as funny as it was in the first part. They are clearly trying too hard at parts and it goes a bit overboard, but they still have their moments and give out plenty of laughs. The story was still crap, but maybe a tad better than the first part. Not like anyone would have expected a realistic take on things anyways so it doesn't matter that much. I didn't like the main villain, played by Jordi Molla, he was lacking charisma needed for the part and thus it was kind of a miss. Rest of the cast is quite ok with some familiar faces from the first part. Even though it can't top the first part in the buddy act, the action in this one is so over the top that it's crazy. There's three huge car chases all well worth mentioning. The first one with the car transport truck is quite great with all of it's carnage. The second one is brilliant in it's macabre dark comedy with all the bodies flying around. But the third one is just insane with the Hummer crashing into everything in it's path. Total destruction and that's what I liked about this. Michael Bay likes to blow shit up and call me crazy but I enjoy watching that money burn. So this is a good sequel and even better than the first part, but still it's lacking in too many other departments except action, so it's nowhere near as good as The Rock (1996). The saddest thing is that after this movie the big budget R-rated movies pretty much died. Well they didn't die, but only a very few were made since. Which is a shame of course.
69%

The Island (2005)

After the explosive violent and surprisingly brutal fun ride Bay went back to the more easy going action. This is a story about a man and a woman who find out they are clones, made only to act as spare parts for the people who ordered them. The company which breeds the clones assures the public that the clones are vegetables without any feelings, but yet they must raise them as "normal" humans because of some nonsense about the parts not working if the person is kept sedated. The two clones escape and set on a mission to uncover the whole business of cloning people for medical purposes. I actually liked the story quite a bit, the moral dilemma of taking "spare parts" from a copy of yourself to extend your own life. Also the vanity of mankind that a woman would buy a copy of herself to give birth to a baby so she could keep her form. But that whole cloning dilemma isn't really a new idea and actually it was ripped straight from The Clonus Horror (1979). Now this movie is actually better than The Clonus Horror (1979), but as this movie doesn't mention any connection to it, it's basically the same as a stealing the idea which kind of watered it down. Anyway into the nice idea there's inserted this absolutely ridiculous action adventure plot that is just too silly to keep the interest up. Sure there's tons of action and explosions, it's Michael Bay after all, but I really got just bored watching it as there was no feeling to it. Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson try to do their best with the crappy dialog they are given and do a fairly ok job regarding the script. Rest of the cast were quite disposable. The ultra fast editing gets very boring and the movie looks like a Michael Bay movie looks, tons of light streaks, overly saturated contrasty imagery and the camera doesn't stay put for long. Quite a waste of time and money.
23%

Transformers (2007)

I loved Transformers as a kid in the 80's. I had pretty much all of the toys and the cartoon show was the high point of the week. Then of course I grew up and got other interests so Transformers was left behind. Even though I knew I wouldn't be the target group of this movie anymore, I still wanted to see it. My expectations for it were very low, mostly because of Michael Bay. And surely enough it wasn't a good movie, but much to my surprise it wasn't a bad one either. This is a movie I would have loved to death when I was 10, it has everything I loved in movies back then. But now as it takes a bit more than explosive action to get my attention I saw a bit too many things I didn't like. First of all this movie is racist. I mean if a guy like me who is whiter than white from a country like Finland can see that, then there really has to be something wrong with it. All the black people in this movie are portrayed as one dimentional stereotypes who are there just for entertainment values for the white folk so they can feel better about themselves. Even the robot, Jazz, that's clearly another black stereotype is the only one to be killed. Only black person who doesn't seem to be type cast is the soldier with the credit card, though his character's biggest moment is screaming "left cheek!" over and over again after which he disappears. Not exactly a world image you want to give to your children. That being said I still liked Bernie Mac as the used car salesman, he was simply hilarious. And in general the comedy in the movie was actually quite good. John Turturro's character was also hilarious and he did a great job with the part. Shia LaBeouf was also a nice surprise and pulled off the hero role quite well. Which can't be said about Megan Fox, sure she looks great but can't act at all. Also Jon Voight was quite bland, though the dialog given to the character wasn't helping the part one bit. Then the main thing, the robots. Well I think they looked somewhat ok. I mean I would have hoped for a bit cleaner versions of them, now they just had too much going on in details that it was hard to make sense of them. But that being said they did look a lot more realistic than the smooth cartoon or toy versions. The reason why I would have hoped for a bit cleaner versions is that they are never really introduced apart from Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. Now they just tend to blend in with each other and it makes it sometimes hard to tell them apart. And that's where one of the major problems of the movie lies, the way the action is shot. It's just one big CGI mess. There's tons of stuff going on and it's shot with a hyper active shooting style, that results in a total chaos which makes absolutely no sense at all. Sure the kids might like it, but the thing is when you have no idea who hits who and where, you really lose interest and just watch the fireworks without any idea of what you are supposed to see. And what's up with the Autobots, am I the only one who thinks everyone else but Optimus Prime were completely useless? Sure they shoot, do flips and set up a show, but mostly they just got their asses kicked while Optimus was the only one who managed to actually kill the Decepticons. This movie also features one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen, right up there with Jar Jar Binks, that little robot that just doesn't seem to die. So there are huge problems with the movie, but still I didn't get bored and had some fun with it. It even managed to raise the little kid in me as I almost cheered when we see Optimus Prime for the first time. But unfortunately in the end it's still a bad movie with some quite good moments.
42%

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Didn't see this one when it came out, but decided to watch it now as I'm going through Michael Bay's filmography. Being a sequel to a big action movie it of course tries to top it by being even bigger. There's more robots, more army, more action, more explosions, more goofy characters, more product placement and more "Bayhem". And of course the robots are bigger, the army has bigger weapons, the explosions are bigger and the goofy characters of course are a bigger nuisance. But the movie just doesn't go bigger, it also goes smaller with tons of smaller little robot critters which are there to show how diverse their race is or some other nonsense like that. Just as I had declared that little robot in the first one as one of the most annoying characters in the history of movies, this one goes better. There's actually 3 robots that all are way more annoying than the one in the first part. There's the "twins", two robots that make you want to go and get a can of gasoline so you can burn yourself from the misery of watching them. And for fucks sake they even have goofy teeth, one with a golden tooth for that matter, what the hell does a robot do with teeth anyways? That little toy car robot is no better, even worse actually, but luckily it spends quite a bit of time in a box so we don't have to watch it. Apart from those the new robots seemed quite ok, even that old fart Jetfire who was also idiotically stereotyped, but at least he didn't make me want to go on a killing frenzy. But as before it really doesn't matter much how good the new robots were as you don't really see them, only glimpses of them spinning around while fighting. So the annoying CGI mess action continues right where it left on the first part and is actually even worse on this one. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on when shit blew up and CGI mess was spinning on the screen. I'm not a young kid with ADHD so I can't keep up with this lightning cutting pace. Then again if it was a bit slower and smoother it would bring out all the mistakes and inconsistencies of the action, so I kind of understand why they use it. But instead of covering up the mistakes, maybe they could have just properly planned them and shot them in a way that they would look good. That's Michael Bay's worst problem (well in addition of being a racist and sexist and all the other stuff), he just can't direct action. I actually watched the extras of the blu-ray i rented and there was a big segment on this huge explosion that made the Guiness book of records as the biggest explosion ever shot with live actors next to it. In the movie it's nothing special, you've watched non stop effect assault for the last 30 minutes with a hideous fast pace cutting. So when this big bang comes it looks like a nice breath of some easy action, not spectacular or huge or anything like that, only that it's nice that we actually get to watch a shot more than 2 seconds. On the extras however it looks absolutely brilliant, but in the movie it's simply lost in the "Bayhem". Not going to go into the story, it's what it is, not like you could write anything about the meaning of life in a movie about transforming robots so lets leave it to what it is, entertainment. The cast is the same and those who were good on the first one are good here as well and Megan Fox didn't learn how to act in the two years in between so nothing has changed. I must mention the huge amount of mistakes there are in the movie. It clearly was rushed to get finished as you see the cameraman's shadow on multiple occasions and that one slow motion explosion where Megan Fox goes transparent is just something hideous. Also many of the effect shots are very poor. For example when the Devastator is digging up the machine from the pyramid, the falling "stones" look like something I could do better on my own computer. I would love to bash this movie to the ground for the horrible piece of garbage it is with all of it's product placements and formulaic exploitative nature. But I still found it to be somewhat entertaining, however a good movie it surely isn't.
30%

After watching all of the Bay movies again I must say I'm more on the hate side, despite him making one of the best action movies of the 90's and two fairly good action flicks. The thing is that the shit he has also poured out smells so bad it tarnishes the glory of those few good ones. Well anyway that's something to think about when Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) comes out. I'm not going to see it in the theatre as I'm planning on keeping my promise of not watching any sequel/prequel/comicbook/cartoon/toy/remake/etc. movies in the theatre this year.

The Greasers vs. The Socials

2011-05-21T17:45:00.002+03:00

The Outsiders (1983)

What's in common with Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez and Ralph Macchio? Well they all starred in this movie, but also they all sucked in acting when they started their careers, though some of them suck even today. So the acting is quite bad in this one, though I must say Emilio Estevez wasn't that bad and luckily at least C. Thomas Howell managed to put some effort into his part. Anyway the movie is set in the late 50's and tells the story about a boy whose home town is torn in half by the two sides of wealthy kids and the poor kids. The boy is called Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell), he's a dreamer who writes a diary about his life in this town as an outsider stuck in the poor side of it with the "Greasers" as they call themselves. His best friends are Johnny (Ralph Macchio) and Dallas (Matt Dillon) and they end up in trouble with the "Socials", the rich kids. During a fight one of the "Socials" ends up dead and Ponyboy and Johnny need to run away from the town. Ponyboy's bigger brothers Darrel (Patrick Swayze) and Sodapop (Rob Lowe) are also "Greasers" and they try to keep Ponyboy out of trouble, but as a big fight between the two gangs is about to erupt things get out of hand. Well, despite the name of the main character and the strong male bonding going on in the movie, he's not gay, or at least that's what the movie tries to tell us. This movie has become a classic nowadays and the fans love it, but I must say I was far from impressed. Now I haven't read the book, so I have no idea how well it's adapted on screen, but what I saw was quite weak. Now I already bashed the bad acting, but really the characters are quite weak also, meaning that the bad actors don't really have much to go with in the first place. That of course doesn't help it one bit. I know there's a longer version of the movie, but I saw the 90 minute theatrical cut so maybe the characters are given a bit more depth in the long version. I hated the overly dramatic music, it watered down all the little drama there was in the first place and made it seem more like a farce. The movie isn't horrible by any means, it has a bit too much syryp for my taste, but it has it's moments also. It was entertaining enough and the ending is quite dramatic so it ended with the right note. Wouldn't give it another try though.
59%

One for the jazz fans

2011-05-21T13:17:00.002+03:00

The Cotton Club (1984)

In the 20's the Cotton Club was the coolest place in town where all the celebrities and street kingpins spent their quality time. The performers were the best of the best from jazz musicians to dancers and singers. Even though close to all of the performers were black the club was for white folk only, which of course added it's own tension in addition to the mafia bosses fighting for the biggest share of Harlem. Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere) is a skilled musician who ends up being a favourite to a nasty mob boss who takes him under his wing, even though Dixie doesn't really like the idea. Dixie's brother, Vincent (Nicolas Cage), is a small time crook looking to get a footing in the city. Vera Cicero (Diane Lane) is an up and coming singer also looking for a big breakthrough. Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines) is a tap dancer with his brother who get a spot in the Cotton Club's show. Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) is the guy who runs the place and one of the rivaling "families". They all eventually end up mixed together and things of course don't always go as planned. There's so much going on in this movie that once you try to write what's it about it might seem quite confusing, but Coppola keeps it all well in hand. Even though the movie would have worked just as well with a bit less characters to focus on, none of them still seem unimportant. That's of course thanks to the script and good direction. The cast is quite big and quite varying, there's some brilliant performances and some pretty bad ones as well. Though in the end they kind of balance out. If you're a jazz fan, you'll love this movie as there's plenty of music in it and some quite nice performances. I wonder why the movie flopped so bad when it came out as this is definitely not a bad one, it's big, pretty and entertaining, just what the audience wants. Though it's a bit long and tends to get a bit boring at parts, but luckily there's always a nice comeback to get the attention again. Not the best from Coppola, but still a good and entertaining movie.
73%

Road rage is a serious problem

2011-05-19T20:03:00.000+03:00

Drive Angry (2011)

Nicolas Cage is back from the dead and he's angry and he's driving cool muscle cars. He's after a devil worshiping cult who has kidnapped his granddaughter and killing everyone that gets in his way. He ends up traveling with a hottie played by Amber Heard so there's some eye candy. And if all that wouldn't have been enough, they are being chased by an Accountant from Hell. Now that's what I call a story. Name of the game is kicking ass, burning rubber and at times having sex while doing either. The story and the concept were so hilarious that I really wanted to love this movie, but unfortunately it's not a great movie. First of all it tries to be cool, but it really isn't and you're left with this awkward feeling where you wonder were they just having fun embarrasing themselves or did they really think they're cool. All the great stuff were just ripoffs from other movies and that was a huge disappointment. It felt like the director didn't have a single original idea, just mixing all the stuff he thought was cool. That's not always a bad thing if the movie is done with style and the right attitude, but unfortunately that wasn't the case here. The CGI effects were from bad to absolutely horrible, but luckily there are some proper physical effects in there as well. What I liked about the movie was the ridiculous story, William Fichtner's performance as The Accountant, some of the dialog and the cars. Actually those were enough to keep me entertained, but still the movie had potential for so much more than what it's offering.
52%

The scum of New York in 4K

2011-05-18T18:31:00.002+03:00

Taxi Driver (1976)

I got the chance to see the newly restored version of this in glorious 4K and it surely was a beauty. What's so special about 4K then? Well, as Finland is always quite late in the development, all but one of the digital projectors in Finnish theatres are 2K, though I think that's the case in many other countries as well. 2K is a bit bigger than your full HD resolution, 4K is twice as much, so you can watch it on a huge screen quite close and still won't spot the pixels. The thing however is that the only 4K projector in Finland at the moment is at the National Film Archive's theatre and it's a small one with only about 60 seats, so the screen is quite small as well. So the resolution didn't shine through as much as it could have. At first I was a bit worried if the picture would have been over processed to give it an unnatural face lift, but luckily that wasn't the case. It looks like the very first film print of the movie probably looked. The grainy characteristic of the film stock is still there and it still looks gritty as it is supposed to, only it's clean of dirt and the colors are bright again. So definitely it looked stunning. Enough of the pixels and on to the movie itself. I actually have no idea what to say about it that hasn't been said already a million times. It's one of the best movies ever made and one of those movies that are considered as general knowledge. Anyone who likes to watch movies should already have seen it. This was probably my sixth or seventh time I saw it and I must say it hadn't lost a bit of it's power and actually I noticed even some new nuances in it. That's what makes a brilliant movie, you can experience it again. I mean you can of course watch a movie many times, but only a few movies you can experience again even though you know every shot by heart. It's a master class on direction, the cast is superb, the music is absolutely brilliant and the mood is just unbeatable. A true classic and one of the best movies ever made. If you haven't seen it yet, don't tell anyone to avoid embarrasment and go see it as soon as possible.
100%

Wrestling for attention

2011-05-18T18:30:00.002+03:00

The Wrestler (2008)

This was on telly yesterday and as I've already seen it twice I wasn't planning on watching it, but still I ended up watching throught it once more. That actually says a bit about the power of this movie, how captivating it is. I must say I was still at awe about Aronofsky's skill at handling drama. He makes huge things out of very little, but manages to avoid the soapyness and keeps it very realistic. I actually didn't like the melodrama insert where Randy (Mickey Rourke) tries to patch things up with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), it felt quite unnecessary as the movie's heart is in Randy's inability to change. We already see many examples of him trying to change and adapt to the mainstream so to say, but the daughter part took it a bit to the wrong direction. However it's a small detail as this movie is a devastating story about a man who is trapped in the past, though trapped might be the wrong word as he really doesn't want to let go of the past. His driving force is the fame he once enjoyed and he tries everything to get even a glimpse of the old glory. He is a human wreck but still easy to relate to, much because of the absolutely stunning performance by Mickey Rourke. And he surely deserves all the praise he has gotten from this movie, but also Marisa Tomei gives a performance of her life as the stripper. Those two are actually quite similar as both sell their bodies for whoever is willing to pay and both have the same problem that they are not at their prime anymore. The story in itself is actually not that special, even though it doesn't shy away from the darker sides of wrestling, it still takes some quite common and predictable routes, but the way it's handled makes this special. The brilliant cast and the direction by Aronofsky makes this a strong drama that can easily stand multiple viewings.
89%

A soul trapped inside a shell

2011-05-18T18:28:00.003+03:00

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Even though I read about this when it came out I didn't see it until now. It's a true story about the editor of Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), who gets paralyzed and can't move anything except his left eye. Yet his brain functions like it should so he becomes trapped inside his own body. He needs to learn an excruciatingly slow way of communication with the help of an assistant reading out letters and him blinking on the right one. Using this method he writes his memoirs, just by blinking his left eye. Now that might sound like a boring movie, but really this is far from boring. It's a strong statement on life itself with a captivating and emotional story. Now the basic idea of a man realising that he has wasted his life and not appreciated the things that really matter is quite old, but still it always works. And that's not all this movie has to offer, there's a lot more to it as we see a man who had everything only to lose it in quite a horrible way. But the movie doesn't dwell in pity, it's quite a hopeful survival story as well. I didn't really like all of the things in this movie as at parts it went a bit too syrup for my taste, but mostly it stayed in the right mood. The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski is simply mind blowing, this is one of the most beautifully shot movies I've seen in a long time. Also the cast is just stellar, even the smaller parts are played to near perfection. So it's a very good movie in many ways and a strong drama well worth watching, even though it does lose it's momentum on a couple of occasions.
80%

This movie pulls all the usual strings

2011-05-14T23:46:00.000+03:00

No Strings Attached (2011)

Well I'm quite far from target audience for this movie, but was basically forced to watch it so here's the short review for what ever that's worth. So it's a story of a man and a woman who have a physical relationship, but of course they end up in love and of course things don't go as they are supposed. I would like to know who came up with the formula of a romantic comedy, I might just make this world a better place and let him/her out of his/her misery. Well, people who like these kind of movies probably already know wether this is a good one or not, so watch it if you like em. I didn't get bored to death with it, but still it wasn't exactly an entertaining experience either.
31%

Jason Voorhees - The man behind the mask part 1

2011-05-13T19:40:00.005+03:00

It's friday the 13th and time for a bit of a tribute. I actually waited a bit to post these reviews as I noticed that the date was coming up. So call me crazy, but I decided to watch all of the Friday the 13th movies again as I saw this documentary called His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th (2009). Most people have their favourite horror icon, wether it's Freddy Krueger from The Nightmare on Elm Street or Michael Myers from Halloween or Pinhead from Hellraiser or maybe Jigsaw from the Saw series. Mine has always been Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series. There's just something about that unstoppable killing machine in a hockey mask that I like. I know it's not exactly an original choice as he is pretty much the grand master of slasher icons. Kind of like the Wayne Gretzky of horror (no pun intended). Not that the other guys wouldn't be all star players as well, but no matter how you measure it Jason takes the win in every category. For example sequels and remakes, Halloween has 7 sequels and 2 remakes, Hellraiser has 8 sequels and a remake is about to be released soon, Nightmare on Elm Street has 7 sequels and one remake and Saw has 6 sequels. Friday the 13th has 10 sequels and one remake. How about the all important body count? Freddy Kruger has a pitiful 45 throughout his films, Jigsaw is doing fairly well with 77 in only so few movies and Michael Myers has a respectable 111. Jason has a record breaking 161 throughout his films and actually if you add to that the other kills in the series done by his mother or impersonators it's close to a staggering 200. Jason has also been to the future, he's been in hell and he actually kicked Freddy's ass, not to mention he has even been in a talk show. So he is the biggest of them all, no matter how you see it. But are the movies any good? In the early 90's when I found this franchise I really loved them, but I was around 15 then so eventually I did get bored of them and except for the first part and Freddy vs. Jason, I haven't watched any of them since. I have a feeling I'm going to be very disappointed and ruin my good memories of them by doing this, but I want to see how they work today. So here's the whole story of Jason Vorhees.

Friday the 13th (1980)

Well this is one of the movies that started the modern slasher genre, even though you could argue that the genre had already been started, but never the less this surely helped to boost it to new heights. Not much to say about the plot, group of young people go to a summer camp to get it ready for the kids coming in a few weeks. They hear stories how the camp had a bloody history and soon enough they start to die one by one. You don't have to wait for the first kill too long as it comes before 5 minutes is up. A crew member Willie Adams playing a counsellor is the lucky man to be the first to die in this franchise and his girlfriend follows him right after, so two down and around 196 to go. I must say the plot wasn't as bad as I remembered it to be, there was some effort to it, though of course these movies aren't made because of the plot. Sure the dialog was corny at parts and towards the end the actions the heroine takes are quite idiotic, but I've seen a lot worse also. Another thing about the end, all respect to Betsy Palmer, but I found it quite unfitting that the killer who chops up quite a few people with ease before can't handle one girl and looks to be fighting like an old lady. The t&a (tits and/or ass) department was surprisingly lacking as I counted only two scenes, something hopefully the later parts will fix. The kills however are quite spectacular, Tom Savini's effects are a work of art and this movie has some of the best he has ever made. My favourite by far being the scene where Kevin Bacon gets an arrow through his throat. The music sounded like a ripoff from Jaws (1975) and Psycho (1960), but I guess that was intentional kind of like a message to the viewer that there's something more horrifying coming. Anyway I liked this quite a bit even though the main man with the hockey mask wasn't in it and I must say it was surprisingly entertaining. I watched the fully uncut Blu-Ray version of it, actually if I remember correctly this is the only part where there is an uncut version available. The MPAA didn't go easy on the sequels and sort of targeted the franchise with a lot tighter rules than others of it's kind. Don't know why, but I guess someone pissed someone off or something, not like the MPAA has ever been biased about anything before either so who knows. Another thing about the Blu-Ray, because the picture quality was quite great, it showed some mistakes quite badly. Some on the makeup, but most notably in the final scare where you can clearly see some twig moving behind the boat. Also was quite funny to actually see the numbers on the dices on that strip Monopoly, hard not to laugh when the girl throws one and two but still says double sixes. But those little things just add to the magic of the movie and this classic can stand a lot of fun making without losing it's charm.
75%

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Five years after the first part they open another camp next door to Crystal Lake where again a group of young people gather to learn the ropes of being a counselor. Of course again they start to get killed one at a time and the myth of a guy named Jason roaming around the woods killing people starts to come into reality. I didn't like the flashback sequence at the start where they recap the first part in a dream by none other but the sole survivor of the first part. Tends to drag the start for way too long and actually we have to wait almost 12 minutes before Alice gets an ice pick in her head. That's a whole lot longer than in the first part, though if you don't count the flashbacks then it's a lot closer to it. Anyway, as the sequel is supposed to bring things to a new level, this really didn't. I mean sure now we finally have Jason killing the teenagers, but other than that this movie walked pretty much the same path as the first one, not even trying to top it. Didn't count but the bodycount seemed quite similar as well. The kill scenes are quite mild, thanks to MPAA, so didn't top the first one in those either. The t&a was a slight improvement, but still nothing to rave about. My favourite kill was the double impalement, but the wheelchair kill was quite great also as it was just so wrong in so many levels. I must say that towards the end Jason turns into the unluckiest guy on the planet, nothing seems to go right when he tries to let Ginny out of her misery. That unfortunately brought unneeded comedy into it and made it more campy than it should have been. I mean of course you can't watch these with a straight face, but still some sense would be welcome. Loved the dog bit at the end though, almost as good as the ending of the first part. So all in all, even though this movie has a couple of good scenes and that it set the tone for Jason hunting teenagers, this is still a bad sequel as it really doesn't even try to top the first part.
42%

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

This movie should be called Saturday the 14th or Sunday the 15th as it continues right where the second part left, so that would be saturday, though the majority of it happens on the day after that, so sunday. But then again who cares, another group of teenagers are gathered near the lake and Jason is out to get them. Again the movie starts out with a flasback from the second part and again it's quite tedious as I just watched it, don't really need to be reminded about what happened there. Then again as all of these were done a year apart from eachother and as the home video hadn't exploded yet, I kind of understand the point of recapping the previous part at the start. But then again as the story in these is very thin, they could have just as well left it out and it would have worked just as good. Anyway, this movie was done in 3D to bring a new element to it and I must say it was quite painful. I mean I didn't watch the 3D version of it, but everything, and I really mean everything, is slapped on the camera as a gimmick to tease the audience and it really gets annoying after a while. So was it any better than the second part? We have to wait over 15 minutes for the first kill, way too long. But then again the kills are quite good in this one, a definite improvement from the second part. And even though the MPAA did rape this one as well, it's not as bad as the second one so there's some proper gore in it also. The best kill was the machete swing at the guy walking with his hands, though the head crushing in all of it's goofiness was quite nice as well. The t&a department is the weakest of the three, which was a definite let down. But what's most notable in this one is that Jason finally gets his iconic hockey mask, thanks to a nerdy guy called Shelly who brought it to the lake. Though there is no great moment of putting the mask on for the first time, Jason just walks into the scene wearing it, but none the less you could call that a historical moment. The end fight is quite idiotic again, Jason seems to have huge strenght when he's killing other people but when the heroine needs to get away he seems to be as weak as a little girl. I mean he can crush a man's head with bare hands but can't choke a woman or snap her neck. Anyway, even though the t&a was a major let down, I liked this more than the second part.
53%

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

This again continues right where the last one left so now we're going on Monday the 16th, but again it really doesn't matter. Another group of teenagers go to the lake while Jason wakes up in the morgue and off we go again. True to the tradition, again we get a flashback at the start setting up the story. Luckily this time it's a bit shorter and full of kills from the previous movies so I didn't mind that much. We have to wait for the first kill about 14 mins (not counting the flashbacks), so they are not breaking any records here, but then again it's a very good one so it was worth the wait. Tom Savini returns to make the effects for this part and they are a beauty, even though MPAA vandalised them again. Luckily there are a few glimpses of them left so all the work didn't go to waste. Funny that the reason why he returned was that he wanted to kill the character he built, little did he know that the series was still in the beginning at this point. The biggest improvement to the previous parts is in the t&a department which are plenty, so that was a nice surprise. There's also quite a bit of comedy in it and I mean intentional, unintentional there's of course in every part. For example it has one of the funniest dance scenes I've seen. Best kill by far is Jason's "death", but then again as he didn't really die I guess that doesn't count. Other than that, the "where's the cork screw?" scene cracked me up even though it wasn't that special otherways, though maybe the first kill was the best after all. This didn't have the most original kills of the series, though they are not bad either, mostly thanks to Tom Savini. The biggest surprise however was the end fight, I mean sure it also had it's idiotic moments where the victims make stupid actions but still it was very effective and managed to even raise some tension. So it's definitely better than the last two and managed to be quite entertaining.
60%

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

So after the final chapter where Jason gets chopped to pieces you of course go for the new beginning. The movie starts off great when Tommy, the kid from the last part, is watching in the bushes when two drunken guys dig up Jason's body and of course he jumps to life and kills them. We get the first kill before 4 minutes, a record so far. But that was all just a dream. Tommy is now grown up and been to all sorts of mental institutions. Jason seems to haunt him in flashbacks and soon enough people start dying. I'm a bit puzzled about the timeline right about now. I mean the first part was set in 1979, the second part was set 5 years later so that would make it 1984 as would the third and the fourth as they are direct continuation. Now this is set 10 years after the fourth part so that would make it 1994, at least according to my math skills. Still the movie looks quite like 1985. Then again maybe those country folk don't really stay too current on the latest trends. Well anyways lets not get caught up in small things as there's plenty of good fun in this one. First of all the t&a is well in order, especially the "It's showtime!" bit was a joy. Also the appropriately named Debi Sue Voorhees was a sight for sore eyes. Second thing I liked were the innovative kills, though again the MPAA has spoiled the fun quite efficiently. Very hard to pick the best as there's so many good ones. The flare to the mouth scene, belt around the tree, garden scissors to the head or the crapper impalement were all quite nice. There's plenty of unintentional comedy but also some intentional that works somewhat ok. Loved the two crazy hillbillies. Even the ending looked to be nicely over the top with the tractor and all. But then they piss it all away. First time I saw this I was so angry about the ending that I ranked this as the worst piece of crap this franchise has. I still didn't like the fact that Jason is not the killer, but then again he isn't in the first part either so I didn't take it too seriously this time. For sure this movie is a bad movie for the fans of the series, but for everyone looking for a campy fun slasher, this was actually quite ok. But as I'm a Jason fan I'm going to rate it with that.
35%

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)

After the ridiculous copycat nonsense we're back in business with the real thing. This time there's no flashback at the start, but we hear voices from the fourth part as Tommy and his friend are digging up Jason to burn his body. Which I found quite odd as the mayor said in the last part that Jason was cremated, oh well little things don't matter as it still looks like the 80's while the timeline should be somewhere around 1997 if you count the years. Anyway, Tommy's plan to burn Jason ends up going wrong and he actually helps to resurrect Jason by impaling his body with an iron pole which gets hit by a lightning giving Jason one hell of a jump start. First kill happens a bit after 8 minutes as Tommy's friend who didn't even want to dig the body up in the first place gets to pay the price of that mistake. Tommy escapes and Jason is out for blood again. It seems that Crystal Lake has been a great camp site because they have renamed it and yes there's another summer camp for kids in there and more importantly another batch of counselors to be cut to pieces. This part finally gets what's important in these movies, it's not the teens, it's Jason and the movie focuses more on him leaving the teens to be what they are, meat for the grinder. Sure there are the "lead" characters of Tommy and Megan, the sherif's daughter, but the real star of the show is the man with the hockey mask. The "Bond" start was pure brilliance and they clearly made Jason more like a super hero, or maybe a villain in this case but it's debatable. Hell the undead, unstoppable killing machine even has a utility belt with all sorts of cool pointy things to slay the teenagers, very convinient. Just like the last part this one also has lots of comedy in it, some bad, some quite ok. But the biggest problem this one had was that there's no t&a at all, not even a glimpse! That's a shame as this part had erything else so well in hand. The kills are quite great and again there are too many good one's to pick the best. The metal pole swing scene, taking the machete with a hand in it, the head to the Winnebago wall scene and folding the sherif in half in a very painful manner were all quite great. Also the music was great, Alice Cooper was my childhood hero so can't go wrong with that. I enjoyed this part probably the most out of the sequels thus far, it's focusing on the main thing and filling the gaps with somewhat ok humour. Too bad the t&a was a let down as this could have been quite brilliant.
69%

Jason Voorhees - The man behind the mask part 2

2011-05-13T19:33:00.005+03:00

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Passed the half way marker on the series and I still haven't lost my sanity, that's a great thing I guess. But damn, the timeline goes absolutely crazy in this one. I mean it was around 1997 when Jason ended in the bottom of the lake and in this one Jason was already in the lake when Tina was a little girl so that adds at least 12 years to it again when Tina is grown up and this story begins. So that would mean this movie is supposed to take place in around 2009. Well didn't see any cellphones or ipods or digital cameras or anything like that, just the usual 80's stuff. Either those country folk are really behind in development or I should just stop trying to figure out the timeline. Anyway this part goes back to traditions with a flashback start, though this time there's a new narration to it. The plot in this one is that a young woman, Tina, with telekinetic powers comes to the lake with her mother and doctor in order to get her powers in control. Of course on the next door there's a group of teens hosting a surprise birthday party so that's a definite check on the fresh meat. Tina ends up resurrecting Jason with her powers and the killing starts again. We get the first kill already at around 7 mins, but it's not Jason who does it. Jason's first kill comes at around 20 minutes, that's the slowest thus far from the parts where Jason is actually doing the killing. But once he gets started he's not wasting any time, so it's not a big problem. Again there's plenty of good kills, but the best is the sleeping bag slam. Brutal. Though I really liked the skinny dipping kill also but for a very different reason. Speaking of that, the t&a department is back in order again which was a big plus. The story borrows quite a many themes from Carrie (1976) and of course goes totally over board with the powers, but I still quite liked it. The movie was cut to a torso by the damn MPAA, so many of the quite innovative kills are mere flashes on the screen and it seems very mild in modern standards. This movie is also remarkable because it's the first movie with Kane Hodder as Jason, who of course is the most known actor to play Jason and ended up reprising his role in the following movies as well. I must say this was actually even more entertaining than the first part and turned out to be my favourite thus far. It doesn't try to be funny, but it doesn't take itself seriously either, so when ever it goes to the unintentional comedy it actually works quite well, just like a no brainer slasher flick should.
77%

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

The story continues where the last one left, Jason is at the bottom of Crystal Lake and a boat anchor cracks a power line which jump starts him again. There's not exactly a flashback in the start but the guy in the boat recaps the past events to his girfriend, and he was even kind enough to bring a new hockey mask for Jason. So of course they end up dead and Jason takes a swim to a nearby cruise ship where a group of teenagers are heading for New York. The title is actually quite misleading as only a very small part of the movie happens in New York, it's mostly on the ship, at the docks, back streets and sewers which could be from what ever city. This part was a major let down, only thing it had right was the t&a, but even those were quite few and far between. We actually get tits before the first kill which also happens a bit late at around 10 minutes. I didn't like the look of the movie, it was too dark and dirty. That would have fit it well if the director would have even tried to build some suspense, but as he goes only for the gore effect (which of course got cut out by MPAA) it fails quite miserably. The timeline of course gets even weirder, but even though I decided to not care about it as they clearly just ignore the previous sequels, it still made an idiotic turn on it. I mean Rennie, the heroine of the story, was supposedly getting drowned by Jason as a little kid, well that all fine, but Rennie is 20-something and Jason drowned in the 50's. She sure looks young for a 45 year old. Anyway that's not even the most idiotic thing about this movie, the ending is just something colossal in stupidity. And saying that for this series where the stories are quite far from smart is something special. Also what the hell is up with Jason's teleportation skills? I mean immortality and super human strenght I can take but that's just too much even for me. Crappy movie and even the kills weren't anything worth watching. For the best kill, as a Finn the sauna kill warmed my heart, though I did like the boxing kill in it's goofiness also. But other than that, there's nothing to see.
28%

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

First there was The Final Chapter and now it's The Final Friday with Jason going to hell. Don't they ever learn this series will never die? Anyhow the biggest question with this was what New Line was going to do with the franchise after buying it from Paramount. The movie starts up great, we get some nice suspense, a very nice shower scene and most of all Jason is back (and not as a fucking kid like in the last part). But then it all goes to hell. Jason gets blown to pieces and we get this nonsense about his soul or what ever switching between bodies as hosts. Then there's some killing and even more idiotic plot about Jason having a sister who is the only one who can kill him. Horrible excuse for a Friday the 13th movie as this has very little to do with it. People want to see Jason killing teenagers in his hockey mask, not some Body Snatchers ripoff. There is some fine t&a which was well needed as there's really not much else to look for. The first kill was probably the slowest of the series at just before 17 minutes. Best kill was by far the safe sex kill, which in a real Friday the 13th movie would have been one of the best in the series but in this it's just a waste of a good idea. This was the second fully uncut movie in this series thus far, but that didn't really help much as the kills aren't that great, apart from that safe sex bit. This was a crappy waste of time and money.
17%

Jason X (2001)

The last part ended up in a scene which set up the idea of a duel between Freddy and Jason, but for some reason they decided to send him into space instead. So the story goes something like this, Jason gets cryogenically frozen and his icicle is found 450 years later when Earth has become uninhabitable. He is taken to a space ship and defrozen, and of course the killing starts again. I didn't really like this part, the whole idea of taking him into the future was a bit too silly and felt like a desperate attempt to bring new life to the series. Jason belongs to the countryside, not to a space ship. Anyway, what I liked was that the body skipping bullshit was abandoned and it's the main man himself doing the killing again. And there are some quite good ones in this part. We get the first kill around 6 minutes so it surely doesn't waste time and the body count is quite high, actually if you count in the whole space station he indirectly destroys it's more than in the whole series alltogether. Best kill was the frozen face slam, though the guy spinning in the drill was also fun. Even though there's a lot of sex scenes and sexual references, there's not really any t&a. One set of fake robo-tits and two pairs of hologram simulated titties, so very weak in that department. I didn't mind that they took a comedic approach to the series, other parts did that as well, but the comedy in this one is a bit too idiotic. The SuperJason was just retarded, sure it made me smile but it was so unnecessary. This part was way better than the previous, but still far from the better ones from this series.
36%

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

The fans had been awaiting for this movie since the 80's and after being disappointed that the previous movie wasn't what part 9 promised, they surely were anxious to see this one. And I must say I was also. I mean I had long before lost interest in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies as apart from the good first part they are very bad, but still to see Jason and Freddy fight it out in one movie sounded great. Freddy is pissed as no one seems to remember him and thus he has no one to kill, so he decides to call in some help. He appears in Jason's dream and convinces him to go to Elm Street to do some killing. So Jason takes a little trip and sure enough bodies start to pile up and the first suspect is Freddy as the older people in the town haven't forgotten him. But then Freddy has another problem, Jason is an unstoppable killing machine that cuts through the teens in such a speed that he can't get a kill in between. So Freddy needs to stop Jason so he can have the kids to himself and the battle is on. I actually like this movie, it's very entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. There's also enough t&a to keep things going and surely no shortage of kills. We get the first kill already around 5 mins, but it turns out to be a dream. The first "real" kill is around 13 mins and it's also one of the best kills in the whole series. I liked how the story tried to stay true to both of the franchises and at least I interpreted the ending that Jason won. At least he won the bodycount as Freddy manages to get only one kill in the whole movie. Sure it had it's flaws with some stupid dialog and idiotic actions that the characters make, also the acting was quite far from great. Anyway, this was a surprisingly good spinoff, very entertaining and fun, just what it's supposed to be.
73%

Friday the 13th (2009)

After Jason had been to space, hell and the future among other things it has become time to reboot the series. I actually don't know why, it's not like the other sequels were that loyal to eachother anyways or that the origin story was worth telling again, so they could have just taken Jason and slap him where ever they want and have a guy recap the past in a few sentences like before. At least I would have been perfectly happy with that. But they went for the remake which got me worried. I hadn't seen this before now as even though it had some interesting people working on it I thought it would still end up pissing on the horror icon. Marcus Nispel did a surprisingly good remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), so I thought he was quite a good choice to helm this reboot. Also it's written by the same lot that did the previous which I enjoyed quite a bit. But enough about that and on with the movie. I kind of liked the fact that they compacted the first three parts into one, we see the mother, Jason with a potato sack on his head and the legendary hockey mask. Then again that raised the question why is this a remake as it mostly focuses on the adult Jason slaying teenagers it could have just as well been part 12 as far as the story goes. I also liked the fact that they kept the horror as horror and the comedy was in between the killing, I mean it was nice for a change that they didn't make fun of Jason. The movie doesn't waste time getting the first kill as it's in the first 3 minutes into the film, but it's not Jason doing the killing. We have to wait a bit over 12 minutes for the first kill by Jason, but then again there's plenty of them so it didn't matter at all. Best kill by far was the machete to the head at the pier, one of the best in the whole series. There was enough of t&a also, so everything could have been in order, but it really wasn't. I mean now that I've seen all the parts back to back I've of course formed a view of who Jason is and this movie didn't really fit into it. First of all Jason doesn't torture people, he kills them, I mean he's a very efficient guy so when he comes at you with a machete he will chop you up, not set up some sleeping bag barbeque. Also he doesn't kidnap people, he just kills them, especially anyone who tries to impersonate his mother. Nor does he collect bodies, the only body he keeps is his mother's, the rest he buries into the woods or leaves out in display for the teens to get scared of. This new "personal" Jason felt like the director had mixed the characters from his previous remake as this wasn't the Jason we've seen before. Had there not been the hockey mask this could have just as well been another part of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I also hated the corny product placement ala Michael Bay, at least in the previous movies they were power tools or some other gadgets used to kill people, not just to market a beer brand or something like that. Anyway the movie was still somewhat entertaining modern day slasher with all the cliches it brings with it, too bad it was called Friday the 13th as it kind of missed the essence of this series.
38%

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th (2009)

This 90 minute documentary hosted by Tom Savini goes through all 12 parts of the franchise. Right from the start it's obvious that the fans of the franchise will get the most out of this as I kind of doubt that there is anyone out there that would watch a documentary like this without knowing what's it about. And those who know what's it about either like the franchise and watch this or hate it and pass this one. So that being said I was a bit disappointed that it also tried to fish in new fans going through the obvious stuff everyone who has seen even one of the movies already knows. But luckily there are quite a bit of interesting info as well, some of which even I didn't know about even though in the early 90's I wore out the tapes and digged up every bit of info I could get. The interviews are great and they have really dug up pretty much everyone who was anyone in the series. There's all the directors, all the guys who played Jason, many actors from each part and lots of horror fans who all give out their take on the series. It's fairly well made and luckily they got to show clips from each part as I think some of them are from different production companies so it must have been a hassle to get the rights. Even though Tom Savini does a good job hosting it, I felt that the theme park thingy was a bit out of place and felt a bit too corny. Also it was funny that he was hosting in character but he was also being interviewed from the effects while being himself, so it looked a bit goofy. Anyway, fans will get at least something out of this, even though it's not the best it could have been.
68%

So, 12 movies and one document later I think I still have my sanity. And further more I still think Jason is the ultimate slasher icon. What makes him different from his colleagues is his efficiency he has in his work and the fact that he kills without any pleasure of killing, it's just an action for him. While Freddy, Pinhead and Jigsaw toy around with their victims getting pleasure from the thrill of the kill or feeding from their fear, Jason just gets the job done without any fancy bullshit. He's a working class mass murderer that doesn't put up a show, he just gets the job done and there's something you got to adore in that mentality. Michael Myers is actually quite similar to Jason, but I guess it's the woods and the hockey mask that ultimately makes Jason better.

Two wars of the worlds

2011-05-11T20:19:00.005+03:00

I bought the special collector's edition of The War of the Worlds (1953), even though I really don't like the movie that much. But as it had the radio play by Orson Welles as an extra I had to get it. Which by the way is quite brilliant and must have been some influence to the fake documentaries that try to add realism to their story with the format. So then I ended up watching the movie and even the remake too. I apologize as I must spoil both of the movies a bit on how the invasion ended, as that makes quite a bit of difference between the versions.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

There had already been some alien invasion movies, but none at this scale and the movie ended up becoming quite a hit. Even more so than the H. G. Wells' novel it's based on. Martians are running out of habitable space so they decide to invade earth for some more space. They come down with meteors carrying these hovercrafts which spit out laser beams vaporizing human flesh and blowing up the buildings. Humans try every weapon in their arsenal but seem to be unable to harm the machines and an imminent extinction awaits. That's the basic story and we follow it with a scientist so we get all the info we need and of course there's a woman in there as well to get some romance going. And there's also a narrator that keeps us on track during the movie. Like most of the 40's and 50's sci-fi movies this also over explains everything to a point where it becomes quite ridiculous to watch it now in this time and age. The thing is that this movie is not so goofy that it's fun, but it's still too goofy for you to get into the mood. I mean there's a good setup which is followed by some completely hilarious outcome or the other way around. Meaning it's a bit hard to get into the movie. If you can look past the effects and technology there is however a nice story underneath. But I really hated the ending with all of it's god saved us crap which actually missed the whole point of the book. Even though the book has the same fate for the aliens that they die of a bacteria or a virus, it's not god that killed them, it's the human evolution. The book actually questions the whole existence of god and as it has that natural selection theme of survival of the fittest it ranks religious people on the weak side. But then again I understand why they didn't include it into the movie as at that time it was blasphemy to make fun of religion and Hollywood wouldn't have any of that. So the movie has it's moments but I've never liked it and this another viewing didn't really help the matter in any way.
35%

War of the Worlds (2005)

I know I bash remakes quite hard, but I do believe there are some movies that could be remade by the right people to make them better suited for the modern way of life. Old sci-fi movies for example sometimes suffer from their goofy effects and if the story itself is still relevant that would be a good genre for a remake. I mean some old sci-fi movies should be left alone for example if the effects are not essential to the movie and they work just as great with whatever they have or if they simply don't have a good story worth telling again. I really thought this could have been a great movie for a remake and in the hands of Steven Spielberg it could actually work. But it really doesn't. The movie has tons of great stuff in it but it also has an equal amount of utter garbage too. First of all the greatest thing, the aliens aren't Martians anymore, which of course could have been a bit hard to digest nowadays. I really liked the idea that the movie focuses on this one family in middle of it all as it enables a lot more dramatic depth to the story, but at the same time I didn't like the fact that they seem to be the only people on the planet who know what it's all about as in their journey just so happens to have all the climatic events of the whole situation. Better aproach than the original's wider view of things, but still it kind of tells us all the same things in the end. People criticize the movie for not having sympathetic characters, but I actually liked it, it's a bit twisted that the aliens feel more sympathetic with their big friendly eyes than Tom Cruise with his one expression performance. But that also backfires as the drama the story actually sets up is kind of lost as you just don't feel for the characters. There are tons of examples of great scenes that follow or are followed by a bad one. For example the airplane crash which was quite brilliant, but it just so happened to destroy the whole street but somehow managed to miss the car and leave a nice path for it to drive through. The scene in the hill where the son fights the father to get a chance to see USA kick alien ass would have been quite brilliant in all of it's dramatic content, but too bad it wasn't set up at all and the scene ends up being cheesy as hell. One of the best scenes of the movie is where the father blindfolds his daughter and tells her to close her ears and sing a lullaby while he goes to kill a man. Devastating scene, but again the whole setup was too silly for it to work properly. The effects do look quite great and were surely worth the update. I thought it was a great idea that the alien machines were buried underground all along. Even though people usually don't like that idea, I see it that they were here millions of years ago, killed the ruling population back then (dinosaurs?) buried their machines and moved to the next planet. Of course they were smart enough to bury them deep enough and nowhere near any gas, oil or water resources underground. Yes, I understand it's a bit far fetched, but it didn't bother me at all. Most people seem to also criticize the ending that it was germs that killed the aliens, I think it's great. I mean germs evolve just like humans did and since the aliens used human blood to feed from what better way to spread a disease. I don't see that they died of a common cold like many people suggest, I see that they got some nasty virus that hasn't been on this planet for long, like some variation of HIV for example. I mean a flu virus most likely was already on the planet when they last visited and buried their machines. That actually brings me to another idiotic part of the movie, the whole god saved us nonsense in the end. Even though it was way more subtle than it was in the original movie, it still misses the book's point. I mean if the movie really wanted to say that this was all part of "god's" plan, then he must be one sick bastard, first sending the aliens to kill millions of humans and then finishing it off with a total genocide of the alien race with a virus. Yay, now that I think of it, I kinda like god, maybe I should become a religious nutcase as well as they seem to have all the fun. Anyway the movie is quite hypocritic also with it's god saved us nonsense as it also says that the alien machines have been under the ground for millions of years, yet the bible says the earth is no more than 10.000 years old. Did god plant the machines under the ground? Oh my god, could there be an error in the bible? Go figure, all I know it's utter nonsense. But anyway, the movie has it's good moments but unfortunately there's an equal amount of bad moments so in the end it's just another brainless effect flick. And yes, call me crazy but I think this is better than the original, though of course not as good as the book is.
50%

Eavesdropping has it's downsides

2011-05-08T20:51:00.001+03:00

The Conversation (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola fresh out of the phenomenal success of The Godfather (1972) made this brilliant little thriller based in the world of espionage. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is a very private person who loves nothing more than to be by himself, but in contrast he spies on the lives of other people as he runs a private company specialized in electronic surveillance. He has been hired to record the conversation of a young couple and at first it seems like just another job, but things don't seem quite right. Soon he discovers that the couple might be in danger and he's facing a dilemma of wether to return the tapes of the conversation to the man who hired him or to just destroy them and possibly save two lives. I must say I really like this movie. It's quite ingenious at parts and the subtle development of the storyline towards a truly suspenseful thriller is something even Hitchcock would have been proud of. The cast is just brilliant, Gene Hackman doing one of his best performances and the rest aren't much worse. The last 30 minutes of this movie are probably the best thriller from the 70's, it's simply a work of art. The cinematography was quite nice also, though nothing exceptional but there were some shots that looked stunning. Definitely among the best from Coppola and even among the better thrillers ever made.
93%

Death brings out the worst side of everyone

2011-05-08T10:31:00.002+03:00

Dementia 13 (1963)

I noticed that there's quite a many Francis Ford Coppola's pictures which I haven't seen yet or seen so long ago I couldn't really remember anything about them. So I decided to start with the first movie Coppola ever made. Louise's husband suffers a fatal heart attack while they are on a midnight boat ride. But Louise has another problem in addition to the body in her hands, she can't get a penny of the big family inheritance if his husband is dead and the lady with all the money is alive. So she convinces the family that her husband had to go on a business trip while she travels to Ireland to see how she could help the early demise of the lady with all the money. Soon however an axe murderer is lose in the Irish mansion and someone seems to have plans of their own to cut down the possible persons in the line of the inheritance. This is actually an early slasher film, but it's not just axe murders and people running scared around the mansion. It's also a proper psychological thriller that's even quite scary at parts. Sure some of the scenes were almost direct ripoffs from Hitchcock, but still Coppola manages to get his own touch in there as well. The low budget and the extremely tight shooting schedule shows quite badly as there are tons of mistakes and a fair share of not that good acting. This is a very good effort as a first movie and was well worth watching despite its flaws.
68%

Jason Victor Voorhees Crowley?

2011-05-06T20:53:00.002+03:00

Hatchet (2006)

I decided to give this one a try as the sequel was so much fun. Well it was what I expected, fun fast consumed entertainment. But I must say it didn't bring anything new to the concept after the sequel, so basically I quite over rated the sequel as the first part already had all the stuff that made it so good. Oh well sometimes you see movies in another order than which they were planned. The story is that a group of tourist go to a "haunted" swamp tour and end up getting killed by a man/monster called Victor Crowley. Actually the idea and the history of the story is quite clearly ripped from the Friday the 13th franchise. Plenty of tits and more than enough blood and gore with a tongue in cheek attitude is the recipe and it works quite well. All the horror geeks should go nuts about the casting as there's Kane Hodder, Tony Todd and Robert Englund all in one movie. Though two of them in small cameo roles, but anyways lots of familiar names. Other than that the cast was nothing special, a mix of somewhat ok actors and people cast just because of their looks. In the end it's fun brain numbing entertainment, so it did what it supposed to do. Even though I was a bit disappointed that the sequel turned out to be so much more worse after seeing this or as I saw this later this turned out to be a let down, you know what I mean. Those who like this kind of stuff can safely watch them both and have a good time that's for sure.
56%

This movie would have needed some adjustment

2011-05-05T20:34:00.002+03:00

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

This movie is about an "agency" that controls the path people take in their life. Kind of like making sure they meet their fate like they are meant to by a pre-determined plan. Well the plan gets mixed up when a man meets a woman by chance and falls in love with her. Then the bureau men are sent after him to correct things back to the original plan, but the man of course doesn't like the idea and tries to fool the plan. That's the story in simplicity, even though there are quite a few other things going on as well, but the core of it is quite simple. Actually so simple I felt a bit offended about the message this movie brings out. Did we really need a movie to tell us that we have a free will to do things the way we want to do them? So the story is quite rubbish, dressed in a fancy sci-fi idea but in reality it just states the obvious like it would be some sort of a big revelation. And even though I kind of liked the idea of a huge conspiracy that controls everything, but the movie just takes it a bit too over the top making it way too silly. The romance in between all the nonsense was quite good though and the chemistry between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt seemed to work very well. Too bad all the other stuff around it was very shaky. It's not a bad movie by any means, it looked quite ok, it kept me somewhat entertained and I liked the basic idea but the way it was told took it to routes it should have left alone. So it has it's moments as a romantic flick, but just don't expect any intelligent sci-fi thriller of it.
51%

Never trust the strangers you steal from

2011-05-04T20:14:00.001+03:00

Oasis of Fear (1971)

Dick and Ingrid are two poor hippies who support themselves by selling nude pictures of themselves. Once they get money they spend it away as fast as they can and start all over again. One day they end up to a big mansion, or oasis as they call it, and end up stealing some gas from a car in the garage. The lady of the mansion, Barbara, catches them stealing the gas but decides to invite them in and offer them something to eat and drink. But things don't seem somehow right and soon the couple find out that Barbara had some quite different plans for them. Even though this movie is usually categorized as a giallo, I wouldn't say that. It's more of a Hitchcokian thriller with some small references to giallos. The cast was quite good, all three main characters did a good job and that was a great thing as this movie is very character driven. The pacing is a bit off and the movie has some tedious moments, mostly because of the somewhat shallow script. I liked the story but maybe the big twist should have come a bit earlier to get the real tension going sooner. I mean, I liked the fact that the characters are given time to develop, but still there were some quite boring moments before the real tension starts to build up. The cinematography was quite good and the music wasn't bad either, so nothing to complain on those parts. I actually liked the fact that this wasn't a typical giallo and that it was a character driven thriller, but it could have been done a bit better.
66%

A winter road movie

2011-05-03T23:27:00.001+03:00

Lapland Odyssey (2010)

A good Finnish comedy is quite a rarity, so I didn't have my hopes up for this one either. That's why I skipped it's theatrical run and waited for the DVD release. Well I must say I shouldn't have done that as this really surprised me. This is by far the best Finnish comedy I've seen in the last 10 years or so. It's a story about a man called Janne who is an unemployed slacker wallowing in self pity. When his wife gives him an ultimatum that he needs to get them a digibox (a device needed to watch digital TV broadcasts on analog televisions) before the next morning or she will move out and leave him. So Janne and his two friends set out on a quest to find the digibox, but it turns out it's not that easy when you're in the arctic circle. I'm not going into the story any more than that, it's quite an adventure and the style is a comedic road movie. There were actually many things I didn't like in the movie, but most of them I can look past as the feeling of the movie is so great. The acting could have been a bit better and the northern dialect they were trying to speak didn't sound too good. It sounded like southern people talk it, but for anyone outside Finland that shouldn't matter at all. Every character in this movie is overly stereotypical, but then again it kind of fit the crazy adventure. Even though it makes fun of many Finnish traditions it's made in quite an universal way so it really doesn't matter if you wouldn't know anything about Finland when watching it. That's another thing about the movie that I first thought was a problem, it imitates the Hollywood buddy comedies and road trip movies, but then again it still remains quite original avoiding many of the downfalls of the others. So yes I liked it, it's far from perfect, but it made me laugh and kept me well entertained, even managed to get me into a good mood and that was more than enough worth the watch.
80%

Strangers on a gondola

2011-05-03T23:26:00.002+03:00

The Designated Victim (1971)

This is an Italian version of Strangers on a Train (1951). The basic storyline is the same, but this time it's set in Venice and the plot is introduced in a boat. There are however quite a few things added to the original story to keep it from being a direct copy. It's quite obvious that they wanted to steer away from the typical exploitation and keep this one a clean thriller. At parts that even works, but the thing is that this movie forgets the most important aspect of the original, the suspense. The movie wasn't thrilling in pretty much any part, just a very straight forward story telling that focused on the characters and their motives. That's a very bad problem as you are forced to compare this to the original and of course it can't cope with the master of suspense without any suspense at all. I did like some of the twists of the story which I won't get into to avoid spoiling and I liked the new setting also. The movie wasn't as stylish as I had hoped, but there are a few scenes that are quite brilliant. The cast was also great with Tomas Milian and Pierre Clementi being the driving force of the movie when things got dull. Luis Bacalov's score wasn't bad either, though he has done better also. So there were many things right and it had the potential to be a brilliant movie, but they forgot the main thing, suspense. Now it's just an interesting variation of the story that doesn't do what it's supposed to do as a movie. The DVD from Shameless had been made from multiple sources so the aspect ratio changes between scenes and sometimes during it, which I found quite annoying.
59%

Psychosis can give you weird powers

2011-05-02T22:14:00.001+03:00

Special (2006)
Hadn't seen this before and found it when some people were comparing Super (2010) to this so I decided to give it a try. Les (Michael Rapaport) is a metermaid whose life is quite uninteresting until he decides to sign up for an experimental drug test. The pills turn out to have some psychotic side effects on him and he becomes convinced that he has super powers like levitation, mind reading and running through walls. While he's running into walls hurting himself and levitating while just laying on the floor, he thinks he's doing something unnatural but everyone else just thinks he's crazy. That's where the biggest problem with this movie comes from, everyone else seem to just make fun of the guy and when they finally realize that he really has a serious problem they don't really help him. So we are left with just Les himself without any voice of reason to balance the drama, like there wasn't anyone who actually cared about the guy. Of course the viewer cares about him and feels sorry for him, but really it becomes a bit tedious after a while when everything seems so one sided so you actually lose interest in him as no one else seems to care either. Another thing were the drug company guys, I just couldn't buy it, they were quite far from believable. None the less there were a lot of good in this one as well. I liked the idea, but would have taken a bit different approach to it. Michael Rapaport was quite great and carried the movie well when things got a bit dull. Rest of the cast didn't really impress me, not that they were bad, but they surely weren't great either. So it was very intriguing idea and partly well executed, but too many things scratched me the wrong way for it to be as good as it could have been.
65%

Beware the lady in black

2011-05-01T17:34:00.003+03:00

Who Saw Her Die? (1972)

A young girl is murdered in a ski resort somewhere in France. The killer seems to be a lady dressed in black with a veil on her face. The story moves to Venice where one year later a daughter of a sculptor gets killed by the same lady. After the initial shock the parents start to investigate the murder and soon the killer strikes again. This is quite a typical giallo with very little surprises despite the guessing game of who the killer is. George Lazenby, most known for his role as James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), plays the sculptor father and does a solid job at it. There's actually another familiar face from the Bond franchise in it as well, Adolfo Celi, but he didn't really shine out in any way. Anita Strindberg is always great and the rest of the cast isn't bad at all either, so nothing to complain on that department. The music by Ennio Morricone is quite great, but it's used way too repetitively which is a shame as it works brilliant before it starts to annoy you. I have to give a special mention to the cinematography as this movie looks absolutely gorgeous. Franco Di Giacomo has captured the mood quite brilliantly on film. So there are many things right in this one, but unfortunately in addition to the thin story, the pacing is a bit off. The movie gets quite boring at times and even the beautiful cinematograpy with good music can't save it at those points. None the less this was well worth watching, but not too keen on watching it again any time soon.
55%

The bomb wars

2011-05-01T17:30:00.002+03:00

Kill the Irishman (2011)

Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson) is an Irish thug who gets fed up with his crappy job. He decides to take over the union and of course all the dirty business that comes with it. He starts to work with the mafia, but after some money goes missing they end up in a war. He's also an informant for the police and in the brink of getting a divorce. So life is not easy, but Danny is a tough guy and no matter what the mafia tries they just can't kill him. There's a lot of stuff crammed into this one movie and some aspects are left quite superficial as it focuses on blowing things up. And I really mean blowing things up, there's a ridiculous amount of explosions in this movie, more than in your average war movie. The biggest problem with this movie is that it's your basic mafia movie but just replace the Italian mafioso with an Irish one and all the shooting and piano wires with explosives. The thing is that when you watch this movie you know exactly what's going to happen. The small time thugs get big and then they start dying. Making the main character an Irishman, even though he has actually never even been to Ireland, just doesn't bring enough new angle to the old story. Sure the whole bombing wars thing was a fun aspect, but still that didn't help the predictable outcome one bit. So in the end it's just another mafia movie, well made for sure, but leaves absolutely nothing to go home with.
50%

When giallo met poliziesco

2011-05-01T17:26:00.001+03:00

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)

Another mix of giallo and poliziesco (Italian crime movie). This time it's more in the poliziesco side, even though it has most of the giallo elements also. The police find a teenage girl who has apparently hung herself, but soon it turns out that there's a lot more to it than just a suicide. The detectives stumble onto a child prostitute business that seems to have it's claws all the way up to the highest officials of the city. This is one of the better crossovers of it's kind, though die hard giallo fans might be a bit disappointed as it's more on the crime movie side of things. But there are a couple of stylish suspense scenes that even come close to being horror at parts. That doesn't mean that the rest of the movie wouldn't be stylish, on the contrary, it's a very stylish thriller all the way. The cinematography is at parts pure brilliance and despite the movie being a bit "stiff" at times, it has a great mood to it. The soundtrack by Stelvio Cipriani is one of the best I've heard. The main theme in it self sounds quite silly and light hearted, but once you combine it with the theme of the movie it'll start to haunt you. That's absolutely brilliant. The dubbing of course made the acting seem a bit bad at times, but still I quite liked the casting. It's not a perfect movie by any means, but still it's one of the best crossovers and a very good movie in itself.
81%

The Haapsalu Horror & Fantasy Film Festival

2011-05-01T16:53:00.006+03:00

I had heard quite a bit of good things about this festival so I decided to check it out this year. Unfortunately I arrived a bit late so I missed the first movie Amphibious (2010), but to be honest I didn't really mind missing it as it didn't sound too promising, but as always who knows it might have surprised me. Anyway here's my reviews from the ones I did see in mids of drinking the cheap beer when ever I could.

Subconscious Cruelty (2000)

I chose this one because I hadn't seen it before, though the Norwegian movie running at the same time, Dark Souls (2010), did sound promising also. But as this has somewhat of a cult status already I decided to patch a hole in my general knowledge. Well turned out I shouldn't have done that. This movie is just boring self indulgent garbage with nothing but shock and gore effects to offer. It tries to be an art horror film, but really didn't see any art in it. It's just gorno with annoying audio-visual effects that make your eyes and ears hurt. It has four stories of quite macabre nature which are supposed to be sort of an insight to the human mind, but really they made absolutely no sense to me. Fans of surrealistic shock effects and maybe some perverts might get something out of this, but I just found it complete waste of time.
5%

Red White & Blue (2010)

I knew absolutely nothing about this movie before I went to watch it, hadn't even seen a poster, just a name in the catalog. So I had no idea what to expect, except horror as this was a horror festival after all. Well half way to the movie I hadn't seen a bit of horror, not even a hint of a thriller. Only a gritty dirty drama about a woman whose life spins around bars, bad jobs and having sex with pretty much every man he comes across. Then it moves to tell a story of a struggling musician whose mother is fighting cancer and whose band is looking for a break. But after an hour or so the movie takes a drastic turn into a very brutal revenge thriller that reminded me of The Last House on the Left (1972), but with different motives of course. Actually I quite liked the story as it's not as black and white on who are the bad guys and who are innocent victims. Kind of like all of them are bad in their own way and yet you tend to feel sorry for all of them as well. So it's definitely a tragic story and surely enough it doesn't hold back anything. It's made quite cheap and there are some mistakes in it, but it also kind of adds to the gritty feel of it as well. Amanda Fuller does a great job as Erica, the troubled woman and Noah Taylor is quite brilliant also. Rest of the cast are not exactly great and there are some awkward moments of bad acting, but they manage to get the point through. The way the movie is made with three parts might not have been the best idea as you tend to lose interest on trying to figure out what's the point and even though you surely get it towards the end, maybe a bit of better pacing should have been used. Despite it's flaws I liked the story and how diverse the characters and their motives were so it was well worth watching.
74%

The Pack (2010)

Had already seen this before so I didn't watch it at the festival, but I'll put the review here as I haven't done it before. This was quite an uneven French horror movie. It started out very well as a weird somewhat comic horror movie, but ended up being just another meaningless horror movie with very little to offer. It felt like the makers of this just piled up all the crap from other horror movies and made a sort of a left over soup of them. I mean I constantly had a feeling I've seen all this before somewhere and as there was nothing new added to it I got quite bored. Even though it's only 90 minutes it still felt too long for the thin story it had. Sure the movie looked ok and the cast was somewhat ok, but still not enough to keep the interest up. The biggest problem in addition to the idea recycling was the character development, or the lack of it. I just didn't feel anything for the characters and thus it failed to be scary at any point. Bit more originality and stronger characters and this would have worked somewhat ok, but now it just doesn't.
34%

Julia's Eyes (2010)

This was another movie I was looking forward to as it looked quite stunning on the trailer I saw. And sure enough it did look stunning, but despite the looks it did have many flaws. Julia (Belen Rueda) is losing her sight and awaiting for surgery that might save her eyes. Her sister is found dead and while everyone else thinks it was a suicide, Julia is convinced that she was murdered. She starts investigating what happened to her sister and soon finds herself being stalked by the same person she thinks killed her sister. The first hour or so of the movie is actually very good, the mood is great and the look of it supports it brilliantly. There's even some proper tension building and it's truly scary at parts. Also the giallo references surely didn't hurt it. But unfortunately towards the end it turns into a bad movie where I just kept thinking how stupid can the woman be? The dialog at the start which was quite good turns into pretty much idiotic babble and you just sit there hoping for it to end. Too bad it drags on and on way too long and waters down all the brilliant stuff in the beginning. With a less idiotic script this would have been a good movie, but now it's just barely average, despite the good start.
50%

Next one was Beyond the Black Rainbow (2011) which looked quite great in it's 80's style but unfortunately I fell asleep after the start. Not that the movie was especially boring, it actually looked quite interesting, but I guess I'm getting old for these fests. I mean the movie didn't make much sense at the start and the pace was slow but I kind of liked it as far as I saw it none the less so I'll just blame me getting old. I'll make sure to watch it when ever I get another chance.

The House of the Devil (2009)

I had already seen this one before on DVD, but as the movie looks brilliant I didn't want to miss a chance to see it on the big screen. Stayed wide awake through this one without any problems. This is an homage to the 80's and late 70's horror movies and sure enough it actually looks like a long lost 80's horror classic. Everything in the movie looks brilliant, the settings, the props, the costumes and the style are all spot on perfect. It's shot on 16mm film so even the picture is oozing with that 80's wibe. Add to that the 80's soundtrack and it's style is complete. The storytelling is also straight from those slow burning horror movies which take their time but will surely scare the shit out of you. It's a story about a young woman who answers to a babysitter wanted ad and ends up in a creepy old house sitting an old lady. The first hour of this movie is absolutely brilliant with pretty much perfect tension building and some truly scary scenes. But unfortunately it falls apart quite badly towards the end and takes too many common routes to keep it interesting. Even the brilliant suspension is replaced with shock effects and the ending leaves a bit too hollow feeling. That being said this is still a good movie, at times it's actually brilliant, but the rushed ending leaves a bit of a bad taste of it.
72%

At this point I saw The Troll Hunter (2010) again and I'm glad to say it worked very well on the second viewing also. Next one would have been Stake Land (2010), but I decided to skip it and went to see the town a bit and grab some fresh air.

Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

Well this movie was the movie for which I went to Estonia in the first place. Didn't want to miss the chance of seeing it on the big screen, even though I had my doubts wether it would actually be any good. Well it was good, but not brilliant. This is an homage to the over the top vigilante movies of the 80's and I bet the fans of those will get the most out of this one. Rutger Hauer plays a hobo who arrives to a city over run by pretty much the scum of the earth. Soon he has to ditch his dreams of bying a lawn mower and he decides to buy a shotgun instead to clean up the streets. Silly story but so is the movie. Well silly is not the right word, even over the top is kind of an under statement, this movie is ridiculously insane. It's fast paced and filled with action so you certainly won't get bored, but actually I was hoping a bit more originality to it. Sure there are tons of great stuff in it and some of them seem quite fresh but I just had that feeling that I've already seen this before. But then again as it's brainless violent entertainment with a take no prisoners attitude, it didn't matter that much in the end. Rutger Hauer is the show here and it's really nice to see him doing a big performance again, not that it would be the best of his career but still a good one. Rest of the cast is barely ok, mostly over acting which somewhat fits the story, but nothing to rave about. This was probably the bloodiest of the movies on the festival, so I guess that's somewhat of a merit also. Anyway I quite enjoyed this one, even though it didn't leave much to go home with.
79%

Hatchet II (2010)

Haven't seen the first part so I was a bit worried about going to check this out. I mean even though some sequels can work better if you don't have the expectations set by the first part, but still I believe movies should be watched in the order they were intended. Never the less I went to see this as there wasn't anything else running at the time. At start I was a bit worried as the movie seemed to continue right where the first part left off, but luckily the situation was explained and I caught on to the story quite fast. Then again I can imagine if you'd already seen the first one this explaining would seem quite stupid to you. Won't go into the story that much as it's quite thin and every bit of it is borrowed from other slasher movies, they return to the swamp to find Marybeth's friends and of course everyone gets killed again. But the story here is not the point, it's the absolutely ridiculous amount of gore and the hilarious way it's portrayed. This is a dark comedy and fans of the slasher movies will surely get the most out of it. And I'm sure happy it turned out to be a comedy as I really couldn't stop laughing at the makeup of Marybeth (Danielle Harris) at the beginning. She has a cut on the top of left side of her face which keeps her left eyebrow up all the time, so she has this wacky look on all the time that reminded me of the eyebrow joke in Just Go with It (2011). If it was intentional, that's just brilliant and if not, well that's even better. The kills are so brilliantly over the top that I had a blast watching this one. I think this movie will hold the record of longest hand weilded chainsaw in the movie history and one of the funniest usages of it. This movie is for horror fans that aren't too up tight about their genre and can have a laugh at it also. So I liked it and I will surely be checking out Hatchet (2006) as well.
70%

Norwegian Ninja (2010)

Even though I already have this on DVD I didn't watch it and waited to see it on the big screen. I loved the trailer and the movie sounded so crazy that it really can't be that bad. Well I have to say I was a bit disappointed, guess I was expecting a bit too much. It seemed like a fun made to be b-movie that kicks ass, but it wasn't that fun and it didn't really kick ass, but a b-movie it was for sure. Most of the comedy came from how goofy the tricks were and sure as a movie geek I liked them a lot, but not really enough to keep me entertained through the whole movie. The story itself also had some comedy of course, some of the times so bad it was actually funny, but to be honest most of the time it was just bad. Also there was surprisingly little action, you pretty much see all the fight scenes in the trailer and even most of those were a bit disappointing. Sure the alternate history of Norway's most famous traitor was suiting plot line for a crazy movie like this, but to someone not that familiar with the real subject I guess I missed quite a few of the points the story might have had. It's a shame it failed to deliver as I liked the concept of it, i loved the crazy ninja movies back in the 80's. So in the end it's a well made bad movie with very little comedy and action.
47%

There were still two movies after that, Atrocious (2010) and The Catechism Cataclysm (2011), but as my ride was leaving I had to skip them. Anyway, this was a very nice festival and I'll surely be participating next year as well.

When a muted man speaks, you should listen to him

2011-04-27T14:26:00.002+03:00

Steam of Life (2010)

Two documentary film makers traveled around Finland interviewing Finnish men in the only place they are "allowed" to let their rough muted cover down, the sauna. This was by far the highest rated Finnish movie last year and received praise from critics as well as the audience. So I had quite high expectations when I finally saw it on telly. I must say it lived up to those expectations and then some. There's men from all around Finland coming from various backgrounds in various saunas talking about their life. And not the fun chatter people always talk in the sauna, but things that most Finnish men tend to keep buried inside as they have been raised to hide their emotions. It's like an insight to Finnish masculinity and essentially to male vulnerability. Between the stories the documentary shows beautifully shot Finnish scenery and portrays the crazy sauna culture. Even though the topics are quite universal, like love, death, family, friendship and life itself, I guess people who are not familiar with Finnish culture might not understand everything this documentary manages to dig up. But still I would highly recommend watching it as it's way more than just a look into the crazy sauna culture of Finland. And while it doesn't really break the stereotype of a Finnish man, it's still a beautiful, gripping and genuinely touching insight behind the muted shell.
90%

To live and die in London

2011-04-25T14:11:00.003+03:00

London Boulevard (2010)

Mitchel (Colin Farrell) has just got out of jail and is looking to leave all the criminal things behind. But as it turns out it's not as easy as it sounds, especially as the local crime lord, Gant (Ray Winstone), has set his eyes on Mitchel. Mitchel takes a job from a famous movie star, Charlotte (Keira Knightley), who is being stalked by paparazzis. The two sides of course don't really fit and it starts to look like there will be a clash of powers at some point. The story was quite common offering very little new and that's part of the main problem with this movie. The movie doesn't say anything, things just happen and there's not really much point to it. You are constantly given two choices how the movie will end and it doesn't even try to surprise you. So I have to wonder what's the point of it all? We've already seen these kind of stories so why make another if you have nothing new to give to it. Sure the movie didn't get boring at any point, mostly thanks to the great cast and some good dialog, but in the end it's just light entertainment that leaves you nothing to go home with. Except maybe the question of where have I seen this all before?
40%

The wasted potential can be weighted in stones

2011-04-24T23:48:00.001+03:00

Stone (2010)

Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro) is soon to be retiring parole officer whose life is in a stand still. One of his last cases is with Gerald 'Stone' Creeson (Edward Norton) an arsonist who thinks he has already served enough punishment from the crime he did. Jack being cold and withdrawn Stone cons his way past the defences to see what makes Jack tick. Stone then sends his wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich) to play with the weaknesses of Jack in hopes of a quick release. Lucetta wraps Jack around her finger with ease and soon Jack finds out he has been played with. This movie tries to be a psychological thriller, but to be honest it fails at it. There's really nothing to grab on to, things just come at you like statements without any depth to them making it feel very alienating even though it should be inviting you to these people's minds. So the script is quite bad, even though the overall story is quite intriguing, but the way the motives are brought out is just bad. That makes the viewing experience quite painful as the movie is in very slow tempo. The cast is quite brilliant, even Robert De Niro who hasn't really impressed lately does a solid job and Frances Conroy was quite great as Jack's wife. So a good overall story with a great cast is wasted with a bad excecution and a boringly shallow script.
42%

The critter from the shitter

2011-04-24T20:46:00.001+03:00

Ratman (1988)

Well this was a bad movie, but at parts it's so bad it's good. A scientist manages to create a creature that is a mix of a rat combined with a monkey, and so Ratman is born. While the scientist dreams of the Nobel prize for his efforts, the Ratman stalks around the Carribean town killing young and beautiful women. A woman travels to the island as the police think her sister is dead and she meets a writer on the way to the morgue. Well the writer decides to join her to the morgue to see the body (ye, go figure..) and it turns out the body is not her sister. Soon another body pops out and again the woman is asked to the morgue, with the writer of course, and again it's not her sister. Guess the police just call her to the morgue any time some woman ends up dead or something. Anyway the two start to investigate what's going on and soon they find out where her sister is and what the Ratman is all about. So the story is highly idiotic, but it's actually so crazy it's quite fun. The acting is horrible, so bad infact that the world's smallest actor, Nelson de la Rosa, playing the Ratman with a bit of fake hair and pointy teeth is the best of the lot. Luckily there is some nudity to keep the interest up and especially one shower scene is quite brilliant with it's sound effects. Despite this being some times a trashy fun ride, it still has it's weak moments where absolutely nothing happens and it tends to get quite boring. Fans of trahsy bad movies will get their share of fun, but the rest better skip this one.
48%

We're all animals aren't we?

2011-04-24T12:41:00.001+03:00

The Experiment (2010)

This is a remake of the German movie The Experiment (2001) which is based on the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment a psychological test where random people are given roles as guards or prisoners in a prison environment to see how it affects their behaviour. I haven't seen the original so unfortunately can't compare them. I usually always try to see the original first but for some reason I've never come across it yet. Anyway lets focus on this remake. I like the idea of the movie, but I'm not really buying how the behavioural changes are being made. I mean I'm not an expert for sure but some of the stuff is a bit far fetched and thus feels a bit phony. The idea how power corrupts and how people turn to animals when put inside a cage long enough was really interesting, but the way it was handled was way too straight forward without any proper motives. The cast is quite good, but especially Forest Whitaker seems to be on autopilot without even trying to bring any effort into the role. Adrien Brody was not much better and the biggest positive surprise turned out to be Cam Gigandet who actually does a very good job as the scumbag guard. The direction is very straight forward without much finesse to it and the whole movie feels a bit rushed. I mean I get the feeling they didn't really sit down and think what the main idea here is but just thought it sounded cool so let's make a movie of it. That's a shame as the idea had so much more to give than the movie delivers. None the less it was worth watching mostly because of the idea, even though it is kind of wasted, but I'm surely going to hunt down the German version to see if it handled the subject any better.
56%

My dear, is that a power tool in your pocket or are you just excited to see me?

2011-04-23T20:28:00.001+03:00

My Dear Killer (1972)

This is another crossover from a poliziesco (Italian crime movie) to a giallo. It's a murder mystery and we follow the investigation from an inspector's (George Hilton) point of view. What starts out as an accident investigation turns into a murder spree and the only clue is a child's drawing. I quite liked the story, I mean it's very basic, but it reminded me of those detective stories from the 50's of course this time spiced up with the giallo style brutal murders. The viewer is given all the leads as the inspector discovers them so it's quite fun to try and guess what has happened, though you don't need to scratch your head too hard for it. The cast is fairly ok, none of them made an impression but they weren't bad either. The style is not the most artistic, but there are some scenes that looked quite great and Ennio Morricone's music spiced them up nicely. This movie is far from the best from either of the genres but still it has it's moments and was worth checking out.
67%

A super movie

2011-04-23T01:50:00.001+03:00

Super (2010)

Wow, this movie took me by surprise. I was really thinking about passing this one as it looked like just another comedy about a guy who decides to be a superhero. But it just might be the best of it's kind. The basic idea is of course very similar to Defendor (2009) and Kick-Ass (2010), but to be honest I don't want to compare this to them as they all are different in their own way and there's enough room for all of them in the world. So I'll just say this is a darker and grittier version of them. Frank (Rainn Wilson) is a fast food restaurant cook whose wife, Sarah (Liv Tyler), has started to use drugs again and leaves Frank for a drug dealer called Jacques (Kevin Bacon). Frank in his deepest sorrow gets a sort of a divine intervention from a Christian super hero The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) and decides to start fighting crime as a home made superhero. His goal is to get his wife from the drug dealer and his gang. He gets help from a comic book store worker called Libby (Ellen Page) and together they set out to rid the streets from crime. The style is realistic and quite gritty without holding any punches. The cast is quite brilliant and especially Ellen Page is simply hilarious. The comedy is dark, actually it's pitch black at times and it's brilliantly mixed with drama. Also the drama is not just your basic stock drama, it's actually quite devastating especially towards the end. There's even some very violent action in it that's certainly not comic like in others of it's kind. So it's definitely not your average superhero comedy, it's far more than that. It's very hard to describe the feel I got from this movie, it was thought provoking, it made me laugh, it shocked me, it made me feel sad, it made me feel good and some times all of those at once. All I can say I really loved it and it's the best movie I've seen this year.
93%

Being a sex slave might not be that bad after all

2011-04-22T20:28:00.002+03:00

The Frightened Woman (1969)

I must say I was quite surprised with this one. I was expecting some crap like Venus in Furs (1969) but this turned out be quite good. It's a story about a woman who ends up being kidnapped by a rich man who keeps her as his slave. So the basic story is what you'd expect from a sexploitation flick, but there's quite a bit more to it than just that. Actually, apart from a few scenes, this movie is not exactly sexploitation at all and it's surely not as graphic as others of it's kind. In fact I was wondering why the hell did this movie ever get an X rating, guess the times were different back then. Anyway, I loved the twists in the story with the change in the balance of power between the two and the big twist in the end which left me very surprised and yet somehow very happy. The movie looks stunning, the cinematography and set desing is very stylish with it's psychedelic late 60's touch. It's also very symbolic and at parts even surrealistic, so there's a lot more going than just the sexploitation "plot". The music was certainly not the best from it's kind, but still quite good, so that department was well in hand as well. The cast was quite ok as well, though I had to watch the english dubbed version so that of course brought down the performances quite a bit. It's not a perfect movie by any means, it drags on a bit too much at parts and maybe the script could have been a bit better at the start, but still I quite liked it.
76%

The dilemma of lost comedy and missing drama

2011-04-22T14:53:00.001+03:00

The Dilemma (2011)

Wanted to see this solely because of the cast even though I knew it probably had nothing more to offer. And that's pretty much what it was, a bad movie with an interesting cast. Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) are best friends and business partners on the verge of a big break. When Ronny sees Kevin's wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) cheat on Kevin, the "dilemma" comes wether Ronny should tell Kevin what had happen and make his life even harder than it already is or just keep quiet until things settle down. Ronny of course has his own "problems" too like how to propose to his girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly). Things of course get overly complicated in the interest of "comedy" and everything seems to go wrong. Well the problem is that the "problems" the movie presents are not exactly problems that hard to solve and the fact that the movie spends almost 2 hours on it is just stupid. Another thing is the comedy, sure there were a few somewhat funny scenes, but I really didn't laugh too often. Actually funniest thing was to spot all the not too subtle product placements this movie had and there were tons of them. And the real joke came when I saw the budget of the movie, 70 million dollars. Holy shit, there's really nothing big happening in the movie so where the hell did the money go? Guess it went to hire the cast, which was indeed quite good. Too bad the script wasn't and surely the direction wasn't either. Those corny flashback scenes made me feel embarrassed for the director. So it's a big budget garbage with only a few funny scenes, not much drama, a stupid story and a good cast.
22%

A whole lot of Screams

2011-04-22T11:46:00.003+03:00

I went to see Scream 4 (2011) couple of days ago and wrote the review of it, but when I was thinking about the other parts I actually didn't remember what happened in which part. And as I remembered at least two of them being somewhat good, I though it's time to check them out again as well.

Scream (1996)

I must say I quite liked this movie when it came out, it was a well needed breath of fresh air to the slasher genre. But right from the first time I saw it I knew it's not going to hold multiple viewings. The whole concept of making fun of other slasher movies while working around the cliches of them and the end twist felt like a trick that works only once. I mean you can only trick the slasher fans once into thinking you have a superior movie than any other slasher out there. Sure enough the second time I saw it, it didn't work nearly as well as the first time but I still remember enjoying it. So now I gave it a third try after more than 10 years. Well I really didn't enjoy it that much this time around, there were quite a few very bad moments that actually made me think why the hell did I ever liked this movie. First the things I liked about it. I like the way it doesn't try to hide who the killer is, but still offers quite a few other suspects as well and gives alibis to the ones you think are the killer. I remember when I first saw this that I guessed the killer right from the first scene we see him, the romantic version of Don't Fear the Reaper gave it away for me, but then he gets put into jail so that didn't work. I also liked the suspension building in some of the scenes. Even though the movie resorted into cheap scares quite often it still did take some time to get proper suspension also. Also I quite liked the mood of the movie, it's very easy going and even fun at times, but still it manages to be scary when needed. What I didn't like was the fact that it tries to convince you that it knows every trick in the slasher movie handbook and yet it falls into quite a many cliches itself. I mean sure it worked the first time, you give the audience a few scenes they didn't expect and they will let some nonsense pass as well, but on the second time it just doesn't work. When you build tension with a character that's being stalked, the character's actions are the key into the suspension, if the character does something stupid that you wouldn't do it spoils the whole suspension for you. After that you turn to the killer's side, kind of like "oh fuck this shit, kill that stupid bitch already and get this over with." And to be honest there weren't many wise characters in this movie. Speaking of characters I absolutely hated Deputy Dewey this time, thought he was funny but yet somehow heroic character first time I saw this, now I noticed he's stupid as a boot and way too goofy. Actually his quest to get into Gale Weather's undies ends up getting a guy killed, another thing I didn't notice first time around. And to be honest the whole ending after that was quite idiotic. I got the feeling that the writer had a great idea on the motives of the killer and the whole plot, but didn't know how to break it down to the viewer. So he decided to put this cliched ridiculous ending where the killer explains the motives and stupidly enough demonstrates what's coming after it's all done even though it's not yet done. How fucking retarted can someone be that when he/she has the situation under control and the last victim ready to die, he/she decides to stab him/herself first to get the alibi part out of the way and thus giving the victim a chance to escape. So the ending sucked big time. But despite it being quite a bad movie on the third watch I'd still recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet as it does have it's moments on the first viewing. And I do have to give it some credit as it really had it's impact on the whole horror genre, maybe not the best impact, but still way better than for example what the Saw series had.
61%

Scream 2 (1997)

So of course as the movie was so popular the one trick gimmick got a sequel and thus kind of watered down the first part by doing so. This time it's the horror movie sequels that are being made fun of while the movie itself of course uses many of those cliches. All the survivors of the first part return and of course there's a copycat who wants to finish what the first part couldn't do. The recipe is the same, make the audience think the movie is on the "next level" of slashers by making fun of the cliches and then use the other cliches to ride past the unaware viewer. And sure it works once but as at this point it has been done before the viewer isn't tricked as easily. Too bad it doesn't try to fix the problems of the first part, only use the same idea with another story in it. What I liked about this movie was the soundtrack, some of the comedy and again some of the suspension building. What I didn't like was again the stupid over explaining killer. Once more he/she had the thing all wrapped up but of course he/she needs to tell his/her life story before finishing it. Idiotic. Though I did like the first motive of the killer quite a bit and actually that would have been an interesting dilemma to go into a bit deeper. It's a shame it's only covered breafly in the end and then just forgot. Another thing I found quite idiotic was the whole car sequence, I mean how stupid can the women be and really how stupid do the film makers think the audience is. As that wouldn't have been enough it's followed by a scene where the movie takes exactly the same routes it made fun of in the first part, stupid beyond belief. At this point I had to struggle to keep watching as that many idiotic scenes in a movie that wants you to believe it's a smart slasher is just ridiculous. So the first half was quite ok, despite some bad acting and horribly corny dialog, but the second half is just colossal in stupidity. So in the end the movie falls to the same problem it makes fun of, failing to fix the problems of the first part and just focusing in giving the viewer more of what the first one had without even trying to bring anything new to the table.
33%

Scream 3 (2000)

I remember the first time I saw this I didn't have my hopes up and it still ended up dissapointing me. So wasn't surely expecting much this time around either. Surely enough it was still a bad movie. The only thing I liked about this was to try and guess who the killer is and how nicely false leads are given to the viewer. Other than that this was just garbage. Survivors of the second part of course return and the rest of the cast is filled with stock actors doing performances from bad to absolutely horrible. Sure again there are cameos of some familiar faces but they didn't really help. And yet again the dialog at times was simply awful. The worst thing was that it again completely forgot what it was trying to teach in the previous films. It seemed that everyone in the movie was about as dumb as a rubber boot. "You take the gun and go look that way, I'll go unarmed this way so the killer can get me first." I mean it surely doesn't take a genius to write a believable stalk scene, but please don't let braindead retards have a shot at it, ok? Had to really struggle to get through this, so luckily the guessing game worked somewhat great, but a good movie that doesn't make.
20%

Scream 4 (2011)

After almost 11 years they try to revive the series that made slasher movies popular again. So is it just a bad attempt to cash in with the old formula or do they actually have something new to the genre? Well it was bit of both, but unfortunately more on the first part. The beginning was quite nice with it's funny movie within a movie within another movie trick, though as "layers" are the hot thing in movies today that was kind of predictable. None the less it kicked off the movie quite nicely. The old cast of course return and then there's the fresh meat for the grinder. That's actually one of the biggest problem with this series, the three characters from all of the parts just won't die so you just don't fear for them anymore. Though that "immortality" was used quite nicely in this one with a bit of a moral dilemma that what's the point of surviving if all your loved ones always end up dead. But for some reason the movie just states that once and never really goes into it any deeper. In my opinion they should have killed them all right from the start and get a fresh cast to the new "revision", at least that would have made it clear that all bets are really off. Now you can basically figure out who's going to die and who's not right from the start. That being said the movie almost took an unexpected turn with the main three characters, but then again it didn't dare to go with it. This part actually had learned a bit from the mistakes of the first three and didn't always go for the cliched route after making fun of it first, but still it wasn't really innovative either. Actually before the "first ending" this movie was on it's way of being a very good and quite fresh new look on the slasher genre. But why the hell in this part as well the motives need to be discussed in long dialogs before the job is done? Is it really the only way to tell them to the viewer or were the writers just lazy and borrowed the formula from the previous films? I actually really liked the motives, they fit the modern day problems very well, but despised the way they were told. That being said I thought the movie took a very good turn after the motives dialogs, but too bad again they got scared to really go that way and the "second ending" watered the movie down all together right to that category of cash in with an easy concept. That's a shame as the movie had it's moments and at parts really looked like it would go to a different direction, but unfortunately it ended up in the same slot as the previous ones. For fans of the series this is well worth watching, but the rest might not enjoy it that much.
58%

After watching all four of them I must say I'm quite surprised how bad they were. I mean sure the first and the fourth were ok, but I remembered the first and the second being a lot better. But I guess that's how it goes, times change and things don't work as good anymore as they used to. But I must say I agree to what they say in the fourth part, I'd watch any of these movies over another gorno movie (gore porno or torture porn) like from the Saw series for example. And that just shows in how bad shape the "big" horror movies are today.

The Last Night Virgin Murders The Spring On The Left Train House

2011-04-20T21:14:00.006+03:00

Night Train Murders (1975)

Sorry for the crazy title, the reason for it is that this movie is actually quite an interesting curiosity. It's exploitation in the second generation so to say, it exploits the idea of another hugely popular exploitation movie, Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972), which in turn exploited a popular Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960). That's not really anything special as there are tons of movies that exploit other exploitation movies, but what makes this trio special is that both of the versions keep the moral dilemma from the original in them as well. Even though the story could have been told straight forward relying only on the shock factor, the main point of vengeance making the person commiting it no better than the one that deserves it is still very present there. And that's why I quite like this one. So it's basically the same story as in The Last House on the Left (1972) but this time it all happens on a night train. Two young women are on their way home for the Christmas on an almost empty night train when they come across two drug addict thugs and a nymphomanic woman. Well as the story follows quite closely Craven's film, I'm not going to say anything more about it so I don't end up spoiling 3 movies, even though the other 2 should be considered as general knowledge by now. I was expecting this to be an audio-visual update for the Craven's version, but the style was surprisingly straight forward with only a few quite stylish scenes. Even Ennio Morricone's score isn't shining out in any way and actually one of the strongest scenes in the movie has no sounds at all. And that's quite a shame as the movie really doesn't bring anything to the old story, but then again it luckily doesn't take away either. So it's basically the same story in a different setting, surely it's nowhere near as good as The Virgin Spring (1960) and not even as good as The Last House on the Left (1972), but still it's not a bad movie as it manages to keep the most important point of the story unlike many others of it's kind. The dubbing was horrible as in most Italian movies, so watch it with the original soundtrack if possible.
66%

Cursed New Yorkers

2011-04-19T18:30:00.002+03:00

Manhattan Baby (1982)

Another Fulci movie that tries to shine out with other abilities than just gore. An archeologist discovers an ancient Egyptian tomb and ends up blind by the "curse" of the tomb. At the same time his daughter gets a strange medallion from a creepy blind old lady. The two incidents seem to be connected somehow and as they return to Manhattan things start going crazy. Even though the story was thin, the movie started off nicely with some very good looking scenes and the style was quite great. But then it kind of stalls and doesn't really move anywhere. Sure enough this movie did have some great looking scenes, but other than that it had very little to offer. It felt like it was trying to copy every horror hit out there but not being able to fit them all into the small script. Hell it even copies Fulci's previous movies as well, though that might have been a joke as I bet he knew this movie was as far from original as a movie can be. The biggest problem in addition to the thin script is that this is not what Fulci does best and you can almost see that he's uncomfortable with this material, kind of like not sure where to go next and which point to focus on. Though I read that the funding for the movie was cut heavily, so maybe that also effected how uneven it ended up to be. The cast is not great either, so that didn't help either. One thing I really loved, in addition to the few stylish scenes, was the soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi, absolutely brilliant as always, but even there I could hear quite a many recycled ideas from his other soundtracks. So it looks good at parts and the music is brilliant, but unfortunately it wasn't a good movie.
35%

Worst movie of the year, no contest

2011-04-17T23:12:00.003+03:00

Blooded (2011)

I read the synopsis and thought this sounds like an interesting thriller. I'll just quote the full synopsis here. "In October 2005, five young people were kidnapped in the Highlands of Scotland. Stripped and abandoned in the the wilderness, they were forced into a deadly game where the hunters became the hunted. Their ordeal was filmed by an extreme animal rights group as a warning to others: if you hunt... you're fair game. Combining dramatic reconstruction and compelling interviews with the survivors, BLOODED finally tells the full story behind one of the most extreme internet virals of modern times." What I actually got was simply a horrible excuse of a movie. I had to split the viewing into two parts, even though it's only 80 minutes. After the first 30 minutes absolutely nothing had happened except for some weak effort of character building without characters. Had to stop it there, but next day I decided to finish it just in case it only had a bad start and would redeem itself in the end. No chance of that. First of all it's quite amateurishly made, bad acting, horrible scripting with very uninteresting characters and absolutely no sense of pacing. Second of all there is no thriller, not one bit. I mean which retard actually thinks that the viewer might get scared for the protagonist when you intercut the "hunt" with the protagonist casually talking about the events while it happens. Guess he didn't know that a movie actually needs to be thrilling in order for it to work as a thriller, having a guy run away from hunters with dramatic music while someone is constantly telling the viewer it will be ok is quite far from thrilling. I have no idea what the "statement" of this movie is, I mean it surely tries to tell us something, but the closest I can guess is that hunting foxes is bad, but hunting humans is worse. Well no shit Sherlock. Somebody give this guy the Nobel prize, we clearly have the next philosophical genious amongst us! Idiotic pointless waste of time garbage with highly misleading marketing. I want my 4 euros back and more importantly I want my 80 minutes back.
0%

Fight the power sisters!

2011-04-17T18:20:00.004+03:00

Flavia The Heretic (1974)

I have to say I'm a bit puzzled. I hadn't seen this before but of course heard a great deal about it as it's kind of notorious among the fans of the exploitation genre. It's described as a brutal, sleazy and straight forward nunsploitation, but to be honest I was wondering did I really see the same movie as everyone else. This movie reminded me more of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) than Behind Convent Walls (1978) or any other nunsploitation flick like that. I mean sure the main character is a nun and sure there are quite a few sexual themes in it and yes it even has some nasty scenes and a bit of violence, but it's basically a historical piece about a woman who fights back the oppressors. And with that it even manages to raise quite a few thought provoking points, another thing that's very uncommon for nunsploitation. So yes I liked the story quite a bit, but the movie surely isn't without flaws. The style is quite uneven, at parts it's very straight forward exploitation like and at parts it's very stylish somewhat even surrealistic. The pacing is fast, so you won't get bored at any point. The cast is quite good, Florinda Bolkan being the most notable of course, but Maria Casares as sister Agatha was quite great also. The low budget shows at parts quite badly, but it really didn't matter that much. If you can call this nunsploitation then this is by far the best of it's kind, but as a historical drama it's not bad either. By the way the Shameless DVD was annoyingly letterboxed into a 4:3 frame which means when you watch it on a widescreen telly you'll have only a small image in center of your screen with tons of black all around it. Weird thing as thus far all of the Shameless releases have been very good quality.
68%

What would you do to save your child?

2011-04-16T19:34:00.002+03:00

Inhale (2010)

Paul Stanton, played by Dermont Mulroney, is an attorney whose daughter is terminally ill. If she doesn't find a new lung soon, she will die. Paul and his wife of course try to do everything possible to save her, but the organ donor list is long and they are nowhere near the top of it. When an idea of some black market organs presents itself they don't hesitate long to jump at it. But soon Paul finds out it's not exactly easy to get one. Not because of money, as that he has, but because he's not sure if he's up for what it takes to get one. Most of the movie he's chasing false leads and getting into trouble until he really faces the problem. The real guestion of the movie is in the last few minutes of it and despite the movie gives somewhat of a surprise answer to it, you still have to ask yourself what would you do in that situation. The cast is quite solid, they all do their parts well so nothing to complain there. The direction is very straight forward and the pace is quite fast so it doesn't get boring at any part. Would have hoped a bit more content to it though as before the very end it's quite a stock thriller drama with very little to offer despite it being somewhat entertaining. Anyway was worth watching and even thought provoking so that's always a good thing.
71%

The upper middle class unemployed

2011-04-16T16:32:00.003+03:00

The Company Men (2010)

A movie that follows three men in various management positions in a big company that needs to lay off some of its workers and how the men adapt to the unemployment in their various ways. It reflects the economic crisis on the upper middle class, so it was a nice change to see it from that perspective as well. Many people criticize this movie because all of the men already have tons of money, big houses and expensive cars, so that it wouldn't depict the crisis in a truthful manner. Well I have nothing against a movie like this, actually it's nice to see the rich people in trouble for a change and not always the poorly educated lower class. That being said, it's a good current idea but really fails to bring anything new to it. It merely scratches the surface and tends to go with the common routes offering very little what we haven't seen before. The cast is quite good with Chris Cooper, Rosemarie DeWitt and surprisingly Kevin Costner doing the best performances of the lot. Tommy Lee Jones and Maria Bello are both quite good as well, though their parts are a bit one dimentional so not much room to shine out from. I knew that Ben Affleck would automatically mean bad acting, but to be honest he wasn't that bad at the start, his hollow performance actually works quite well with the shock the character is going through as he gets fired. But too bad the role had a bit more than just blank staring required and towards the end his horrible acting starts to annoy a bit too much. The movie looks quite great, thanks to Roger Deakins' cinematography which is always brilliant. Other than that it's very straight forward without any tricks. So in the end it had tons of more potential that it really uses and the cast makes this one worth the watch, even though it doesn't leave you with anything in the end.
59%

Look what the cat dragged in this time

2011-04-15T15:59:00.003+03:00

I ordered quite a few of Shameless Screen Entertainment releases as they were on sale on Amazon, so lots of weird stuff coming up. I've already gone through some of them and surely it's not the whole collection, only the first 17 of them, but the rest will follow as well.

Fulci on Poe

2011-04-15T15:57:00.001+03:00

The Black Cat (1981)

When you think about Lucio Fulci doing an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, what this movie ended up being isn't surely the one you'd first think would spawn from that combination. Funny thing that this movie is one of my favourites from Lucio Fulci even though it's not even close to what he's usually known from. I mean sure it's horror and it does have some gruesome scenes, but nothing like the brutal and sadistic gorefests the man is known for. It's not even the best adaptation of Poe's story, but still it has it's own unique feel to it which I like. So it's really more in the Edgar Allan Poe side of things. The biggest thing is that Fulci is actually taking some proper time for suspension building and not just feasting on the murders. And it seems that when he can focus on something else than the gore there's a very stylish film maker underneath. This movie looks, sounds and feels quite brilliant, even so much that it's quite close to the masters of the genre, Argento and Bava. Sure it has it's flaws like the bad acting and some of the dialog is quite corny, but still the mood saves a lot from the campy side of it. Actually about the acting, the cat itself is the best actor in this one, scary as hell. Well worth watching even if you're not a fan of Fulci.
83%

Should have gone with it a lot sooner

2011-04-14T20:18:00.002+03:00

Just Go with It (2011)

I actually used to like Adam Sandler before he started to repeat himself and turned into romantic comedies. This is him pretty much at his worst. I haven't seen the original Indian version of the movie so can't compare them. Anyway Sandler is a successful plastic surgeon who uses the unhappily married man trick to hit on young women. Of course he finds his dream girl and gets into trouble because of his lie, so he needs to convince her that he's going to divorce his imaginary wife. He hires his assistant to play as his soon to be ex wife and that of course leads into more trouble. The story is stupidly predictable, but it's not that bad, there's plenty of good moments in it. The comedy ranges from absolutely garbage to very funny, so that's not all horribly bad either. The cast is actually quite good, Nicole Kidman was a great surprise and even though Brooklyn Decker was cast just because her stunning body, she isn't that bad either. Never liked Jennifer Aniston and this didn't help the fact in any way. The movie is a bit too long and as it's quite uneven you lose interest quite often. Had it been 30 minutes shorter it would have worked a lot better. So it's just another romantic comedy, but to be honest this is one of the better I've seen lately. Though seeing what crap they have made, that isn't much of an achievement.
44%

A bad porn movie without porn

2011-04-14T19:37:00.001+03:00

Venus in Furs (1969)

Well I have to say this is not my kind of thing. I mean naked women are always fun to watch, but usually there's either a good (or so bad that it's good) story around it or then it's porn. Well this was neither, the story is pretty much straight out of a porn movie, but there's no porn. So a movie that deals with sexual passions and perversions done in the ways of soft core sexploitation isn't really interesting. It's just not deep enough look to the subject that it could hold your interest for the duration of the movie. Got bored, despite the beautiful women.
20%

The sister in blood red

2011-04-13T19:03:00.001+03:00

The Killer Nun (1979)

This is a weird crossover between a giallo and nunsploitation, but it kind of fails to be either. There's not enough sex for a nunsploitation and there's very little thriller to be a good giallo either. Though I guess giallo fans will get more out of it than sexploitation fans as it at least tries to bring some stylish murder sequences into the mix. The plot is quite ridiculous with this morphine addict nun who is going crazy while killing patients in her hospital. There's all the cliches of both genres and the movie brings very little new to the mix. The cast is ok, Anita Ekberg being the most notable of the lot. I wonder why this ended up into the video nasties list as there's very little sex and the violence isn't too bad either. All in all I got quite bored watching it.
31%

Modelling is a dangerous business

2011-04-13T17:01:00.002+03:00

Nothing Underneath (1985)
A park ranger in USA feels a psychic connection to his twin sister who is working as a model in Milan. When the park ranger feels her sister being murdered he travels to Milan to find out what's going on. As there's no sign of his sister and the police don't believe the psychic link, he starts to investigate the cocaine flooded model industry himself. But as soon another body is found killed in the same manner with scissors as the man saw his sister being killed, then even the Interpol gets interested. Soon enough there seems to be a serial killer on the loose killing beautiful models. The story is quite basic giallo with a setting that suits it perfectly. There are couple of twists to the story but it's nothing special as you see them coming a mile away. Lots of nudity as usual, but this time the murder sequences are quite mild which doesn't bring down the mood at all. The cast is fairly ok and even Donald Pleasence manages to break out from his Halloween manners. The score by Pino Donaggio is quite great and fits the movie perfectly. The pace is a bit slow and as there's not much story to be told it tends to get a bit boring at parts. Still I didn't have too much trouble getting through it, mostly thanks to the beautiful ladies, the music and at parts quite nice cinematography. So all in all this is a very average giallo, not good but not bad either.
51%

Yo dawg, I heard you like sad movies so we made you this...

2011-04-13T12:54:00.003+03:00

Priest of Evil - Harjunpää ja pahan pappi (2010)

This is a movie based on the popular Harjunpää books and the movie was planned as kind of an Finnish alternate for the Beck and Wallander series. I can't compare them as I really haven't seen any that I could remember. Well the makers of this have surely studied Se7en (1995) as the movie tries to imitate it in style and in mood. Timo Harjunpää is a police detective whose life is not easy, his daughter gets murdered, his marriage is falling apart and there's a serial killer after him. Soon even the killer of his daughter is being released from prison, so there's no shortage of drama and tragedy. Actually there's so much of them that it almost turns into a farce. It wallows in the sad feelings underlining every single moment of sadness so thoroughly that the whole movie becomes unintentionally hilarious. For example a scene which is probably supposed to show how teenagers deal with family problems is of course depicted with an emo kid slashing his forearm. I mean come on, at least I can't watch that scene without laughing. It also doesn't help that Helsinki is depicted as a very grim and dangerous place where the sun doesn't shine. It pretty much takes every cliche out there and slaps it into the soup. As a dark comedy this story would have worked quite well, but as it really tries to keep it serious it's just sad how over board it goes. Add to that all the ridiculous details and you have a movie that's almost so bad it's good, but not quite. The cast is pretty much the all star of Finnish actors and most of them do a fairly ok job. Peter Franzen seems quite lost most of the time though, but then again I guess that's what they were after in the first place. Jenni Banerjee gives out a surprisingly bad performance and maybe is a bit mis cast for the part of Harjunpää's partner. Techical side of the movie wasn't all great either. The dialog sound is really messed up and on many points it's hard to hear what the people are saying. Other than that the movie looks good and is fairly well made, except for one quite bad prostethic effect. The movie also makes quite a few religious remarks and keeps it as one of it's themes, but really have to wonder what's the point of it all. I mean first the movie spends 90 minutes showing us how religion can mess people's heads and then in the end it basically says religion will save you. If it was meant to be hypocritic then sure it works well, but I have a feeling it really wasn't. Anyway, I didn't get bored at any part and surely enough it left me a lot to think about, though mostly about how bad the movie was, so I guess it was worth the watch. But surely enough won't recommend it to anyone unless you're really bored and wish to see in how bad shape the Finnish movies are today.
30%

Today we copy this western... Tomorrow we copy that other one!

2011-04-13T12:43:00.004+03:00

Today We Kill... Tomorrow We Die! (1968)

Bill Kiowa (Brett Halsey) has spent last few years practicing drawing his gun with a wooden pistol in a jail cell. He was put there for a crime he didn't commit and after he's released he seeks out vengeance. He hires a gang of the best killers he knows and goes after the guy who set him up and his group of Comancheros. That's the story in this spaghetti western written by Dario Argento. And despite it being quite common, it's actually not a bad story, I've seen a lot worse that's for sure. The cast is a weird mix of some proper talent and just familiar looking faces. They have even managed to get Tatsuya Nakadai in it to play the main villain and he does the best job of the lot. The music was quite good, which was a surprise as I hadn't heard of Angelo Lavagnino before. Though looking at his filmography I've actually heard him many times, but didn't recognize the name. The movie also looks surprisingly good. Some of the night shots towards the end look brilliant. So it's a nice story with fairly good cast that looks and sounds good, but it's not exactly a good movie. It's a bit unevenly paced and the mood was very uneven going from comedy to tragedy to drama and so on. Kind of like it wanted to touch everything and then go back again. Anyway it was well worth watching but don't think I'll give it another try in the future either.
62%

A linguistic "zombie" thriller

2011-04-13T12:34:00.002+03:00

Pontypool (2008)

Was supposed to watch this when it came out, but I never got to it. It caught my eye today in a rental store while I was looking for another movie so I grabbed this one too. Funny enough it was in the new releases section even though it's almost three years old. But anyway lets focus on the movie itself as it was quite good. It's a story about three people in a remote Canadian radio station doing their usual morning show, but soon reports of some very crazy stuff happening in the town starts coming in and they find themselves trapped in the station while the rest of the town has gone mad. The thing I really liked about this movie and also which ended in a way I didn't like that much can't be said without spoiling the movie, so I'll just say it was the uncertainty of the situation which was great but takes a bid of a wrong turn towards the end. This is a small budget movie and everything happens in the station, but as it's quite well made and paced that didn't matter at all. It also has a lot of dark comedy in it which at points is absolutely hilarious. The cast is quite great and all three of the main characters carry the movie very well. The thing I really liked about this was the main idea of it, the power of words and how something said in the right media will come off as the truth no matter how bad the original sources of the information are. Despite it having a few plot holes and the story being very far fetched it's still an intelligent and thought provoking thriller which is something not very common in movies like this.
84%

Getting old is never a good thing

2011-04-12T10:31:00.001+03:00

Phantom of Death (1988)

Well I'm not going to waste too much time into reviewing this one. Had to watch it as I'm going through giallos for a project I'm working on and this is among the worst of the genre. The first 30 minutes or so were actually quite ok with some great scenes and good acting by Michael York, but the last 60 minutes were quite bad. It loses it's stylish touch to the intriguing story and becomes a dull police thriller. Donald Pleasence didn't really put any effort into his part, Edwige Fenech was good looking as usual and like I said Michael York did a good job. Deodato does what he can with the stupid script but unfortunately it doesn't save the movie.
32%

Limitless turns out to be surprisingly limited

2011-04-11T15:41:00.002+03:00

Limitless (2011)

Eddie Morra, played by Bradley Cooper, is a writer who's missing inspiration and motivation to finish his book. He's struggling for money and soon his long time girlfriend dumps him, so life is not exactly easy for him. He meets the brother of his ex-wife who claims to be working for a drug company and who offers Eddie a pill that should help with his inspiration and motivation problems. The pill is a drug that supposedly activates the unused capasity of human brain. As Eddie's choices are running out, he decides to take the pill and sure enough it gives him the ability to instantly access anything he has ever come across, kind of like a super human brain. He ends up finishing his book, cleaning up his life and helping his land lord's wife with her legal studies after which he also manages to sleep with her. But as the drug wears off the reality hits him in the face and he needs to get more, much more. There on he becomes an over night sensation in the business world making money faster than anyone before, but the drug has it's side effects. The story is quite good actually, though the script could have been a bit better as it keeps the intriguing idea in quite common areas. That's too bad as it could have taken a deeper look into the power of the mind, but guess that wouldn't have been as entertaining then. This is a solid popcorn thriller, you don't need to use your brain too much as you just watch Eddie use his. The cast is quite great, Bradley Cooper does a solid job and portrays both sides of the drug quite well. Abbie Cornish and Rober De Niro also do a good job and Andrew Howard as Gennady, the Russian mafia thug, is quite brilliant. Nothing to complain about the looks and the style either, nothing special for sure, but not bad either. So it's a well made movie of an intriguing idea, but too bad it keeps it so superficial it ends up being a bit meaningless. Didn't get bored as it was fairly fast paced, but didn't leave much to go home with.
65%

Style without content

2011-04-10T20:49:00.002+03:00

Amer (2009)

I wanted to see this movie after I saw the trailer which really blew me away. It looked like a perfect homage to giallos and turned out the style of the movie surely was. So the movie looks and sounds brilliant and there is that great giallo mood to it, but to be honest I didn't get the movie. The story is divided into three parts each focusing on a moment in a woman's life. The first part where the woman is a young girl is like a surreal ghost story and this actually is the best part of the film. It's truly scary at parts and it's done in the good old way of suspension building and not cheap scares. Already at this point I had no idea what's going on in the "plot". Second part focuses on her finding her sexuality, at least I guess so as that's how I interpreted it. On the third part the woman returns to her childhood home and gets stalked by a man with a knife. As a whole I'm kind of disappointed at the movie, was expecting an intriguing "whodunnit", but got some nonsense surrealistic art. Sure the style is great and the mood is brilliant most of the time and the soundtrack is awesome and it's well made, but the story is completely missing. I know most giallos have a very bad story and that's not the main thing about them, but at least they have something that glues the art together, this one doesn't so it tends to get quite tedious after a while. And since there's no reward in the end you are left with only one question, why? Why do a brilliant looking and sounding movie without any story? Anyway I didn't get bored watching it, but left me with a bit of a disappointed feeling in the end.
57%

This torso is a full grown slasher thriller

2011-04-10T18:23:00.002+03:00

Torso (1973)

Someone is murdering young college girls in Rome and a woman recalls she might have seen the suspect. She travels to the countryside with three of her friends, but the murderer follows them there. There's no shortage of nudity or blood and guts in this one so the entertainment values are well in hand. The story however is a bit ridiculous, but to be honest it doesn't really matter that much. The cast is quite beautiful, acting however could have been a bit better at parts. The style is quite straight forward at the start with only a few somewhat great scenes, but towards the end around the last 15 minutes or so there's some proper tension building. And that end is really worth the whole movie, there's really not much dialog and mostly just the killer and a victim but the way it's built is something well worth seeing. Takes the thriller on levels that even Hitchcock would have been proud. But getting there might not be easy if you are looking forward to a scary thriller. The beginning is a sleazy fun slasher and luckily quite fast paced so you won't get bored. The score didn't really strike that special, though it wasn't bad either. Same goes for the cinematography which at parts worked quite great, but most of the time was quite basic. This movie is kind of special also because it helped to influence the slasher genre which became hugely popular during the 80's. Sergio Martino is not as big in giallos as for example Argento, but still I'd put him up there with the best of them and this movie is only one proof of his greatness.
79%

Sometimes amnesia is better than bad memories

2011-04-10T15:04:00.001+03:00

Puzzle (1974)

This lesser known movie is a strange mix of giallo and italian crime movie. It's a story about a man who has lost his memory as a result of a car accident. He finds out he has a wife who is being stalked by someone who breaks into her house, drugs her and turns the whole place upside down. As fragments of memories start to return to the man, we slowly start to see the bigger picture which looks quite grim. I really love the story in this one and how it's told. Surprising for a giallo that this actually has a good script and the thriller is very gripping. It's told in a slow manner where the viewer gets just what the main character can remember. This builds the movie into a very intriguing mix of crime thriller drama and even horror at parts. It's not as stylish as most of the giallos and actually this script in the hands of some of the masters like Argento, Bava or Martino would have been one of the best giallos ever made. Now it's definitely not bad either, but still as it's missing a bit of the style it didn't work as well as it really could have. Still it's a good movie and well worth watching, even if you wouldn't be that much into giallos.
73%

An early bird catches the style

2011-04-10T15:03:00.001+03:00

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

This is Dario Argento's first take on the giallo genre which he himself helped to create and later became known as the master of the genre. This is also Argento's first feature he directed and as such it's quite a brilliant effort. The influence of Alfred Hitchcock can be seen very clearly as he frames some scenes just like Hitchcock did, but he still gives them his own unique style. Sure it wasn't as refined yet as it would become during the years, but you can still easily see his touch on this one. The story is quite simple as usual for giallos, a man witnesses a murder attempt and soon gets a serial killer stalker on his tail. Being a writer, he starts to investigate the case as the police seem to not be able to solve it. So basically it's your typical "whodunnit" but spiced up with the stylish storytelling of Argento. The stylish camerawork by Vittorio Storaro and the music by Ennio Morricone surely had their own impact on the mood of the movie which is absolutely brilliant. The cast is fairly ok, certainly nothing to complain about. Some of the scenes are just mind blowing in all their beauty and attention to detail. Even though it's not perfect as it loses track a few times, it's still a great movie and a must see for every giallo fan.
85%

The duck that hates women

2011-04-10T15:02:00.001+03:00

New York Ripper (1982)

Well if I had to name an infamous movie this would be one of the first that comes to mind. Though as always the rumours you hear about it are way worse than the movie itself, but that doesn't mean this is an easy movie to watch. It's the most nihilistic, sadistic and brutal giallo ever made. Lucio Fulci has never shyed away from violence and shocking gore effects, but on this one he goes totally over the top. A killer who speaks like a duck stalks women in New York and makes fun of the police who seem to be quite incapable of doing anything to stop the killer. So a basic giallo plot and while there are many typical giallo moments, it's not a typical giallo in any means. It's not exactly stylish, it's gritty and aiming for brutal realism, something not common in giallos. The main thing in this one seems to be the violence and the sheer hate towards women. I really wonder what the director tries to say with this movie as I didn't understand the point. Unless the point was that it's cool to brutally cut up women in graphic closeups. So it's basically nothing but a brutal sleaze fest dressed as a giallo with a bad script and below average acting. Friends of sleaze should get their fair share of entertainment, but giallo fans should maybe look elsewhere. Horror fans with weak stomach might want to pass this one all together.
40%

The lone rider with an axe

2011-04-09T15:02:00.002+03:00

Mannaja - A Man Called Blade (1977)

Sergio Martino is more known from his stylish giallos than spaghetti westerns. But he also wanted to give his input to the genre and thus was born Mannaja, one of the last spaghetti westerns. The story of Mannaja, the man who's actually called Blade, is very formulaic using pretty much all the cliches in the storyline which the genre had ever produced. The plot has more holes than I could count and at parts it takes quite ridiculous routes. But as usual the story is not the main point of spaghetti westerns, it's the style and the mood of it. The movie looks quite good with it's rainy and foggy style, though as I watched the extra documentary they said it was to cover the very poor condition of the set. Well never the less it works for the good of the movie as it brings it's own atmosphere to it. The cinematography is quite nice also, so the visual side of it is in order. The music however is quite bad. There's some parts where it works great, but for example the theme song which plays every time Mannaja rides out is quite hilarious with it's deep voice singing. And I bet it surely wasn't meant that way. The acting was quite ok, nothing special but nothing great either. Hard to see Maurizio Merli as a cowboy after all of those crime movies, but he does a decent job. Luckily the pace od the movie is fast enough to keep the interest up when the script and mood fails. Was worth watching but in the end it falls into the vast void of mediocre spaghetti westerns.
58%

Crime is brutal, in this case maybe a bit too much

2011-04-09T10:10:00.003+03:00

Contraband (1980)

Lucio Fulci, the godfather of gore goes for a poliziotteschi, Italian crime movie, that surely sounds interesting if nothing else. The thing is that Fulci is categorized as just a gorehound and his artistic talent doesn't really get any recognition even though he has done some quite a brilliant movies in middle of all the blood and guts. Too bad this wasn't one of them and surely didn't help that categorization. I mean the movie had tons of potential and some brilliant scenes but in the end it focuses too much on the gruesome shock effects and neglects the good ideas the plot had to offer. It's a story about a smuggler called Luca whose brother is killed by a rival drug gang and as he goes for revenge he stumbles on to a mafia war that doesn't shy on bodycount. Despite the slow and quite promising start the movie soon takes a turn to focus brutal violence and forgets the context in middle of the mess. As typical for Fulci, the women get the worst share of the violence in a few scenes where even the most hardened gorehound will have hard time watching. The cast is fairly good with Fabio Testi as the most notable of course. The dubbing is probably the worst I've heard in an Italian movie, so watch the movie in it's original language with subtitles or it'll just seem unintentionally funny. I was quite disappointed in the music, Fabio Frizzi is one of the greatest composers from Italy, right after Ennio Morricone, so I was expecting a lot more from it than this. So the movie had potential, but unfortunately it's not used that well. Gorehounds will get their fair share of blood and guts, the rest get just an average eurocrime movie with too much focus on the violence.
56%

A current movie, from the 30's

2011-04-08T18:42:00.002+03:00

Modern Times (1936)

Had a lengthy discussion with a friend of mine wether the blu-ray treatment of old black and white movies is actually worth it or not. I said of course it is, it doesn't matter wether it's in color or not, higher resolution and cleaner picture are always a good thing. My friend's argument was that if there even is a good enough master print for the movie to do a proper transfer, it'll result into the movies suffering from the fact that as you can see the primitive film making techniques better you'll lose some of the magic in them. So we decided to watch an old classic recently released in blu-ray to find out how it works. Well, neither of us were wrong. Indeed you could see some of the tricks a bit easier and thus you focus on them a bit too much, but still it didn't really matter that much as a good looking black and white shot will surely look better in high definition. Anyway, so much for HD, lets focus on the movie itself. It's stunningly accurate even today, or maybe especially today as the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. So unfortunate as it is, a movie that criticizes big corporations and the class differences will never get old. It's a story about a factory worker who gets into a series of mishaps that lead him from a mental hospital to jail where he is released to unemployment only to find his true love, who has not one bit easier life. So the basic storyline is a tragedy, but it's told as a comedy which suits it very well. It's not the funniest of Chaplin movies, but the story and the themes surely make up for it in spades. Within the criticism against the machines that take over people's work you can actually see Chaplin's own criticism towards the technical direction movies were taking at the time of the film. It's a weird mix of a silent movie and a "talkie" with title cards and bits of dialog sounds as well. Though each time someone actually speaks, it's never anything meaningful, kind of like a joke against the sound itself and how it effects the viewer. This movie is remarkable in another way as well, it's the last time we see Chaplin in the Tramp character which everyone recognizes him from. So in a sense it's also Chaplin's swan song for his most iconic character from the silent era before it was over run by technology.
99%

Stuff to die for

2011-04-07T10:53:00.002+03:00

The Stuff (1985)

When I saw this back in the 80's I didn't like it, but as I stumbled across the trailer of this movie I though I'd give it another try. I was expecting something so bad that it would be great, but ended up getting a lot more than just that. The plot is that miner find weird goo underground and of course they need to taste it. Turns out it tastes great, so they decide to sell it as a dessert pudding. The stuff turns out to be quite addictive and soon everyone is eating it more and more until they end up eating nothing but the stuff. An industrial spy, an unemployed cookie company manager, a young boy and the advertising campaign creator of the stuff ads start to investigate what's going on. They soon find out that the stuff is turning everyone into consumer zombies. The idea sounds silly, but I really love how it's criticizing consumerism and big corporations. The stuff is a metaphor for drugs and you can just imagine how every food producer in the world would love to put some highly addictive ingredients in their product so people would keep coming back for more. But even though the story is great, the movie has it's flaws. It's badly acted and the comedy is kind of uneven, at parts it works great but at parts it's quite bad. Sure at times it goes so bad it's actually great, but the overall mood is a bit too uneven. Never the less it's still somewhat of a gem in it's company as it's a somewhat fun good bad movie that actually raises great points and even manages to be thought provoking at times. This is actually one of the few movies which I'd love to see remade, so Hollywood here's your next remake, go for it.
78%

Uwe Boll with a good idea, and it's not even April fools

2011-04-06T00:06:00.003+03:00

Rampage (2009)

Uwe Boll, the man who has made crap into his own artform, usually makes only two kinds of movies, horribly bad ones or very rarely those which turn out to be so bad that they are hilarious. This one however was neither. It's horribly shot, it's rather badly acted, it's completely morally wrong, it's direction seems a bit lost at times, it's full of plot holes and idiotic actions, yet it's not a bad movie. The premise of the movie actually promised quite a bit more than the movie finally delivered, but the way it takes is not a bad one either. At least I didn't see that big twist coming until a few scenes before it actually happens. Now for sure it waters down the striking and thought provoking start of the "rampage" but it turns the movie into a whole different track which is actually good for it. It kind of saves it a bit from becoming a moral train wreck where it clearly was going. So I have to admit Uwe Boll has actually stumbled into a quite a brilliant idea here. Too bad he can't use it to it's full potential and kind of loses track with it too often. Even though at parts the movie is quite painful to watch with the bad camera work, tedious repetitive editing and not very good acting, it's still worth to sit through it. These kind of movies are quite hard to review, I mean when you have a bad movie but the ending saves it and makes the rest of the movie actually feel better. I'm going to rate it based on the feeling it left me with, just be warned that getting there might not be easy.
70%

Owls on a war path

2011-04-05T21:02:00.003+03:00

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

Decided to watch this one as it was the only movie by Zack Snyder which I hadn't seen yet. Well to be honest I knew I wasn't the target audience for this and that really showed. I thought the story was quite simple and even stupid at parts, but I guess the kids will get more out of it. Then again this was surprisingly violent, not in a nasty graphic way but those owls with knifes as claws clashing to eachother surely weren't teletubbies. So dunno if this is for the youngest audience either. Anyway the movie looked great and most of my enjoyment came from looking at the beautiful animation of it all. There were tons of slow motion as usual for Snyder and his "style", if you can call it that, surely was visible. Didn't get bored, mostly because of the looks of it all, but still didn't really get anything else out of it either.
50%

Not so mean and utterly boring mother

2011-04-05T18:34:00.003+03:00

Mean Mother (1974)

Was looking into some blacksploitation movies and stumbled into this. As I couldn't find much info about it I decided to take the chance and ordered the DVD as it was relatively cheap. Turned out to be a bad idea. I must say this is the worst blacksploitation movie I've ever seen, most likely the worst exploitation film of any kind for that matter. It's so bad that it's almost funny, but not quite as it still just stays on the bad side. It's utterly boring, the "acting" is horrible, it's badly made and even the music sucked. There are a few scenes that made me smile, like the white men with a bit of brown face paint playing Vietnamese soldiers in a typical western countryside, trying to pass as the Vietnam War. Despite those couple of hilarious bits and one very nice set of boobs, I really can't recommend this for anyone. Not for blacksploitation fans, not for trash fans and certainly not for anyone who has even a half of a brain cell in their head.
3%

Keep your clothes on or you might end up dead

2011-04-04T21:13:00.002+03:00

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

This is from the sleazier side of giallo's, but it's actually not a bad thing. Giallo fans tend to bash this for being too sleazy for a giallo, but still it has all the right elements of a good giallo, it's just spiced differently. And that spicing is what makes this quite special. Like the name suggests there's tons of nudity and sex in between the knife swinging and sometimes during it as well. The story is quite idiotic as it's in most of the giallo's, but as usual it doesn't matter at all as you don't really even care about it. The cast is quite ok, Edwige Fenech and Femi Benussi surely didn't make matters worse. What I loved about this was the sheer insanity of it all, I mean on one side it's a proper beautifully shot giallo, on the other side it's a sleazy sexploitation fest and if that wouldn't have been enough it also manages to be a trashy fun ride that's at points so over the top it's hilarious. So basically you get three exploitation genres in one weird package. First it scares you to death in a stylish way, then it excites you with plenty of beautiful ladies and then it cracks you up with hilarious morally incorrect comedy. So what's not to like? Well it's not perfect of course, at parts it tends to get a bit tedious, but luckily there's plenty of comebacks as well. For fun sleazy exploitation fans this is a must see, but for giallo fans it might not be the best choice.
75%

Night Visions - Back to Basics 2011

2011-04-03T17:46:00.009+03:00

This weekend it was again time for Night Visions, though this time in a bit smaller scale than the Halloween event. Again there was a great mix of old and new and this time I didn't focus just to the new. Here's the catch of the weekend.

Sucker Punch (2011)

I have to admit I fell in love with the trailer when I saw it. It had everything that makes an entertaining action flick, hot chicks with automatic weapons, zombies, giant robots, samurai warriors, dragons, nazis, old fighter planes and pretty much everything you can think of. And the movie surely had them all, but too bad the glue that held the action extravaganza together was missing. Well it was there, but it was like trying to hold a tank in the ceiling with tape, so it came crashing down quite often. It's a story about an abused young woman who gets slammed into a mental institution where she fantasizes alternate realities in a big plan to escape. The story moves in multiple layers, but you really don't need to bother your brain too much to keep track of it. I remember seeing an interview with the director, Zack Snyder, where he said this is a female empowerment movie. I'd like to know which planet he's talking about. This movie is nothing but exploitation aimed for the younger male audience. And there's nothing wrong with that, I love good exploitation movies, but the thing is that they are either seriously made but end up being so bad they are good or they are done tongue-in-cheek with the right kind of attitude. This was neither and both at the same time. The times it took itself seriously the bad acting and horrible script made it unintentionally funny only to lead to the part which was actually supposed to be funny that really wasn't. So it's a rollercoaster in every meaning, taking you to heights only to drop you down and this goes on. Had the movie been purely exploitation, this would have been one of the best movies I've seen, but as it tries to take itself seriously you are forced to try and use your brain on it and when you do, you notice how bad it is. Nevertheless I was entertained and I'd go see it as exploitation and forget to even try to get a deeper meaning of it as otherwise you'll end up being quite disappointed.
69%

Finisterrae (2010)

Like I've said before I really don't like surrealism that much. I tend to think that if you really have something to say, just say it and don't go creating something that the audience may or may not understand how you intended. This movie was pure surrealism. It's a story about two ghosts who travel through limbo on their way to the end of the world so they can become human. I have to admit I didn't understand anything about this movie, it just made no sense to me at all. But surprisingly I really enjoyed it. I mean it looks gorgeous, it sounds great and actually has no dull moments. I was so completely in the state of "what the fuck is going on here?" that I just sat there with my mouth open staring at this facinating piece of cinema art. I burst out in laughter in couple of parts as it went so weirdly over the top, no idea if that was intended or not and really don't care as that was just how I interpreted that moment. So basically if I would love a surreal movie I guess it would be this one as I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I need to watch this one again to see how it works on another time, but for now I really liked it, even though it made absolutely no sense at all.
80%

Devil's Playground (2010)

Oh no, the world is being over run by zombies yet again. But this time they are not the usual slow moving brain eaters, they are virus infected monsters who can parkour. There's a badass mercenary who is protecting the only woman in England who might have the cure for the virus. They team up with the woman's boyfriend, her bff and a few strangers. Together they go through pretty much a scrap book of the most common cliches in zombie movies. This movie offers absolutely nothing to the genre, it's just a copy of the most notable classics spiced up with the style of the newer zombie flicks. As such I'd love to slam it to the ground as a piece of shit, but yet I have to admit I wasn't bored while watching it. So it's nothing you haven't seen before, actually it's exactly what you might think a modern zombie movie is, so it kind of serves it's purpose I guess. But in the end you just wonder why did they make this as it's been made so many times before and most of the times a lot better.
32%

I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

This is a remake of one of the most gruesome vengeance movies I've ever seen, I Spit on Your Grave (1978). The original is already so devastating that I really wondered why would someone want to remake it. I mean you really can't fix much from the original. The story is pretty much the same with a bit of tweaks to it, nothing special there. A woman travels to the countryside to write a book in solitude, but is brutally raped by a gang of rednecks after which she takes revenge on them. The surprising thing is that this remake is even more graphic than the original. So it has more of that disgusting shock value to it, but at the same time it's not as disturbing as the original. It's kind of when you see all these prosthetic makeups you also lose the raw reality of it so it's in a way not as horrifying as the original was. The direction is quite straight forward without that much finesse to it and the movie looks quite basic. The cast is not great, I mean they are not horrible either, but still at parts the acting is quite bad. Have to give them some credit though, this surely wasn't an easy movie to act in. Even though it's a bit of pointless remake, I still have to give it the credit that it didn't water down the original idea and that it actually tried to bring something new to the story as well, all be it that it really didn't work as intended.
71%

Love Camp 7 (1969)

Well you have to give this movie some credit as it started the nazi sexploitation genre and spawned quite a many similar movies about nazi sex camps. Though where some of it's followers took the soft core sex into hard core porn and the mild violence into very brutal and graphic gore fests, this however is quite soft on both sides. And that certainly isn't a bad thing, but to be honest it's certainly not a good movie either. If you're a fan of soft core sexploitation movies this is most likely a good choice, but I got quite bored. It wasn't bad enough to be funny and while sure the women were plenty and naked most of the time, it wasn't really sexy either. So all in all it's quite a pointless movie with only a few odd scenes that are somewhat amusing mostly because of the bad film making.
34%

The Late Great Planet Earth (1979)

This was the biggest disappointment of the festival. I was really looking forward of seeing this after reading the synopsis of it. It's always fun to laugh at religious nutcases and it's always fun to laugh at failed prophecies so a "documentary" about the apocalypse which was supposed to happen sometime during the 80's sounded like great fun. Turned out it really wasn't, I was expecting some religious nutcases to praise the bible and trying to put the fear of God into the viewer and that's actually what I got. But it wasn't funny, it was just mind numbing propaganda that abuses the fear of dying to sell religion. And the prophecies, despite there being the hilarious killer bees and such, they were quite idiotic even back then. But not idiotic enough to be funny, just enough to make you angry towards the blatant propaganda you're being served. The "document" is short sighted and close minded for sure, but that wasn't funny either. After seeing this, I mostly just felt angry that there are people in the world that believe this crap.
1%

Pieces (1982)

This movie is one of my guilty pleasures and getting the chance of seeing it on the big screen was like a dream come true. Don't get me wrong, this is a bad movie, a very bad movie. But it's so horribly bad that it's absolutely hilarious. The tagline of the movie "You don't need to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre" says a lot about it, Spain is certainly far enough. The story is basically a typical slasher movie, but all the little things in between the chainsaw swinging are what makes this one quite a special little gem. There's all the right ingredients with tons of nudity and gore, but the main thing in this one is the sheer craziness of it all. Coherence, logic and credibility are not phrases the director is familiar with, you don't just have to leave your brain off when seeing this, you have to turn your soul off as well. It's literally so braindead that you're basically forced to laugh at it and there are more "what the fuck?" moments that you can count. The director, Juan Piquer Simon, is like Ed Wood of the late 70's and early 80's, taking exploitation to whole new levels of craziness so that it almost becomes art. This movie is best served in good company with a few beers and you'll have a blast.
90%

Battle: do we really need to see this same old crap again?

2011-04-02T22:01:00.001+03:00

Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

I must say I really have no idea why I went to see this one. I knew I would most likely hate it and curse myself afterwards because I wasted my money on this crap, but still I went. Guess there was a part of me thinking that just maybe they would once make a good sci-fi action movie and this movie surely had some potential for it. I liked the idea that it's a war movie but the human army is just fighting alien invaders, but as so often this also was filled with utter brain numbing nonsense. I mean a movie which would follow the chaos in the eyes of a military unit would have been just fine, but first of all this movie falls for the old trap of over explaining. I mean aliens are quite fantasy in them selves, do we really need to know why they are doing what they are doing? And do we really need to get it spelled out for us? And why the hell do we always have to follow the guys who turn out to be the biggest heroes of the whole war? Bah. So basically it's a movie that follows the same script as any of it's kind, first the humans take a beating, then the common man rises and finds the weakness, they fight back and kick alien ass. Woohoo, America rules, marines are kick ass, god bless the army and all that shit... And it really didn't help that the movie looked like a stock studio movie without any finesse to it. It felt like the director had no sense of how to frame the story just slapping the camera where ever it ended up in. The acting was not great either, but then again the dialog they were given didn't surely help it. Intriguing idea fitted with a bad script told straight forward without any idea results in a bad movie.
20%

Breaking out of the form

2011-04-02T19:24:00.003+03:00

The Next Three Days (2010)

Paul Haggis is an odd director. He made the absolutely brilliant Crash (2004) but since then has been almost invisible. In the Valley of Elah (2007) was just an ok drama and didn't really cash in the expectations that Crash set him. So I was surely looking forward to seeing his new movie. It's a story about a woman who gets accused for murder and sent to jail, her husband then decides to break her out of there. That's basically the story in short, but it's fortunately a bit deeper than that, weighting moral questions and how far is too far. Pretty basic stuff in a movie like this, but still at points it manages to scratch the surface a bit deeper. Unfortunately otherwise the story is quite dull, surely the details of the plot come as a surprise but the movie runs on a predictable track giving very little surprises. And that's a shame as it had all the makings of a better movie. The cast is quite good and the mood is quite nice also, but you just feel like it's nothing you haven't seen before. It's not a bad movie in any means, it's actually better than most of it's kind, but still it's far from a great movie as well.
66%

How I unleashed a Polish comedy

2011-03-31T23:34:00.003+03:00

How I Unleashed World War II (1970)

I was recommended this movie by a friend and to be honest I was a bit worried what it will be. Though surely I was intrigued to see it, but the thing about foreign language comedies is that some of the comedy might be lost in translation if you don't understand the language. Another thing is the cultural differences, the comedy might drive from a culture that's not familiar to you and thus make you miss the point. So a Polish comedy about World War II was surely interesting, but I was worried that some, or worse yet most, of the comedy might not connect with me. Turned out my fear was for nothing, the comedy in this one was quite universal and very funny at it as well. The movie was divided into three parts, each about one hour and fifteen minutes, but as it's one big story and each part continues right where the last one left, the movie is intended as one four hour fun ride. That was yet another thing that worried me, at start I thought I'll watch one part a night at most. Well I ended up watching them all in a row in one night. So that already says something. It's a story about a Polish rifleman called Franek who probably has the worst bad good luck in the world. He starts off by falling asleep in a troop carrying train and wakes up behind the German line to see the first bombs of the war. There he's slammed into a Stalag where he eventually escapes after multiple tries only to end up as a slave worker in Austria where he escapes into Yugoslavia only to end up in trouble again. And that's just the start of it, he goes through most European countries and even Africa in the French Foreign Legion in his attempt to return home to fight the Germans. So the long run time of the movie is well justified in the variety of the adventure and even though I must say it could have been a bit shorter I certainly didn't get bored at any point. Credit from that must go to the nice feel good mood of it and Marian Kociniak who carried the movie quite well. Also I have to give some credit for the cinematography. Even though the transfer on the DVD wasn't the best, some of the scenes looked quite brilliant. Even though some of the themes and comedy was "borrowed" from movies like The Great Escape (1963), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Where Eagles Dare (1968) and such, there still were enough of quite fresh and innovative parts as well, so it's not a ripoff in any means either despite the familiar themes. It's not perfect by any means and it could have been a bit shorter, but still it was truly funny and well entertaining to make that four hours more than worth it.
85%

Been a bit quiet again

2011-03-30T23:14:00.002+03:00

Well I've been quite busy with other stuff so haven't had the chance to watch any movies at all. Finished the last two Hitchcock movies today so the filmography series is now complete (apart from those two films which I haven't found anywhere). Any ideas which director I should look into next? Was thinking maybe Kubrick or Leone or maybe Kurosawa. Any suggestions? Next weekend it's time for Night Visions again which I'm of course attending so tons of new movie reviews to come from just that. And the pile of unwatched DVD's and Blu-Rays is getting quite large so I'll be going through them as well. Anyways I'm back from the "break".

The filmography of Alfred Hitchcock - Part 6: the 1970's

2011-03-30T23:02:00.003+03:00

Hitchcock was clearly slowing down as he was getting old and when his wife Alma Reville suffered a paralyzing stroke, he wanted to spend more time with his family. That's why he only made two movies during the 70's.

Frenzy (1972)

Hitchcock eventually returned to England to make this serial killer thriller with dark comic tones. It has some themes from his unfinished movie called Kaleidoscope Frenzy, but it was heavily rewritten and only a few scenes remained in this one. I really like this movie and think it's one of his most under rated movies. Many people dismiss the movie as just another serial killer thriller and that Hitchcock had lost his touch. Sure the Hitchcockian tricks are all common at this point and I agree that the movie isn't exactly very innovative while using the most common Hitchcock's theme of a wrongly accused man, but it doesn't make it a bad movie by any means. I love the witty Brittish comedy mixed with the quite common serial killer routine. It's a story about a neck tie killer who rapes and kills women around London. The police have a suspect they're after but he's the wrong man. The movie manages to keep you guessing to the very last minute so the thriller part surely works well. But the best thing about this movie is the dark comedy in it. Some of the scenes are quite disturbing and the comic touch to them makes them even more bizarre. Even though the movie is not overly graphic that bizarreness awarded it an X rating. Quite an over reaction seen today, but still it's a weird little fact that this is the only Hitchcock film to get one. Anyway this movie turned out to be a nice surprise as my expectations weren't high when I first saw it. So be sure to not miss it if you're looking into Hitchcock's films.
92%

Family Plot (1976)

Hitchcock's 53rd movie ended up being his last. Even though the thriller genre was going to way different routes during the mid 70's Hitchcock relied on his trusted formula of comedy and light hearted thriller. Though this time the comedy wasn't the usual witty dark toned humour he's known for, he took it to more goofball way in this one. Don't really think it was a good idea as it completely waters down the thriller side of the movie and in the end it's not funny enough to be a good comedy either. It's a story about a fake psychic woman and his actor boyfriend who try to con an old lady to give them her wealth. But they need to find a lost friend of the family before the lady is willing to part her money. Turns out the lost man is a criminal himself as well. He kidnaps wealthy people for jewelry ransoms with his girlfriend. So the movie follows these two pairs as they mix up eachother's business. The idea is actually not bad at all and is quite intriguing at parts, but the style it's told doesn't really fit it well. Sure there are some nice Hitchcockian moments in the movie, but all in all it feels a bit clueless. Every time it's starting to build up suspension it takes a turn into a goofball comedy and every time it starts to entertain as a fun comedy ride it takes a turn into more serious thriller. I don't know if this was another experiment by Hitchcock, but for me it really didn't work that well. Even though Hitchcock was struggling with his health, this was not supposed to be his last movie as he started to work on another film right after it. But none the less, the very last scene of this film is actually a brilliant ending to his filmography, kind of like a nod towards the audience, ”you have been played but don't take it too seriously”. Had he planned this to be his last film that would have been an absolutely brilliant joke to his fans, but as he didn't it's just a stroke of luck that his filmography ends in a shot that kind of wraps up his career. If you're a fan of Hitchcock this is a must see, especially because of the last scene, the rest can safely skip this.
59%

Sir Alfred Hitchcock died in 29th of April 1980 shortly after he was knighted. Seems like he got his thanks always too late or just before his death. Weird thing is that he was Oscar-nominated 5 times as Best Director, DGA-nominated 6 times as Best Director, and received 3 nominations from Cannes, but he has never won in any of these competitive categories, a fact that surprises fans and film critics to this day. He did however receive the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award from the academy in 1967. His acceptance speech was the shortest in the history of Oscars, he simply said "Thank you." But awards aside, he didn't make movies for the academy, he made movies for the audience and that he did superbly. He truly deserves the title, The Master of Suspense, though I would give him the title of The Master of Witty Dark Comedy also. He dedicated his life to the art of filmmaking and gave us numerous masterpieces that work brilliantly even today.

Links to the other decades:
1920's - 1930's - 1940's - 1950's - 1960's - 1970's

The filmography of Alfred Hitchcock - Part 5: the 1960's

2011-03-21T18:01:00.004+02:00

After the 50's Hitchcock was about as big as a director can be. He could have easily just sit back and slap his name on what ever garbage possible and made tons of money by doing so. But he wasn't about to do that, he wanted to challenge the audience and himself. In the eyes of business that may have not been a good idea, but in the eyes of the art that was brilliant. Even though his career started to fade during the 60's, it wasn't before he would take on the horror genre and give it not just one but two unforgettable masterpieces. And the rest of his 60's movies are not bad at all either. The old age and the troubles he had with some projects that were scrapped after long pre-production (for example Kaleidoscope Frenzy) slowed his pace down. As he averaged a movie a year before, with sometimes even two, he slowed down to just 5 movies in the 60's.

Psycho (1960)

So while Hitchcock left the 50's with a bang, a plethora of brilliant movies and after two straight out masterpieces, surely there has to be one setback, right? Hell no, the 60's started right from where he left the 50's. He took the horror genre turned it upside down and gave it a jump start it'll never forget. Can't really say anything about this that hasn't been said already a million times. It has one of the most famous scenes in the movie history, one of the most famous theme songs in the movie history and one of the most famous character in the movie history. And still today it wipes the floor with most of the modern horror movies. Simply a brilliant masterpiece.
99%

The Birds (1963)

Ok, after three masterpieces in a row he took a second shot at the horror genre, surely he didn't have anything more to give to it after the brilliant Psycho? Oh yes he had. He took one of the most common pieces of nature and turned it into one of the scariest "monsters" in the movie history. I think not many people are scared of birds, but after watching this one who can honestly say they didn't watch the trees, rooftops and light poles to see where the birds are lurking? I did for sure. The effects of the movie have stood time surprisingly well and some of the scenes are still stunning even with today's standards. You could, and I think someone already did, write a whole book about how to build tension like in The Birds. A stunning masterpiece.
97%

Marnie (1964)

This movie was considered as the turning point of Hitchcock's career and it's kind of true. It was the end of the collaboration with composer Bernard Herrmann, it also ended the collaboration with Tippi Hedren and screenwriter Evan Hunter. So some of the strong forces from his previous movies ended up leaving before or after this movie. And surely he never could return to the brilliance that he had during the 50's or even 40's, but this is in no means a bad movie. The movie flopped horribly when it was released, though later on it has received the recognition it really deserves. It's a slow paced and surprisingly complex psychological thriller. Something that didn't really appeal to the audiences back then. To put the story in short it's about a woman, Tippi Hedren, who is a compulsionary thief with fobias that haunt her. A man, Sean Connery, falls in love with her and tries to ”cure” her in his own manner. There's a whole lot more to it than just that, but that's it in short. Hitchcock had never liked to shoot on location, he always preferred the studio. He said it gives so much more control and comfort to shoot in a studio, so every chance he had he tried to set up as many scenes in a studio as possible so he could leave the out doors shots to the second unit. It shows in his movies, but mostly for the good by creating this somewhat surreal feel to them. But on this one I noticed it to be kind of weird, especially in the set that is the outside street of Marnie's mother's house. It's clearly built on the set and there's a huge matte painting with a harbour in the background. And I really wondered why. There's not much happening in there, it's used I think four times in the movie only for people going from a car to the house or from the house to a car. Well guess there was no shortage of money and he had his reasons. Also I was quite surprised that the horse chace scenes were shot against a projection with the horse running on a giant treadmill inside a studio. Crazy, but I didn't notice that so it works brilliantly. Anyway this movie is still a very good psychological thriller with tons of great Hitchcockian moments. Sure time hasn't been kind to it at parts and it is a bit too slow paced, but still it worked surprisingly well and managed to be even shocking at parts.
82%

Torn Curtain (1966)

After Hitchcock's last movie was a box office failure and his next project was scrapped in pre-production, the studio held him on a short leash. The idea behind this movie was actually quite great. With the cold war looming a romantic spy thriller set in East-Germany by the Master of Suspense sounded like the perfect thing. Unfortunately that's when the studio saw dollar signs and speeded on with the production in their terms, not Hitchcock's. He didn't want Julie Andrews or Paul Newman in the movie but was forced to cast them by the studio. That resulted into another problem, as Julie Andrews was the biggest thing at the time right off from The Sound of Music (1965), her schedule forced the movie into production before the script was even finished. So Hitchcock started making a movie without a finished script and with a cast he didn't want. Needless to say this was one of Hitchcock's most unhappy directing jobs. But the studio interference didn't stop there, they wanted a different composer despite Hitchcock already had working with another composer. They also cut out a key scene that had a brilliant Hitchcock moment written all over it, but as that scene doesn't excist anymore we'll never know. So the movie ended up the way it is now. It's a very uneven spy thriller with some nice Hitchcockian moments, but the mood is missing. There's no chemistry between Newman and Andrews and to be honest Julie Andrews is basically just posing through the film without any attempt of acting. Only Hitchcock fans will get something more out of this as for the rest it's just a meaningles spy thriller that at parts gets a bit boring.
50%

Topaz (1969)

Hitchcock himself considered this movie as a test project and it really is quite different from his previous works. Even though it's a spy thriller, it doesn't have many of the elements common in Hitchcock's movies, like romance and comedy. It's one of those cold reality films and to be honest that's not Hitchcock's strongest point. This is a spy drama set in the cold war era, there's the Cuban missile crisis, French-Russian spy ring, KGB defector and a French intelligence agent caught in between it all. It has no big name stars, another test by Hitchcock to see how a big movie would work without any big stars in it. He thought the audience would be more driven into the story of the film as the big stars tend to distract the viewer from it. I kind of agree with that, but don't think that's a big problem. One thing this movie showed, you can't get big box office success without big stars in a movie like this. This movie ended up being one of the biggest box office failures in Hitchcock's career. Another test he made was to support the moods with colors, red is dangerous and so on. He himself admitted that it turned out to be a failure. So even though this is an experimental project and even Hitchcock himself thought it failed, it's not a bad movie. You just can't watch it as a Hitchcock movie, with the expectations that the name sets you. If you see it as a cold war spy drama without any names, it works very well as it is. But once you start to compare it to Hitchcock's other works, it falls way behind.
70%

Links to the other decades:
1920's - 1930's - 1940's - 1950's - 1960's - 1970's

Breaking news - week 11

2011-03-21T17:37:00.003+02:00

Last week was quite a silent week in movie news. Everyone was watching movies in the SXSW Festival and surely I too did enjoy reading which movies might be worth checking out when, or if, they get to Finland. Other than that nothing special caught my eye. Though I have to again cover a bit of sad news from the mainstream cinema; Darren Aronofsky won't be directing the new Wolverine movie. The spinoff from X-Men two years ago, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) was quite a bad movie to be honest, but the character has potential and Aronofsky would have surely been an interesting choice for the director. Guess it's going to end up to some stock director who will make it even worse than the first one.

Upcoming movies:

Invasion of Alien Bikini
Only in Asia...

Norwegian Ninja
Coming soon to DVD near you. I ordered mine already.

Other fun stuff:

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost act out Star Wars
Well not the whole thing, but it's funny none the less

Baby Star Wars posters
Speaking of Star Wars, this was quite disturbing...

Top 10 Badass Bronson Moments in Movie History
Charles Bronson kicks ass!

This is Not Porn
Different kind of celebrity photos.

Nicolas Cage Terror Alert System
Well the title says it all.

Internet Movie Firearms Database
Gun nuts... They're everywhere...

Canimals by Aardman Animation

That's all folks.

Kidnapping on a whole new level

2011-03-16T17:46:00.002+02:00

The Clinic (2010)

A man and a pregnant wife travel across the outbacks of Australia, soon the wife goes missing and the man starts to look for her. But that's only the beginning, the real story is that the woman wakes up in an isolated "clinic" and finds out her baby is cut out of her. The focus is on the woman and after the somewhat heroic start with the man he is soon forgotten as the wife fights for her life and her baby. I have to admit that sounds quite great and was the reason I watched this one, but unfortunately as the story evolves and we find out what's going on it turns into a ridiculous nonsense. So the story is crap with a good set up. The acting is fairly ok on most parts, especially Tabrett Bethell did a good job as the wife. The pace is reasonably fast and the movie isn't exactly boring, but it's surely not scary or even menacing either. And that's the major problem, with the idiotic story of course, all of the good in this movie are balanced with the same amount of bad and that makes it just another horror flick.
50%

A documentary not quite finished

2011-03-15T22:43:00.001+02:00

A Film Unfinished (2010)

This documentary uncovers a piece of propaganda some historians have considered as true representation of the situation before. It's a film about the Warsaw Ghetto which the Nazi propaganda machine doctored to show the "cruel" nature of Jews. The "documentary" film is uncovered with new evidence of a reel with outtakes and alternate scenes which show that the whole film was set up the way the SS officers wanted. There's also excerpts of a diary that survived from the ghetto which describes the filming, there's interviews with survivors from the ghetto and even from an actual cameraman who shot pieces of the film. For anyone interested in history of propaganda this is surely a must see documentary. For everyone else it's a thought provoking depiction of the horrors of the ghetto. The subject matter is of course important and quite shocking, but this documentary has it's flaws. The thing is that it's a bit boring. I mean it's facinating and shocking for sure, but even though it's quite short all those slow motion shots seemed to drag it on a bit too much. With a better pacing this would have been a brilliant documentary as the subject matter is surely worth seeing.
70%

A baby from Hell

2011-03-14T22:24:00.001+02:00

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

Last movie from the Hammer Collection is also the second to last movie Hammer made and their last horror movie before going bankrupt. It's a story about a young nun who gets possessed by an excommunicated priest while an American occult novelist tries to save her from the group of Satanists. The movie is supposedly based on Dennis Wheatley's book by the same name, but it really has nothing much to do with it. The story has it's moments, but especially the ending is such an anti-climax that it's a bit too uneven to work. Actually as the documentary on the disc says the original ending was cut from the movie and the new ending was just edited together from what they had. The cast is quite great with Christopher Lee and Richard Widmark as the most notable. The movie has it's moments and is nicely twisted at parts, but it's just a bit too uneven to make it a good one. Surely worth the watch for Hammer fans, but I doubt anyone else will get much out of it. The document on the DVD, To the Devil... The Death of Hammer, is well worth the watch. There's also Eddie Powell interview and a trailer as extras, no subtitles.
60%

Family ties, Hammer style

2011-03-14T19:09:00.001+02:00

Demons of the Mind (1972)

This one from the Hammer Collection is a weird little thriller. A physician finds out that two children are being imprisoned in their house by their father. He decides to find out what's going on and discovers a very disturbing "family life" with incest and satanic possession. The story is not exactly great and the dialog is kind of goofy at parts. The acting could have also been better, but it's not a bad movie. The mood is quite great and at parts it reminded me of The Wicker Man (1973) in it's feel. At parts there's even some nice "what the fuck?" moments. And those parts are what makes this one well worth the watch. With a bit more focus on the script and better cast, this would be a great movie, now it's just above average. The picture quality is quite good and there's a commentary with director, writer and co-star Virginia Wethrell and a trailer as extras. No subtitles as usual.
69%

2 rounds of 13

2011-03-13T21:14:00.002+02:00

Can you believe it? There's another remake of an European fairly good movie. What a surprise...

13 Tzameti (2005)

This was a positive surprise when I saw it. It's a story about a young man who decides to take a dead man's identity in hopes of scoring some money. He ends up in a deadly game played by powerful wealthy men where they gamble on the lives of the contestants. It's done with a low budget, shot in black and white, but it only adds to the gritty realism of it. Sure the acting could have been better at parts and a bit bigger budget for the settings wouldn't have hurt but it works well enough as it is.
75%

13 (2010)

So the Americanized version is luckily directed by the same man who did the original. And the cast surely looks better with Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke and the likes in it. But sadly the cast didn't really help, this movie has horrible acting. And I really think the director is to be blamed from this as I know many of the actors can do a whole lot better than this. The settings are a bit better and there is clearly a bigger budget behind it, so there is some improvement. But really the acting put me off so badly that this really is worse than the original.
40%

Breaking news - week 10

2011-03-13T15:12:00.001+02:00

So I decided to post some bits of news from the world of movies right here in my blog. Just some things that caught my eye during the week from other blogs, sites and magazines. I won't go that much into the mainstream movies as that stuff you can read everywhere, so I'll focus on the weirder stuff you might not have noticed. Though of course if there's some interesting news in the mainstream films worth noting, then I'll of course post them here as well. So here's what happened this week.

Sitges festival got charged with exhibition of child pornography
I think this was the biggest news of this week. You can click on the topic for more info, but the charge is because the festival screened A Serbian Film. I mean come on, the movie is surely nasty and yes it involves themes of child pornography, but there is quite a big difference between the real thing and a fictional movie. You can think what you want about the movie and surely it's not for everyone, even I thought it was too much, but it's their right as film makers to make a film on the subject they want and no one can deny that. And if a festival shows the movie it's surely their right, no matter how hard the subject is. Some people should really learn the difference between movies and real life...

Geeks boycott Universal
Click on the topic to read that quite a long blog post, it has tons of great stuff in it. In short the fuzz is about Guillermo Del Toro's next project that was supposed to be a huge fantasy horror movie based on a Lovecraft story with a budget of 150 million dollars that Universal decided to dump as they were afraid it wouldn't bring any profits. The geeks went mad of course blaming Universal. Well I would have loved to see the movie as well, but I don't blame Universal, I blame the people who go out and actually watch movies in the theatres. Drew McWeeny sums up my thoughts quite nicely in his blog, I'll just suggest you read it.

Upcoming movies:

Conan the Barbarian
I know this is a mainstream movie and most likely will be a bad adaptation of the original, but for some reason I have my hopes up for this. If they just steer away from the new superhero for the kids mentality it could work. There are not many barbarian movies out there so I wish this would fix the shortage, but at the same time I really don't think it will.

Ronal the Barbarian
And of course there needs to be a spoof of the movie as well. I have a feeling this will be more entertaining than the remake...

Hobo with a Shotgun
I've been waiting for this ever since I heard they are making the movie from that fake trailer on Grindhouse. And it has Rutger Hauer starring so it can't go wrong!

Panzer Chocolate
Ok this is so freaking insane idea that it can't be a bad movie. Nazis turning Jewish women into chocolate to boost the fighting spirit of their troops. Talking about crazy ideas, this is somewhere at the top.

AARGH
This looked quite great, though I don't know if they can bring enough out of the character to carry the whole movie, but the trailer works for me.

The Return Of The Moonwalker
This went straight to my must see list.

Bunohan
A Malaysian martial arts movie with attitude. Looks like a fun homage to the classics of it's genre.

Karate-Robo Zaborgar
I really wonder if it's something in the food they eat or the water they drink that makes those Japanese people so insane...

A Chinese Fairy Tale
Just so we don't go with only violence and horror here. This surely looks great.

Other fun stuff:

Strangers in the Night
This is for all of you classic monster movie fans out there. Pure brilliance every second of it.

Cinema Cool Tribute to John Carpenter
Cinema Cool made a nice little tribute to Carpenter, well worth checking out.

Zombie Research Society
Ok, what the fuck? Seriously?

Reelizer
Wow, just wow. Sometimes fan art is way better than the original.

That's it, more next week.

School sucks

2011-03-13T14:11:00.002+02:00

Waiting for Superman (2010)

This is a documentary about the failing public school system in USA. Even though I already knew it was quite messed up, this managed to give quite a nice insight on how bad things are. I mean if a principle of a school uses double negative while speaking about the low test grades of English language, that's really bad. "We ain't got no chance". Simply hilarious. The documentary had it's moments but it just felt that it was underlining and over simplifying things a bit too much. Though I guess that's what you need to get through to the simple folk, as sad as that may sound. It follows the school lottery for children's education, the people who are doing the education right, the people who are doing the education wrong, the people who are trying to change the system and the people who want to keep the system as it is. So it covers many sides of the story and the underlying message of giving the statistics human faces gets through quite well. It's claim that the teachers are to be blamed for the problem is only part of the solution and in the end it's just another average documentary that falls into the same problems as most documentaries.
58%

To see Afghanistan and die

2011-03-13T01:02:00.002+02:00

Two highly praised documentaries about the war in Afghanistan. One American and one Danish. I decided to watch them back to back and see which is better.

Restrepo (2010)

National Geographic cameraman spent a year with U.S. soldiers in middle of the combat in Afghanistan's deadliest valley. We follow the action from the soldier's point of view as the camera is always with them, but there's also interviews cut between it filmed later in Italy. Those interviews explain the feelings and fill in what the camera didn't capture. I thought it was kind of tacky as many of the events that are described in the interviews seem more interesting than the ones captured by the camera. First thing that came to my mind when the men were introduced was that these are all just kids. But I guess that's how it is, fresh meat for the grinder. The documentary captures the modern warfare mentality quite well and all the horrors of it are well present. Weirdly enough the document didn't capture any enemies being killed, only U.S. soldiers and civilian casualties are shown. The only Taliban that's allegedly killed is only shown by a spotter who says so, even the shooter doesn't know wether he killed him or not. Kind of sad picture from the U.S. Army. But that's exactly why the whole concept of that war is seriously idiotic. I have to say I was a bit disappointed at this documentary, I read that it would be one of the best anti-war documentaries but it wasn't anything that special. It used way too often those easy routes to build drama, mostly with the interview parts, I mean if you can't capture it in the battlefield it can be left out. As there were very strong moments captured in the heat of the action, it would have worked brilliantly just with those. Now those interview parts just seem a bit too cheesy. My hat goes off for the maker of this documentary, being up there in the front line with just a camera takes some balls or some sort of a serious mental condition.
65%

Armadillo (2010)

Right from the first shots of this documentary I knew that now we're in a totally different level, this looks absolutely stunning. The documentary follows a Danish platoon for six months in their forward outpost in Afghanistan. At first it looked like it can't compete with Restrepo in intensity as the outpost wasn't in the middle of the action, but I was quite wrong. It actually captures the action and the insanity of war way better than Restrepo did. Again we follow young boys being put through the hell of war but this time the story stays with them on the moment, there are no interview inserts and that works brilliantly. What we see is absolutely devastating, the document doesn't sugar coat the horrors. For example those aerial shots you've seen in the news where missiles hit buildings on the ground, they look quite a bit more shocking when you see the people there who get hit by it. But it's not just long distance fighting, the camera is with the soldiers in the trenches when they get ambushed and when they make their first enemy kills. A scene that raised an uproar in Denmark about the behaviour of the soldiers in a situation where they kill five enemies in a ditch. Again my hat goes off for the crazy film makers who risked their lives to make this. Luckily this time they actually made something very special. It's a shocking and provoking documentary about modern warfare and the insanity of it.
86%

Both of them do serve their purpose, but Armadillo is just in a league of it's own when it comes to which one would be better. So if you can read subtitles watch the Danish one and even if you can't, I'd still recommend it.