Documenting exploitation

In the past couple of years there's been quite a bit of these documentaries about old exploitation movies. As I watched some of them recently I decided to gather them up here in one big post.













Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)

Even though this one is almost 5 years old, I'll still include it here as it kind of started this new boom for documentaries about genre cinema. This one focuses on ozploitation, the Australian exploitation cinema. It starts from the goofy sex comedies, continuing through the bloody horror flicks and sleazy violence movies, ending to the high octane road rage movies. The genre in itself was quite unknown to me before I first saw this documentary. I mean sure I had seen the Mad Max movies and a few other, but most of them I didn't know even existed. It's a highly interesting look into the history of Australian cinema, or the lack of it in some cases, with plenty of weird, crazy and fascinating films you most likely have never heard of. But the great thing about this documentary is that it makes you want to see these movies, at least I searched through the DVD stores for ozploitation after I first saw this. There's a great selection of ozploitation film makers, actors, actresses, film critics, stuntmen, producers and fans voicing out their experiences and opinions. The talking heads are balanced with a plethora of scenes from these wicked and sometimes simply lunatic movies. Anyone who cares even a bit about movies should get something out of this documentary and exploitation film fans will just love it.
85%

Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)

This one is from Mark Hartley as well, but instead of Australia this one focuses on those genre movies made in the Philippines. Just like the previous one this is highly entertaining look at these wild movies. It might not be the most in-depth look, but still there's some movies in it even I hadn't heard of before, so it's more than enough for a documentary like this. It covers the most notable and weird movies from the 60's to the early 80's. It goes from the early schlock horror flicks and the women-in-prison movies to the late 70's - early 80's kung-fu and war movies. Of course not forgetting Philippines biggest movie star, the tiny powerhouse Weng Weng. Again there's lots of talking heads, with a nice selection of actors, actresses, directors, producers, cinematographers and so on. For example Roger Corman, Sid Haig, Pam Grier, Eddie Romero and Cirio H. Santiago just to name a few. The talking heads are balanced with plenty of clips from various movies in question. This was a highly entertaining documentary about a weird time in the movie history, I warmly recommend it to all exploitation movie fans and even to people who know nothing about them just to see how crazy it was back then.
80%

American Grindhouse (2010)

This one is a general overview of the Grindhouse cinema and mostly the exploitation movies it involved. It starts all the way back in the invention of cinema and the silent exploitative films and ends up in the modern homages to the genre. Covering in between pretty much everything which was Grindhouse cinema, though quite notably it leaves out the European exploitation movies which were quite a big part of the genre. But it's called American Grindhouse after all, so that's where it focuses, the American exploitation cinema. Even though this one is missing some big American names as well like Roger Corman for example, it's still a great quick look on what the Grindhouse cinema was all about. As it tries to cover such a large variety of Grindhouse movies it of course left me wanting a bit more in-depth look at them, but I guess that would have made this documentary quite boring for everyone else except the Grindhouse fans. All in all quite an entertaining documentary.
75%

Screaming in High Heels: The Rise & Fall of the Scream Queen Era (2011)

This movie focuses on three of the most notable horror B-movie scream queens; Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer. They weren't the first ones and definitely not the last ones, but I would say they are the most famous, at least to 80's horror B-movie fans, so it's a perfect selection. First this documentary gives a small introduction to drive-in cinema and the video boom which killed the drive-in venues. Then it focuses on the trio going from the late 70's to the golden age of the 80's and from there to the 90's when the genre kind of started to die and even to the 2000's where the video camera had become the number one tool of the B-movie makers. The quality of this documentary can't stand comparison to the previous three as it's clearly a smaller scale work and very narrowly focused on the three scream queens and their work. But that's actually not a bad thing, for me as a horror fan growing up with some of these movies it was quite a fun nostalgic trip down memory lane. Though I kind of doubt anyone else but horror fans get anything out of this one.
70%

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011)

As the title says, this movie is all about Roger Corman, the "King of the B's". The film starts off with Roger Corman on the set of some of his recent horrible movies for the Syfy channel. Then it goes back in time right to the start of his career and works itself back up again. Out of all of these documentaries this must have the most "prestigious" group of people having their say on Corman's life. With people like Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Peter Fonda you see that Corman's movies were the early playgrounds for some of the biggest stars. Funny thing I noticed is that Joe Dante seems to be the go-to guy when someone needs someone to talk about exploitation cinema as he's in three of these documentaries. Anyway when you are doing a quick documentary about a man who has produced almost 400 movies you are bound to leave some good ones out. Well saying good about a Roger Corman movie doesn't sound right, but you get the point, the ones which are so bad they are brilliant. But that didn't really matter, it still has most of the notable ones and plenty of the campy ones to keep you entertained. I actually learned quite a bit from this documentary, like that Corman almost produced Easy Rider (1969) and he wanted to make Mean Streets (1973) as blaxploitation, just to mention a few. Then again I have never really had the interest in digging into his movies that much, even though I do love some of the pre 80's ones. Lets face it, most of the movies in his filmography are crap and Jack Nicholson said it best; "By mistake he actually made a good picture every once and a while". In the end this was a very entertaining documentary which barely scratched the surface of the filmography of Roger Corman and might be a good watch for people who don't even know who Roger Corman is.
72%

Thanks Kubrick, I now know who killed Kennedy!

Room 237 (2012)

You know those people who seem to find images of Jesus from a burned toast, worn out paint or from the butt hairs of a dog? Well I'd compare the people voicing out their opinions in this documentary to those who see what they want to see no matter what. This documentary gathers five people like that to tell us what they think is the real meaning of Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece The Shining (1980). If you haven't seen that movie, stop reading right here and go watch it, as this might spoil it a bit and well it's one of those movies everyone should see. Their opinions vary from the genocide of the Native Americans to the faking of the moon landing. Not forgetting the Nazis, the holocaust, Minotaurs or especially the meaning you get when you superimpose another print of the film mirrored above the original. So yeah, I guess there's a simple word for all that; crazy.

What's interesting in this documentary is why is it Kubrick's movies that seem to attract these nut cases. Unfortunately the documentary doesn't answer that, but I think it's the fact that Kubrick doesn't spell everything out for the viewer and leaves the viewer something to think about. And sometimes there's no right answer to the questions placed by the movie, what is right is left for the viewer to decide. As the viewer realizes that he/she feels rewarded, but some people seem to think that's the indication that there is more to it than meets the eye and the whole movie becomes one big Rorschach test for them. I'm sure that Kubrick put a lot of more or less hidden references to his films, but they are nowhere as complex and far fetched as these presented in this movie. Only part I found myself even somewhat agreeing on was the weird thing about the hotel and how it's shot which makes it feel like an unnatural maze. Though all of those inconsistencies could be just explained by using a built set on part of the shots and real location on part of the shots and the set designer and the editor not just noticing the continuity errors. Or maybe they were done on purpose to make the place feel scarier and in hopes of trying to lose the viewer inside the hotel, kind of like in the maze at the end. Who knows and to be honest I don't even care.

Technically there was nothing wrong in this documentary, it was well made and I really liked some of the music choices. As a 30 minute short this would have been entertaining look at how crazy some people are, but as a full length feature it just gets painful to watch. At start I was amazed how people see what they want to see while trying to find reason for what they think they see, then they started to sound like crazy and it was funny for a while, but then it turned out to be just sad and in the end I was just fed up with all this nonsense.

40%

Here's the trailer which tells absolutely nothing about this documentary. You can get a better idea of what the movie is about by searching "kubrick conspiracy" on YouTube and watch a few of those.

A dated guide to witchcraft

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)

This is another movie that has sat in my shelf for ages before I now finally watched it while recovering from a nasty flu. This certainly was an oddity, it's part documentary, part mockumentary and part fictional horror movie. There's slide show like graphic presentation, acted story telling and even some stop motion animation in it. It's divided into seven segments each of which has a story of it's own but all focused on different aspects of witchcraft. This movie has a rather painfully slow start, the first segment with it's illustrations and history lessons was just simply boring. Maybe if you are more into the subject matter you could get something more out of it, but for me it didn't really serve any purpose. The second part was better but not much, it follows a witch cooking with some surprisingly comic moments as well. But after that the movie gets going and stays quite interesting until the end. The last segment with all it's philosophical aspects is very dated and a bit tedious to watch, but it does have an interesting point to it. I can understand why this movie was banned in pretty much every country when it came out, not because it would be pro-witchcraft, it's actually quite the opposite, but because it's anti-religious. It basically compares religion and people who believe in witchcraft to a mental illness. Then again not long ago I read that some Nepalese woman was burned at the stake for being a witch, so I guess this movie is still relevant today. Which of course it should most definitely not be.

Anyway even though there are some relevant points to the story of this film, it is mostly quite dated. But that didn't bother me much as this movie was pure brilliance for me as a film history lesson. I must say where people praise Lang, Eisenstein and Murnau among others for being the early pioneers of film making, I'd put Benjamin Christensen to that list as well. Technically this movie is a marvel. There's some movie tricks that even today look impressive. And the acting deserves a special mention, the whole movie is rather brilliantly acted without the usual over acting very common in silent films. The makeup is surprisingly effective, I mean sure the demons look a bit goofy, but they are strikingly similar to the old drawing presented at the start from old history books. But what I loved the most was the cinematography, every single frame was lit and framed perfectly down to the smallest details. After seeing this it's not hard to believe it took three years to shoot it. For anyone even a bit interested in the history of movies, this is a must see and well people who are into witchcraft might get something out of it too, but as an entertaining film for the casual viewer I don't think there's much to go with this one. Anyway for me this was an eye opener and showed that some of the early cinema pioneers came from Scandinavia. Oh, and if you are planning on watching this, beware there are two versions out there, the original 104 minute version and a shortened 77 minute version with a narrator. Steer clear from the shortened version as the music is some crappy jazz which doesn't fit it at all and it's missing some very nice scenes, so watch the original or not at all.

81%

The unknown superstar

Searching for Sugar Man(2012)

Sixto Rodriguez is a music superstar, bigger than Elvis or The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, but the weird thing is that he's only that big in South Africa. Rest of the world has no idea who he is as he made only two albums in Detroit at the beginning of the 70's which didn't sell at all and he was soon forgotten. That is except in South Africa where he became a legend and as no one there knew anything about him except for his music rumors started to spread and soon became “known” facts. One of those being that the man is dead. Two South African fans decide to find out who he was and what happened to him. The story in this one is actually quite brilliant, words like amazing and incredible would seem like an understatement. However this is not a brilliant documentary. The problem is how it's constructed. The biggest twist to the story comes around the half way of the film and after that it actually sets more questions than answers them. I kind of understood that they wanted to leave a bit of mystery around the character, but still there were so many juicy topics they could have covered more deeply. So in the end I was at the same time amazed but yet disappointed. Amazed about the story but still disappointed about the structure and focus of the documentary. Technically I didn't find anything wrong with it, it looked good even though there were quite a bit of old amateur video material in there as well, but it fit in there very well. Also it was very “approachable” as in easy viewing even if you're not a huge music fan and if you are then you will get even more out of it. I have to rate this as a good documentary even though it was somewhat poorly made direction wise.

75%

The true heart of punk music

The Punk Syndrome (2012)

I missed this one at the theaters, even though I heard praises about it, just never found time for it and I usually tend to push documentaries out of the way of other movies. So yesterday it got the TV premiere here in Finland and I surely wasn't going to miss it this time. For all the Finns who missed it, you can still watch it for the next 6 days here. For everyone else I guess you have to wait for it to come to a film festival near you or DVD/BR release. And trust me it's definitely worth the wait. So what's the film all about? It's about the greatest punk band in the history of punk, called Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät. It follows the band from the first steps to stardom, including all the conflicts between the members, whether they are musical differences or simply just not liking how someone is looking at you. Even though these guys are hard core to the bone, there's also friendship as a glue to keep this powerhouse together and the women of course. Their songs have the essence of punk in them. Pulling no punches on subjects like prejudices, government corruption, institutionalization and unfair bureaucracy. Not to forget subjects like coffee after the sunday church or pedicures. How could it ever be more punk than that? When these guys hit the stage old ladies look in fear and the fans go apeshit crazy pounding their fists in the air while the whole venue shakes from the power of the music. These guys are pure punk! Oh and they are all mentally disabled.

I can't really rate this with anything else than the top score as it's just perfect for me. That being said though there are some problems with this documentary, especially for people outside Finland, as it doesn't explain anything, it just follows. So I can understand people losing track on what's going on, like on the elections, political parties, independence day ceremonies and such. But it's not really that important, the most important part you'll definitely get, though be warned it might change you into a punk rocker. Another thing this film leaves out is the origin story, where did this band come from, but it's not really needed. If the film got you interested, you can find out those details yourself and that's part of the beauty of this documentary. You could compare it to a documentary following a year with for example the Rolling Stones, you don't need to know where they came from, you either like them or you don't. All I can say is that I love this band.

100%

Jason Voorhees - The man behind the mask part 2

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.

When a muted man speaks, you should listen to him

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%

A documentary not quite finished

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%

School sucks

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

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.

The most expensive film ever made

Inside Job (2010)

Funny enough the tagline of this documentary is quite brilliant; "The film that cost $20,000,000,000,000 to make". Funny, but as it's in a way also true, it's quite sad too. Well I could go on ranting about what's wrong in the world and how fucked up it is that the rich keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer, but I won't. Guess I'm all out of angst today. This documentary is a look into the financial meltdown, what caused it, what it's results were and what was done about it. Won't go into the topic that much as it just pisses me off, but this is a good topic, if for nothing else to see how the richest 1 percent of the world buttfuck the rest of the 99 percent. So it's a topic well worth watching and the documentary is done in a very professional manner. Nothing to complain there. The only thing, and what I've already criticised in other documentaries is that for once it would be nice to see a documentary which actually would try to do something about the cause. They just document what's messed up but never try to correct anything. Like in this one they wonder why the hell no one sued those investment bank leaders as they broke the law. Why wouldn't the makers of this document sue them or at least tried to find someone who would? Well anyways it's a well made documentary on a huge subject so it's well worth the watch.
75%

Building Star Wars

I just saw quite a remarkable documentary about making Star Wars (1977). It's a fan made effort that follows the movie, but takes another look at it, behind the scenes. Built with alternate and unused takes, material from the set, effects shots, make-up and whatnot. It's almost like being on the set when they made the film. With tons of great info it's a must see for all Star Wars fans out there and pretty much anyone even a bit interested in how movies are made. It's split into 14 parts, all 10 minutes in length so reserve some time to go through them, it isn't easy to stop watching before the last part. You can watch it by clicking the link below.

Star Wars Begins - Part 1

And if that's not enough, he also made similar treatments to the other parts as well.

Building Empire - Part 1

Returning to Jedi - Part 1

My hat goes off for the guy, brilliant job.

Your land, my land, gas land

GasLand (2010)

Wether it's power lines that cause cancer, oil drilling that causes cancer, nuclear power plants that cause cancer or what ever that causes cancer, there's someone to make a documentary about it. Well it's not a bad thing that awareness is raised towards the subjects and the big corporations are made responsible for their actions, but the thing is that it gets a bit boring already. I mean there are so many things wrong in the world that just documenting them doesn't fix it. And since everything mentioned above have already shocking documentaries made the whole thing gets a bit numbing. But like I said it's of course better that people are aware of the problems, but would just once like to see a documentary that would try to fix things, not just show the problems. Though of course awareness is the first step towards fixing things. Anyway, this time it's natural gas production that's causing environmental and health problems to the nearby residents. The documentary is done in an investigative style by a man who got offered a lot of money for his land to allow natural gas drilling in there. The style is amateurish, but it's not at all bad, it gives it a bit of gritty realistic touch. The voice over work is quite bad, he should just speak with a normal voice and not try to sound mysterious or weird. That made it unintentionally funny at parts. I'm not going to take any stand wether the facts presented are true and wether all of the facts were presented or not. At least it seemed that most of them were. Even though it could have been a lot better, it's still a solid effort from the first time documentarian.
66%

Life in a tube

Life in a Day (2011)

80.000 videos, over 4500 hours of footage, all shot on one day all over the world. Put Ridley Scott with his brother Tony to produce it and Kevin Macdonald to squeeze it all together in a 90 minute documentary. What do you get? Something absolutely remarkable, this thing called life. This documentary depicts a day on earth from the early moments before dawn to the last minutes of the day before midnight. Following the daily activities of hundreds of people, kind of like a short glimpse to their life. It's thrilling, horrible, beautiful, ugly, lovely, sad, funny, angering, interesting, dull and entertaining. Most of those all at the same time. I really have no words to review this movie, actually can't even call it a movie, this is life and life is quite amazing. Sure looking at it critically it just scratches the surface, but it manages to poke on the right areas to cover enough of what makes life so magnificent. I watched this from YouTube on it's world premiere and I really hope there will be another way to see this in the future too as this was so remarkable that I surely would want to watch it again. I was laughing when I was thinking on how do I rate this. Well, how do you rate life?
99%

The grandfather of heavy metal

Lemmy (2010)

I think pretty much everyone knows who Lemmy and Motörhead are, no matter if you're into metal or not. He is one of the, maybe even the most, influential man in heavy metal. And for me as an old metal head he is no stranger. But that's where the problem with this documentary is. It's quite superficial most of the time only stating the facts many people already know. Lemmy is by far the most interesting character in the world of metal music so I really think there would be a lot juicier stories to be told than what this documentary portrays. The few moments we get to see behind that suit of armor of a cowboy hat, black attire, and custom made leather boots are the best this documentary has to offer. Too bad they are quite few and far apart. If you don't know who Lemmy is this documentary is just for you, to people familiar with him this doesn't give that much new.
50%

High in Lapland

Reindeerspotting (2010)

Not sure if this documentary is available worldwide yet, the DVD I have has only swedish subtitles on it. But seen as it was kind of a box office hit in Finland, I bet it will be more widely spread soon enough. This was one of the most talked about Finnish movies in the near history, but I didn't go see it in the theatres. Why? Because a documentary on a drug junkie's life made by another drug junkie didn't sound too promising to me. Especially with a name derived from Trainspotting. So today I finally watched it on DVD and I have to say I was a bit surprised. Luckily the name was misleading, it was an ok documentary with some quite toubling scenes. It isn't pro-drugs, but still it isn't anti-drugs either, it leaves it all for the viewer to decide, and that's a good thing. Though the cruel life and unreachable dreams of a drug addict make it quite clear which side is favoured. The main character is quite ok, he might even be likable if he wasn't a junkie, but as such you really don't feel much for him. All in all a pretty good documentary. Don't really understand what all the fuzz about it was as it really doesn't show anything you haven't seen in foreign films before. Though the fact that it's all real makes it a bit more thought provoking.
70%

A "documentary" on street art

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Ok first of all street art and graffiti. I hate em. I mean, sure there are some brilliant works that I wouldn't mind seeing every day if possible, but the thing is that there are too many retards who take that whole "the world is my canvas" thing too easily. Then we see these butt ugly "drawings" in every wall and basicly every thing on the streets. I would much rather look at a boring blank wall than a boring wall with ugly scrawls and scribble all around it. So that said lets look at this film. It's very entertaining and very though provoking in a good way. The underlying message this film is bringing out is criticism against commercialising street art. It fails miserably in it as the maker of this film, Banksy, is the highest selling street artist in the world. But that didn't matter at all, as the other and the real underlying message this film gives out is even better. Don't believe everything you see. This is supposed to be a documentary and seeing some reviews of it, people seem to believe it actually is. But this is bullshit, just too many small bits don't add up in it to be believable. And that's what makes it brilliant. You could so easily believe it to be true, but if you look close enough you see the prank is on you. And that raises the point of the documentary format being the modern way of propaganda. Put anything in a convincing documentary format and everyone believes it to be true. Something worth while to think about when you see the next Michael Moore documentary or what ever. Why not whole 100 percent then if it's simply brilliant? Well, there is that thought creeping in that maybe these guys just were trying to say commercialising street art is bad, and nothing more...
90%

Herzog & Kinski

Almost 4 years ago I bought a collection box of all the Herzog/Kinski movies, but it just laid on my shelf for all the years still wrapped in plastic. I had already seen all of the movies before and I kinda liked some of them, though never been a big fan of them. Only reason I actually bought it in the first place was because of the documentary which I hadn't seen. But then it just stayed there unopened as I never had the mood to watch them again. Until now. Unfortunately after watching the movies I realized why it stayed there for so long.



Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)

This movie is beautifully shot. The opening scene alone is something worth seeing. The movie itself isn't really brilliant, it drags on a bit too much for the little content it has. Though some of the content is quite great, especially Aguirre's insanity creeping in is brilliantly portrayed and the fact that everything is slowly falling apart. The problem with this film is that I don't think Kinski is that good of an actor. I mean sure he fits the role quite well and at times is magnificent, but he has those moments where he glimpses at the camera and kinda checks to reposition himself. Brings down the illusion quite a bit. Despite that he was still quite good on this one. But like I said, I'd prefer a bit more content to it as it did get quite boring at times.
70%



Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night (1979)

Well this is a movie where Kinski and his goofy face doesn't fit at all. I mean it's kinda hard to be scared when you can hardly stop laughing at the goofy guy with funny teeth. Sure the movie follows the book very closely and has it's moments here and there, but all in all this is an unnecessary remake.
35%



Woyzeck (1979)

I had seen this one long time ago and didn't understand it back then so I was kinda looking forward of seeing it again to see if I could make some sense of it now. Well unfortunately I still couldn't. Guess I'm stupid or something, but this movie makes no sense, well it does in a way, but I've read that it has more than meets the eye sense in it. So as I still failed to see what it's all about I was left with utter nonsense. Sure the emotions are portrayed by the characters quite well and the cast is great, but that's about all I can say of this. I love movies that leave the audience some things to think about and not everything has to be underlined so you don't have to use your brain to figure it out, but some sanity to it would be nice. Guess I'm just too simple for this movie. 20 percent for the cast.
20%



Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Now this movie I liked. It's the most simple of the lot so it's very easy to approach (ye I know I'm simple). Anyway it's a great story of a man who doesn't let anything stop him from making his dreams come true, no matter how insane they might be. It's slow paced, but this time it doesn't matter at all as you get into the story so easily. The movie looks stunning, the setting being almost another character in the movie. Kinski is brilliant in his role and the rest of the cast isn't bad either, always a big plus to have Claudia Cardinale in it. Not a masterpiece, but a very good movie anyways.
83%



Cobra Verde (1987)

Another grand scale movie from the two. Unfortunately this brings nothing new to the table, the story is too simple and so familiar. Kinski is being himself mostly and the whole movie has this feel of we've seen it all before. There are some wonderful scenes in it though and some of them are almost worth seeing the whole movie, but all in all it's not worth more than one watch at most.
31%



My Best Fiend (1999)

Now this documentary was what I was waiting for and it really delivers. Very interesting trip down memory lane with tons of great info about the movies. And of course the most important to see and hear how crazy Kinski really was and what was it like working with him. Even though at points Herzog makes himself a selfish prick, it's still not only a story of how much better person he was than Kinksi, there's much more in it too. Recommended watching for people who think they have problems working with some person, it can't be worse.
82%

Where in the world is common sense?

Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (2008)

Morgan Spurlock made a great documentary about the American food culture with Super Size Me which raised some quite relevant issues of the problem. So I was excited to see what he can come up with the issue of Al Qaida and Osama Bin Laden. Sadly not much. The main thing this documentary has to say is that not all of the Muslims are terrorists, well surprise surprise, like we didn't know that. And what really pisses me off is that it's actually brought out as it would be a big surprise. Yes, I know it's aimed for the not too bright average American, but come on, I bet they could have thought something a bit better as the subject is so complex there's many sides you could look at it. Don't get me wrong, it does scratch the surface of the right issues, but too bad it's something we've seen already a million times. That aside the documentary is quite entertaining and it has a good pace all through it. Didn't like the addition of his wife and unborn child to the story as the emotions they were clearly trying to bring out were missed quite badly. Thou I did feel a bit sorry for him for missing the early moments of his unborn child for this nonsense he was running around the world for. So basically if you don't have a slightest clue of what a Muslim is, this is an entertaining documentary for you. Those who have a bit wider view of the world, don't bother wasting time with this one.
34%

The camera tells the story

Visions of Light (1992)

Cinematography is a big cornerstone in movies, many times overlooked or most of the time not even noticed. This documentary uncovers the craft in quite an enjoyable way. Starting from the early pioneers of film and ending to the modern masters. The movie selection is quite comprehensive with most of the notable masterpieces of cinematography covered, thou focusing mostly on the Hollywood films. The men and women of the trade give a bit of insight to some of the most memorable scenes in the movie history. Those interviews are of course the backbone of this documentary and the people interviewed are all quite good choises, thou at times they tend carry away just praising each others works a bit too much and not really giving the viewer anything. But that seems to be a common problem to most of the movie documentaries, so it doesn't bother that much. Where it fails to satisfy me as a movieholic is that it barely scratches the surface of the craft and it left me with not much new insight. But for people unfamiliar to the world of cinematograpy, this is a good guide to the basics of the craft.
80%