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Reviews
El norte sobre el vacío (2022)
Kudos to the streamers for showing a movie like this one
I stumbled onto this movie on Prime and really enjoyed it. It reminded me of old Russian movies by the likes of Sokurov, with its slowly moving wide shots, lots of narrative elements in the excellent soundtrack and at times the camera being with the off-action instead of the on, while we only hear the on-action. Masterful camera work and a very good sound mix.
The futility escaping fate is transported credibly. Makes you feel sorry for the people of Mexico who often cannot rely on the authorities to protect them, one of the great scandals of our time that gets little attention in the world.
A very calm yet intense movie, I recommend it.
Music Box: Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage (2021)
The worst doc ever about the worst festival ever.
I rarely have regrets about the past but if I could go back in time I certainly would undo watching this doc! I don't what's actually worse, the festival this film is about, or the film itself. They're trying to make a case that this festival was the worst festival ever, and try to make this point with lots of typical festival footage old or new and interviews with attendees and band members, out of the latter of which they really only managed to squeeze out very soft criticism (like Jewel saying that the atmosphere was a bit strange and Mobdy complaining that his name wasn't written on some board all the bands were on). If you've ever been to a big festival you'll know that for many attendees (both male and female) it's all about partying, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, and sure, breaking stuff is always a welcome pastime too, especially towards the end, like day three. Obviously the sexual assaults that clearly happened there are terrible but unfortunately they do happen, not only on festivals but every time you have that many people in one place. They also happened in Woodstock 69, 94 and probably every other big festival. It has to be said though that in general festivals like that have a very low rate of violence given the amount of people that are there. I've never seen people fighting at a festival, but you can see it all the time at sports matches, bars, clubs etc. Of course Woodstock 99 (which I didn't even know existed prior to watching this) had a spectacularly shitty lineup, uniting some of the worst bands mainstream rock has ever had to offer, but it's kind of hard to turn this into a moral argument against the organizers (which by the way, one of them is a complete dick when he says it's the women's own fault that they got raped because they were walking around half or full naked. Douchebag. I'll give them that.) So in the end it seems like the makers of this film got a lot of footage from this shitty festival and decided to do a doc about it but didn't really know what their point could be, so they tried to scandalize it, and just lose steam pretty early on. Do yourself a favor and do not watch this!
Feuchtgebiete (2013)
not bad at all for German cinema
The book was quite the scandal when it came out a few years ago. I personally found it a bit boring after a while so I didn't finish it. The movie however is very well done. It manages to be both serious and funny, which is rather the exception than the rule for German films: usually they're either very serious or slapsticky "funny". Visually this could be called a German version of Trainspotting, with some nice and unusual shots and angles, freaky dream sequences etc. The acting throughout the whole cast is amazing, not only the Helen, the lead role, but also her parents, the nurses, the drug dealer etc. I didn't get the feeling that I so often have when watching (and hearing!) German actors in films: that they are noticeably acting. So go watch this, especially if you don't think much of the book. It's a fine movie!
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Little flaws
Admittedly it is one of the hardest tasks to make a movie about the Nazis/WWII. IB might be the best one I've seen so far. The problem I and probably many people have is that we know very much about the period of time and automatically, we keep on comparing the historical information stored in our brains with what we see on the screen. IB, of course, is far from being close to historical facts, but still the setup of the movie are "real". So I was very excited and my heart was throbbing towards the end, and the tension that is built up got stronger and stronger as the film goes on for a looong time, so I couldn't help being just a little disappointed of the end that seemed a bit too simple, given the complicated characters and drama that is built up during the movie.
That being said, it still was quite entertaining. What I didn't like was that some characters were kind of useless to the script, as Mike Myers' act, which was good, merely served to introduce the British spy, who got killed shortly after he was introduced. Also, I would have liked to see more of Hugo Stiglitz and all of the Basterds in action, not just in flashbacks.
But anyway, great performance by most of the actors (except maybe the German actress/spy who was a little lame) and of course the greatest idea for a movie about the Nazis. Still a must-see.