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Lyckliga skitar (1970)
Realism, good humour, jazz music, and politics
This movie is about a couple of months in the life of some ordinary Swedish people: Charlie, a truck driver who lives in a boat, his friends (some of which are musicians), and work mates. Charlie, who is a good-natured and uncomplicated person, agrees to let a woman he doesn't know stay in his boat for a couple of days. She is pregnant and has nowhere to stay. After a while, they come to like each other. At the same time, a friend asks Charlie to take part in a pro-Cuba demonstration, which forces Charlie to think over his political views.
The movie is very entertaining, if you like to see real people in real situations, confronting real issues. The script is interesting and well written, as is the dialogue. The tone is one of optimism, even joy, despite the unpolished, at times bleak, realism. A fair amount of humour contributes. As an added bonus, in the roles of Charlie's musician friends, you get to see and hear some of the best known Swedish jazz musicians of the late 60s, like Lasse Werner and Christer Boustedt. To sum up: recommended.
A final word about the politics of the movie. A previous reviewer wrote that the political views expressed in the movie are naive. This is only partly true. The opinion that socialism will make society better is indeed naive, since in practice socialism leads to a waste of resources and a loss of freedom for the individual.
However, the description of how the United States government tries to force its will on smaller countries, is not at all naive. It is right on the money. It seems that many people back in 1970 understood this better than some people do today.
A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
Nowhere near as funny as it should have been
This movie deals with the making of a movie based on an 18th century novel. About halfway into it, the following dialog about the movie-in-the-movie can be heard: "Why are we devoting a year of our lives to making this movie anyway?" "Because it's funny." "Is that all?" "Yes, if it's genuinely funny, that is enough. But it has to be genuinely funny."
Unfortunately, the "real" movie is not even close to being genuinely funny. The jokes are few, most of them are lame, and some jokes which are mildly amusing are destroyed by being drawn out to interminable length. Nor does the movie work as an adaptation of the novel, because very little of substance is shown from the novel, or said about it.
Instead, most of the movie is taken up with the uninteresting personal life of actor/comedian Steve Coogan, presented in a very pretentious fashion. (Examples: is Coogan a bigger star than co-actor Rob Brydon, and should this be emphasized by having Coogan wear shoes with higher heels than Brydon? Does Coogan have time to make love to his wife who has turned up at the place of the filming with their child, or is he too distracted by his work?) This material is excruciatingly boring and (due to the pretentiousness) severely annoying.
It is symptomatic of the lack of substance and originality of this movie that much of its soundtrack is borrowed from other, much better movies: Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2, which also deals with the making of a movie, but in a much more intelligent (and funnier) way, and Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract, still one of the best movies from the UK in the last 30 years.
To sum up: this movie is a failure, and not even an interesting failure. You may want to see it if (in the words of another reviewer) "Steve Coogan is the most important person in your entire universe", and if you don't mind long stretches of boredom interrupted by the occasional lame joke. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Brüno (2009)
Unfunny, repetitious, embarrassing
This movie was advertised as a comedy, but it only contains a handful of jokes that work. Most of the time, it is not funny, unless you are a little kid who enjoys teasing other kids (or adults).
In the movie, Sacha Baron Cohen pretends to be an over-the-top flamboyant homosexual, but this fact is not really important (except that it provides Cohen with an excuse to present a series of tasteless mock "gay" sex scenes). The core of the movie consists of Cohen lying to, disturbing, or wasting the time of a number of people who are either trying to work (an agent, TV producers, the singer Paula Abdul, congressman Ron Paul, hotel staff, military trainers, parsons) or to enjoy some leisure (the audience at a wrestling game, a group of hunters, the guests at a swingers party). These exercises (which quickly get repetitious and embarrassing) often end with Cohen's victims getting upset and leaving, or getting angry and telling him to leave.
By making people upset or angry, Cohen seems to believe that he has "won": he has shown his victims to be as aggressive and prejudiced as they supposedly "really are". However, in view of Cohen's behavior towards them, their reactions are completely understandable. None of them deserves the treatment that he gives them. (The worst example is probably Cohen's treatment of Ron Paul, which is extremely mean spirited and completely humorless.)
I have some suggestions for Sacha Baron Cohen's next movie(s). Cohen could advertise and sell tickets for a hard rock concert. When the audience has arrived, he introduces instead (without comment) a string quartet. This will no doubt make many in the audience angry, so we (I mean, Cohen) can laugh at them for being so aggressive and prejudiced. Or: Cohen could get a job at a vegetarian restaurant, and serve the customers dishes containing meat without saying so. Afterwards, he tells them what they have eaten, and asks them how they liked it.
In fact, it is so easy to come up with new ideas of this kind that Cohen could continue making similar movies for the rest of his life. If he loses his audience in the process, so what---most of them (us) are just stupid, aggressive and prejudiced anyway. Right, Sasha?