Change Your Image
GoldmundX
Reviews
Bezness as Usual (2016)
Honest, vulnerable and empathetic
This movie tells the deeply personal and humane journey of the director to understand his origins. A child of a Dutch mother and Tunisian father, who separated very early in his life, Alex Pitstra grew up in the Netherlands. He now visits Tunisia in order to get to know his estranged father, family and the Tunisian culture.
Although the story couldn't be more personal, Alex remarkably manages to preserve a compassionate openness and non-judgmental attitude that is truly rare. He honors all perspectives, of his mother, his father, and explores the complex interplay of cultural, sociological, political, economic and personal circumstances that brought his parents together, let to his existence, and caused the often challenging relationships he and they would develop with each other.
Alex doesn't shy away from sometimes painful confrontations, but these are never motivated by a need for superficial judgment or for painting a simplistic black and white picture. The empathetic curiosity that Alex manages to uphold throughout this emotional, touching but also at times comical journey is truly rare and commendable. Highly recommended!
Skyfall (2012)
From the Sky it fell indeed!
What a shameless mess of a movie. I loved Casino Royal and was relieved that the Bondfranchise finally seemed to be getting it right again after the embarrassing Pierce Brosnan episode. Casino Royal was a good movie, it was dark, gritty - good acting, good solid action and the plot made sense. Quantum of Solace was not as good, but not bad. This one however is just painfully retarded. It revels in coincidental, stupendous and illogical twists and turns, there's just no sense to it. Just random pretentious bull.
Bond should really have died in the first bit. And stayed dead. That would have saved the movie and been the honorable thing to do. Now they just made a disgrace of it all.
I am deeply disappointed. Sam Mendes! What happened? American Beauty is one of my favorite movies of all time! How could you? I am sorry to say so, but shame on you! Daniel Craig? You revived 007, rising again like a Phoenix - back into the ashes it is. Talking about a fall from the sky. Javier Bardem - tu quoque? I have never seen Bardem act so badly. It was painful. Was this the same actor that made my blood turn cold in No Country for Old Men? This performance was not even worthy of being compared to the shadow of a fart of the character in that movie.
NEVER will I watch a Bond movie again. It is beyond ruin and redemption now. SHAME ON YOU! The makers, that is, and the people who rate this up to over an 8. What is wrong with you people? Seriously.
Ethel (2012)
Goose bumps Galore
An amazing documentary, intimate, legendary and inspirational. The Kennedy family's history is truly without comparison: the hope, the tragedies, the passion, the idealism, the hard clashes with reality, the bonds of tragedy and love, I dare say that it is impossible to experience life more intensely than this family has. And then Ethel stands tall through it all, an amazing woman, wife and (grand- )mother, with her unfaltering smile. If it wasn't for their passion for politics and the family fortune, the Kennedies could have made a fortune in toothpaste commercials.
Apparently Ethel sat behind Obama in 2008 at a funeral, whispering in his ear: "the torch has been passed to you". How about them goose bumps?
Hotel Very Welcome (2007)
Severely underrated movie
I stumbled upon this movie by coincidence and was delighted by it but I am a bit puzzled by its low rating on IMDb. Maybe people just don't know how to categorize or appreciate Hotel Very Welcome as it is arguably one of a kind. At least, I don't recall any other 'real' backpacker movie (I hope we can agree The Beach, the Motorcycle Diaries, the Killing Fields and Hostel do not qualify). Having done my fair share of backpacking I've always wondered why there aren't more backpacker movies as it is an ideal vessel for storytelling: there's adventure, nature, culture, history, existentialism, humor, sex, drugs, alcohol... Plenty of material to make an interesting movie one would think. Without the need to spice it up with horror or hardcore drama. Mind you, I do think Return to Paradise was an excellent movie, but its merits do not originate from exploring ordinary backpacking situations. Hotel Very Welcome does just that: it portrays the backpacking experience in an honest, original, humoristic and genuine way. The acting and writing is truly outstanding and authentic - it sometimes almost gives you the feeling you're watching a documentary.
The choice to make this a mosaic movie, telling 5 different stories, that each highlights a different aspect of the backpacking experience, I find no objection at all. Each of the stories (some more than others though) are very well done and explore the reasons people backpack and the challenges (internal and external) they encounter in an original and humoristic way. The humor is quite subtle though and knowing a bit of German would be beneficial in appreciating that subtleness. The fact that these separate stories eventually not come together (in an Innaritu kind of way) or 'go somewhere' I find in no way problematic as another reviewer seems to argue. Each story has meaning in itself and as any backpacker would happily point out to you: "it's a journey, not a destination".
Highly recommended and if you're watching it on DVD: don't miss the Deleted Scenes. Great stuff as well.
Ang-ma-reul bo-at-da (2010)
I saw a bad movie
Many reviewers who give this movie a good rating assume that most critics are put off by the violence and the bloodshed and then proceed to support their appreciation for the movie by explaining that one needs to look through the (apparently necessary) gore and appreciate the deeper layers of the movie. Well, I wasn't necessarily put off by the gore, although I don't appreciate gore for the sake of gore (I don't like the Saw movies). I think Old Boy was an excellent movie for example. That movie went far beyond violence and gore and covered themes like pain, loss and revenge in a wildly original, meaningful way. 'I saw the devil' attempts to do something similar (at least, that is what I assume), but it fails miserably.
The acting is actually quite good, Min-Sik Choi and Byung-Hun Lee are very capable actors, without any doubt. And the story starts off very promising. There's a good build up the first 45 minutes, but after that the story unravels into an inconsistent mess within no time. I deduct that the supposed moral of the story is that revenge cannot heal the inflicted pain, even if you try to live out your revenge in installments. And that in the end revenge backfires and the moral borderline between victim and perpetrator starts to dissolve. Fair enough, I've seen less illuminated morals in movies. But the execution of the idea undermines the whole purpose. A couple of examples:
- GPS-capsules are solid poop-proof and only flush out with diarrhea? And exactly at what level of mushiness does the capsule decide to go for the exit? These may seem like trivial questions, but are essential to the story development. And mind you, Kimchi tends to be pretty spicy.
- The first time the serial killer is set loose (temporarily) he happens to catch a ride with two killers (with a dead body in the trunk) - oh, what a coincidence. And of course he kills them, in a moving car. The secret agent discovers the 3 bodies, but somehow this does not convince him that his gamble to keep the serial killer on the loose may harm innocent bystanders (or are we supposed to believe that he knew they were killers and that justice was somehow done, despite the fact that he should know that the killer doesn't just have an appetite for 'guilty' victims as he butchered his fiancée). Many more people end up dead or traumatized because of this gamble. And don't tell me that his hatred and urge for revenge have already completely taken over his rationality and morality at that point - why then proceed 1,5 hours to portray this disintegration?
- The other cops are supposedly completely incapable and do nothing to stop the carnage. Our cop gone rogue uses his cell phone a number of times to call with the police but they have no way to track him down? Despite the fact that they have GPS capsules with microphones in their arsenal they cannot track down a mobile phone? And even when they meet him at his father in law's house they don't apprehend him? Moreover, when the serial killer decides to surrender to the police, about 50 cops are waiting at the agreed meeting point. Then, our rogue cop comes driving by and while driving pulls the serial killer (waving a knife) into the car and abducts him. And the other cops just stand by, doing nothing. What? All 50 cops came on bicycle or using public transport and cannot pursue a driver who is struggling to subdue a serial killer with a knife while driving?
- And so on, and so on
I'm willing to accept a (tiny) bit of illogicality, coincidence, inconsistency and even plain stupidity in a movie, but a movie should not be build on that. At least, that is my humble opinion. The rating this movie gets on IMDb shows that most viewers don't agree.
Nothing Personal (2009)
Mediocre copy of what it wants to be
The Irish countryside, silence, solitude... The synopsis sounds promising, but the execution just doesn't feel authentic. This movie tries to do something, be something, that it cannot deliver. I don't buy it, I don't believe it. It's not necessary to know a lot about a character's background to feel for the character, to get interested in a character. The opposite is often true. But there needs to be something that you can work with, can relate to. Something that grips you, at the very least the character needs to make you care. I just found the girl annoying. Instead of being intrigued by her, I grew very quickly very tired with her act, which just seemed so immature. She just acted like a rebellious, capricious adolescent. That she may be of course, but that makes it hard (impossible really) to explore the deeper feelings the movie wants to explore through her character. And I couldn't detect much depth in 'the philosopher' as well. The 'pact' (don't ask, don't tell) they make is just an unimaginative cliché, that could work and has worked in some movies, but here it just seems like a cheap gimmick to try and make the characters seem more mysterious and interesting and their interactions more intriguing. I can see what the director was going for, but it just didn't work for me. And exploring themes like loneliness and love in a respectful, authentic, believable, gripping way, is not easy for sure. The story, characters, acting, setting, dialogues, music, everything must fall into place. The countryside was actually fairly well chosen, but the rest of the 'ingredients' just didn't cut it. I didn't get sucked in by the movie, just kept bumping into awkward little bumps in the story, character development and the acting was mediocre. There're some Asian (especially Japanese and Korean) directors, who really understand the art of portraying loneliness and love, and for whom's interested I would suggest looking into the work of Korean director Kim Ki-Duk or for example watch 'Toni Takitani' (after a story by Haruki Murakami). The cover scene from Nothing Personal, naked girl hugging the dead loved one wrapped in a sheet, is even 'borrowed' from an Asian movie (I cannot quite remember the name though). Nothing Personal just didn't feel right, it just felt pretentious. Nothing personal though.
Home of the Brave (2006)
So bad at times, it turns hilarious
This is really as bad and wrong as it gets. There've been several movies that highlight the difficulties soldiers go through when they come back home after whatever war they fought in. Most have at least tried to do a respectful job and some turned out into great movies (like Born on the 4th of July). Not this one. It's insulting. To veterans, to movie lovers, to people with a brain. At some points I thought, then hoped, it was actually a spoof. That might have been a bit distasteful, but would at least have explained the horrendous screenplay, abundance of cheesy clichés, stereotypes and bad acting. It's loaded with these cheesy flashbacks to help you understand the emotion at hand. Seriously, it is sooo bad at times, at some points it really gets hilarious and I was laughing out loud. Like the scene when Brian Presley's character comes to his dad's garage after 50 cents gets kind of accidentally shot by a sniper ("No no, god#*#!it") and looses it. His dad is a stereotype 'Man', hardliner ("shrinks are for pussies") but then shows his soft side and starts hugging his son extremely awkwardly, "it's OK, it's OK". It's hilarious. Do not buy the DVD but if you happen to have it like I do (it was in the $ 1 box) go to the 72nd minute for this classic scene. The laugh is worth a dollar. Some other great scenes: Jessica Biel is having a hard time coping with her hand prosthesis which is highlighted by exposing her to every imaginable situation were the prosthesis might get in her way. In one scene a man asks her if she 'needs a hand' (not kidding). In another scene her soon to be ex-boyfriend (casting didn't do a great job as well - the man is not really a believable boyfriend to Jessica Biel, with all due respect - and no, he's not beautiful from inside) spitefully tells her "I guess it only takes one good hand to push people away" (53d minute). I kid you not. But all laughs aside, this is meant to be a serious movie. And that's really really sad.
We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004)
An unintentional zombie movie
Couples with issues engaging in adultery, swapping partners, thus creating more issues. There's quite a few of these kind of movies. I never really get the point. But once in a while there's something to be found. But not in this one. These couples are supposively quite smart and according to the formula one of them is a writer (could have been an actor as well). And then they tend to make witty remarks. But not really. It's all just pretentious nothing. I greatly disliked this movie. It's embarrassingly awkward. It's not just that none of the characters are likable, none of them seems to have any backbone or heart, but they are really just hollow random inconsistent characters. Wandering bags of bones, blood and genitals. Which makes it impossible to care about what happens to them, what mess they create for themselves. Whatever. The dialogues and interactions between the 'characters' are so random, vague, illogical, pretentious and inconsistent, it leaves you cringing throughout the whole movie. Apparently Naomi Watts made this movie shortly after 21 Grams. I loved her in that movie. That was good drama,with believable characters. It's a shame to see her talent being wasted in a travesty of a movie like this. But no rain, no shine. This movie is rain for sure. Acid rain.
Silk (2007)
Prententious misfire
This movie tries to be an epic, period piece romantic drama. It has some of the main ingredients that are required to pull this off. There's costumes, travels, some beautiful (that's the only reason I gave it a 2/10) landscape shots, a guy, women, a not-too-subtle score to pull big emotions from us, all are present. But the most important ingredient they forgot: there's no heart. There's no passion. There's no chemistry at all. They even didn't take time to develop the Love between the main characters. Guy sees girl in bar (2 seconds). Then they walk past some flowers. Girl likes flowers. Guy eats a flower. They are in love. Sadly, I do not make this up. It is this shallow. And this is supposed to be the base for the rest of the movie. Well, it's just completely unbelievable. The dialogues are cheesy clichés and completely uninspired ("I will always love you" every time the guy goes on a trip; 4 times?), the acting is borderline amateuristic. Watching a movie can be a wonderful experience, it can draw you in, it can get under your skin, can touch something deep inside. This movie wants to be/ do all of that, but it fails completely. Bad movie making. A waste of time.
Cloaca (2003)
Awkward
Dutch movies have a tendency to be mediocre at best. Once in a while a movie comes by that surpasses the norm. This is not one of them. The story, while not the most original one, offers potential. Four old friends being confronted with the bankruptcy of their youthful ideals and midlife disillusionment, come together again and hope to refind themselves through each other. Plenty of potential one would think. But Cloaca fails to deliver. And that's really a missed opportunity. It could have been so much better. Bad writing and bad acting are the main culprits. It's an adaptation of a play, but it's maladapted to be suited for the screen. While some scenes offer an authentic feel, others are really painful, with awkward dialogues and clumsy overacting. Moreover, character development and the development of the relationship between the characters is awkward, undermining the whole movie. The flow of the movie doesn't feel natural. At points even the actors don't seem to know anymore. In some scenes they loose themselves in dramatic overacting, in other scenes they seem to struggle with the 'comical' elements. The collage near the end, with the substories coming close to a climax, doesn't fit well with the actually 'climax' of the movie, where the drama is not lifted, but slips through the fingers of the movie makers. It's a shame. The movie would have had more potential in more capable hands.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Watch out for permanent brain damage
I had to stop watching this movie because my head started to ache so bad, I was afraid this shameless eyesore might cause me permanent brain damage. It is gut-wrenching awful. It's an insult. It's mind-boggling really, how some of the same people that created the first Transformers, that I liked, could actually 'create' something this pathetic. Where the first movie had a decent storyline, good character development, a good pace and great action, they didn't even bother to put any thought into this one. Just throw in some robots, hot chicks and why not, let's try and be funny with a big dose of mindless college humor. But really mindless: it really feels like they just made a list of the usual ingredients that do well in these college movies - some hot chicks, horny guys, embarrassing situations, drugs, nerds, some more hot chicks, and than just poured it in there, just at random, whatever. The target audience loves this stuff, so let's give it to them. Seriously, it's an insult. The characters are reduced to simpletons, sacrificed to the urge to make this a comedy. 'Once they start laughing, they will just swallow the action without asking themselves why or how' is what they must have thought. Well, I did not laugh, nor did I swallow any of the action, that is actually too fast, nauseating at times, to be enjoyed (if you would be able to shut off your brain in the first place). I got a very nasty headache from this shameless attempt to cash in on the success of the first movie. Don't waste any money, brain cells, time or energy on this. Let it rot for the garbage it is.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Pointless, stupid, pathetic
I actually saw this movies months ago and for some reason I'd been able to block it out of my mind, together with the anger that was unleashed by watching it. But apparently it wasn't buried very deep and an unfortunate link on a website brought the whole damn thing back to me. So now I'll try and deal with it here and then lay it to rest for once and for all (and then nuke it). This movie is a disgrace, it's a shameless attempt to squeeze some more money from a successful movie-franchise, without even taking the trouble to write a good (or at least decent) story. The whole thing is pointless, the inconsistencies are mind-boggling, 83% of the movie makes no sense at all. Luckily I forgot most of the stupidities but some one cannot forget: - the 'climax' at the Skynet HQ: so John and Kyle are Skynet's biggest targets and Skynet's tried everything to get them and kill them - they get them/ trapped in their HQ and then only have one or two robots that fail to kill them? pffff - why does Skynet uses Kyle as bait for John to begin with? As Kyle is John's father to be, killing Kyle will erase John instantaneously - first John is very concerned that Skynet will find out about his secret base and keeps low profile, but then at one point he decides to blow up the mines around the base to get Marcus - surely that might attract some attention?
One of the most important points is that if you enter the possibility of time travel in story, you'll inevitably end up with the possibility of alternative realities and confusing, tricky story-telling issues and for sure, the former franchise installments were not rock-solid, but still they seemed to make sense and they made you care. And they kicked a#%. But this, this lifeless eyesore is a utter disgrace. Do not watch it, don't let the greedy, shameless makers earn a cent more for their unimaginative and lazy effort to make this 'movie'. Let us try and block it out of our common consciousness. Let's make it disappear. Forever and ever.
Margot at the Wedding (2007)
Thought-provoking, clever, bitter and a bit sweet
I'm glad this movie got made. It deals with a subject matter that is not often (and not easily) explored in movies. Anxieties and insecurities, that are an inevitable part of any self-consciousness being, are cleverly portrayed by introducing a fertile breeding ground in the form of a wedding/ family reunion. Although each person has its own issues, these cannot be seen apart from the social/ family network a person lives in. Family members are not just there to love or be loved by, but sadly often wind up being (involuntary) competitors in life or easy targets to play the blame game with. To pour all of this in a movie, and find a good balance between the drama and comedy, is not an easy thing to do. There's a big risk to mess it up, to turn it into a pretentious or shallow movie. But I think Baumbach pulled it off very admirably. Maybe keeping the quantity of the characters and issues a bit more limited could have helped to dig a bit deeper, but that would probably have alienated even more viewers, as it's definitely not a movie for everybody (judging from some of the other comments). If you like thought-provoking, clever bitter-sweet (more bitter than sweet) movies, don't miss it.
Ex Drummer (2007)
An existentialist's nightmare
A wildly original, very disturbing, portrayal of Belgium's dirty underbelly. A cynical writer who indulges himself with a short visit to life in the gutter by temporarily joining a punk band, does not only sit back to observe the tragic, utterly dysfunctional lives of his fellow band-mates, but takes a sardonic pleasure facilitating their complete downfall, tipping them over the edge. All sense of hope is overshadowed by an omnipresent grey cloud of nihilism.
Ex Drummer is raw, dark, and hilarious. The dialogues are brilliant; the 'mongolites' are no match for the spot-on , unforgiving verbal punches of the writer, whose aloof arrogance does not originate from a moral high-ground. As there is no moral, there is no high-ground, there is no meaning. It is what it is. And it's not pretty. But very entertaining.
Gran Torino (2008)
Did Eastwood's sense of quality take a holiday?
Eastwood has shown us many times before he understands the art of movie-making. That's why it's so confusing to see he was able to make such an embarrassing, almost amateuristic movie. Yes, in the beginning of the movie some of the over the top grumpy, racist, cynical one-liners are quite amusing, but then it just turns into an embarrassing spectacle of bad acting, bad writing, bad editing, just bad movie-making. The acting of the girl, and especially the boy next door are just gutwrenching to watch. My head was spinning by such a display of amateurism. I try to understand how on earth they could have ended up in an Eastwood movie. Are they his adopted children or children of friends or something? For sure he's doing somebody a huge favor to include them in the movie. Some of the scenes are really beyond bad. What's up with him connecting with the Asian kids by fixing the washing machine in the basement? The whole idea of the scene is stupid and embarrassing, let alone the execution of it. And than the scene when they are waiting for the girl, not sure what happened to her. Eastwood stares at his hand saying (something like) "at least in Korea we were expecting to loose one of us".... Can it get more cheesy than that? I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry. And than the scenes with the barber. The initial idea works out well and amusing - the barber and Eastwood doing their grumpy routine. But than they try and milk the idea and even introduce the boy (deprived of all acting skills) into their 'domain of real men' to teach him the way of Men (to curse). It just gets so embarrassing, you just want to leave the theater and get drunk to simply destroy the brain cells that stored the whole thing, to save you from uncomfortable flashbacks for the rest of your life. Let's just hope mr. Eastwood had a blackout, let's just hope his sense of quality returns and let's hope the majority of IMDb-ers grow a sense of quality so 'movies' like this don't end up in the top 100 of all time again.
Australia (2008)
Less is More
Australia starts out nice, with a bit of an fairytale/ magical feel to it. There're some original ingredients. And then a bunch of familiar ones as the stage is being set for the Big Adventure: the upper-class woman and the tough guy starting of on the wrong foot, but destined to warm up to each other, the underdog team of unlikely partners, the sheer impossible challenge and the bad guy trying to sabotage the good guys. But it works out nice and an epic adventure unfolds, with beautiful scenes of Australia. But then it turns out, this is only the first half of a movie that refuses to end. Instead of working to a nice ending, it pours in more and more ingredients, more hardships. The Lost Generation theme is expanded, racism has to be dealt with, the bad guy turns Pure Evil, and the romance faces hardships as mind, heart and spirit bump into each other. And what the heck, why not throw World War II into it as well? And so it becomes a bit much, it goes everywhere and nowhere and it looses its flow. It seems that when Hollywood is set on making an epic movie, it just refuses to keep it low key and it just cannot accept to have no explosions in it. I know they want to have as broad a target audience as possible, but they really overdo it in this movie I think. Less is More.
The Dark Knight (2008)
I'll tell you why so serious
I'm pretty serious about this one because I love movies. And since this movie is being rated as the best movie of all time, I was expecting something that could measure itself with the great movies of all time. I expected a movie that grips you, crawls under your skin and leaves you breathless. It does none of that. It is pretentious and inconsistent. It pretends to dig deep and dark and explore themes like morality, fate, good versus evil, heart versus mind, madness versus reason, and at the same time it wants to be this big spectacular action movie. But it fails miserably. It's all just a big clumsy pretentious inconsistent mess.
Yes, Ledger is good, but for his performance to really contribute to the movie, there should have been context. If the rest just doesn't feel right, it looses its potential. If you throw a diamond on a mountain of poop, it doesn't change much of the way it looks or smells. Love interest Maggie Gyllenhaal (great performance in Stranger than Fiction) produces no chemistry at all, so I wasn't really blown away when she was blown up. Editing feels weird. But most of all it was the inconsistencies that got to me. And then not just the 'practical' ones (like the inconsistent protective quality of the batman suit; or why leave an extremely dangerous criminal unrestrained with a tubby policeman in his cell ('hostage volunteer? you, tubby?'); a schoolbus is used twice to make a grand escape? - do they come with teleporter machines these days?; why would you want to ride your batmobile face down?; Batman lowers his voice to be unrecognizable, but how hard is it to follow a batmobile with a helicopter to its hiding place?), but more importantly it's crucial plot/ morality inconsistencies. Yes, the White Knight went through some traumatic experiences, but to turn to the dark side so wholeheartedly and sadistically? And then to just let the Joker (at least indirectly responsible for his trauma) walk when he only needs to pull the trigger? Oh yeah, forgot, he's Mr. Coin Toss now. But even if he is guided by blind fate now, he still determines himself who he goes after and whether it's OK to threaten to blow out the brains of little kids. And then the Big Bad criminal who throws the detonator out off the window. Ah! The Joke is on you Joker! People are not what you make them out to be. Even the baddest bad ass has a good heart. Never mind that just before when the Joker threatened to blow up a hospital unless an innocent lawyer was killed, there was a crowd with guns ready to shoot the guy within no time. Also, what with the vote on the 'good people boat'? They vote to blow up the 'bad people' (democracy at its finest) but then Nobody has the balls to do it? So they don't blow up the other boat because they think it's unjust, but because they're spineless hypocrites.
I applaud movies that try and deal with complex issues like conflicting emotions or morals, but to just make a big soup of it all under the pretense of 'but that's how life works, it's conflicting ideas, feelings and actions' is just a weak excuse for the inability or laziness to produce a good consistent story. Believe me, I detest black and white thinking and applaud the exploration of the Grey area. But that's not what this movie does. Piling a bunch of random inconsistent ideas on top of each other is not equal to exploring the Grey area.
The climax is the ending though (it usually is). Our dark knight has to sacrifice himself, has to live like a hunted animal in the shadow, because the People would not be able to cope with the idea of Denth doing bad things, despite his recent traumas. So it's better to LIE to the public, because they are too stupid to make up their own mind and their faith in goodness of man would be lost forever (despite the fact that they just tried to establish with the boat-thing that there's goodness even in big bad criminals). So Batman (whose enemies take advantage of the fact that he doesn't kill) takes the blame for a bunch of random killings that could have been linked to anyone - a Joker perhaps? (even if they wanted to absolve Denth from his crimes -I mean, evidence/motive would have been needed to link it to Batman too?) and goes off running ('run Forrest!') into the night to save us another day. Because you just can't trust people to make up their own mind, it's better to lie to them. It's for their own good. Great morale. Straight from the White House? But ey, why so serious?
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
A mediocre copy of what it should have/ could have been
Yes we expect crazy chases, fights on moving objects, nifty levers that put whole stone structures into transformer mode. And yes, that we get. But Indy was something more, he was inspired, he was witty, he was clumsy as a professor, audacious as an adventurer. And in The Last Crusade he was at his best and his sidekicks made him shine. There was chemnistry and you cared, for they cared. And you believed it and you went for a crazy ride. It felt true and good. And I hoped they could have maintained at the very least that level of quality. But they failed. I saw Harrison Ford not as Indiana Jones, but as an actor acting that he was Indiana Jones. The sidekicks I couldn't care for. They were quite unsympathetic actually, not like Marcus or Indy senior before. I liked those characters. Here we get a doublecrosser and quite an arrogant hotshot dumped in our laps. And then Marion returns, a bit bitter, but then set on fixing a midlife crisis by reviving an old romance. All of them not very likable and not quite capable of bringing the best out of Indy. And then we get some cheesy riddles to solve, that tend to be solved by contemplating them for a minute at most. And then we have a moral: too much knowledge is bad for you, it can blow your mind. Too bad the producers truly believe that, as they didn't venture to show or expand their knowledge of what made Indy great. They focused on the superficial stuff. And that is really too bad. But I still rated it a 5, as the superficial stuff was still pretty good, but as they took the soul out of it, which was at least halve, I give it a 5. But it saddens me to see a good man fade away without much grace. Yes, they will go on, they introduced us the new Indy, fresh and eager, impulsive and a bit of a show off. Indy was more subtle than that. Alas, we can always cherish the good old feeling the real Indy gave us.
Iron Man (2008)
Solid, maybe more
Solid as iron, with a potential of something more. I vaguely remember reading some of the Iron Man comics. I was too young to really appreciate it, and at the same time, I don't think they gave him the same depth and humanity this movie does. Robert Downey is like a fish in the water playing Iron Man, suave and cynical. He's not too cynical though to provide a certain depth. Not that it is all about depth. It's mainly about just enjoying a good ride with awesome special effects and a crafty screen play with great dialogues and a rockin' soundtrack. And then you might look a bit further. Maybe the big antagonist of Iron man isn't just one man, Obadiah Stane / Iron Monger. Maybe he represents the good old Military Industrial Complex, the good old War Monger, the one that brought you Vietnam and Iraq. The one Eisenhower, JFK and others warned about. And maybe The Matrix is just a good action flick with nifty special effect. And maybe this is just a good movie.
Desert Saints (2002)
So cheesy, so bad, it's not even worthy of a 'C movie' status
I bought the DVD as part of a promotion package, looking for movies that I would probably not enjoy very much, but that would be entertaining enough to watch while working out on my cross trainer (movies I wouldn't want to waste time at otherwise). But man, was I mistaken. It was complete horror watching this. The positive thing was that the anger and frustration that built up inside of me while watching it, could be unleashed in my workout (although I still have some left to write this comment). But I was close to tearing it out of my DVD player and destroying the Thing. A total disgrace. Beforehand I thought it might even turn out to be an OK movie, as Keifer Sutherland is definitely not the worst actor out there, but I'm surprised he got work after participating in this, this... rrrrr. The acting and screenplay are so painful, I was thinking at one point this must be a spoof. But even then, it would have been a sick, sick joke. If you try and copy from other movies, if you use so many clichés, at the very least (I mean, you have examples right?) try and reach a minimum level of quality. Enough time wasted on this. There's nothing that I can think of that could be a bigger waste of time than this movie. Watching the toilet flush for 88 minutes will be a better investment than watching this mindless, pretentious, lifeless eyesore.