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Reviews
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
Mixed feelings
I had mixed feeling when I watched this movie. If you look at it from a cinematic point of view, it was a good movie: the camera, the colors, the costumes, the music and most of the acting was good. On the other hand, there were a number of flaws which irritated me very much.
The main villain was portrayed in an extremely annoying way. His behavior was such that I cannot imagine that he could have existed for a very long time without someone doing something about it. He is a restaurant owner, a thief, an extortionist and a gangster, He uses violence and torture and has no problem whatsoever with the law, revenge, or even loss of customers whom he mistreats. I could believe such a character could exist a few ages ago, but not in the last half of the 20th century.
The other problem I had with the movie is that it virtually has no story at all. The plot centers around the different aspects of revenge, but had no sub-plot at all. The cook and the lover characters have appearances with the two other characters, but we learn nothing about their background or why they behave as they do.
The last part which bothered me was the ending: There were a lot of witnesses, but somehow all the supporting villains were missing to prevent what happens.
If you like beautiful pictures you will like it, but if you like a believable villains and a consistent and good plot, skip this movie
I like both, therefore I gave a 6 out of 10
Alien Visitor (1996)
disappointing interpretation of interesting concepts
This a movie which needs the story to carry itself: the scenery is nice but there is nothing much else to be seen. The story touches on a number of important social subjects such as protecting the environment and tolerance between cultures as well as SF subjects such as time-travel and alien visitors. Unfortunately it does not deliver on any of these subjects. It points out problems but never hints at any solution. And how do the aliens solve these problems? Well, they have a superior intellect and solve everything through their mind: time and space travel, energy production and everything else you can think of. I do not expect the makers to have all the answers, but just summoning up things which are wrong does not validate this movie.
The beginning was promising, but I ended up being disappointed in the end
Der schweigende Stern (1960)
Good movie for its time
It is always difficult to rate or recommend an old movie. Especially for hard SF movies, things date really quickly and special effects seem rather silly by todays standards. Given that, this movie was rather well made, tried to predict technological advances reasonably (although I'd love to see that anti-anti-gravity device!) and had potentially a good story by Stanislaw Lem. The movie would probably have had a much better story line if it hadn't been cut in half and might have become a classic. For now, it doesn't come beyond the usual warnings about technological advancements such as nuclear bombs - although I admit that was a rather new message in the time the movie was made. Acting wasn't particular good, but no worse that other SF movies in that era.
Is it worth watching? If you like SF movies, and are not prejudiced against old "dated" effects: Yes. Not spectacular, but a good watch
Dune (1984)
Dune(1984) TV version is better as the movie
It is still not true to the original Frank Herbert tale, but it is a definite improvement to the story line of the David Lynch movie.
It explains a lot more of the original storyline to the viewer and makes it more accessible to the general viewer. Even the Dune fan will find this an improvement over the original movie - even though there are some minor negative points. It adds some 50 minutes to the movie and takes away some 5 minutes. After seeing it, I think it is a definite improvement.
Good points - Prologue explains a little bit of the background - Some of the more distastefull scenes have disappeared (fi. the vampire like scene with baron Harkonnen) - The plot within plot is much more visible and the visionary details are more explained - We hear Gurney play! - The water ritual of the fremen is much more explained
Negative points - Prologue is a definite aftertought - Good, but not in style with the movie - timeline within the movie is still wrong - Sound and music are not as good as the movie version - I prefer princess Irulan as the voice over - especially since she is the historian in the later books. - The ending is still not true to the book
All in all - this is a very difficult book to film, I think this TV version of David Lynch's film is a reasonable effort.
I admit I am hoping the new TV series will be more true to the book, but it will be a challenge to be better.
Nightfall (2000)
Disappointing adaption of the Asimov novel
It is difficult to rate a movie adapation of a famous story like Nightfall because it will almost certainly disappoint most of its fans. The story and the setting is known, so the film maker has to add a storyline of its own to make it interesting. In this case the added storyline is very shallow and is distracting from the main story. It adds sorcerers as an integral part of the plot and this makes the movie weaker and moves the attention away from the conflict between science and religion. Add to this the sometimes poor special effects and you have a mediocre movie. Not really bad, but certainly nothing special.
Supernova (2000)
Nice scenery, below average storyline and acting
This movie is only interesting for hardcore SF fans, it has some nice scenery and some interesting special effects. The storyline is predictable and acting overall is not very compelling. The DVD's deleted scenes adds some background to the story and makes it more interesting - it would have made the movie a little bit better - although the alternative ending is stretching it too far.
Main flaw in the storyline is its simplicity: Mankind meets Alien, Alien wants to destroy Mankind. This kind of thing has been much better done in the ALIEN series.
All in all I give a 6 out of 10: Interesting for the SF fans because of the pictures, for anyone else not much to enjoy.
The Bone Collector (1999)
Nice movie, but does not deliver its potential
The Bonecollector has a lot of potential, and is definitely an interesting movie to watch, but it fails too much on suspense and consistent script to be top. Performance of the actors is good, filming is excellent, score is good, it just lacks on the script.
I rate it 7 out of 10. Good movie to watch if you like suspense/crime movies, but otherwise not exceptional.
Rocketship X-M (1950)
Excellent movie for its time
This movie is great in its predictions of how space travel would take place in the future (remember, it was released in 1950, way before any manned rocket launches). Of course there are some mistakes, but overall I am impressed how accurate they are. The plot is extremely simple, but the ending is in style with the realism it portrays (although not very hollywood-like) Acting is adequate, but stereotype of its age.
All in all, an enjoyable movie for SF fans
MTV Unplugged: Eric Clapton (1992)
Excellent capture of the MTV concert
This video is a great capture of the MTV unplugged concert. The audio makes you feel as if you were sitting in the front row of the studio - I just wish the video were in Widescreen instead of standard TV format. Clapton is an excellent artist, and this video shows it all: well known ballads such as "Tears in Heaven" as well as my personal favorite: the accoustic version of "Layla". If you like Eric Clapton this is a must have.