Reviews

A slow mystery thriller, seriously underestimated. Comments here about plot holes and unresolved issues rather show that some viewers missed clues and did not catch onto what was going on. Very pretty girl playing the twin(s). Ah, what lips. Not by any means a masterpiece, but anyway a great little thriller. At first the movie seemed to be something as rare as a genuine catholic drama, but the various themes were not developed in a religious fashion. Still the same theme appears in dozens of configurations, as if the author was wrestling with the same moral dilemma in ever character and plot structure: helpfulness in it's various guises, sometimes as sacrifice, sometimes as but the false shell of selfishness. This occurs not only in the main characters, but in virtually every minor act too, from journalists over fellow inmates to high priests and nuns. The main characters development is as I mentioned certainly not catholic, rather they discover to abandon the vain failure of self-sacrifice and Samaritan ambitions, and that to do real good you have to accept your own desires.

Flawless movies are rare. So what can you do with a perfect movie, but give it a 10 out of 10! This is a serial killer story made as a tense and haunting drama. The photography and scenery is ambient and beautiful. Jack Nicholson makes one of his best performances - and he is not playing his usual routine character.

There is a harsh moral to the story, which cannot be spoken more of, unless the movie gets spoiled.

Sean Penn is not only a great actor, he is as we can see here a fabulous director. The inventive and ambient, sensitive directorship of this movie also occurs, but in another tone, in Into the wild.

Most quick and flashy MTV-inspired editing is unbearable to me. Either it is one-dimensional like John Woo's 'Paycheck', where there is only one string of attention to follow, designed by the director, or it is a claustrophobic idiocy akin to the last fifteen minutes of Saw III - movies where the cutting of the movie or a camera movement has sound effects. I knew next to nothing about Slipstream when watching it, and was amazed to see a movie where quick editing felt open and refreshing. It is expertly made, with some of the most virtuoso sound editing you will ever hear, but instead of stress the quick cuts construct the brutal awareness of deep sleep. The movie itself is flawed, as it is a blend of two things. One is probably the original idea, a somewhat whimsy comedy about a movie writer interacting with his own movie. The other is the fantastic scenes that emerged, of which the early scenes with a traffic queue and a madman is the best example. It is made in a way that resembles the way our minds store strong memories, like those from the childhood. The acting in the movie is also great, with the exception of some overacting that is supposedly meant to show funny Hollywood movie producers and directors. But that belongs to the original idea, which Anthony Hopkins should have abandoned along the way, to instead develop the piece of art that this almost became.

This movie starts good with excellent recreations of 60s soul. You think you are in for the time of your life. But a bit into the movie, when we reach the late 60s, this musical loses touch with the history of the American soul music it aims to portrait. Song after song, the music turns worse and worse, and at the same time the movie gets worse too, losing itself in sentimental junk. Now, we all know soul music in real life also turned worse. It never got the force back that it had in the mid and early 60s, and much 70s soul was bland and terrible, though not as terrible as what counts as mainstream "r&B" these days. But there was good 70s soul too, and let's not forget funk. This movie forgets it. After the fairly adequate and great display of 60s soul styles in the beginning, the rest of the music is antiseptic, orchestrated Broadway fake-soul ballads of the worst type. The mood of the last half of the movie is a long-winded 'the good days are gone' melodrama of seriously bad quality. My advice: look a the first twenty or so minutes, then forget about it.

This could have been a good movie. I dutifully expected a weak and predictable plot and an average Hollywood thriller. That's what the reviews said, and that's what they usually say about some of the best thrillers every year. Often a bad movie has a point where it will loose it's audience. For me, the point came gradually, as the always present and insisting soundtrack of noises, ambient sounds and Indian chanting drowned the dialogue and didn't add a single bit of the intended tension. The mtv-cutting of split second long memory flashes also became unbearable, because of their sheer amount and insistence all through the movie. The dialogue and plot also has a curve against wooden feel, starting acceptable and ending with you groaning in pain over the corny lines. Still, it might be worth watching once if on TV, if you liked Erazerhead.

This is a very stylish and artistic movie, but it doesn't forget to tell a story. It is all done in bleak and washed out colors. It is a poetic movie; while the genre is science fiction, the author obviously could not care less for real science fiction. It's just design material, just as the piece of Egyptian mythology. The story line is straight, and has a style that is a mix between french and Japanese comics. It has the deadly epic seriousness of anime, and the designwork is both kitsch and awesome at the same time, as is customary for the french metal hurlant style. And, most refreshing, there is not a hint of Hollywood in this. So, sit back and let it flow.

I give the movie nine out of ten, but I can't say I feel hungry for more. No, what I'd like to see on the screen is some real science fiction. Not Star Wars crap and not poetic artistry, but the real thing, a modern novel by the likes of Iain M. Banks or Greg Egan adapted for the screen. Sadly enough, sf for the movies is becoming something that is exploited for it's kitschy futuristic themes and it's design and action possibilities, rather than a way to express the true visions the bookshelves are actually overflowing with. But here's still hoping...

I love South Park and the straight-faced satire of Matt Parker and Trey Stone. They always have a humanist and old-fashioned naturalist approach to show the weaknesses in the limited and fashionable ideas in modern USA. They do their satire not by exposure, but by explosion: the ideas blow up in your face. Like when Matt Stone himself, interviewed in "Making Of South Park", says: "you know, we expect a lot of our people, but when they show up at the office, we're already there, and when they leave, we're still there, you know what I mean, and they can see how hard we work, and that, I think that inspires them, to work all the harder, for us". He delivers this line with such a straight face that you are lured into a semiautomatic approval of Calvinist work ethics, even if you know he's just joking. You might at times even feel insecure about where the satire ends: is it a joke about a joke? What does Matt and Trey *actually* think? *Do* they come first to the office every morning? You can't even save yourself by rolling the eyes and saying "of course not, you fool".

"Team America: World Police" is a puppet animation which is almost self-evident by it's title. The world police is a small team of vigilante puppets that fight world terrorism. In the opening of the movie you soon see them cheerfully destroy the Eifell tower in a fight against semitic-looking terrorists in Paris... and you get the joke. But when they are critized by Hollywood actors for this act of destruction, the critics are exposed as hypocrites that actually work for the evil terrorism of the world. In fact, we will see the workings of a 'republican conspiracy theory' turn real. Typical Matt and Trey!

The movie is a lot of laughs, and makes fun of an endless row of Hollywood clichés and has tons of movie references. The satire is never done plumply. You will listen to patriotic country music almost thinking you hear the real thing.

This is a truly great catastrophe movie. It is a typical Hollywood product, so you have to be tolerant towards the tired reenactment of worn clichés. Also, you might regard the speculations of a new ice age as a placeholder for a plausible explanation, or just take it as the ordinary right to speculate that we grant sf writers. Finally, they don't know anything about wolves, but...shrug. It's a very well done movie. It has a perfect dramatic build-up, awesome effects and it does not become too cheesy. I enjoy seeing New York and Los Angeles getting smashed up so much that I have watched it three times already. Another delirious moment is when Mexico closes the border and Us citizens enter Mexico illegally. Finally the movie is a starting point for serious informaton and discussion about global warming and pending disasters.

There is one very interesting fact in this movie that I must point out. You have seen in Hollywood movies that cars and helicopters explode if they crash. As seen in this movies, that is not valid for British helicopters. They crash with no explosion, thus making survival possible. I hope that American manufacturers of cars and helicopters will take this fact to their hearts when making new designs.

Mark Borchardt is the wannabe director made hartless fun off in the documentary "American Movie". Coven is his supposedly worthless movie.

I watched it a week ago and thought it wasn't that bad.

But wait a minute. This last week I have watched "Paycheck" and "Kill Bill Volume 1". They were really crap. Compared to them "Coven" is a masterpiece.

What Coven does not have is production value. The kind of dependable thing you find in your average TV-movie.

What Coven does have is artistic vision. Borchard has a camera eye for sure. The story is different for sure, an existential and delirious take on drug addiction.

This movie starts promising. In the end it is a piece of junk you'd rather have missed. Philip K Dick is good material for movies, no problem there. Sadly enough there's still no movie that does him justice. But that's okay, as long as you get something to chew on. No, the problem here is the most tedious directorship of all time.

John Woo is not without talent. I rather enjoyed Face Off. But here he is completely one-dimensional. Through camera movements and surely much too much time allowed in the cutting room, he is taking the viewer on a leash. Watch this, now close in on that. Now jump through the hoops of these dozen quick cuts to see the motorbike chase. It's the kind of thing other directors use for at most four seconds, in the culmination of an action scene. John Woo uses it continuously, making the most unwatchable movie in history. He has lost the viewer long ago, but continues pumping in dramatic music, well-balanced camera movements from both left and right, cuts, cuts and cuts... He should go look at some good movies to learn a thing or too.

Amazing film about boys growing up as gangsters in a Rio De Janeiro ghetto. I haven't been there, and don't want to go! It is not a complete narrative about the ghetto, but a violent and living thing, full of machismo. You lack the perspective from the women, the peaceful children, the workers - those that kept everyday going through the mayhem. So it is in essence a gangster movie. Cinematically, and partly in subject, it reminded me a lot of the 1974 O Amuleto De Ogum. I saw little documentation for that one, but check it out if you have a chance - it saw it on swedish television ages ago, and it "blew me away" much as this one. There are also other violent argentinian movies, and I wish I could make a proper list, but I know to little. Maybe later. I see references to Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas...but these comparisons are misplaced. Especially, some young americans should learn not to call everything Tarantino. There's a story of gangsters movies, and there's a tradition of gangster movies, that go way back, and which is international. I enjoyed the movie fully, because of all aspects - actors, cinematography, the depiction of kiddie gangs, the brutality. It is genre perfect. But even a top movie, a 1o points movie, is allowed to be critized. I think that the playing with time - introducing scenes in advance, and making us confused, was unnessesary. Even if everything was nicely explained in the end, it would have better flow with straight story telling. I often wonder why gangster leaders are so irrational, like Ze in this movie. They just can't use those violent methods and expect to succeed. But I guess those sociopats are the one that leave most stories to be told after them.

This was one of the funniest comedies I have ever seen. Almodóvar is in a hilarious, flimsy mood. The convoluted story feels somewhat as if Dario Argento, master of italian giallo, had cooperated with Edika, the not so inhibited french comics maker. Most humour come from the direct, practical and naive manner in which Kika, cosmetologist, handles the most tragic and disturbing situations. Forget about drama - this is a farce, and in the humour lies the usual Almodóvar admiration and wonder over females.

Ever since Yvegeny Zamyatin's book VI (1924), the same dystopy has been ripped-off and replayed. The big war ends in dictatorship, which controls people into their very minds, inhibiting feelings and displaying a vulgar superset of rationalism, fascism and futurism. A good citizen gets feelings, falls in love, joins the resistance and eventually meets the Boss. The first big ripoff by Orwell wasn't that bad, and had something to add. But after that it's been all downhill. It's sad, because it would be possible to make a dystopy that had some relevance.

Equilibrium has absolutely nothing to add to this genre. But then, maybe it can be redeemed by being stylish? Well, if you like kitsch. If you're not bored by Matrix type action scenes. Personally, I think they were the boring part of Matrix. If you like picking out references, there's a game for you when the movie get's boring. When it resembles - unintentionally, I am sure - Brazil, it might give you a laugh. You'll stop laughing when you loose count on the Matrix-like foyer fighting scenes.

Good futuristic movies *have* been made after Lang's Metropolis. In recent years we've had Dark City and Minority Report, for instance.

But good riddance to all comparison. What about just watching the movie? Try not to fall asleep... because it's not much of a movie at all.

It's an awful script that Brian de Palma made himself. The acting is bad all the way, which is the fault of the director. But there is still the cinematic bit, which is simply brilliant. Timing, angles, cuts ... it's all inspired and crafty. So what's the problem with de Palma? Maybe it's like with italian director Dario Argento: some things are so important that he misses the whole picture. But Argento is forgiven because of his artistic vision. He's got something to express. de Palma has no vision, and nothing to express really. He doesn't care, as long as he gets to plan the sets and play with camera angles.

I hope he gets a good script the next time, and an assistant that cares about the quality of the acting.

This is an entertaining action-thriller. It's done in very rough archetypes, thin cardboard characters and painfully obvious manipulations, all exposed plainly for us to enjoy ...

I believe the starting point must have been: terrorism is not popular in USA right now. But let's make up a situation where they will have all sympathy with a person that takes hostages and threatens to kill them. What do we have to dig up from the *american values* to get away with that?

And the movie delivers, all the way from that starting point and on to the sentimental end. People do love the terrorist.

For all of us non-us people, this movie is a great and horrible lesson. It's a journey into a truly alien mindset. It must surely have been produced with a grim ironic smile.

The moral is that there is a point where terrorism is ok. It's when the plain guy only has two options left: be a political animal or use the gun.

This movie tells the story of the 'first' major battle between US and Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam war. It's an interesting movie. The amount of cheese and hollywood cliché is so rich, they have to be kidding. It has an ironic feel to it, much like Starship Trooper. Scene after scene is so full of hilarious gems... The best bit with the movie is the large amount of fighting. Sometimes the story is not coherent, and the same scene - americans firing perfect shots at advancing vietnamese, who fall down en masse - is repeated over and over again. But at others times it's an excellent war movie. One especially perverse aspect I enjoyed is the almost pornographic exposure of wounded persons, complete with sentimental music. They even whisper some 'perfect' last words... Another funny thing is watching Mel Gibson whacking everyone loudly on the helmets, adding his fatherly touch as leader of the american soldiers. The real advantage of the movie is that it actually tells the story about a battle. It is a 'clean' battle. That's refreshing. The typical american Vietnam movie is usually about dope smoking soldiers performing atrocities. In movies like 'Platoon' and "Full Metal Jacket' the directors could not care less about the overall military aspect of what's happening. The overall picture told in "We Were Soldiers" is that the american military goal was really void of strategy - "kill the enemy", what a laugh - and that the tactics involved an outrageous amount of risk taking, both with lives and with the possibility of disaster for the operation. In the end, the americans pull it off. They do indeed manage to make the Vietnamese body count high. Mel Gibson then raises a tiny, tiny american flag.. if it had been a big one, someone in the theater might get offended, I guess.

When did I last see a movie that managed to keep it's ambience of insecure tension throughout? Oh yes, that was Arlington Road by the same director. Mark Pellington is a crafty director, and his strength lies in the pacing and the exploitation of uncertainty. As quite many were lost to this movie, this is not to everyone's taste. You need to approach this movie with a serious mood, unsuspended disbelief and a moderate attention span.

This is an entertaining movie, even if it has some flaws. Good acting, crafty directorship and a fine sense of pace and build-up saves the movie, even if the plot is dumb. I don't mind bland and forgettable thrillers, if they entertain. But it's odd that the director could make this after a masterpiece as Ronin. It's an eternal mystery to me when directors go from inspired, ambient art to a bland sleepwalk of craftmanship. But they do it all the time. Maybe it is a kind of revenge on the industry for not letting them to the movies they really want to do.

The first half of this movie was a nice surprise. It manages to create interest, first as a cop killer thriller and later as a drama about people confined to an isolated building in a snowstorm. After that, the movie falls to parts. The music score and the noice of the storm gets stronger and stronger, supposedly to help the build-up of tension. But the confinement drama has no tension. I'd say the point where the film will loose it's audience is half-way through. The second part of the movie is very badly cut - probably by others than the director in an effort to "save the disaster". So if I get the chance, I'd very much like to see a directors cut.

'Inferno' is the kind of movie - like Gilliams 'Brazil' - where a few of us will leave the theater enriched by the experience, but there's also the sour-faced crowd dismissing it as the worst crap ever.

I came upon Argento's movies just recently, looking for good horror films. Now I've enjoyed Suspiria, Tenebre and Inferno. At first his original style came as a shock. I can understand those that, accustomed to hollywoodian narrative, find his movies to be full of faults. I wouldn't even recommend them if you're looking for 'ordinary', mainstream horror.

'Suspiria' reminded me of the 1933 'Vampyr' by danish director Carl Dreyer. 'Inferno' has echoes of German director Fritz Lang, for instance his 1933 The 'Testament of Doctor Mabuse'. Much of the Argento way of doing things has a silent movie era feel to it. The acting is visually exaggerated, and the dialogue is often wooden - the awful dubbing of english voices in the versions I saw added to this effect.

Argento makes different choices. The music, for instance, is not adding atmosphere as a soundtrack - it is a full frontal assault, meant to be noticed and impossible to ignore. The cinematic choices of camera angles, lightning and so on are stylish and unique in their unrelenting artistic ambition. I can't even begin to describe the style. Even if I mentioned Dreyer and Lang, Argento is more expressionist than impressionist, but for lack of good words I'll shut my mouth about this subject.

I have to defend Argento against the claims that 'Inferno' has an incoherent plot. It simply doesn't - the story is fairly straight and linear. The evil depicted is not rational, and we are often left in the dark as to the acts and motives of the evil forces. But this is part of the horror and suspense. I won't go into more details about the plot, as there are many excellent user comments here, and this is not really a review, just some comments.

Some parts of 'Inferno' are pure beauty - exact scenes, feeling more like a storyboard coming to life in the imagination than as a real movie. The design of the house of the second Mother is fascinating - modern and medieval at the same time.

Finally, some individual scenes are truly scaring, which is rare in horror movies - especially the underwater scene.

This movie is a rare gem. It's not for everyone's taste, but for me it's one the best movies ever. Basically, it's a modern film-noir with dark humor. You can just sit back and enjoy it. But if you look more closely, it's an economic discussion of the morality of modern urban man, economic because a whole bunch of opposites get thrown together: urban-rural, male-female, man-animal, exploitation-empathy and so on. Sean Penn is fantastic as the guy who continually fails to do the right thing. The other actors are also at peek performance. Even Jennifer Lopez manages to act. She represents the exploited and lost qualities : native, female, hope...

If there is anything bringing the film down at bit, it's the smugness of both directorship and script. Often they are too laid-back, tricky and too much in control of what's going on. This makes the movie more of a pastiche than the real, hit-me-where-I-live thing. But it kind of goes with the territory if you're making a film noir today. Also it's part of the urban decease that this movie condemns, and it's up to the audience to provide more decency, empathy and a way out.

I am not a fan of Oliver Stone, and don't care much for his other movies except Salvador, but this one he succeeded with.

The Hole is a chilly and different thriller. Don't expect anything like a teenage slasher from this made in England flick. The chill factor was at times almost on a par with Shallow Grave. There's a slight kinship to other thrillers from 2001, like The Bunker and Session 9.

The plot is rather thin, and what there is of it should remain unknown to not spoil that bit of fun.

When people are confined to a small space in a 'quality' movie, you'd expect them to expose each in a profound stream of words that would do better on stage, but this movie happily has nothing of that.

There some sinister character development which I really enjoyed. You might say, tongue in cheek, that the movie is really about a young girl coming to terms with her potentials of desire and cunning.

I finally got around to see this movie, mainly because of it's connection to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. But this movie is not playing in the same league at all.

The cinematography is very much like a movie from the 60ies : Just as you had some inkling of excitement and some focus to the story, there's a diversion. The diversions don't have a music score suitable for a film, but rather hit music complete with lyrics. These songs even drown the dialogue in the movie - what were they thinking?

By today's standards, this movie is corny and dull. There's only one scene that has aged well - the attack on the ice cream van. Otherwise, it's bland. You wouldn't see this cheesy dialogue and bad acting in even a b-movie today. This makes this flick a nice history lesson - something has changed to the better during the years.