Reviews

Watched this with three kids in an open-air cinema with lots of other families. Everybody enjoyed the light-hearted fare for what it is: a silly and fun low-budget comedy squarely aimed at pre-teen kids.

The plot is simple: Dad and his four kids are constantly arguing, which provokes the family uncle to suggest viking age family therapy in a back-to-basics forest retreat. The therapist couple running the retreat subjects various families to a series of viking challenges with the goal of bringing them back together. Hilarity - or at least some quite good fun - ensues.

The therapist couple is an amusing, ironic take on therapists and all of their bogus theories. Dad, uncle, the child actors and ther supporting cast all do a good job with their one-dimensional caricatured characters. The movie never gets cringey but stays true to its silly identity through-out. Unpretentious and true to itself.

Definitely recommended for 6 to 12-year olds and their parents looking for some innocent fun.

This movie enthralls you with the most amazing footage ever captured of the oceans that surround us. The commentary is minimalist, mainly a celebration of the diversity of ocean life, though with a warning at the end: we might be destroying much of that ocean life.

There is hardly any narrative, just as there wasn't in Perrins earlier "Winged Migration", but the succession of scenes is well-crafted and breaks in tempo make for a viewing experience with no dull moments whatsoever. The incredible imagery amply assures that.

Cutting-edge camera technology was used for the movie. Remote-controlled electric helicopters hovering over hump-back whales, cameras dragged by speed boats zoom along with fast-swimming sardines and helicopters brave terrible, stormy weather to capture mesmerizing footage of ships crashing through huge waves.

Not to be missed.

Out of the Present hardly qualifies as a documentary, much less a movie. Its main problem seems to be a severe paucity of raw material. This, however, has been exacerbated with rather inept editing.

Out of the Present touts itself as a movie about Sergei Krikalevs marathon MIR stay during the collapse of the USSR. We don't get a coherent narrative, though. The whole feature is nothing more than disjointed clips from space, Baikonur, Moscow and other places connected with the Soviet space program.

The main selling point of Out of the Present is certainly the clips from life on the MIR. These are unfortunately not as interesting as they could be. Half of them are of a dreadfully crummy TV quality, and the rest, filmed with 35 mm., are often out of focus. They are all short and shot without plan.

It would have been a saving grace of the sparse material if it had been enhanced by an interesting narrative. This is not the case though. There is no interview with Krikalev, no coherent story line. Just various clips, some of them completely useless and drawn out. A typical voice over will be just words like "is there still film in the camera? - yes. - OK." Sub-par computer graphics have been used to morph MIR into the space station from "A Space Odyssey" in a sequence that begs the question "why was it done?". Another sequence is devoted to the rioting in Moscow during the final days of the USSR, shown in amateur video with no narrative to support the images and create a context.

Out of the Present can unfortunately only be qualified as a non-movie. As such, it can only appeal to the most hard-core space buff, who already know much about the Soviet space program and just wants to see a few more images from MIR. This movie could have been much more than it is.

This is the story of a man and his dog, a story acted out on two backdrops: One is the depressing socio-economic situation of Argentina, where jobs are few and far between and life becomes an eternal quest for a few pesos, a job, dignity. The other backdrop is the harsh but grand nature of Patagonia, windswept vistas, arid land, cold air and a strong sun beating down on the expansive landscape.

Coco is looking for a job and a living. He's single, 55'ish and staying at his daughter's place, trying to not be in the way, and trying to help out, but unable to aid the family economically. He is a good man, willing to work but not to be unjust in his dealings with other unfortunate people.

One day he selflessly helps a woman stranded on a deserted road with a broken-down car. As a thank you he is offered the huge dog of her deceased father: He accepts it, little knowing how it will change his life.

The basic premise of this movie is that if you're a good person, you will be rewarded. Knowing that reality in a country like Argentina is very far from this, we - as spectators - always fear that Coco will be cheated by somebody.

The movie progresses at a slow, deliberate pace, reflecting the immobility of Patagonian life. More than a story, because there is actually not much of a story told, it gives us an ambiance, a feeling for the life of people in these southern regions of Argentina. It is a beautiful anthropological document, even more so because the protagonists are completely believable, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that they aren't even played by professional actors.

Recommended as a sweet, small movie for a quiet evening.

Based on NASA flight director Gene Kranz' autobiography "Failure is not an Option" this documentary traces the history of NASA Mission Control during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, with special emphasis on Apollo 1, 8, 11, 12 and 13.

While Kranz' book often comes out as overly jingoistic and with an excess of pathos, this documentary strikes a good balance between depicting the historical background of the space race, the technical issues of spaceflight and the emotional impact on Mission Control personnel.

To people very familiar with the events of US manned spaceflight in those years, there is not much new information to be gained from the documentary. There is Conrads difficult Gemini spacewalk, the Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 8 going around the moon, the Apollo 11 moon descent crises (Computer alarm and low fuel), Mission Controller Aarons reset of the Apollo 12 during launch and of course the whole saga of Apollo 13. All is told through the eyes of Mission Control, its directors and controllers, with the astronauts only appearing as fuzzy voices on the radio downlink.

The strength of the documentary is that it shows us the faces and voices of the Mission controllers. From the perspective of 2003 they re-tell their stories in a seamless narrative illustrated with mostly original film, but also a little re-enactment, which happily is not too intrusive (even though it does show people watching a Mercury launch in colour on their home TV set..). The contrast between the young faces filmed in the 60's and the present-day aged and haughty demeanor of the same men is a captivating reminder of the passage of time. Working in Mission control was obviously the high point of their lives, so there is a slightly nostalgic note to their account.

Some things about the documentary can be criticized. Space buffs will miss technical details, and not much is being said about the system of shifts in Mission Control, that is, how "colourcoded" teams managed the job of mission control 24/7. Also, the focus is very much on the telegenic Gene Kranz, to the detriment of the other mission directors and controllers. This is probably unavoidable when we're dealing with the TV medium, which needs easy-to-follow stories and a captivating protagonist.

If one wants a true insight into NASA mission control, one has to read books about it. This documentary will however serve as a primer, and a good one at that. It is emotional to hear the story of NASA's crises and triumphs, re-told 40 years on by the men who were actually there. They might not quite be unsung heroes, since their feats are well-documented, but they certainly deserve to be heard once more by new audiences.

In this fast-paced documentary we get a good, complete re-telling of how a strong-willed group of airplane enthusiasts braved the elements, financial difficulties and at times seemingly their own incompetence, to raise a P-38 from deep inside the Greenland ice-cap.

The documentary isn't shy about recounting the personal difficulties and conflicts in this (over time, changing) group of men, who first can't find the "lost squadron", and then has huge difficulties in raising one of the planes that crash-landed on the Greenland ice-cap in 1942.

After the P-38 is painstakingly extracted from the ice, it takes a full ten years to restore it to flight-worthiness, a time which is covered more lightly than the Greenland period. The triumphant first flight is the climax of the documentary, and it is a truly beautiful sight to see "Glacier Girl" take to the skies.

Only slight misgivings I have about the program, is that it can be difficult to separate the protagonists, sometime I had a hard time remembering who was who. Also, I would have liked to have it mentioned that Greenland is actually not US territory, it hardly comes through in the film that Greenland is much more than just a big pile of ice & snow.

Anyway, there's much to tell in a big story like this, and I think the choices made as to what should go into this 1½ hour are generally correct.

The story is not just one of technical challenges, but of personal hardship as well. Highly recommended!

This documentary is about the two final flights of the Burt Rutan rocket-plane flights which both broke the 100 km. altitude barrier and thereby won the X-prize. It is a great, exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at events.

The documentary is the sequel to "Black Sky: The Race for Space", which tells the story of the development and test flights of SpaceshipOne. The Discovery Channel film crew that made both documentaries got exclusive access to the project, and it certainly shows that nothing was hidden to them.

Presented in a quick almost music-video-like pace, the documentary doesn't delve into much technical detail, but rather goes for an emotional impact, through the interviews with the protagonists: engineers, pilots, their families and Mr. Rutan himself. With great frankness they discuss their aspirations and fears, and really manage to transmit the entrepreneurial spirit and "frontier" mentality that was the backbone of the project. Also, the fears of the relatives of the test pilots come through in some rather emotional parts of the documentary.

The SpaceshipOne flights looked rather effortless on TV, but here we get to see that, well, it wasn't all that simple to strap a big huge rocket to the back of a man, and propel him into the stratosphere! Cockpit views during flight makes it clear that it took a lot of guts to get into SpaceshipOne, a real pilot's plane with only the minimum of instrumentation to keep it light. There were some harrowing moments during the flights, and it is all told in nail-biting detail.

For an exciting and touching documentary about the SpaceshipOne prize-winning flights, this is the one to watch.

This documentary about the development of SpaceshipOne, the Burt Rutan rocket-plane that broke the 100 km. altitude barrier and claimed the X-prize, is a fabulous, exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the whole project.

Burt Rutan said - in a speech after the final SpaceshipOne flight - that the whole flight crew had actually watched this documentary the night before the flight, and had been very touched by it. The Discovery Channel film crew got exclusive access to the project, and it certainly shows that nothing was hidden to them.

Presented in a quick almost music-video-like pace, the documentary doesn't delve into much technical detail, but rather goes for an emotional impact, through the interviews with the protagonists: engineers, pilots, their families and Mr. Rutan himself. With great frankness they discuss their aspirations and fears, and really manage to transmit the entrepreneurial spirit and "frontier" mentality that was the backbone of the project. Also, the fears of the relatives of the test pilots come through in some rather emotional parts of the documentary.

The SpaceshipOne flights looked rather effortless on TV, but in "Black Sky" we get to see that, well, it wasn't all that simple to strap a big huge rocket to the back of a man, and propel him into the stratosphere! Cockpit views during flight makes it clear that it took a lot of guts to get into SpaceshipOne, a real pilot's plane with only the minimum of instrumentation to keep it light. There were some harrowing moments during the trial flights, and it is all told in nail-biting detail.

For an exciting and touching documentary about the SpaceshipOne project, this is the one to watch.

Another documentary, called "Winning the X-prize", is the follow-up to this one, and deals with the two SpaceshipOne flights that actually took the X-prize home. That one is made by the same Discovery Channel crew, and is great as well.

This film is not very interesting or important in its own right. However, it was the movie which inspired Leni Riefenstahl to get into film-making.

She was a dancer in the early twenties and her eye was caught one day by a movie poster in a train station. She missed the train but saw the movie: "Berg des schicksals" (Mountain of Destiny). The scenes which particularly inspired her were scenes of dramatic cliffs and mountains in silhouette, with mountaineers braving the void as they climbed them. Riefenstahl contacted the main actor and Fanck, the director, and completely charmed them. Fanck wrote the script for his next movie around Leni, and her acting career took off.

The story is told in the interesting documentary "The wonderful horrible life of Leni Riefenstahl" from 1993.

So, a rather humdrum "mountain movie" with mainly beautiful scenery, but one which has its place in film history.

The irreverent Fields gives spark to what would otherwise have been a quite humdrum comedy movie.

His politically incorrect jokes seem very present-day, and so makes you understand that the people back in the 1940's weren't so far removed from us as we sometimes think.

Fields is nasty to children, his wife and the bank examiner, whistles at pretty girls and in general just behaves terribly. You wouldn't think they would film stuff like that back in 1940, but Fields did. The movie is populated by crooks and phonies, as for instance the bank president, who says "let me give you a hardy handshake" and then just rests his hand lightly in Fields' for a second. It's a very observant and stinging visual commentary which tells more than many phrases: that's what films are good at, and it is used here to great effect.

The final car chase is really scary, with extra's ducking under cars with only inches to spare!

Ok, good stuff first: the aesthetics of the movie are very nice. Static lingering shots of the interesting cityscape of Tokyo, a cool, clean touch.

Unfortunately this aloofness carries over into the acting, or rather non-acting, because the protagonists hardly say anything, especially to each other.

Bill Murray is perenially bewildered and accepts whatever comes his way with vacuous boredom. Johansson looks nice with her big, strange puffy lips, but also extremely uninteresting. None of them have any meaningful lines, their characters are only sketched slightly and don't develop.

The minimalist approach might be considered cool and very 2003, but it really translates into a couple of characters that just don't touch the spectator.

Only redeeming feature: the superficial view into Japanese culture and a city we hardly ever see portrayed in the West.

(Japan and Japanese culture by the way only serves as a backdrop which the protagonists can be amused by. Yes, we know Japanese people pronounce "l" as "r", but in our time and age and in a supposedly serious movie, couldn't we have had a bit of a deeper interaction with Japan than this, in the movie?)

Hulk is a surprisingly good movie, and will please someone who has been disappointed by Spiderman or - shudder - X2 in recent months. It has much more psychological depth than either of those two offerings (easy, when compared to X2) and Ang Lee uses some ingenious effects to convey the feel of a comic book. This especially shows in the very creative cutting of the movie. Scenes change not just by fading into each other, but by weird shifts, in-laid boxes, etc., just like the pages of a comic book. A great way to pay tribute to the original medium and make it obvious that the movie is not here to represent reality.

As for the acting it is good and convincing. Actors being mainly just hollow vessels for the dialogue in the script, they do the job well. The script is very good, especially because it is serious about the personal issues of the main characters and doesn't degenerate into a succession of mediocre one-liners as in most recent superhero movies. Nick Nolte seems to have been asked to play himself, which is rather amusing: he looks exactly like his recent drunk driving mug shot...

Another funny bit is the obvious references to the computer game Half-Life. A huge underground laboratory is an almost exact copy of the one in the game.

All in all a film I can truly recommend, if you want to go and see something superhero-ish and with good effects. Kudos to Ang Lee for his visual creativity.

How could such a piece of drivel get such a high voting score at IMDB?

This typical example of Hollywood's present-day empty-headedness has absolutely nothing going for it. Even compared to other superhero offerings it is disappointing.

If lately you've had the experience of choosing a Hollywood blockbuster based on hype but no first-hand info from friends, and then left the theatre disappointed and sorry to have wasted your money, then... you'll have a pretty good idea of what you're in for.

In X2 you'll be fleetingly presented with around ten superheroes, see them perform a trick or two each and then recede into well-deserved oblivion. You will also see a super-car and a super-plane. None of these entities will manage to awake any emotion whatsoever, since there simply isn't enough time to get acquainted with any of the multiple protagonists. Then again, that might not be so bad.

The boring and unimaginitive script contains not a single instance of wit or humour. All is dead-serious and self-conscious, which is rather amazing given the sheer ridiculousness of the superheroes and their abilities. There are fleeting attempts at discussing the place of mutants ("illegal aliens"?) vs. humans in society, but these are halted and overshadowed by computer-generated tricks. The times when movies would only need a few of those to entertain audiences are over, but the makers of X2 didn't realise.

The film even manages to make Halle Berry look bad (white 1960's hair). Enough said.

Went into the cinema with great trepidation (after having seen the first Mr. Bean movie, which was a total flop) but came away laughing heartily. This spy movie spoof is actually quite funny, Atkinson and Malkovich give some great perfomances. A good movie if you want some light-hearted fun.