Change Your Image
massihians
Reviews
Hell on Wheels (2011)
This is TV at its very best
I came upon Hell on Wheels by accident. I don't live in the US and watch very little TV. But I started to watch Hell on wheels with the state of mind of a child with pockets full of candy. Someone has posted a review about this show saying that it was reminiscent of a french comic called Lieurenant Blueberry. It's true. It's exactly that. While most American comics are about superheroes, french comics are about extraordinary people without superpowers. Blueberry is like that. While the movie Blueberry is an insult to the comic, Hell on wheels has captured its essence, without even knowing about its existence I'm sure. This series is a masterpiece. Don't let the negative critics fool you. A series can hardly follow exactly your wishes, but it transcends into a powerful story that you want to go back to again and again. So i raise my glass to Hell on Wheels and to its transcendence into a classic.
Samsara (2011)
We need more movies like this
This movie is way out there. It's long and it's raw, but it never bores. It can sometimes force you to question the sanity of the director, but it won't allow you to question his ethics. If beings from another world were to wonder about life on Earth today, this would be an excellent introduction to the dominant species.
Still, I'm certain that this movie could have lasted twice or thrice the time and never do more than scratch the surface of the topic(s).
You MUST see this movie, if only to get a fleeting glimpse at other cultures and other places.
I'll give you no details. You must see this with no prejudice at all.
WATCH IT! NOW!
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
A multimillion dollar budget for a two-cent screenplay
I have seen "bad". And I have seen "bad" with budget. This is "bad" with budget with wrong subliminal messages pasted all over. The 8.8 review on IMDb only reflects the affection that people have for their superheroes. They went beyond the temporary suspension of disbelief because they WANTED to like this movie. It was supposed to be the apotheosis of the first two franchises. The fact that Master Nolan wrote it made it sacred, and any attempt to criticize was deemed to be blasphemy. Well think again. Batman's villains are supposed to be highly unconventional: a Penguin, a Riddler, Two-Faces, a deadly Clown... they contrast nicely with an improbable black-clad avenger with pointy mask-ears, deadly toys and a cape. Those villains are what makes an improbable universe coherent and believable for a little while. Batman's fight against evildoers even produces a kind of simple ethical personal questioning about good and evil.
And apart from the many naive incongruities in police operational procedures, and villain rhetoric, consider how lame and unimaginative it is to confront a pathetic older superhero barely able to move, much less fight, with terrorists/nuclear threat, the terror hype of 21st century America? Don't you see, Mr Nolan, that these to worlds are unrelated? That they make both unbelievable on screen? Making last minute links with older foes and female-heir villain twists will most definitely not make a good story, it will only show waning creativity. With this movie you have debased the Batman legend Mr Nolan. Instead of remembering him as a superhero, we'll all remember him as a diminished, last-gambit, risk-it-all old man that succeeded to save the day only because heroes don't die before delivering (at least in American cinema).
Choi-jong-byeong-gi hwal (2011)
Excellent movie
I watched it once and I want to watch it again less than a month after the first serving. It is that good. The arrow shooting scenes are, as expected, spectacular. The photography is second to none and the story is well told, even though it is a tad on the simple side. Nevertheless the movie is highly recommendable. This is the story of a brother who goes against all odds to save his sister from capture by raiders coming from China. Outnumbered but not outwitted, he will prevail after a hair-raising adventure. This is an original twist to a tale because we're used to watch sniper-rifle action at long distance in the modern world. Now picture a sniper-bow action and you'll get the idea. If you liked "Red Cliff" and "The Warlords"(Both Chinese productions) you will enjoy "War of Arrows" (Korean production) and won't be disappointed.
Fetih 1453 (2012)
Cecil B DE Mille meets mid-nineties CGI with an all-Turkish cast.
The good: Genuine interest for producing an epic. Gorgeous Turkish women untouched by scalpel. Muslim perspective. Reasonably well-choreographed heavy sword fighting in some scenes. Nice rendering of Basilica Cannon.
The bad: Non credible CGI. Unconvincing acting. Unrefined scene transition. All-Turkish cast is unconvincing for occidental characters. Epic screenplay shows inexperience in this type of movies. Doubtful historical facts. Outrageously mild and tolerant end-scene of Sultan Mehmet II embracing and kissing one of the captured civilians' infants.
Conclusion: Watch it once to see Turkish side of the story and never watch it again.
Blueberry (2004)
Blueberry Fail
I'm a huge fan of Blueberry:the comic. There are actually many American heroes in french comics that Americans have probably never heard of. There's of course "Blueberry", "Buck Danny", "Comanche", "XIII", etc. Some are quite naive, and others are very, very good. The story that inspired the movie: "The lost German's mine" and its sequel "The specter with the gold bullets" is actually one of the best graphic/scenario combination I've ever read and is still one of my favorites.
Unfortunately they never thought of giving the director's job to someone who understands the epoch and the place's context. In making this movie, two big mistakes were made.
The first one was to give Apache mysticism a way, way too prominent role (it is only addressed as a superstition linked to an Apache sacred and forbidden territory in the original) and magnify it to proportions that have no relation with reality. This utterly robs the story of its adventurous flavor and transforms it into a story of revenge.
The second one was to give the role of Mike Blueberry to Vincent Cassel. Don't get me wrong, Vincent Cassel is a great actor. You only have to watch his impersonation of Mesrine, France's public enemy to see it. In that role he is just fantastic. But Blueberry is another thing altogether. In that role he is totally unconvincing and despite his best efforts, he just can't manage the American slang. It's just not natural. It's clearly fabricated. He also moves and walks like a Frenchman, not like an American. And as the whole cast orbits around this acting failure, it then fails to deliver itself. As this works as a cascade, if neither the hero, nor the cast is convincing, then even the background becomes out of key.
It is also worth mentioning that using Louisiana or Canada to justify the use of french in an American movie has become so stale and stereotyped that it is now totally counterproductive. Instead of catching your attention on a clever twist, it now shows a serious creative limitation.
The screenplay brought the original story crashing down in such a way that it became almost painful to watch. Even Steven Spielberg (who is obviously not a Frenchman and who took an enormous risk with Tintin's fans) managed to cut and paste several TinTin's adventures and make a homogeneous screenplay.
There was nothing wrong with the comic's story and it should not have been tampered with. With such an adaptation disaster, I seriously doubt that a sequel might be attempted, and it's too bad, because the other very good Blueberry adventure is such a good material for a movie with a lot of sequels that one can only shake one's head at the lost opportunity.
That saga comes in ten consecutive comics whose titles are: "Chihuahua Pearl", "The man that was worth $500,000", "Ballad for a coffin", "The outlaw", "Angel Face", "Broken-nose", "The long walk", "The ghost tribe", "The last card", "The end of the trail".
The story is about the fate of the confederate gold after the civil war and what happens to Blueberry after being framed for its theft.
So...
I don't recommend Blueberry, the movie. Read the comics instead, you won't be disappointed. If you don't know where to find them, contact me, I'm on Facebook.