Reviews

One can easily smell trouble when Mel Gibson is releasing a new epic movie based on historical events. Braveheart formed quite a buzz, regarding the violent battles and the somewhat arrogant description of the English king (and his homosexual son). Passion of the Christ proved to be a little too explicit when describing the suffering of Christ.

With Apocalypto more trouble is sure to arrive at the doorstep of Gibson's home. Of course there is the obvious political metaphor, comparing the Maya civilization with the United States. The Maya empire was destroyed from within, and according to the metaphor USA will do the same.The fear theme is primary: The priests are controlling their people with fear, and by doing so they can get away with barbaric actions. - USA's international politics are sure to be mentioned, when the debate will start to roll.

But then again, it's also a movie, and should be reviewed as one. It is a masterpiece. Plain and simple. One should be warned though; considering Braveheart and Passion of the Christ, one can expect a very violent a ruthless movie. And it is! I wouldn't be surprised if some people will leave the cinema during this movie.

It's a very tight and linear story, but that gives the plot a lot of strength. The atmosphere is remarkable. The spoken language is no problem what so ever, and after just a few minutes people will not be viewing a movie... They will be in it, holding their breath. It can be regarded as a 'clever' movie, or it can be regarded as an action packed roller-coaster, through the dark jungle. Anyone will be more than pleases, both up-market audience and the mainstream audience.

Being a James Ellroy-disciple the knowledge of an adaption of the terrific novel filled me with a combination of fear and expectation: Fear... can it ever be as great as the book? Expectation... Curtis Hanson did an excellent job with L.A. Confidential, so why not? - And now I've seen the result of DePalma's work. First of all, don't even compare it with the L.A. Confidential movie. Black Dahlia is told in a radical different way, being much more synthetic, expressive and theatrical. This is not a very common way of telling stories in modern movies, however this method made me recall the typical 'over-acting' as seen in the 40's noir movies (like Double Indemnity). Was this intentionally? - Probably, yes. It feel a bit weird to begin with, but at the end of the show I had to admit: It works. The movie clearly tries to describe all the details from the book, which sometimes makes it loose its own breath. The original story had so many details, and took place over a very long period of time. This is one of the points where the movie sometimes stumble. It's simply trying too hard. One thing that is hard to criticize is the stunning visuals. The movie is absolutely beautiful, making every scene a work of art. The other highly successful point I would have to mention is Hilary Swank. She IS a femme fatale, by definition. Fans of the classic film-noir genre will most likely be more than satisfied. Keep a look-out for this one, and be ready to be thrilled.

I first encountered Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright when a friend of mine introduced me to the English cult-series; "Spaced". It's clear that these crazy fellows make movies, just because they love it. It's the kind of ultra-referential meta-manic intertextual stuff that any moviefanatic loves. Almost every scene is a reference to another movie, and the real sport is guessing what movie it comes from.

"Shaun of the Dead" follows the same tradition, but with Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" as their main-inspiration. Anyone who tried to analyze Romero's work should know that it's not just about people coming back from the dead to eat the brains of the living. It's a critical comment to the modern zombie-culture one sees when entering a shopping mall. The zombies are consumers, and the are us.

Pegg and Wright has certainly not abandoned this idea, however the zombies are not just mallrats. The zombies are lazy, unemployed, couch-sitting playstation-junkies. The zombies are our TV-culture. Keeping the idealistic ideology, add humour and a passion for movies. - There you have; Shaun of the Dead is funny, original, interesting and quite gory. It's the best tribute to the Zombie-genre I've ever seen.

Cars suck!..... that's the message the spinning sign will tell, just few minutes within this movie. And by that "Torque" makes a humorous comment to Rob Cohens engine-fetish "The Fast and The Furious". That message should be clear for anyone.

Humour is really the keyword here, because anyone who takes this movie just a little bit serious will make a huge mistake. The plot, the characters, the story - it's all made by bricks of clichés - one after another. By cliché-over-exposure this movie simply makes fun about itself, and these type of movies.

Do not take this movie serious. Consider it as a sort of "Meta-Fast and The Furious". Watch these two movies in a row, and have a laugh and a half.

I've never actually read the comic book by Frank Miller (although i'm a big fan of his Bat Man comic). I've only studied the wonderful use of black/white aesthetic. That was the first thing that struck me after watching 5 minutes of Sin City: The aesthetic of this movie is absolutely stunning, stunning, stunning! Using the tradition of German expressionism and Film Noir, and combining it with CGI, the team has created an fantastic dark and gloomy world, which is hard to compare with anything seen on the screen. Every second I was watching and enjoying the war between light and shadows, which created a great tension. But what about the narrative and the plot? Sure it looks great, but does the story live up to it? Sin City tells a very alternative story of morality, obsession and most of all murder. It feels very fragmented, and it's hard to keep track of the story. But is it bad? No! This is the kind of movie which rethinks the way in which narrative is told. The dialog and the bits and pieces of story seems more important than the overall plot. It's new. It's weird. It's very un- mainstream. But at the end it works great. The wide mainstream audience are likely to leave the cinema during this movie (if not because of the weird storytelling, then at least because of the extreme violence). However Sin City is a shocking fresh breath. This is the kind of movie which really push the barriers. Some people will love. Others will love to hate it.

Anders Thomas Jensen may be the most interesting danish director/scriptwriter in recent times, and this movie certainly proves it. The neo-nazi Adam (Ulrich Thomsen) is sent to resocialization at a local church with a priest who can't do anything but turn the other cheek. In a religious context he relive the life and destiny of Job who's punished by God. This could very well have been an abstract and far-our movie, however Thomas Jensen has the ability to make it understandable, humorous and very entertaining, while keeping the love and respect of the religious story. He also has the ability to make the audience reflect the content, by providing black humour, quickly followed by caring tragedy. One might not always know why one laughs. Following the success of Blinkende Lygter and the not-so-great De Grønne Slagtere, Thomas Jensen places this story in between, by providing a black comedy with a great mind.

In Denmark this movie gave the critics quite a problem; Almost everyone thought the movie was great, however they just couldn't recommend it to anyone, because of it's violence. - After seeing I couldn't agree more with this viewpoint.

The major point that critics has argued about regarding this move is of course the violence, or rather; is the violence just a plain gimmick, to give the movie more public attention? I would say "No". The violence is perfectly integrated into the story. Some critics says the violence is too much. I would say; how in the world would anyway be able to describe a violent rape, without making it extremely painfully to look at? Not many movies (especially Hollywood movies) would have the guts to show the ugly nature of a rape (with exceptions such as Monster and Straw Dogs).

Irreversible is the kind of movie that one has to decide whether he or she wants to see. Luckily one will know about 15 minutes from the beginning of the movie whether one has the stomach for this violent and ugly masterpiece. Consider it a relief.

"Afgrunden" is a clearly primitive movie. It isn't stylistic revolutionary, and doesn't invent any new way to tell a story. However.... Though "Afgrunden" is from 1910 there is one scene I just can't seem to forget. It sticks to me in some strange way. The famous dancing scene with Asta Nielsen clearly has a sexual context. Even compared to modern films tendency to make sexual contents seem as dirty as possible, "Afgrunden" represents the same standard with a lot more modest use of effects and 'moves'. Try to see it, just for that one scene.

History can certanly look different, once you see it from a different point of view. Goodbye Lenin is a great and funny movie, but beneath the comedic surface I found a interesting and very humanly wonderful movie about how a big historical incident effected a small east-german family. Watch how an 'untouched' country suddenly is overwhelmed by western ideoligies, expensive cars and lots of Coca Cola. This is one of those movie that will drag you through an orgy of laughter, but once you leave the cinema the movie will stick to you many days after. Goodbye Lenin is Funny, interesting and memorable.

Since the succes of Lethal Weapon the Hollywood-machine has produced a great amount of cop-buddies comedies; two partners are being forced to work together, although they have differences, which they always sort out by the end of the movies. This plot has been repeated again and again, and is now a complete movie-cliché.

The Hard Way follows the same plot, but is actually a lot better than the usual standard. There's great acting between Michael J. Fox and James Woods, but what lifts this movie to higher grounds is the self-reflexivity:

Michael's role is based on the action-hero cliché, with references to Indiana Jones and James Bond. James Wood is the usual dirty street-cop, as seen in the film-noir. The bad-guy Partycrasher is the typical dangerous psycho-maniac who develops a personal lust for vengeance agaist the heroes. This movie starts juggeling with Hollywood clichés and references, with great observance and intelligence.

See it. - Then see it again, and observe how the movie handles the Hollywood clichés. This is a movie which deserves a bit more respect.