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Dying (2024)
Questionable description of suicide
22 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
A wonderfully melancholic film. With outstanding actors and also many funny moments.

However, I found it very worrying how the suicide of one of the characters in the film is seen as positive in the sense of a decision of free will. This attitude completely fails to recognise that this - still so young - person is obviously suffering from severe clinical depression and does not have an unclouded and clear free will at that moment. This man needs treatment and the help of a friend. He is sick and could be saved.

I very much hope that no people with suicidal thoughts watch this film, because I see a strong danger here that it could trigger a suicide. The film should defenitely show a trigger warning beforehand.

The highlight of the film are the music scenes. They are really outstanding. I would have loved to watch THIS movie.

In the end, I have to say: the film made an emotional impression on me, but I don't really know what to do with it now. It didn't give me many new insights.

The family was more of a laboratory set-up than a real family. Where are the uncles, the aunts, the parents' siblings, the cousins and nephews? None of them are coming to the funerals?

The portrayal of the central character, the composer, was also very contradictory. He is obviously supposed to be an emotionally cold person who is incapable of empathy. But the way he conducts his orchestra speaks a completely different language. So compassionate! A highly emotional conductor, who also understands the emotions of music very sensitively, and fullly empathises with them.

Later, however, the suicide of his best friend leaves him completely cold. Neither his mother's death nor his fathers touch him. He doesn't care at all that his sister is going to the dogs.

Psychologically, this doesn't fit together at all. I maintain that there is no such person. The author seems to have little idea of human psychology, or he doesn't care.

The conductor is constantly moved to tears, he is always helping his fellow human beings in the most altruistic way. You only do that if you are extremely compassionate. No psychopath does that.

Here, a character has been subordinated to the will of the author. Without the outstanding lead actor Lars Eidinger, this weird concept would never have worked. This actor is so believable that he can bring even completely unrealistic characters to life.

That makes the film interesting, yes. But don't expect to learn anything about real life or reality. It's good for an intellectual western audience who has seen it all and likes to watch an abstract experiment. For that, it's great.

And who says that films should always be about reality, or even me, right?

(It's also a little too long, by the way. The chapter with the sister didn't interest me at all. )
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Blatant script, inauthentic and contrived
13 April 2024
Movie tells the story of two people who are in the middle of their lives and are on the run from their former lives. They are running away from something, struggling with themselves and the life decisions they have made so far. Professionally and privately, they are stuck in a dead end. The film's problem: plot, dramaturgy, aesthetics and characters. Virtually everything here seems so inauthentic and contrived that it is a real annoyance.

Added to this are cliché-ridden moments, that can also be found in every second Sunday evening tearjerker on public TV. Complemented by kitschy, romanticized images of a setting characterized by idyllic nature and endless vastness (here: the rugged landscape of the Isle of Skye). Those sentimental, trivial, clichéd situations appear very early on in "Falling into Place", for example when the two main characters meet in an island pub.

A lot of things simply seem deliberate and forced, supplemented by coincidences that are implausible and not conducive to authenticity. For example, the script's decision to have the two people searching for meaning live in the same city of all places. And only just miss each other several times. The themes dealt with in the film are essential and would deserve to be examined in detail. It is about repression, family trauma, loss and fear of commitment. But sadly, they aren't. The films stays on the surface.

Back in London, Kira is trying to come to terms with the break-up with her boyfriend. And Ian, who has a girlfriend, also wants a change in his love and relationship life. Aylin Tezel and Chris Fulton visibly make an effort. However, the weaknesses in the script and the exhausting, often lecturing comments, also the pleasing one-liners reminiscent of calendar sayings ("It's painful to know that everything is replaceable") are quite annoying. A rather painful watch, I must say.

I give three stars for the effort and because it's a first feature.
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Paradise (I) (2023)
Wastes its intriguing premise
28 July 2023
This is another sci-fi movie with an interesting premise and a thoroughly mediocre follow-through. Science fiction excels, when it exploits a radical premise to talk about current social problems, but Paradise fails to capitalize on its clever ideas. How are you going to make a movie about selling your lifetime to the rich and not talk about wage labor? It's not a big leap, guys. After introducing this macabre new industry, the movie turns into a paint-by-numbers action thriller, completing wasting its intriguing premise. Not once you see a billionaire taking lifetime from a poor fella, becoming young, while the poor chap turns old. Theissen doesn't count because she primarily is a scientist, not a billionaire, and has invented the process, plus she is taking her lifetime from a rich woman living in a luxury penthouse, who was dumb enough to burn it down. We don't really root for her, she's not a likeable character, and later in the movie we find out how selfish and ruthless she really is.

It's difficult to find a way to talk about this movie constructively, because it left me feeling bored and disappointed. At least if I were enraged I'd have something to say about it, but this German production is the cinematic equivalent of dry toast. As soon as you get past the exposition, it's exactly like half a dozen other lazy sci-fi movies which can't figure out how to make the most of the genre. Another interesting idea left to die gasping on the altar of mediocrity.
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Old People (2022)
More funny than frightening but not funny
14 October 2022
This one is so bad and so boring. It's literally not scary at all. This one being in the top 10 of Netflix viewing charts says everything about the condition Netflix is in at the moment. It means that Netflix has become the streamer of junk. The place to go to when you want to see really really bad movies.

The old people are not frightening at all, not in any way. They are a threat that can easily be fought. You have to be extra stupid to get in danger or hurt yourself in the presence of these old chaps. As stupid as the idiotic characters of this movie. Characters that are neither believable nor likeable. I couldn't care less for their fate.

Is was mostly on the side of the olds, hoping they would kill off everybody quickly, so this train wreck of a movie would be over soon.
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Athena (2022)
A whole lot happening but nothing goes deep
23 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
The one single take in the beginning, the first 12 minutes, is amazing and spectacular. It's worth watching the movie just for this.

But the rest ... everybody is pacing around really angry, screaming at each other. Like in a staged play. But somehow I was bored. And often even ennerved. The film was more passing bye than running through me.

I think the biggest mistake they made was not to show the killing of the boy in the beginning.

Note: when doing a revenge film, show at start why the hero has to take revenge. Show the injustice. Otherwise we won't care.

Like your fellow frenchman Gaspar Noe did it in Irreversible. Aaaangeeerrr !!!

Storytelling is not so complicated. Just follow some simple rules. Like: wanna tell a revenge story? Fine. Show the injustice in the beginning. Otherwise we won't care.

The actor for Karim was miscast. He seems to be on the edge of crying most of the time.

Lesson number too: the hero may bleed, but he shalt not cry.

Why the soldier brother blows himself up in the end was beyond me. Was probably done for the visuals. Didn't make any sense. It was grotesque. His transition was not believable for one second. The director should stick to music videos.

Also the character of Sebastien is laughable. He is just a tool. An autist savant in the beginning, he turns into a cool professional bomb builder all of a sudden in the end. Why does he live in Athena anyway? He doesn't fit in.

The film has great visuals, but no soul. The actors scream a lot, but it's just like dogs barking. A lot of noise, nothing behind it.

At times even comical. Especially the scenes with the drug dealer brother are funny.

It's often like that with films of directors who come from commercial videos: great visuals, but empty. Empty shells.

Cold spectacles we don't emphasize with.
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Dünnes Blut (2020)
Ruined
8 September 2022
Kida Ramadan is such a horribly bad actor. He destroys every scene he is in and ruins every movie he is in. He speaks each and every sentence with the same monotonuos mumble brabble and never hits the right emotion.

The movie itself is terribly boring, like a mediocre tv movie made by a beginner. Camera work is terrible.

Characters and story are full of cliches.

The german title and the poster is the best thing about this film.

Dont bother to watch it. A waste of time that would be. The low rating is justified.

Why amazon prime bought this movie is beyond me. Must have been cheap. Very cheap.
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Buba (2022)
Not much happening
3 August 2022
I watched it for 51 minutes, then I just couldn't endure it any more. Too boring, too many repetitions.

The actors are great, the settings awesome, the costumes rock, but the story ... what is it? Who cares?

What do the characters want? Go to Disneyland? Well go or don't go, I couldn't care less.

None of it matters.

Funny moustaches and trashy track suites just aren't enough to keep me entertained.

The tempo is so slow, I thought it was a series, at fierst.
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The Gray Man (2022)
Forgettable
30 July 2022
Why Netflix spends 200 Millions on a movie that one has forgotten the next day is beyond me.

It is stupid.

Maybe you shouldn't spend 199,99 Millions on SFX and 0,01 on the screenplay.

Top Gun II was a great success not because if it's actions scenes, but because it touches your heart and moves you. To tears.

We feel Mavericks remorse over the death of his buddy Goose, and we feel his wish to make it up to Gooses son. THAT is the center of the movie. That is what cinema is about. Emotions. Not action scenes for little children. Blow up half of prague, blow up all of it, we don't care.

We are human beings and we want to see stories about other human beings, human beings that we care for. Yes, even in an action movie. In every genre. For this you need professional writers and not the Russo brothers.
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war movie for kids
20 July 2022
It's quite brutal. Made for people who want to prepare their little kids for a life of war.

It's a constant fight of good versus evil. If that's how you want your child view life and society, go for it. The characters in this children's movie are constantly beasting each other. Or gasing each other with blue gas that turns you into a monster. Hm.
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For Jojo (2022)
Torture
13 July 2022
This is not a movie, this is torture. The main character is a hateful beast on a mission to destroy her best friends life. She stays the same from the beginning of the movie to the end. There is no development and no insight. She is a selfish little child refusing to grow up. How can you not detest her? How can you not e appaled from this movie? Who is supposed to watch this? For what reason?
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Over the top
10 July 2022
I really wanted to like this. It's so original and full of ideas. Speed, energy, great acting, it's all there.

But I just can't connect. I hated these main characters so much, it was painful to watch. At times I had to force myself to watch.

Also, everything is so over the top, that I just stay outside. Exaggerated, but somehow not in a good way. The Mafia people, the Hermann brothers, the politician .... so crude, so unbelievable, such caricatures, that it's just not funny any more.

You know, Wolf of Wall street worked because we are WITH Leonardo DiCaprios characters from the beginning. He starts slow, he slides into it, he is kind and good hearted in the beginn, humble even, and corrupts slowly, by money, by fame, by power. That's what drags us into the film. We could be him, it could happen to us. The americans, rhey know how to do it.

None of that can be found in KOS. These types are crooks from the beginning, liars, arrogant and self-impressed, especially the CEO, you hate his guts from the start, what a pretentious solent prick. I cared for nobody. They could all have been shot or jailed, I couldn't care less.

Sorry guys but storytelling just doesn't work this way.
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8 Days (2019)
Couldn't wait for the meteor to strike
12 December 2021
Unlikable characters, low production value, boring and unrealistic. Cheap TV looks.

Don't bother.

I didn't care for any of the characters. Couldn't wait for the meteor to strike.
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Red Notice (2021)
We can do soulless and superficial just as Hollywood
14 November 2021
What makes the film so maddening, along with many, many other reasons, is that it's the most boringly indistinctive patchwork job I've seen for a long while, a beige piece of committee-approved product that slums from point A to point B to who cares. Like an increasing number of the streamer's mass-market offerings, the overriding message appears to be: see, we can make films just as badly as everyone else!
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a disgrace
27 January 2021
What a ridiculous peace of s*hit. I don't understand why netflix with all their money they can't make better movies.
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boring
13 February 2020
That is one extremely boring movie. Loaded with cliché characters. For the first hour it's not going anywhere. Also, it's full of logical errors and plot holes.

Some eruptions of gore violence doesn't save it. A head of a guy is splashed off by a gun bullet, as if it was a grenade - funny, but for what? Useless torture scenes. A hot sexy russian (!) sniper girl kills all her contractees, and a room full of soldiers, why? out of bad mood?

Not worth your life time.
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Styx (I) (2018)
A moral tale too easy to suss
22 March 2019
The principal actress of this movie has obviously done a course in "how to act in arthouse movies": show a face of stone for two hours straight. There is nothing to laugh about in this horrible world full of sexists and bad people. There is not much happening in this movie. Long tedious shots of her loading the boat (man, why show this for 10 minutes? she loads groceries, okay we get it !) and getting ready for sailing. Then the sailing. The the storm. Then the refugee boat. Of course, a refugee boat. What else. If you wanna gain entry to some prestiguous filme festivals and win prizes nowadays, you need a refugee boat. And a strong woman of course, who never smiles. The follows the moral drama, should I take refugues on board or not? Rescue some lives or not? We all now the answer.

This is also as boring as it is calculated. Directors who jump on the themes of the present day and pack it into a moral tale.

Appropriated indignation, I would call it. Works every time. The way to go for medium talented directors. Even if you make a mediocre film , the subject (in this case: refugee crisis!) is gonna carry you to the high art house festivals and secure some prizes. Milk it, baby !

I always say: why not make a documentary of the real thing? Of what is actually happening in the middle sea? Better than this exploitation crap. This film won't change one persons mind or opinion about refugees. A documentary could.

Nobody, absolutely nobody wanted to see this movie in german theaters. I think it sold something like 6.000 tickets. Still, it it was nominated for a striking 6 Lolas, the german Academy Awards, half a year after it's release. That says it all.

I give 4 stars for good camerawork and great sound.
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