Reviews

It is not a coincidence that this show contains both flashbacks and flash-forwards, depending which character we are following - They have learned from Lost... Thematically this is a combination of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and the British show Survivors 1978-80 (Terry Nation). I don't mind the discontinuous storytelling, but there is a major problem with the antagonist/Tyler/The Prophet. It is barely hinted at, but obviously he has some serious issues that stems from before the pandemic, this is augmented by the killing of the survivor from the plane, which cause him to go nuts; - he is the guy who impregnated all the girls that Jeevan helps save in episode 9. And his deal with stealing kids from all over is truly weird. Also there is no rational reason why he should blow up the museum of civilization... and several characters acknowledge that he is seriously disturbed, but still the show bends over backwards in order to try to redeem him. Why ? It is a major departure from the book.

Many reviewers of this show criticizes the apparent lack of facts and abundance of soap-opera plots with lots of affairs, drinking, spy-hysteria etc. This is true, however the spy-stuff is well-documented and the rest is speculation which COULD be true - leeway must be given to dramatized fiction.

Once we get to the second season the plot thickens, and we get some awesome episodes where the moral and ethics of this story come to the forefront and experimental episodes where the implosion leader, is being interrogated by psy-ops. I cannot recommend this enough. It is political tv-drama of the highest order.

This could have been a fantastic movie in the hands of someone like Cronenberg, Lynch or another with similar visual courage. Alas what we get, is this bland tale of excess in the literary department of a college in NY during WW II . Why and how these guys actually birthed a movement is very hard to see. Acting and the depiction of the time and place is very good (but whoever thought that, suddenly inserting contemporary rock music in an otherwise completely conventional period film is a good idea, is really a moron of epic proportions).

Luckily it seems there are plenty of material to make some interesting films from the youths of both Burroughs and Kerouac so lets hope somebody with a more daring visual vision will get to that.

First of let me say that I didn't mind the love-story or the connection between the involved... - However it fills the later half of the movie to an extent that is just syrupy and sappy in the extreme. No way that anyone sane is going to be that obsessed by a boy while world war III is occurring around her - At least I hope not... Saoirse Ronan is exceptional, while the rest doesn't have much of a story. The production is notably cheap, but it is still pretty well made on a budget. Way to many cuts though.

As an introduction to the cozy catastrophe version of the post apocalyptic genre it is interesting, but sadly could have had so much more impact if the love story were either removed entirely or at the very least dialed way down. A much better look at this genre is Terry Nations's classic "Survivor" TV-series from 1978.

Wildly uneven, but still infinitely quotable comedy about a a traditional danish Xmas party in a small (12 people) jewelry manufacturing plant.

Acting is all over the place but that is what one would expect, when 80 % of the cast is supposed to be drunk after the first 10 minutes has passed (acting drunk is a skill not everyone possesses). The 2 real life drunk comedians in the cast (Jørgen Ryg and Preben Kaas) are the best and gets the best lines when the shenanigans and inappropriate behavior ensues.

Obviously this is highly exaggerated, but remnants of this is still, here 40 years later, a fixture in most danish companies/offices...

Well produced account of 5 German friends from 1941-1945, a Jewish tailor (pretty obvious, but never mind), 2 brothers who are just about to enlist in the campaign on the eastern front, a nurse and a hopeful singer. Some die, some survive with their souls in ruins. The primary problem for this series is that it is way to short. Most of the five lead characters have unexplained motivations for their various actions because we don't know enough about them. One can make educated guesses, but these does not make a lot of sense from a storytelling perspective. This is especially unfortunate, when a lot of the supporting characters have much more clear-cut motivations and are played by better actors. A lot of the power that could have been derived from telling a WW2 story from the German side is lost when our protagonists are this flat. The story is fiction, but are supposedly inspired by stories from several survivors. If you would like to see a better story from the German perspective, the movie "Stalingrad" or the Epic TV-series "Heimat" (1984), which deals with the entire period from 1919-1982, is much better than this. So we are still waiting for a really good German antiwar series that explains what the hell went wrong back then... This is not it, but it is still worth a look.

IF you have the patience, then this is a potentially rewarding film for art house film buffs. The acting, photography and especially the use of musical emotional cues are all excellent. However it must be stated that the frequent jump cuts and fake (yes fake! its all in Carols head!) flashbacks will make this a very hard film to follow in the first viewing.

The movie tries to balance a fine line between spirituality and something I would call normal life, without that kind of artificial psychological helper mechanisms, but it does end up being somewhat confused in that regard. Clearly the writer has met some pretty disturbed personalities in his life. Personally I am a cold fish, so this movie is an interesting look into the life of people who are clearly guided by pure emotion, but it is pretty obvious to me at least that most of the characters here would be better served with a little less reliance on feelings :-) - but that is just me...

One thing that honestly annoyed me is the Canadian french spoken in the Montreal part of the movie - I'm not a native french speaker, but I do have 3 years of high school french, and it was a lot easier to understand the French in the Paris parts, and it was obvious to me that most of the Canadian sections would have been better served with the characters speaking English instead. So be warned and watch it with subtitles.

Debut movie from a graduate in the danish film school. Very cheaply made road-movie about a dysfunctional family. Mom and Dad had a minor hit 15 years ago, but Dad became depressed and blew his brains out in the miniature family mobile home on his birthday. Now 2 years later mom is ever so slightly trying to reconnect with the teenage son who has grown into a fat bully and the depressed mousy older sister who works in a used bookstore. However Mom has chosen to take the family on a Road Trip in the very same mobile home that Dad used. On the trip they meet a divorcée and his teenage daughter in a wheelchair. In some ways this is has some of the same weirdness as Little Miss Sunshine and similar fare, but with less stories to tell. Still it is well made and the cameraman has made a a consistent choice to use long lenses, fish-eye objective and long shots with straight lines and angles that gives the movie a visual style.

Yes I know this is the first of the Bond/007 movies but seriously this movie has so many continuity errors that is must set some kind of record. Furthermore the acting and the action is wooden in the extreme and there is just no followup to a lot of the action that takes place. The "green" screen action looks awful and people moves from one place to another arbitrarily. This movie has one thing going for it and that is that is is the start of a franchise. It is just indefensible that this has such a high ranking. There are several other Bond-movies that works on either a comedic or action oriented level but this is just pitiful. Notable as a crucial point in the history of action movies and that is it.

This movie is so "Jewish", that it borders on the incomprehensible. I know it is a period piece and it is not meant to be taken entirely literally, but still this is just to much.

A silly odyssey down the rabbit hole, where things get more and more weird. Everything funny lacks a punchline as opposed to pretty much anything Woody Allan has ever made with similar types of characters.

Every emotion is swallowed and buried to avoid any hint of losing control. Technically this a very competent movie and the acting is top notch, but why most people who is not Jewish would want to see this is a mystery.

No, seriously - This movie is obviously made before Wall Street became unpopular and it is filled with obnoxious, superficial morons. The money guys is chasing tail, drugs, alcohol and most of all the respect of their colleagues. To top it of the girls are stupid beyond belief and are still dreaming about "Mr Right". Sadly some of it is probably somewhat realistic. None of the cast(except Andrew McCarthy in a small part as a Douche) can act and are just pretty faces... If even 10 % of this is close to reality then it explains why Wall Street is destroying itself and the rest of the US. Watch American Psycho (2000), Wall Street or the Stillman Trilogy instead.

Small but rewarding little drama about two lost souls brought together by a another couple who have doomed their own relationship. The old couple each have a workplace friend who they decide, that they might belong together; sort of as a surrogate for their own relationship which is seriously damaged by infidelities, drugs and general fatigue.

The two friends are damaged by life (how is anyone's guess, but my analysis is that the female has probably been raped or something similar, and the male has some serious self esteem issues, due to childhood mistreatment). The juxtaposition between the development in the "love-story" of the two couples should be interesting for adult people anywhere, but do not expect this to be a happy comedy. This is deeply disturbing on a lot of levels, while still speaking to the search for somebody to love. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

Acting, photography, soundtrack is all low-key but of an extremely high quality, which should be expected as the labor of love that this is.

Two of the best actors in the US, and my personal favorites as well. What can go wrong ? Well for one thing have the movie be a vehicle for Gwyneth Paltrow in the movie's most uninteresting storyline. If the script had just dropped that story about the lost "Dad" and fleshed out the other two stories a bit more then this movie would have been awesome. Its not that she is so bad at the singing or Lewis is an awful actor, but their story is just so boring and kliché... Still at least Giamatti and Maria Bello has since had a lot of good roles, now we just need more of Andre Braugher :-) Cant be long before we see a movie like this, just set in the world of competitive computer-gaming. That would be very weird indeed, but lets see if I am right.

Quintessential Indy road-movie with a very Nordic touch. 58 year old lonely janitor, who is so shy that he barely registers get accidentally left behind on a gas-station, when his old-boys soccer team is on its way to a match in Sweden. To catch up, he gets a lift with a sweet natured delinquent and the adventure begins... The movie has a nice flow and is filled with quirky characters and wry observations about people and differences. Most of the actors are well-known danish character actors, who seems to have a lot of fun. Some of the humor do require a little knowledge of Denmark and Sweden, but it shouldn't be too difficult for anyone to relate to most of the situations. Danish superstar Tina Dico supplies the soundtrack and some really catchy songs.

This movie is disturbing on so many levels.

A guy who wants to atone for having killed people in a car crash breaks several laws to assure that his rare blood-type organs ONLY goes to 6 "good" people (and a family member), when he eventually commits suicide. The reason for the car crash in the first place is his need to answer a phone-call from work (He is a very important engineer in aerospace...) meaning this guy has a big ego! Then he proves that he hasn't learned a thing, by insisting on this crusade to only help good people (who is that anyway - sheesh) as if he is heavenly ordained to decide and judge such things... seriously how big an ego can you get!!! There a lots of stories about self sacrifice leading to different outcomes, but this is by far the most ego-driven I have ever seen.

Furthermore the movie tries to trick us into believing he is a good guy, by telling the entire first hour in various disjointed flashbacks and flash-forwards before finally revealing the plan. Then the movies drives into high syrup mode with a sappy love story, that makes no sense what so ever. Technically the movie is long winded and filled with an annoying new age soundtrack running beneath almost all the time.

1 point for some decent acting, and 1 point IF this can get a few people to become donors (for the wrong reasons but hey...), otherwise this mess is preposterous...

This is the funniest movie of 2009 ???!!! There is not one character in this movie I feel anything other than indifference for - that is a bad thing for a comedy. You have to laugh with the characters or in rare cases at the characters. I did not laugh at all in this movie, it leaves me cold. Granted there is a rather competent storyline, which is why I still give it a six. That and the decent acting, but that and the story is wasted on crude jokes, silly cameos, obnoxious illogical behavior and just total weirdness... Go see pretty much any John Hughes comedy from the eighties and you will find both the jokes and the heart missing from this movie.

Despite some of the previous comments this is still a remarkable period piece - yes the acting is wooden at times, but the fact that the actors physically actually grows up during the movie due to the 3 year span in filming, more than makes up for it in my opinion. The two other popular danish movies which takes place at the same period Zappa (1983) followed by Twist and Shout (1984) are arguably better and packs far more emotional punch with better acting. Yes some of the drama in this should have been written differently (an analysis of Hamlet leads to a total meltdown in a character - seriously...), two pregnancy stories is too much and the voice-over is just a bad bad idea which is totally unnecessary. Several characters reading The Catcher In The Rye in the third act, without using it for anything other than a clue to a feeling is also a bit off. Still a lot of the sentiments depicted are everlasting and as a coming of age movie this is far superior to most of its kind produced in America.

Saw this a couple of times when I was a kid in the late 70'ies and then again recently... it still holds up very well - mainly because of the fantastic display of all the jazz greats... but it is also downright sexy at times.

People who complain that this is a remake doesn't get it. It is a totally different movie when it is about music instead of slang.

Actually I am somewhat baffled that this has not been remade again with various rock musicians instead of the jazz displayed in this one. It would be a cheap hit movie I guarantee it... - but you have to pick some musicians who can tone down the "rock" ego. Lets see: Tom Hanks as the professor, Scarlett Johansson as the girl. One of the other professors should be a guitarist proficient in both classical, jazz and rock guitar such as Vai, Sattriani or Malmsten.

Strange how such a low key little movie, can inspire so much hatred in viewer comments, but OK I myself hate Signs, to the same degree. However this is obviously a little genre movie, with nods to a lot of 50'ies B-movie Science Fiction - Wahlberg even speaks to a plastic plant that looks like a Triffid... And as opposed to Signs which was an awful religious sermon thinly disguised as Science Fiction, this clearly tries to take science seriously and deliver a message. Yes the message is spelled out pretty much at the start and there really isn't that much excitement and tension in the movie, but it still fits quite well with the overall mood of an indifferent society in decay. So give the vitriol a rest and enjoy it as an indie update of a 50'ies B-movie Sci-Fi flick. I bet that the upcoming 2012 will be loved by all the CGI-loving masses, but it really is still the same movie on a basic level as this one...

Some will have reservations regarding this movie both in terms of the narration and the scope of what it tries to explain, even though most people who actively choose to see this will already now most of the information presented...

Still the visuals is THE redeeming factor here and it makes it the best successor to Koyaanisqatsi (1982) since then. And yes i HAVE seen a lot of the other recent environmental and nature documentaries and I also liked Al Gore's "truth" :-) .

Consider several shots where you cannot immediately figure out what on "earth" you are watching other than some beautiful colors that might as well be an impressionist painting and then the camera slowly zooms out to reveal for instance the plastic covered fields in Almeria or rice fields on a mountain or suddenly some humans appear floating into the frame in the distance and the camera rises to show them in a boat on a canal... It is just stunningly breathtaking and it is like that ALL THE TIME in the entire movie! For people who knows Bertrand's still photographs this is not surprising, but seeing it in moving form and presented as a narrative does actually increase the impact considerably.

So yes this is a definite 10 in my book, purely because of these visuals - As for the politics, I however don't see a way out of this mess unless we get some serious decrease in the worlds population and soon..., which is a point that this movie really does not want to address. Highly recommended, but do yourself a favor and watch it in HD 720p or more.