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elinmagdalena
Reviews
Cold Mountain (2003)
Fails structure wise.
The decision to tell this story in flashbacks for much of its beginning does not work to it's advantage as a film. Since I have not read the book, I am not sure how the author structured it to begin with. But flashbacks are always tricky to work with, it has to be done in the right way. Patricularly in films you have to set up the story and characters before you begin throwing flashbacks at the audience.
That's my major complaint about "Cold Mountian". We get thrown into a love story without first knowing the people it involves, so why should we care? There are some good scenes scattered here and there, and it's a beautiful film to watch; wonderful landscapes, detailed, pretty clothes and attractive people. And the war is portrayed in a respectful manner I guess. Yet, I cannot feel anything for the main characters. It's not that I'm not moved by some scenes, but it's never about their love, it's more about the circumstances of war, and the more interesting character of Ruby.
It moves way to quickly, especially in the beginning, for the mood and the care to set in. It feels like a whole 30 minutes or more is missing from the setup. I'm sure the story works better in the book, but it does not hold together as a film. It gets boring as soon as it stops portraying war and goes for the main love story. Might have been better as a mini series.
In short: A love story seldom works if you don't care about the lovers. And "Cold Mountian" does not give their lovers a chance.
The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (2009)
Could easily be mistaken for a soft porn-flick.
Appallingly bad direct-to-video-movie (or at least it looks like one) that could easily be mistaken for soft porn if you zapped over to it in the middle or so, if it wasn't for the immensely stupid looking violence.
Nothing works story-wise, the acting is really corny, the effects look fake (and here they should rather have looked shocking for the viewer to get anything out of the experience), the music actually made me chuckle... It all seems rather uninspired and plastic.
The first film in the series already had major problems with stupidity and major faults, now this third sequel is something I stumbled upon, and it really takes the concept of the idea of the butterfly effect to new amazing lows.
It's too bad because there are some hints of an interesting story here and there in both the original and this. It gets totally drowned in tasteless stupidity though. I haven't seen the second one, and with my intelligence help I never will...
Suspiria (1977)
Primary colors don't save a bad film.
Dario Argento's "Suspiria" has been on my "to watch"-list for several years, and I finally saw it yesterday.
It tries desperately to be artistic, but to no good. It does have some fancy use of colors, and the photography is okay. But nothing, NOTHING, can save this film from the horrendous acting, the dumb dialog, the boring characters and the lame effects. Plus it seems Argento himself was either too busy with the color schemes to actually direct, or he was absent, mentally or otherwise. Goblins music is the only thing that keeps it from sinking completely to the bottom of Horrible Bad Movies.
I rank it side by side with "Jaws: The Revenge", except this isn't even funny once.
If it only had a self-mocking attitude, it might have been entertaining. But no, it takes itself too serious to be taken serious, so to speak.
And any good director would have trimmed down the screen-time of a fake bat as soon as it becomes obvious it is plain silly looking.
Kyle XY (2006)
First episode started good, ended horrible.
The first episode was just shown here in Sweden. We usually get both films and series pretty late, especially TV-productions.
Seemed like I had seen this before, several times, but I liked the fact that this was a grown man with childlike and/or objective views of the world, and it is always refreshing. Reminds me of commander Data from "Star Trek the next generation", and I got high hopes, as that show more than not got good ideas and values across without feeling forced or manipulative.
I also loved seeing a pretty young boy urinate in his pants and other "inappropriate" things, as well as kissing his "adoptive" mother as a greeting. It felt very daring, and I respect when series try to break new ground and don't follow the stream and try to fit in to avoid being offensive.
I was even gonna let the stereotypical teenage girl who talks nonsense on the phone with friends, parents who can't raise they kids to be polite and happy, and the most annoying sarcastic teenage boy, go by if the show tightened up.
However, when the last scene for the first episode came, I thought "Oh, no, it's another sleazy American moral show". And the way the whole family accepted him in by putting food on his plate was disgusting and so buttered up, it was like a cake with honey and raisins and sugar and butter and coca cola on top.
Too bad, because I really liked the beginning. And Dallas is fine looking indeed.
However, I will have another go at it I think, to see where it heads.
Ao no hono-o (2003)
One of the best films I've seen.
One other user commented on this as being pro-murder under some circumstances. I feel it says the exact opposite, and that's what makes it so good. Our main character is very appealing, we understand his dilemma, and when he chooses to murder, we get to see as the movie goes along, that it was the wrong thing to do.
SPOILERS Had he waited, for the first thing, the stepfather would have died of cancer. Secondly, we see he cannot live a normal life after the murder because of psychological effects. And third, he cannot come away with it, he thought he had thought of everything, but there were many mistakes that points to him.
NO SPOILERS AGAIN The acting and direction is superb, and the slow pace is both beautiful and effective. I love this movie, it tells a lot about the human being.
King David (1985)
One of the better biblical-related-movies
First of all, I can't quite understand all the negative response this film has gotten, but perhaps it's because I'm not a fan of the Bible. And might I add, the Bible is not some sort of documentary, it's a fictional book just like many other books. Most likely based on some experiences, some dreams and some tales told by nameless people from the past. The thing I like about this film, is that it portrays the persons as actual people, flawed and emotional. One has to be a cold-hearted, immoral murderer to obey the laws of the "god" as he is portrayed in the Bible. And I get the feeling he (if he has a gender), I rather call greater forces "it" personally, or "she" as females are better at creating life than males; I get the feeling that he would be rather disappointed at the humans, and the ones who probably misread all the signs he gave. But, we'll never know, so it doesn't really matter. When David follows his heart, I think he does the only right thing a person can do. One can read signs whatever way one wants, therefor it's impossible to know what a "god" would want. If there is one, or several, we simply don't speak the same language. And, to avoid horrible mistakes, I would rather follow my own heart and best judgement, than to murder and sacrifice and make enemies at the rate that the prophets would have David do. I think David in this movie is a very sympathetic person, and it's a well acted film about religion and it's complexity.
Vidocq (2001)
Pretentious.
I have tried to find a horror/slasher/monster/ghost-movie that I like that isn't American since those films are so over-exposed all over the world, but it's not easy to find horror from other countries in Sweden. Sweden is a small country, so to make money, you gotta go for blockbusters over here. But, since Swedes are pretty serious and pretentious and artsy-fartsy when it comes to films and theater, we do get all things French, no matter if it's pornographic and stupid.
I saw the commercial for this on another film I rented, and it looked rather old-fashioned and mystic, with good actors, so I had positive expectations. But, it has some of the most annoying visual effects I've seen, where complete skies and countrysides and buildings and characters are filled in with horrifically ugly results. The look of the movie is very much TV-production, which may be the aim, but still is ugly and makes the whole experience very small for such a large-scale story and fascinating old France. Then we have a hand-held-camera-attitude which just looks so pretentious, exactly like all those TV-courtroom-dramas where they move the camera around to create "tension", or nausea, whatever works for you. Only here, it's worse in that they make one bored. Cuts and closeups and wiggle shots, like drunk on a boat in a storm. The acting is good, as often in the case with French actors, and the story compelling and interesting.¨
This could have been very good, with a less pretentious approach, as I said earlier.