Gangleri – filmreviews

We spent last weekend on one of the Dutch islands and one night wanted to watch a film. We found but one place in a nearby small town where they sold DVDs. The choice was very meager, but very cheap. This is good, because “Underworld” is not worth much more than € 1,50! The box quotes a reviewer saying that the film reminds of “The Matrix“, but more tense. Well, “Blade” would have been a better comparison, since there is no “Matrix” in “Underworld” safe for a tight latex suit for the main female character and things running over walls and ceilings. The story is about an eternal war between vampires and werewolves, but there is but little credibility in the storyline and the drama is way too obvious. Based on that thin story comes thin action and cheesy special-effects. Nope, I will not recommend you to way this film. Still it seems that there are a few more of them.

“From the writer and producer of The Crow”, “Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia”. That is what the box says that I have here laying besides me and I fell for it. When trying to find the poster and IMdB info I had to conclude that this is all a bit too promising. The story is losely based Poe’s “Ligeia” and the person who turned the story into a filmscript (John Stirley) also worked on the story of The Crow 15 years ago. The director is a debutant and when the original title would have been on the box, I doubt I would have taken it from the shelve. Staininger seems to have tried to make some kind of updated gothic horror. The result is not really boring, but nothing above average either. The story is thin, but alright, the images and special effects are too. A young woman does anything for eternal life and drags a professor of literature with an interest in “the macabre” into her experiments. Nothing you should go out to see, but not a complete waste of time should you see it.

Peter “Heavenly Creatures” Jackson returns to the smaller film after a few blockbusters. “The Lovely Bones” is a nice film with several comparisons to “Heavenly Creatures”. It is about a youthfull girl (one this time) and is a drama with some heavier elements, but “The Lovely Bones” is not as heavy as “Heavenly Creatures”. The story is about Susie, a 14 year old girl that was murdered and we witness Susie in het “in between world” and her parents and all the people that stayed behind in the ‘real world’. Both worlds and somehow linked which is nicely worked out. Susie’s world is nicely given form and the story (based on a book) is quite originel. A nice film.

I got this film in the library and there was some confusion with another film called “The Horseman” by Steven Kastrissios. That film is described as a drama that becomes a thriller and eventually a Saw-like cruel horror. I am not interested in these Saw-clones and for “(The) Horsemen” by Åkerlund my expectations were for a nice, Scandinavian thriller. From the first minute it is clear that this film is but another American thriller/horror in the tradition of “Se7en” with moralistic serial murders with a Biblical theme, but updated with some unlikely and cruel torture-killings in the Saw-style. Nothing special in story, nothing special in filming, a boring film in a boring filmgenre of which I do not understand the popularity.

“On The Silver Globe” is Zulawski’s “best known but least seen film” according to the box and I understand why. It proved hard to see! I heard about a Zulawski box with this one, “The Devil” and another film in it. I thought I ordered that box, but got another one with three French films, one of Zulawski. The Polish box that I did want to get turned out to be very expensive, but “On The Silver Globe” and “The Devil” fortunately have been released on DVD separately too. Also quite expensive though. Then there is the story of the film itself. Zulawski started filming in the 1980′ies, but the Polish government forbid the continuation of the project and to destroy all material. Zulawski fled to France and was 10 years later allowed to return and finish his project. He chose to complete what was left of the originel tapes and what we see are the parts that are left, the holes are filled with the read out texts of Jerzy Zulawski’s (Andrzej great-grandfather by the way) novel that this film is based on with random images on the background. The film is obviously based on a book. The dialogues (also mostly overdubbed because of the destruction) are mostly long and philosophical monologues which give the impression that you are watching an ancient play of, say, Shakespeare rather than a film. The gigantic ‘overacting’ adds greatly to this. The long monologues in Polish also make that I constantly had to try to keep up with the subtitles leaving but little time to watch the visuals. All this resulted in the fact that I do not really have a good idea of what it is all about. A group of spacetravellers (called “astronauts” while I would have expected “kosmonauts” by the way) land on the moon that looks a lot like earth. The astronauts that survive settle and then at high speed a new population grows who on their turn run into the original population of the silver globe. The new population creates its own worldview with the original astronauts as gods.
“On the silver globe” is a weird film that I will probably have to watch a few times again before things really start to make sense.

I noticed the posters for this film (that just premiered in the Netherlands) downtown, but Leonardo DiCaprio, the tagline “of the creators of The Dark Knight” or the poster that looks like an action movie did not really catch my attention. Then my girlfriend noticed that the director is Christopher Nolan. I do not immediately think of Nolan when I hear “of the creators of The Dark Knight“. Visitors of these pages of course think of “Following” and “Memento” when hearing the name of Nolan. When I think of it, Nolan is not really my favourite director with two Batman’s, the mediocre “The Prestige” and a remake of “Insomnia” that may be good, but unnecesary (the original was great enough). In my case he got enough credit with “Insomnia” for me to keep watching his films and in the general case it seems that “The Dark Knight” has earned Nolan enough credit of financers to be able make a big-budget of his own liking. When I write this, Inception gets a 9.3 out of 10 from almost 60.000 voters on IMdB! Now things start to get interesting!
Contrary to “Insomnia” there is no mystery about the story. That story is, in fact, given away in all reviews and announcements. Let me remain with saying that when the Kaufman brothers had written the story of “The Matrix” the result might have been something like “Inception”. Imagine a story as weird as that of “Being John Malkovich” poured over the earlier mentioned, and already not too straightforward in story, “The Matrix” and you have an idea of what to expect. I must say that “The Matrix” is better worked out in details, but “Inception” is impressive in its basic simplicity that is worked towards a few extremes with amazing filmographic (and psychological?) experiments. Just as in the last Matrix, there is a lot of focus on impressive action with top-notch techniques, completely ear-shattering in a 1200 watts Imax theatre by the way. Like I said, the story is not hard to follow and might not be the ultimate filmscript, but Nolan managed to create that uncanny “Matrix” atmosphere and the suggestion that the story may be more complex afterall. All in all a maybe bit too spectactular film, but a very, very good one.

In August 2008 I ‘blogged‘ about having bought the 9 series X-Files shoebox and now I can tell you we have watched it all. Of course I am not going to review the whole series. A fact is that just as when I watched the series on TV (from 1994 or 1995 on or so) I dropped out somewhere in what proves to be the 8th series, but I have seen several episodes of the 9th as well. It is quite clear why I stopped following the series, they were not getting better. On the other hand, even with Doggett and Reyes there are some interesting episodes. The part of Scully becomes more and more unsatisfying and in some episodes even irritating when Carter has her take over the Mulder role. In any case, overall you can see the series developing. Then less-serious experiments come in, unfortunately resulting in a complete series almost devoid of normal episodes, but initially refreshing. After a while the various directors and story-writers seem to get more of a free hand and some episodes become both amazing and fantasyfull. In general I can say that the X-Files remain one of the more interesting series of my time, but I do not grief that they stopped after a series or two too many when things were not getting better. Unfortunately the last double episode is quite the opposite a final blowout, it is even pretty horrible…
I am not interested in all the extras. Every series has extras on each disc and a separate disc with extras. I do not think I saw any of that, so I cannot comment on it. The box itself looks nice, but is not firm enough for weekly use over two years time. Not that I completely wrecked it, but let me say that I could sell it as “mint” any more. Each series has a nice booklet with information about each episode and a list with all titles (in English and French in my version). Nine times the size of a VHS tape by the way. The box is not cheap, but I do not remember the price after two years, so who gives a damn.

I accidentally ran into a cult classic! I am reading a book with texts of John Dee (reviewed soon) and the compiler in passing mentioned that Dee is portrayed in this film. My regular rental proved to have this oldie. The box announces it as “Brittains first punk film”. That is nothing like the Medieval setting that I expected! That is to say, “Jubilee” opens with the historically incorrect scene in which John Dee and queen Elizabeth I conjur angel Ariel who shows them a glimpse of the future. This future is some sort of punk version of “A Clockwork Orange”. With weird music (punk opera?) and strange characters, Jarman obviously tried to push the limits of the permissible in his days. Nudity, sex, strong language and useless violence are the elements that make up the story. Some other controversies are added. Overall, “Jubilee” strongly reminds of “A Clockwork Orange”, but then with a punk(-like) attitude.

Weird, I expected that when there was finally a film about The Doors, it would be relatively big news. Fact is that a month ago it played in only two cities and now only in a handfull. Fortunately my hometown is one of them. DiCillo gathered an impressive amount of original footage from which he compiled a biography of The Doors. Narrated by Johhny Depp and with almost 100% original film images, the story of The Doors is told with highs and lows and put in the perspective of the period in which they lived. Songs get an extra dimension when you know how and why they came about. The Doors were only in existence for 54 months and just as in these months, most attention of “When You’re Strange” goes to singer Jim Morrison. The film is a very nice overview with a lot of music and nice-to-know facts, capturing the atmosphere around the band.

So what is the fuss around this film? Even though I had but little expectations for it, I was still disappointed. There is a thin story about a couple who loose their son and all the sudden the woman is afraid of Satan and the grass, oh wait, she already was before. The dialogues are dull and in bad English and the scene is not more shocking than an exploding head in a zombie-film. I think I missed something? So is “Antichrist” an awfull film? That would go too far, since Von Trier presents beautiful images, dark Lynchian scenes and a few interesting filmographic experiments. Personally I think that is all that is to it though.