Gangleri – filmreviews

So yesterday we watched the remake that I just bought on cheap DVD. The film is pretty awfull if you know the original. Sometimes the texts are direct quotes from the script of the original, but at other times things are completely changed. For some reason the director added a ‘bee element’ and the matriarchal society of his American Summerisle seems to be a copy of the bee population. This is all new in the story. Trying to pay no heed to the original, this is still not a very good film. The credibility of the story is low, the film is not really exciting and the little information about ‘the old religion’ is extremely thin as if the director wanted to keep some elements that he didn’t understand. My review of the film of some time ago, could have been written today as well.

It is not like I am a bit Batman fan, in fact, I probably saw only one of them and I don’t think that it was the Tim Burton one (which I have to see if it were only for the director). But, we wanted to go to the cinema and this film was the only ‘possibly’ at a time that was still possible. The film just premiered this week in the Netherlands, so I was surprised it was not sold out. Inspite of what Christian Bale (who plays Batman) says, this is just another action film. Not a bad one though. I don’t know if the same goes for the other films, but there is quite a lot of attention for the privat life of Bruce Wane who is pictured as ‘just human’. Contrary to what you often hear, I think there is not too much focus on The Joker, whose person is less worked out than that of Batman and a few other characters in the film. The Joker -by the way- looks quite a bit like The Crow in the first film. A strange idea that both actors didn’t live to see their films premiere. Anyway, I won’t have to say much about the story, since it’s probably the same as that of every other Batman film. The Joker makes manace, Wane Bruce is a rich civilian who with the help of some technicians fights crime in Gotham City and of course he faces The Joker. This all results in a moder action film spectacle with a lot of special effects, but unfortunatly the spectacle seems to have come before credibility for Nolan. The film is very entertaining, but has a bit too many “yeah right” moments. The stages, camera work and especially the acting of Heath Ledger (yes it is true) are very good and the big screen adds something to the extreme heights that Batman likes to conquer, so I was not disappointed about this Hollywood blockbuster.
-3-

Recently I bought a “Riget” (“The Kingdom”) 2 series DVD box and yesterday we started to watch it. Ah, the weird hospital soap with Lars von Trier after every episode and Dutch subtitles. What a wonderfull box.

Surprise surprise, last Sunday my girlfriend wanted to see “The Wicker Man“; she never does, because she doesn’t like the end where Sergeant Howie has his appointment with the Wicker Man. Personally I think that Howie is an arrogant prick, so I don’t really dislike the overdramatisation of an ancient Celtic ritual. In the remake she didn’t think it so bad that Nicholas Cage ended the same way, which reminds me that I have to buy that remake some time too. For only a few euros though, since it is not half as good as the original.
By the way: where is my review of the remake? We went to see it in the cinema and I surely reviewed it. Did I miss it when I transferred my reviews from Monas.nl to Gangleri.nl? Stupid me!

[edit 23/7/08] I indeed forgot to copy it, but I got it back, just click here. Before, I already found the DVD for 5 euros plus shipping. That is a fine price for a bad film

I guess this was the first part of “Grindhouse”, since it has a film announcement as part of the film. Rodriguez has some more filmographic jokes in stock. “Planet Terror” is a completely over the top zombie slasher horror, not unlike our local “Horizonica”, but with even more hilarious scenes. In the best scene Quentin Tarantino suffers from a fluid pecker; it has been a long time since I had such a laugh. For the rest of the film, as you may expect, there is little of a story to tell you. This leaves me to repeat that what you get is a gory zombie film with a lot of intestines, exploding zombies, gushing blood and of course beautiful women. This is definately the better part of “Grindhouse”, but a very different film from Tarantino’s.
-4-

As you probably know there was actually one production called “Grindhouse” which included both this film and Robert Rodriguez’ “Planet Terror”. The film actually contains titles at the end of the first part and then a new film started. For this (and undoubtely financial) reasons, the films are usually distributed separately, so I had to get both films in order to see “Grindhouse”. I noticed that Tarantino is working on a new film and realised that I hadn’t seen “Grindhouse” yet, so I picked out both DVDs from the rental shop.
“Death Proof” is a film like you can expect from Tarantino. It contains hilarious dialogues, grim humour and fierce violence. Two parties of beautiful, but rather cheap girls with dirty mouths have a good time, but then their good time is interrupted by Stuntman Mike, a great role of Kurt Russell. There may be not too much of a story to the film, but still I noticed that on many places (such as the box or IMDb) give away a bit too much of it and that does not raise the enjoyment of the film. Speaking of enjoyment, like I said, there are beautiful women and great dialogues, but every time I see a Tarantino, I wonder how much further we can go in displaying violence and its gruesome details. Especially when it is no longer (really) meant to be funny, I wonder what the use of it all is. The box of the Dutch version that I got, speaks about “caricatural violence”, but I do not know if I agree with that description. “Pulp Fiction” was funny, but I am not so sure if every scene in “Death Proof” is meant to laugh. Maybe it is, but Tarantino keeps pushing (my) borders, especially in his inventions of new forms of sick sadism. Anyway, safe for a few extreme eruptions, “Death Proof” is another nice Tarantino production.
-2.5-
I hope to review “Planet Terror” tomorrow.

This is already old news, but perhaps you haven’t heard. Don S. Davis, to me mostly known as Major Briggs from Twin Peaks, passed on on 29 June of this year.

It has been over two years since I saw this film in the cinema, this time I saw it on DVD since it is in the cheap “quality films collection”. Reading back my review of the time, my idea about the film is exactly the same. Coppola has the ability to make films that give me a strange, melancholic feeling. She manages to raise sympathy for characters (that in the case of “The Virgin Suicides” or “Marie-Antoinette” actually do not ‘deserve’ it) and knows how to set a strong atmosphere by good choice of music. “Marie-Antoinette” remains a very good film.

Angel Deverell is a teenager who sees herself as the next literary talent. Arrogance herself she does nothing but writing and writing. When she sends her first book to publishers, she is immediately recognised and however even to her future publisher she keeps her arrogant tone. Angel gets her way, becomes the succes she was sure she was and makes an awfull lot of money with her productive writing. She buys her dreamhouse and marries her dreamman. Of course things cannot remain perfect.
I have seen much better films of Ozon. “Angel” is shot in a nice 70′ies “Sissi” style, but everything is a bit too sweet. The story is not too interesting either. For a ‘true Wednesdaynight film’ “Angel” is not bad, but I must admit that I had higher expectations of Ozon.
An alternative title seems to be “The Dreamlife of Angel” by the way.
-2-

This could become the most active “sections blog”, since I might not always watch new films (that can be reviewed), but I also often watch older films or series. For example, we have taken “The Prisoner” from the shelves and have started to watch it again and last week I bought “Riget”/”The Kingdom” which always nice to see again. Yet another series, I still plan to start buying “X-Files” series boxes and watch the series again. I loved the series when they were on TV, taped all of them, bought the VHS tapes, etc. but in these times of DVD… It should be fun to start with episode one.
Other films that I reviewed but watch(ed) again are the great “La Antena” or always great films such as “Delicatessen”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Sin City”, etc. Oh, and I want to see “Beowulf” again too, but of course not in 3D, since I do not believe there is a 3D DVD version.