Gangleri – filmreviews

My girlfriend’s boss bought this film for all his personel, so I guess that outside TV and cinema, this was the best-watched film last weekend in these parts! “As It Is In Heaven” is about a successfull conductor who at the peak of his carreer has a heart attack and decides to quit. He goes back to the tiny village where he was pestered away as a boy, but with his artists name. Starting on his own, he soon feels the need to be part of the small community and he offers to lead the church choir, since everybody knows he is that famous conductor anyway. Never having orchestred a choir, Daniel tries to learn how to do this and his new methods leads the villagers away from the town pastor and to Daniel. How new elements in a conservative surrounding brings change, a thing that people usually fear. “As It Is In Heaven” is a drama, not really boring and the presence of the beautiful Frida Hallgren helps too.

However my girlfriend always wants to see psychological thrillers (of James Bond) she now came home with this true story drama. Christine Collins’ (Angelina Jolie) son is abducted from her house and after 5 months the LAPD reunites mother and son. The boy is not Collins’ son though and with the help of a pastor (John Malkovich) she starts to question the LAPD who on their turn expose their power. The events are too strange to be true when we look at them from our own time, but apparently this is what happened. Now a superb film, but not a boring one. It has nice 20′ies settings and descent acting.

Jake is a young man who lives in New York and makes his living as a designer. In the summer he goes to his parents to help them with their trailer park, conduct local politics and organise a music and arts festival. When the permit for a festival in a neighbouring village is withdrawn, Jake figures that he might be able to make some money for his parents when he puts that festival under his own flag. He does not realise the scale of that “Woodstock festival”, not even when an old schoolmate (the organiser) comes flying in with a helicopter. Soon it becomes clear that this will not be a festival for 5.000 people like Jake expected.
“Taking Woodstock” shows the amount of money that went around in the festival, the slyness and professionalism of the organisers, but mostly the impact on the small town when half a million hippies start to gather in and around the festival area. Almost nothing about the music, nor of the festival itself, but all about the direct surroundings with Jake’s parents realising the goldmine, the neighbours forseeing the problems and weird characters trying to help Jake or themselves. “Taking Woodstock” is a very amusing film with a different look on the most famous chapter of music history.

“The Last Days Of Emma Blank” is a Dutch film and I am happy to be able to say that it is not a bad one too! Emma Blank suffers some kind of disease and she is about to die. For her last weeks she retreats into a large mansion somewhere along the Dutch coast with a stack of servants who have to obey her every demand. As the film develops the relation between all characters slowly becomes clear. “De Laatste Dagen…” is finally a Dutch film without disfunctional nudity or foul language/characters, but with a beautiful young woman and functional weird characters. In fact, the realistic but absurdistic characters and humour reminds of Scandinavian films such as “Festen” or “Mifines Sidste Sang”. The developing characters are suddenly turned 180% after a ‘revelation’, which adds loads of extra sauce to the story. “Emma Blank waits for her death. So do her servants.” Well done!

A young, female writer plans to spend a week in an enormous and remote villa to finish a script of which the deadline has passed. What a tedious basis for a horror/thriller! Fortunately the result is not that predictable. The film has a good, pressing atmosphere at times, but the soundtrack is quite overdone (industrial sounds in an old, creaking house?) and overal does not pass the level of a standard Hollywoord thriller. The story has some weird edges too. Not completely boring, but I do not recommend “Deadline”.

The box that we rented had no indication whatsoever that this is a third part of a ‘series’, while all the posters that I found on the www do. The ‘series’ are not by on director it seems and not a continuing story either, but just sequels to a popular film probably. The basis of the film is not too original: a man can travel back in time. The film places stress on the consequences of this and that concept could have made an interesting story. Strangely enough even the third attempt gives but another of these popular psychic crime fighters tv-series while a better thought-through script could also have resulted in another “Memento“. This third part does not really invite to watch the previous two films to see if they are any better, but like I said: all the ingredients to make a good story are present. Grossman failed to make something good of it and the filming itself is way too popular too. I guess the intended audience was that of films like “Final Destination”, not that of “Memento”. There are some bloody scenes and a quite over-the-top sex-scene, but I suppose that all still aims for the large audience that got used to “Hostel”-massacres.

I expected another British crime action comedy, but “The Crew” does not have the popular videoclip style of similar films. “The Crew” portrays the organised crime scene in Liverpool. The group mostly shown does not do drugs, but they rob trucks. They have a problem with the upcoming drugs/junkies groups and the more serious crime of Servians and Irishmen. Ged (the leader of one of the groups) wants to make his final hit and retreat, but of course things do not go as planned. “The Crew” is not as funny as the films of Guy Ritchie for example and certainly not as hip, but it is a descent film showing the dangers of earning money the criminal way. It has some (too) violent outbursts, but for the larger part “The Crew” is just a film with a descent story.

“Let The Right One In” is presented as a Swedish horror. In fact it is a drama with a horror-theme. The outcast Oskar meets his mysterious neighbour-girl Eli, also an outcast, but for different reasons. The two first become friends, then fall in love and slowly Oskar starts to realise what Eli is. Towards the end, there are some bloody scenes, but as a whole, this is a drama. Not bad either.

This Japanese fantasy thriller is based on a comic. The story is quite original, but the result a bit ‘teen power’. The story is quickly given away, so I will just refer to the English title “Death Note” and leave it with that. In between genres such as crime-investigating police, a little bit of thriller and fantasy, “Desu Nôto” comes out just average. It is not bad, but certainly not great either.