muaddib-20 Reviews

Mr. Nobody (2009)

Much ado about nothing

[2/10 · 18 July 2010]

This is a movie that tries to be too many things: science-fiction, avant-garde, raised awareness, alternate histories etc.

It does not manage: the final result, as served to the hapless viewer, is a gray goo of too many strands, very difficult to follow. The director set out to do many things. Perhaps he actually managed, but the result, neither original nor impressive, is impossible to watch.

Also, 2 hrs 35 min may be justified for Angelopoulos, who invariably has a story to tell and will do so at his pace, or perhaps for Röhmer, who will show you the waves hitting the surf line for five minutes, after some intense moment.

This guy is nowhere near Angelopoulos or Röhmer.

A number of Belgians who have reviewed it very positively may have been influenced by the country of birth of the director (Belgium, you guessed...).

9 (I) (2009)

Steampunk Terminator

[9/10 · 19 June 2010]

It is difficult to convey why this is a movie that you need to watch without revealing part of the plot. Let me say first why you need to see this movie:

• because it is about hope and humanity;

• because it is about solidarity;

• because it is about the dangers of war and lethal weapons.

Now about the atmosphere: it is a post-apocalyptic world, which is the future of a past different from ours, with a fight between man and machine.

Probably little children may be frightened, but otherwise do take your children, above 7-8, to watch it.

You and they will be charmed by this movie. Recommended.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

A steampunk farcical desecration

[2/10 · 17 May 2010]

For all those who actually have a clue about Sherlock Holmes, this desecration proves that Hollywoood is a dangerous bio-toxin: it kills what it touches. How could they possibly cast an American who doesn't even feel remotely English as Sherlock Holmes (anybody can spell Jeremy Brett?)or Jude Law for the slow-witted Dr Watson? The inane plot, probably whizzed up in a night of Californian fake "champagne" and some controlled substances, has nothing whatsoever to do with any Conan Doyle story, and is seated in a heavily steampunked London, which is a past of not our future, with a number of anachronistic details (radio is mentioned, guns look Far West improved by Luger Corp., pocket watches are of at least 50 years later build, etc). It also exhibits a number of holes the size of a whale. You will be delighted to learn that the finishing touch is to mix in a vaguely Masonic evil secret society à la Angels and Demons. Steer absolutely clear, put sandbags and barbed wire on your DVD player and refuse to get involved with this reinvented chemically pure drivel.

Army of Crime (2009)

Not up to his exacting standards

[3/10 · 11 April 2010]

How sad to see Mr Guédiguian pandering to the current craze for movies telling the sorry story of Jews in France under the Nazi occupation. Here Mr Guédiguian, who is an outstanding director having produced wonderful movies, like "Marius and Jeannette", tries to join Jews and partisans, including an iconic Armenian (like himself) character, for whom you cannot help feeling a lot of sympathy. However, there are so many strands in this movie that you never get solidly gripped by one of the many, and the plot disintegrates into a cascade of little streams. Also, the stereotypes of cardboard characters (the Paris ghetto Jewish tailor, the gallant Nazi soldier, the refugee Jewish woman and many others) contribute to make this movie essentially a flesh and blood graphic novel, re-visiting old clichés. There is nothing new here and good actors (like Virginie Ledoyen) do not manage to rescue a completely hopeless script. Not a movie I would recommend.

Angels & Demons (2009)

A movie for Forrest Gumps

[2/10 · 3 January 2010]

This movie uses trade recipes widely applied: lots of "research" (without any understanding), standard US plot devices ("just in time", "role reversal", etc.) and actors who are actually not bad. Why is it then than one thinks to have wasted one's time by watching it? It probably owes it to its utter incapacity to suspend your disbelief. Even in Disney movies you are capable of believing what is being related. Here you don't. Brown should write sitcoms, he simply is unable to write captivating and credible scripts. This movie may have a marginal usefulness, though. If you liked it, chances are your IQ is below 70...

Avatar (2009)

A very moving and powerful love story

[9/10 · 25 December 2009]

Cameron is an innovative director and he surely has lots of talent for, inter alia, creative CGI uses.

However, not being American, I fail to be particularly impressed by the dazzling CGI that this movie contains. Inventing a brand new world is something any decent science fiction writer does, with words, not CGI.

I am much more impressed by a very powerful love story, where love transcends everything: race, space, time, physical limitations, etc.

Although set in a bit too gung-ho environment, this love story is the core strand you should follow, and it will move you, as it moved me. A very powerful and unforgettable love story.

Henry Poole Is Here (2008)

A discussion about why it is worth to live in the present

[9/10 · 24 August 2009]

All right, so I freely admit being that horrid creature, a European socialist, and actually even a long standing militant atheist. Whilst enjoying my free health benefits, never to be achieved in the USA, thanks to the health insurance lobbies and to many Republicans and some corrupt Democrat, I found this movie very good and not a religious propaganda one. The Devil's Advocate, now, trying to affirm the Devil as a real entity (and in the US, he is of course incarnate into a lawyer) that was probably paid for truly by Vatican funds, but this, no... This is a movie about living in the present (if anything this is Zen, not at all Catholic, the basic tenet of Catholics being: suffer now, get a prize later..), about how even misguided people may have positive feelings, how death in a predominantly Protestant culture like the contemporary USA is something people are unable to deal with, how the "good neighbourhood" tradition and customs may occasionally appear empty of meaning. It may make you think and perhaps cry (I did both). Well done!

The Secret of the Grain (2007)

Unable to cross cultural barriers: not a prize movie

[5/10 · 10 April 2009]

I am afraid this is a movie talking to a very specific audience: Arab immigrants in France. Much as Woody Allen movies may only be fully understood by New York Jews, also because of cultural references unintelligible to anybody else, even New Yorkers, so this movie contains few universal values, as it tells a sad story in a not particularly talented way. Camera usage is "modern", though not so much to make you feel seasick, characters are fairly cardboard ones, with very few being anything more. And I must admit I dislike the ending, for reasons that will be obvious once you watch it. An unnecessary long, sad, tired story of unhappy people in an unhappy country (which France is not, to French and most Western Europeans, by the way). Some commentator here compared it to neorealism. Linking this to neorealist movies is unwarranted: there is very little depth here. All is very superficial, skin deep, and does not last long. A movie which is unlikely to make you think, unfortunately.

Life Is a Miracle (2004)

Various layers of reality - always very well done

[9/10 · 12 May 2008]

For those who have already seen other Kusturica movies, this one will clearly be seen as a further step in the evolution of a great director. Some of his trademark ingredients are there: the basic carnal pleasures of life, the tragicomic Balkan-style eating/drinking/making love, his deep dislike for war and for any type of inter-ethnic strife, his heartfelt contempt for international organisations which did not prevent the massacres in former Yugoslavia, his entirely non-PC men and women characters, his optimism. These are recurring layers of his Balkan moussaka, but perhaps more are being added, as his optimism appears now turning into a nearly messianic faith that eventually, by helping each other, things will be as good as they can (though not impossibly so, as in Hollywood...).

It is not something one might rationally believe, but it is enchanting nonetheless.

Ultimately this is a movie about human hope, unpolluted by religious nonsense. There lays its real value.

Frozen Land (2005)

Not particularly brilliant

[3/10 · 29 December 2007]

Let's see. This movie is many things to different people. To Finns, as shown by the comments, it can be OK or dreadful or boring. To other folks, it can be something different. First off: if you do not speak Finnish (I do), you will understand half of what is going on, as subtitles are dreadful and even the title is translated incorrectly ("Paha maa" would probably be idiomatically translated as Badlands in UK English).

Why did I not like it? Because it is a Tarantino-style movie: it simply takes a very harsh reality and throws it back at you, as brutally as possible. I, however, am not American, and thus I am not particularly fond of this proceeding, because all it does is show that the director has really nothing new to say. Technical prowess (camera work is brilliant), script (not that unoriginal) do not rescue this movie from the bottom where it belongs. Should you wish to see a Finnish movie, then go for any of the Kaurismäki brothers' movie, who match talent and directorial skill, with very good actresses and actors.

This director ought to review his intention and priorities: none was intelligible, and thus this film failed. By not watching it you won't miss much.

Nitro (2007)

Interesting, no more (sans plus)

[5/10 · 27 December 2007]

Why do I award five stars to this film? Because of what it could have been, yet wasn't. The interesting bits in my opinion, and only somebody who understands Québec French (I do) can say that, are the (I think) peeks at Montréal subcultures the director takes: ordinary building workers, young Québec working class speed freaks, and gangsters (of a type, including what is supposed to be yet another stereotype of Italian mafioso, neither very real, nor very credible). The plot is of course irrelevant, but so it is for zillions of other directors, that hardly matters. The film fails because it is a patchworks of unrelated tiles. There just is no line joining all these fragments, and the lead actor, not bad in itself, does not manage to be the joining factor. This movie therefore splinters into many shards, rather imaginative shards, but broken nonetheless. Director worth watching, as he might learn, methinks.

The Unknown Woman (2006)

Not something to be proud of...

[2/10 · 1 December 2007]

Much as Nuovo Cinema Paradiso was about hope, in an environment that Tornatore knows very well (Sicily), this movie is about bitterness and the absolute lack of hope.

Tornatore shows his deep contempt for the ultra-Catholic, yet totally inhuman, NE of Italy. Whether this contributes to make this movie a masterpiece is rather questionable, however.

Characters are paper-thin, lots of unnecessary brutality is displayed, to cater to some type of thrill-thirsty audience, I presume, as it would otherwise be entirely unnecessary,

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso was a brilliant masterpiece. This one ain't.

Blood and Chocolate (2007)

Not at all as bad as some would have it

[7/10 · 18 July 2007]

So I didn't read the book. All right. The movie, irrespective of how well it respected the book (I do not know) is not bad at all. Let me explain why: the casting seems all right, characters are three-dimensional, not cardboard, there is no gore/spatter/slash just for the heck of it and some werewolves have a conscience and feelings, believe it or not. Because of all this, this movie has impressed me, especially if compared to the pathetic nonsense Hollywood churns out as "horror". This is not a horror movie, it is about how people define themselves with respect to their family and love. The werewolf meme is just a gimmick. And no, I do not care to know whether the book is closely adhered to or not. The movie was more than decent. This is enough for me.

PS As a bonus, when they have somebody using Romanian, instead of the usual newyoirker extra trying to pronounce things he/she has never spoken, here in Bucharest/Bucuresti they speak real Romanian (I should know, I speak Romanian).

CQ (2001)

Very pretentious nonsense

[2/10 · 12 July 2007]

This is a movie about making a movie. Such movies may be entertaining, but they need some substance, to do so. It did not happen here, I am afraid. Mr Coppola did not inherit his father's skills, unfortunately (neither did his sister, who can however make movies which one might watch).

I do wonder how this movie came to get such rave reviews.

Let's see: the lead male actor, supposedly a director, is as expressive as a frozen squid and his voice has the same pitch whatever he says, the lead female actress has an expression on her face that never changes, the plot is totally segmented in bits with perhaps one single connecting element, the movie within the movie idea must be more stale than paleolithic rocks... Would that be enough?

I regretted every single moment I watched this movie. A walk with the dog is far superior entertainment to this unbelievably lame movie. It's as if a François Truffaut plot were directed by Dick Cheney...

Brazil, some other classic SF movies? You must be really joking...

Er di (2003)

China in transition: a country being torn apart

[9/10 · 3 February 2007]

Outstanding movie, probably a bit slow for Western eyes, as customary with Asian movies, though poignant. Rather than the usual imperial sword master who falls in love with a princess only to meet a tragic, but very scenic, death on a background of traditional music, this film is about people, not cardboard characters. The longing of a father for his son he is been banned from seeing, the youth in a Chinese coastal town hoping to make it to America, family relations in mainland China. It begins to give us an understanding of why many Chinese will risk everything, and often pay with their life, in order to make it to a capitalist country (preferably America).Not necessarily merry, but it did look real.

I recommend it to all interested in understanding this huge country and culture.

Borat (2006)

Unspeakable drivel - quite surprising!

[1/10 · 15 January 2007]

I am appalled by reputable friends who tell me this movie was great... Let's see, even if I risk repeating something already said in this thread:

1. this type of humour seems very likely to appeal only to people with an IQ possibly lower than 60;

2. the purported mocking of the Americans is just not there, or else is again of such a crude fashion that I couldn't care less;

3. I also couldn't care less about the lead actor being Jewish: he is not funny and he is not the first (I can't stand Woody Allen either, as his movies, far from talking about universal values, are essentially only intelligible to Manhattan Jews, because of his culture-related jokes and references);

4. being cruel about people who have a hard life, like the Kazakhs right now, is not funny at all.

In sum, I detested every moment of it (actually of the first 10 mins; I could not bear more).

By the way, I am neither Jew, nor Arab, nor neo-Nazi and have not a political agenda. I believe that if you have some common sense you are entitled to detest this low-level nonsense.

Am going to vote it 1, hoping to turn the tsunami around...