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Das Boot (1981)
Fake but wonderful
Small tip: visit the Bavaria Film Studios in Munich. You can see there the real U-boat used in the movie and walk inside. Now, about the film let me get something straight: the Germans during WW2 were cruel, savage, with an raw unforgivingness character, mean, heartless and vengeful. I just watched a 5 hour long movie about a bunch of spiritual, loving, crying and compassionate Germans who wanted to save burning Englishmen from drowning. Now, I know there are many movies out there about how mean the Germans were and they felt the need to equal the balance but there are some historical facts that will contradict the movie: during WW2, there was something called "doctrine" and "brain washing" - something that the Germans of the 40's were very familiar with. Many of them really believed Hitler was doing the right and moral things and that they were purebred. Secondly, Germans were never captivated or even recognized the intelligence of the adversary due to their huge pride and ego (remember in the movie when the captain was amazed by the intelligence of the British); and third - it's totally science fiction to put the issue of saving your enemy from death in a TOTAL WAR. Besides the above "minor" issues, I loved the movie, the acting, and even if it was the longest film I ever watched (director's cut lasted 5 hours) I never got bored by this wonderful movie made before I was even born. The end, on the other hand, suggested the faith of the German war.
Northern Exposure (1990)
Fantastic journey with an awful ending
For a 90's TV show you can't get more humor, drama, romance and mystery than in Northern Exposure. Pittoresque characters like Holling intertwine with street philosophers (Chris) and arrogant entrepreneurs as Maurice. The "cat and mice like" romance is taken care by Joel and Maggie and local culture is also represented by Marylin. But my favorite character is by far Adam, the most sarcastic and ironic nutcase in TV history. I could call this show 40% fantasy. It has the scenery and script of a fairy tail sometimes with all the day- dreaming and cinematographic metaphors embedded in it. You get from the beginning that the writers don't want a stereotypic and cliché ending but "oh my god" we are in for a surprise. And not a fun one. Joel not ending up with Maggie is the biggest disappointment. The second one is the fantasy ending of Joel's character. A too big of a metaphor for this kind of show. One thing I liked: the postcard received by Maggie with the message: "New York is a state of mind". That reveal all the answers to our questions: "Did Joel really returned to NY or his is still in deep wild landscape of Alaska?". That postcard was the "great finale", the song of the swan for this show, the epic ending of a fantastic character that finally discovered that leaving NY for Alaska was a spiritual journey that will mature and educate his soul. After that episode "The Quest", you can say goodbye to NE. If before we still hoped a future for Joel and Maggie, now everything is shattered into pieces and all the life of the show is diminished, the humor drops, the characters seam out of balance, the drama ceases to exist and joining Maggie with Chris is absolutely pathetic: the two don't click, Chris's energy and charm are killed; Maggie is to peaceful and it does not suit her. From my point of view the ending was sad. On the other hand, the song in the end was terrific - Iris Dement, Our town.
Pompeii (2014)
What a shame!
The story of Pompeii would have deserve a much better movie that this pile of goofs. I have never seen a longer list of goofs and mistakes. Many of then very obvious... from falling fire rocks to huge tsunami waves. But to be honest, without this absurd and bizarre exaggerations there would not be any special effects so no movie. "The crow" was a big disappointment, like the rest of the cure. It's a shame. They should never been let to make this movie so poor. Pompeii is my favorite historical event and then I first saw the title on IMDb I was eager to see the film. I had big expectations but Hollywood just wasted more cash on behalf of history.
Friends with Better Lives (2014)
So far, so good!
Not too much to say about it but it was damn funny. This is NOT HIMYM, Friends or Seinfeld. It's all in one and it's really funny. I laughed all the time during the first episode. I hope they go on and keep up the pace. Besides Friends, Seinfeld or any other classic like Cheers, I haven't seen a great sitcom from start to finish, from season 1 to season 9-10-11. HIMYM broke down at season 4, The Big Bang theory at season 3, Go On is canceled, The crazy ones is not even funny enough, and the examples just go on. Hope this is it. I has funny characters and great potential. Try not to compare it with anything else and take it as it is.
Her (2013)
The most ridiculous movie of the decade.
Started OK with all the super advanced tech and stuff, but goes from bad to worst.
Watching this film through the eyes of an IT guy it's pure pathetic and unrealistic, even painful. The ridicule comes to an extreme level when the computer has an orgasm. And that's very early in the movie, being forced to watch more than an hour of useless and boring blabber, extremely pathetic and painfully bad Sci-Fi.
The hoarse voice of Scarlett is totally inappropriate for her part. Let's be honest, the major part of her "talent" stays in her looks not voice or charm. Spike Jonze should have stayed with Samantha Morton.
Dialogs are naive and boring. The computer takes it's job too seriously, it's too emphatic, too expressive, to jealous, too everything. For a "thing" that's just learning how too "feel" it takes expression and language to the limit. It's too secure of itself, not at all shy or confused. The whole idea of falling in love with a immersive intelligence computer that it's grabbing all the information, character and personality from your own files and emails is plain stupid. It's like falling in love with yourself.
The only real drama in this piece of... movie is the triality of the main character that has to share a part of his feelings for the computer to his friend Amy (Amy Adams) and his ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara).
Another absurd part was the surrogate scene when Isabella (Portia Doubleday) get's extremely emotionally involved in the relationship between Samantha and Theodore.
The final of this film is as predictable as "Titanic".
In the end of the movie I remained with one question. A real stupid, unnecessary and blunt question: which one will you date, Windows. iOS or Linux?
The Encounter (2010)
Christian propaganda and... nothing else.
I rated this movie an honest 4. The only reason it has such a high score rate is because 90% of the Earth's population believe in God and more than 2 billion in Jesus. But if you're a atheist or agnostic you should skip this one because it's nothing more than a cinematographic summarization of the Bible, including the naive, child-appropriate story telling, fight between God and the devil and so one. Bad acting, bad directing, scripting, effects and everything related to cinematographic art is bad. The way the main character talks will remind you of a very passionate priest or pastor or Jehovah's Witnesses on a Sunday morning. The only thing I liked was the initial idea: a horror-like movie where you gather a bunch of people in a diner on a bad weather and things happen... but despite a classic film where people die in terrible pain and horror, this time only good and wonderful things take place. But besides that, there is no action, no story line, the characters are weak and flat, the ideas and philosophy are STRICTLY religious and the dialog disputes "don't stay in court". As an agnostic, I always like a good religious dispute but I was deeply disappointed this time. If you have one chance to face God what questions will you ask him? I have a bunch of them prepared and ready but non were heard in this film, nothing to upset the All Mighty, nothing to make the watcher think more than she/he should. If the biblical dialogs were more elevated and smart it would have made a good religious documentary. If you would take the whole religion idea out, it could have been a good movie.
Jeux d'enfants (2003)
Cap!
Most of us, me included, judge a movie after its ending. If the film is great is has to have a great ending, if it sucked the ending sucked. This one has a wonderful ending not just because it's tragic and unpredictable, but mostly because it's interpretable, relative, the watcher has the liberty to choose his own ending, the one who likes best. I guess that's the perfect movie, the one where you can make your own ending. Especially when all the choices given by the writers are perfect. I think we can better understand the real essence of the characters if we start watching the film from the end to the beginning, if we realize the intense feelings they have for each other, the reasons they do what they do, the whole idea of the game they play even in the final moment. It really makes you wonder: have I really experienced love, true, real, extreme, supreme love? Or am I capable to? There are no better words to describe it then the memorable ecstatic scene where Julien is chased by the cops: "Pure, raw, explosive pleasure! Better than drugs, better than smack! Better than a dope-coke-crack-fix shoot-sniff! A ganja-marijuana-blotter acid-ecstasy! Better than sex, head, sixty-nine, orgies, masturbation... Better than banana milk-shakes! Better than the George Lucas box-set, the Muppets and 2001! Better than Emma Peel, Marilyn Monroe, and Cindy Crawford's beauty spot! Better than B-side of Abbey Road! Better than Jimmy Hendrix, the first man on the moon! Better than the Space mountain, Santa Claus, Bill Gates' fortune, the Dalai Lama, Lazarus raised from the dead! Schwarzenegger's tester-one shots, Pam Anderson's lips! Woodstock, rave parties, Sade, Rimbaud, Morrison and Castaneda! Better than freedom, better than life!
Cloud Atlas (2012)
The world is already over!
First of all try no to walk out of the theater after the first half an hour after the movies starts. If you'll give it a chance you will walk out of the cinema after 3 hours with a big "WOW" on your face. It's an amazing movies if you try to understand it. It's the type of film you can watch it over and over again (or at least twice - it's kinda time consuming).
Cloud Atlas is a series of interconnected stories from past, present and future revealing the nature of human kind, the mistakes and good choices, the cowardliness and heroism, the freight and courage, the bad and the good - in one word - the duality that lies in all of us. The characters in every story are also connected - a character playing in one story has another part in the next, but it's contoured and shaped in a way that reveals the human duality on one side, and the true and singular nature of the human soul on the other. You need to wide-open your mind for this movies as it unconventionally elaborates motifs like reincarnation or the collapse of humanity (by returning to cannibalism for example).
The picture begins and ends on the same set, in the same period of time - a very far feature where the last humans tries to get by on the single part of the earth left un-demolished. This set up is the main point where everything ends, where the grandfather tells the story of world to his grandchildren.
The title of the movies represents "The Cloud Atlas Sextet" written by Robert Frobisher, a becoming music composser. The Sextet will remain the main motif of the movie and will show up in the present as the best music ever written uniting generations of hundred of years and representing the everlasting immortality of the human spirit.
We can see how the future and the past are united and no matter the year we are in we can discover the same social perturbation like slavery and revolutions, fighting for you freedom or fighting for love. The evil, as love, in the human soul are eternal and a-temporary.
We can see a few individuals in this movie but so many characters (stay for the credits at the end). Every reincarnation has it's meaning if you watch really closely. Let's take the characters of Tom Hanks for example (the most prolific personage in the movie). We can see how he turns from a evil medicine man using his medical eduction not to heal people but to kill them, to a man of science who will risk his life to make a difference in the world for greater good, to a hero that fights the Devil and succeeded in defeating It even with some many victims on the long side.
In conclusion the movies tries to make us realize that even if it's hard to change the past and make a better future, it's not impossible. As Adam Ewing would answer to his father-in-law's remark: - You are just a drop in the ocean! - What is an ocean but a multitude a drops?