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ethanoel
note that i only rate about 15-20% of the films i see annually [and those from January of 2014 onward] so the list serves as an indication of my taste and interest. in my rating scale 1 equals 0 - NB that those films WITH EXCESSIVE AND REVOLTING VIOLENCE get the lowest rating automatically. we already live in the hell on earth so cinema does not have to remind us about deplorable human condition and welter in it. number ones are for psychopaths only.
generally the films below 6 are simply lousy and (at least for me)waste of time.
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An error has ocurred. Please try againbut as you all can see 70 years after ww2 humankind has learned nothing from history: the eternal absurdity continues in the middle east africa jemen south sudan ukraine etc. as long as there are two erect dicks left on this planet they will fight each other. all evil under the sun generates from the groin as famous finnish author mika waltari so wisely put it...
NB films made in 193X-1945 are mostly blatant propaganda pieces for the militaristic goverment; the years 1945-1952 were the occupation years so the films were apologetic to appease and please the americans.
Reviews
Last Men in Aleppo (2017)
Eyewitnessing one hell on earth
90 people died in April 2017 when sarin gas projectiles were fired into Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the Idlib province of north-western Syria. of course Russia again used its veto to end an investigation of Syria chemical attacks. more than 1100 children are now suffering from acute malnutrition in the - since 2013 - besieged rebel-held eastern Ghouta where up to 400,000 people are believed to live in one of the last remaining opposition strongholds in Syria. their fate will be grimmer than those in Aleppo where Assad and Putin managed to slaughter thousands.
cholera is spreading incredibly fast in Yemen, turning an already dire situation for children into an enormous disaster in the war that is mostly forgotten in the international media. and in Myanmar at the very moment (October 2017) about 600,000 Rohingyas have fled their homes for safety in Bangladesh after a genocide carried out by Myanmar military. survivors have reported summary executions, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages. land mines now line the road out of Myanmar causing even more deaths...
the list of the ongoing hells in our world is endless. Aleppo is not over - not even in Aleppo itself where there are still countless bodies rotting in the ruins and many rescue workers and other inhabitants now in Assad's hellholes of prisons where they are daily tortured and then executed.
the document in itself is as shocking and repulsive as you might expect but then it is shocking and repulsive at least for a normal human being to see dead babies and children covered in dust being dug up from devastated buildings and crumbled concrete. the document shot in hand-held camera is quite similar to "ambulance/Gaza" by Mohamed Jabaly (2016) which also focused on the desperate work of the rescue crew during the Israelian massacre of July 2014 in Gaza. both are utterly important eyewitness reports and both are sadly recommended.
Mot (2013)
conscience makes cowards of us all but it is also unforgiving
the brief summary of the plot indicates a sad and serious story - watching authenticates the initial anticipation. i should stress the fact that this is not a brainless popcorn movie for light consumption after a hard days work. three high school friends Hyun- Myung, Sung-Phil and Doo-Yong confront profound moral dilemmas when the unfortunate fourth of the close male circle Gun-woo causes the accidental death of a girl who is Sung-Phil's little sister Kyung- mi. Gun-Woo and Kyung-mi also had a secret intimate relationship revealed only after the accident. to complicate things a bit more, Hyun-Myung has a crush on the deceased girl, too. so strong emotions of jealousy sorrow and revenge lead eventually up to a tragic conclusion when Gun-woo who is guilty for the accident drowns in front of his three friends who don't lift a finger to help him - each for reasons already mentioned (jealousy; grief and revenge and in Doo-Yong's case, merely cowardice) and each for reasons that drive the motivations of those three forward in keeping the shocking incident (Gun-woo's death) a terrible secret.
four years later Hyun-Myung returns home from the army but the past is still hauntingly present and the rest of the film depicts the devastating effects of the cruel episode on their lives. the burden of guilt becomes unbearable and the long suppressed feelings break finally in a distressing way at the end.
most of the annual south Korean film production is trivial romantic (teen) dramas, thrillers (though expertly made), historical epics and other safe commercial stuff, easy to watch and easy to forget. then there are occasionally few odd gems each year even in south Korea that offer alternative choices for those of us who want - sometimes - our movies to be also melancholic, poignant and serious reflecting human condition. the effort to find and watch those kind of films is however worthwhile. Ho Bin Seo has made a good film which i can recommend for a grown-up audience.
Tretya meshchanskaya (1927)
an exhilarating erotic comedy still astonishes a modern viewer
recently i have watched many silent films from the 1920s and early 1930s. it has been somewhat an embarrassing but at the same time also a thrilling discovery or perhaps almost a revelation to realize how there are dozens of hidden gems. it is a sad fact that few people are interested and bother enough to watch silent films these days on their full HD or 4K TVs - the silent classics are of course oddities for the vast majority of the dull and therefore quite rare presentations on the commercial television channels or in film festivals anyway.
but you should keep them in mind when searching for new experiences if you want to be taken seriously as a film buff. take this abram room's "bed and sofa" (Третья мещанская) from 1927 for instance. what an amazing discovery for anyone who thinks a silent film is an American slapstick comedy or in this case if it is particularly a soviet silent film it ought be some eisenstein pudovkin or dovzhenko or other political propagandist vehicle. well, this is not: it is an erotic marriage comedy and a sort of a comedy that succeeds - still - to astonish the audience after 90 years of its first appearance.
there are many appropriate though inexhaustible plot keywords to describe the story: open marriage/ polyamory/ sexual liberation/ swinging twenties in the NEP soviet Russia/ womens liberation/ latent homosexuality etc. from these keywords alone you may figure out that in 1927 it was somehow both a reflection of its freewheeling times and sexual morals and also in the broader historical and sociological perspective lightyears ahead of its time. Bolshevist attitude and soviet state policy towards sex and marriage was quite liberal or avantgardist throughout the twenties partly because of the collapse of traditional society (though only in the cities!) and partly because marriage was seen as an irrelevant and old-fashioned remnant of bourgeois social order (as religion) but the mood was already gradually changing by the late twenties; if this film would have been made ten years later the director could have ended up in serious trouble.
i may well imagine that NKVD would probably have visited room at 4 o'clock in the morning (the usual visiting hour of Stalin's own wolves) and the immediate shot in the neck or at least a long-term visit to the gulag with outdoor forced labor in vorkuta would have resulted after a short interrogation and mock trial. but back in 1927 Stalin was not yet in the absolute power and the governmental supervision of films in the country was not that strict. however, as a reflection of the changing times, room's film already underwent alongside with many other films of the era severe criticism about the lack of its political awareness.
by the way the accidental and innocent kiss between the male leading characters in this love triangle still remains of the rare "homoerotic" kisses in all soviet/Russian cinema. i am not sure if it is even the only one!? at least in putin's Russia that kind of audacity would be totally impossible. as you know homosexuality was virtually "nonexistent" in the soviet union so there was no reason to portray it in the films, either.
Zhit (2010)
nothing really new or outstanding in this Russian thriller
which is a decent debut for young yuri bykov. he has made a few films after this and all the films by bykov are easily available for all those who understand Russian without subtitles.
i expected an intense thriller after having read the critics and other reviews but eventually i got a little disappointed. everything is of course there that makes the movie to work within generic conventions: a breathtaking chase, gradual emotional bonding of two totally different men, existential anxiety and fear of death (surprise!), gun fights and shootings where an innocent bystander gets killed and the climax where the other protagonist must make an unbearable moral decision. the decision to the dilemma is the only real twist in the plot - otherwise there are no big unpredictable surprises on the way.
so all the necessary and essential elements are there but still i could not help feeling a bit bored watching zhit (literally live!) (the running time is about 70 mins). perhaps i am too old, perhaps i demand more even for this kind of simple genre. that the film is Russian is not so big a bonus that makes it absorbing or mesmerizing if it is a text- book script.
it is not completely zhit if you change z for s. to sum up: it is no extraordinary breakthrough in Russian cinema, instead there is much old, little new, much borrowed and a bit of blue (especially if you love dogs).
by the way, what is this "steve kilbey" poster doing here??? wake up people!
John Wick (2014)
totally boring and utterly ridiculous movie
though i usually enjoy more movies where there is a delicate balance between substance and style - the film has an intelligent story and characterization that produces deep emotions, too - i also find great and perhaps a little guilty pleasure watching action films once in a while but this is one of the films in its genre in which i simply do not find anything enjoyable or pleasurable at all. it is totally boring and utterly ridiculous watching experience and i only wonder why on earth it was ever even made in the first place? there is NOTHING original. everything has been seen hundreds of times in hundreds of other movies...
the characters are silly the story is totally predictable almost in every turn and there is absolutely no humor which may be the worst thing of all: all the people concerned producing this piece of stupid crap take themselves so damn too seriously and that is the most apparent source of yawn breaking boredom most viewers must feel at it. it is just another stupid piece of dull action cinema.
keanu reeves who is still a sight for most female and many male sore eyes even in his fifties cannot save it (i think quite few women would have the overwhelming interest to watch the film despite its handsome protagonist). reeves as a retired professional hit man is as irritating cardboard character as anything else in the film. for most male viewers it is still enough if you slaughter a hundred guys around you with a relevant weapons arsenal and sprinkle blood on the walls in endless killing euphoria while on your vengeance tour de force but that kind of treatment when consistent all the way from the beginning to the end rarely makes a very good action movie. there must be something more.
i admit that south koreans who are the real masters of the action genre nowadays have sometimes managed to do a fair movie from the scratch but this film crew has not been able to do so.
total waste of time.
Kodiyettam (1978)
a sweet-tempered idler gets real - amusing drama comedy!
i always enjoy film where protagonist develops somehow during the film and begins to show some symptoms of personal growth or ethical reorientation. adoor gopalakrishnan's film from 1977 is such a delightful film. the main character is a lazy good-for-nothing already in his thirties and some kind of a harmless village idiot though he is not a dope. sankarankutty is only lazy and inefficient fellow because he has apparently been spoilt by the over-nurturing women around him all his life (like many other Indian men i guess?). his sister who visits him frequently takes care of his material needs because sankarankutty just loafs around his time. sankarankutty likes to play with village kids but he also has a soft spot for a widow next door although nothing comes out of it. however social norms force him eventually to marry a girl who soon grows tired of the husbands idle loitering and the disappointed wife returns back to her mother. the sad state of affairs is perhaps not permanent: the film appears to have a happier ending when sankarankutty finally gets real and grows up. he even manages to have a job thus being able to take responsibility of his life - and of his family as well because there is now a baby he has to take care of, too. the reasons for this gradual maturation to adulthood are not explicitly articulated but there are few hints for the interpretation. the observant viewer will quite easily find them.
on basic level kodiyettam is a drama comedy about a jovial and good-natured man who is lost in the modern world. on more allegorical level you can interpret it as description of Indian civilisation process from the British colonialist rule to independence. on ethical and ideological level you can see it as personal evolution from natural state of a child with no worries towards more mature and more serious adult way of living which always means transition into more established (middle-class) cultural and social order. its charm is that it offers many interpretations but does not feed you anything by force. you can even watch it without any deeper interpretations (like most viewers usually do).
the black and white cinematography is fine and the movie has many intelligent visual compositions to be spotted though you may sometimes feel a little awkward when the linearity of the story vaguely vanishes somewhere and then it continues from a different point but that does not happen too often to be really disturbing. i could almost see that the film has some kind of "satyajit ray" touch in its storytelling though essentially lacking ray's psychological deepness of the characters or his poetic visual aesthetics.
if you have a chance to watch this - or any other of gopalakrishnan's film, especially "rat-trap" (1982) or nizhalkkuthu (2002) - use it. i do not think you regret it. and indians: you should appreciate more your old movies. i have no doubt there are even more hidden gems yet to be discovered in India which are also internationally interesting and reward the audience with their appealing charm.
Jiao you (2013)
for the dedicated fan of tsai ming-liang only
tsai ming liang is a director or should you even say an auteur who is really a strange bird in Chinese or in world cinema. this movie continues his same oddball line of work. it is perfectly suited for a highbrow art-house film lover who knows how to appreciate the overly and painfully long scenes completely incomprehensible storytelling and heavy symbolism all of which are mixed together to create an utterly boring movie that lasts more than two hours. the spectators gluteus maximus muscles are put to a tough test to get through the yawning experience...
director's previous works have been as peculiar or even more peculiar as this movie (to say the least - in "he liu" made in 1997 the father and son even end up in the same bed to have sex!) so i strongly recommend them only to a very elitist (western) viewer who wants to have recognition for his/her excellent taste (to get totally bored) and who still thinks postmodernism is a relevant mode to make movies.
it is indeed a real pity because i think the story could have had relevance to tell something important and revealing about taiwanese society but now all the potential substance to make a point is mostly wasted.
Hkhagoroloi Bohu Door (1995)
this is indeed not a bollywood movie!
it is more of a simple story of an old man and the river. and there is no groovy pop music or dancing scenes with beautiful people shaking their lean hips so it is very refreshing Indian film. i admit that it is not a great piece of world cinema but it is still worth watching if you have patience and you are used to watch films outside the Hollywood action or block busting or any other standard formula.
the old man earns his meager income rowing villagers across the river in his boat like his ancestors have done a century before him and at the same time he has to take care of his orphan grandson whose father (the old man's younger son) and mother have died in the flood a few years earlier. their life is indeed very simple, almost boring to the demanding western eye but they are totally at ease with it. the man has another older son living in the city (besides the deceased younger one) but this older son has completely forgotten his father until the son needs his father to visit the city to close a productive land deal for him. the old man and his grandson travel to the city to see their only relatives there. the elder son is a spineless creature under the power of his wife, the old mans daughter-in-law: a greedy manipulative unpleasant bitch who hates his father-in-law but tolerates him only to get that important signature in the land selling deal to earn them a lot of money. the children of the family have not even known they had a grandfather living in the country!
the director jahnu barua presents a really nasty picture of an urban westernized opportunist materialist money loving Indian middle class who has totally forgotten or is desperately trying to forget and erase its peasant roots and rural background. i think the picture thus represented in this movie may even be quite a correct one.
the old man returns home bitter and disappointed at his greedy indifferent son and the alienated family only to see that his and the little boys traditional way of living is now threatened by the construction of a bridge across the river. their life will never be the same anymore.
The Dynamiter (2011)
an excellent little indie film
i think mic from canada took almost all the words out of my mouth and my review but i must still highly recommend this movie, it is an excellent piece of independent film making. the main character, a 14-year-old boy, is very convincing and william patrick ruffin has real acting potential. he gives us a sensitive performance of a troubled emotionally lost young man. basically robbie is a good decent boy who tries to cope with a hard life and who tries to act as an adult and a parent to his kid brother though he is still himself a child who would like to play and enjoy his summer holiday if things would be otherwise. but he simply cannot do same things other teenagers do because his mother has gone somewhere leaving him and his little brother with their grandmother who is of little help to robbie. so the boys must take care of themselves. a no-good older brother complicates their life and robbie must do a difficult decision.
like mic says this is not a perfect film but i can still recommend it with all my heart. the film is just a little over hour long but it rewards the viewer. i honestly think so and thats why i stand behind my recommendation...
Kan shang qu hen mei (2006)
charming little rebel in a Chinese kindergarten
this is a film that you can easily watch with your little kids, because they can relate themselves to this little hero's rebellion against (totalitarian) adults and their unjust world. the protagonist in this case is a stubborn rascal but he has his own logic in behaving as he does, so take him seriously or otherwise... it is a charming little movie about children's life in post-revolutionary china, a small gem. and on general level it also is a perennial study of a child's inability to understand or accept all the strange things adults do or not do to keep their sometimes questionable authority. a nice addition to Asian kid movies which are usually more of a Japanese or a south korean field of quality cinema.