Category Archives: Book/DVD Reviews

Book/DVD reviews – mostly “how-to” books on filmmaking

Review: Tobruk

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tobruk reviewIt’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie coming from Eastern Europe with decent production values. And I’m not talking about the crap-o-rama coming from Nu Image.

Tobruk is a solid war movie. I’m not using the term drama here because it’s next to non-existent. Some reviewers have attributed it to lack of action scenes. Not so.

Tons of TNT have apparently been used to recreate the battle of Tobruk. Yet, I couldn’t care less if anyone from the section (about 10 men) dies or lives.

Part of the reason is we don’t get a lot of background on them, e.g. protagonist Liebermann wants to open a bookstore when the war ends…

This kind of shallow characterization is one reason why the movie seems to go for hours, when in fact, it’s just a bit over the bare minimum (at 100 minutes). Maybe if you’re writing a thesis on squad-level tactics, you could put the movie in your footnote.

I’m not going to ruin the “suspense” by describing the last scene but it felt anti-climatic and cliché.

To sum up, the production values are what sets this movie apart. When you look at some of the desert cinematography, you feel this could be The English Patient or Lawrence of Arabia. Unfortunately, the similarities end there.

Review: Personal Effects

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personal_effectsPersonal Effects starts with much confusion (e.g. who’s the narrator/protagonist) and ends with a simplistic happy end.

So is there a meaty middle part?

Here’s the plot: Ashton’s character has lost his twin sister in a violent crime and he’s having a tough time recovering from it.

Michelle’s character is similarly struck by her husband’s being shot to death.

Being a MILF (in the parlance of our times), requires her to be a mother (of a a deaf/mute teenager). Michelle’s son becomes the link between the two. This guy makes an unlikely Cupid and I couldn’t find anything likable about him.

In short, Michelle and Ashton fall in love… and the only twist is that the son (Cupid) ends up in jail.

I hope I’m not ruining the surprise factor (there is none), since both Michelle and Ashton are type-cast and regardless of the context (recovery from losing a loved one), the movie does play like an extra long version of MILF hunter.

Review: Killshot

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killshot mickey rourkeI saw Killshot for one reason only – Mickey Rourke. After his acclaimed performance in The Wrestler, he has made an impressive comeback. So has he the Midas touch too?

The short answer – NO. Long answer is NO because a good actor needs a lot more than just good acting to make a come back. He needs a good plot, a good director… the list goes on.

At least on surface, Killshot has a good plot. After all, it’s based on Elmore Leonard’s book by the same name.

Mickey plays a Toronto hitman who messes his last job and has little choice but to take an unlikely partner – Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – a petty thief and extortionist.

The two are seen by a couple going through divorce and in Mickey’s character’s world that means a death sentence. The couple is supposed to have their own problems but they are so cliche that one is forced to look for entertainment in Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance who chews the scenery both literally and metaphorically.

Review: Arn: The Knight Templar

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arn knight templarThe Knight Templar has such a descriptive title it’s really difficult to mistake the movie for something it is not.

Yet, I find it amazing that the forum at imdb is full of people whose expectations were not met. Some expected more battles, others expected more love scenes…

Part of the reason is that the movie is based on the books by Jan Guillou – the so called Crusader trilogy.

The movie tries to stay close to the book but with a meager budget of just over $30 million, it falls a lot shorter than say … Kingdom of Heaven. At the same time, it’s the highest budget for a Swedish movie, so the expectations are high.

In short, the plot follows a familiar arc. Arn is a nobleman’s son. He falls from a watchtower and his parents make a vow that if he survives, they’ll send him to do God’s work. When he does recover, he is sent to a monastery where he meets a monk who has returned from the Holy Land. He gets his martial training at the monastery (duh).

When he falls in love with a fair maiden (not sure if she was virgin though), he is excommunicated for impregnating her (true) and sleeping with her sister (false). On he goes to Jerusalem to join the Knights Templar.

While thus serving God, he meets Saladin (incredible stuff) and by getting to know the enemy, he is able to predict Saladin’s next attack. So he leads a crusader party and stages an ambush in a narrow pass. THE END.

If you’re into medieval fantasy, this isn’t a movie for you. Same advice goes for people with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), there’s a single battle scene at the end of the movie. So the core audience for the movie remain those who have read the Crusader trilogy.

Review: RocknRolla

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rocknrollaGuy Ritchie has finally divorced Madonna, so let’s see if the curse has been lifted.

A bit of a disclosure: I’m a big fan of Guy and I love Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.

I haven’t seen Cast Away and I don’t intend to. Finally, I didn’t understand Revolver no matter how many explanations were posted on this very site!

Back to the main attraction: RocknRolla delivers on the promise of London gangsters, and more London gangsters. Admittedly, they’re not as tough as Brick Top or Mickey but Guy has done a nice job of providing some variety.

The characters are interesting and likable too – especially Gerard Butler’s and Thandie Newton’s. In fact, a femme fatale is much welcome addition to the gangster movie. Some of the side characters are cliche – but I guess it’s to be expected since it’s Guy’s third movie covering the same ground.

The plot has taken a step back as well. It’s convoluted with a few side plots that act as leaking steam valves – the trains slows to a crawl and the audience starts looking around for any OTHER source of entertainment.

Overall, if you’re a Guy Ritchie fan, it’s a must see. However, expect that after seeing it ONCE, you’ll feel a powerful urge to revisit Lock, stock and Snatch. I saw Snatch 7 or 8 times when it came out. I expect to go into double digits now!

Review: Elegy

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Elegy is based on Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal. First off, I’m a big fan of Philip Roth and I also like Ben Kingsley and Penélope Cruz.

If you hate any of these three, you are better off going to another movie! Ben Kingsley carries the whole movie and you can find hardly a frame where he’s not in. Another word of warning, there’s a lot of skin the movie. Ben Kingsley looks OK for a sixty-year-old guy but there are also Penélope Cruz breasts.

Moving on to the movie itself… Ben Kingsley is an aging intellectual (professor, talk-show host, etc.) who is hitting on a different student each semester. He’s careful. He waits for the END of said semester and then holds a cocktail party. Obviously, his trick works flawlessly with years of practice.

With that kind of an attitude, it’s hardly surprising Ben’s characters is deeply cynical and doesn’t believe in LOVE (capitalized for added effect). So when Penélope Cruz enters his exquisitely-calibrated trap, he hardly expects to see her again – after the SEX, of course.

As luck (I mean Philip) would have it, Penélope Cruz comes back but Ben’s character fails to appreciate the change that has occurred.

Overall, the movie poses a lot more questions that it answers – especially about age, and change of old habits. I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie gets an Oscar nod.

Man vs Wild

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I must admit I’m a bit obsessive at times. This time it’s Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild show that’s aired on the Discovery channel.

Check out this bit from a survival episode in the Alps. He jumps into a frozen lake to demonstrate how to survive if you ever get into one.

Now, talking about indie moviemaking (and documentary-making), this is one talent you’ll need to develop – getting a cold shower every so often. Think about what it takes HIM to do a half-hour show.

Valkyrie move to 2008

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I just finished watching Das Boot – Director’s Cut (for the fifth time). It’s such a great movie and it got me thinking – what’s going on with Valkyrie?

Says Cinematical:

MGM seems to be trying to reverse the effects of the doomsaying that circulated about Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer’s Hitler-assassination-attempt thriller Valkyrie in the spring, culminating in the announcement that the movie was moving from December 2008 to President’s Day 2009. That was received as a surrender, a sure sign that the studio had no confidence in the film and was doing damage control by moving it out of harm’s way. Now, following some successful test screenings, MGM has reversed itself and is moving Valkyrie back into the heart of Oscar season: December 26, 2008.


Frankly, I never expected Valkyrie to get any Oscars, so I’m glad it’s being released this year.

Review: Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls

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I have just seen it and I must say I’m not impressed. The two previous movies (with Richard Chamberlain as Allan) were not perfect but at least they have stuck to the original books.

If you have any doubt that this is exploitation film, supposed to ride on the back of Indy 4 – just check out the trailer. Even the title letters at the end copy Indiana Jones.

Back to the movie. Shot on location in South Africa with (mostly) local actors, Sean Michael is Allan. The cast could be redeemed if only they had thrown in Megan Fox as an object of desire. female The sound mix doesn’t cut it – background noises often obscure speech because they are too loud.

The camera’s panning movement takes forever (the opening sequence and elsewhere). There are multiple repetitive shots, e.g. first guy riding, second guy riding after him, rinse and repeat 5 times.

The villain is ridiculous – and you know he’s the bad guy immediately because he’s showcasing a nasty grin and an ugly set of teeth. We’re 50 minutes into the movie before we see natives – and they remain on screen, singing and dancing, for at least 15.

Finally, at the end, when Allan finally finds the Temple of Skulls – guess what – it’s simply a cave with lighting that’s worse that most of tourist caves I’ve been too. A stalagmite and a skull next to it = Temple of the Skull.

Bad guy is there already – holding the girls as a hostage. Boom boom and the girl is reclaimed but the temple crumbles to pieces. Cue more native songs and dances.

THE END

Uwe Boll goes Postal

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Apparently, the much anticipated (not!) premiere of Postal, has made Uwe even more beligerent. An unfavorable review by Wired had him sent this email to the reviewer Chris Kohler (read the whole drama here)

chris
your review shows me only that you dont understand anything about movies and that you are a untalented wanna bee filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. you dont see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mum and fuck her …because she cooks for you now since 30 years ..so she deserves it.
people like you are the reason that independent movies have no chance anymore.
uwe boll
PS: POSTAL is R RATED . The MPAA understood the satire — you not — you dumb fuck

In a totally unrelated story, Uwe Boll has gone to Blizzard with an offer to purchase the movie rights for a World of Warcraft movie (source: WoW Insider).

Uwe himself quoted Blizzard’s response: “We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…. especially not to you.”

I wonder if Uwe had the brains to ask for the Diablo movie rights? Blizzard have just announced Diablo 3 (btw, you can download Diablo 2 cd keys), so maybe that’s why they don’t Uwe to spoil it for them.

Conan The Barbarian great scene

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I was browsing Google Video and I came across my favorite scene from Conan the Barbarian.

The music from Basil Poledouris is simply amazing. Barely a word is spoken… what an amazing soundtrack!

Being a huge RPG fan, I love the war paint on Conan’s face (as well as his “party members”). There should be a camouflage skill that checks your war paint and awards you with a bonus on your first attack. A bit like backstab, only not in the back!

Looking at the lighting, I think it’s extremely appropriate for the upcoming Diablo 3 trailer. Hopefully, Diablo 3′s release date will be announced soon.

Review: Mongol

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MongolI saw Mongol almost a week ago. I wasn’t even aware it was nominated for an Oscar (for Best Foreign Film). It didn’t win but I’m hardly surprised.

The movie aspires to portray Ghengis Khan‘s early life. I understand there will be 2 more movies to follow. It does a decent job of portraying the 12th century nomads of Mongolia. It was shot on location in Kazakhstan and Inner Mongolia (a Chinese province).

I guess this first part was intended to show why Temudgin (played as adult by Tadanobu Asano) became who he became. It focuses on several important episodes – his choice of bride, the poisoning of his father, the relationship with his half-brother, and the numerous captures and escapes.

The photography and the art direction are excellent – they really contribute to an epic but authentic feel. The characters do not disappoint either.

My only problem is that the movie seems incomplete – maybe because it’s intended as a part of a trilogy. We don’t get to see Ghengis Khan and his Golden Horde until the very end, the last battle scene.

Review: Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

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Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn TwilightI was a big Dungeon & Dragons fan. I’m not anymore not because I grew up (which I did) but because it seems that every book, movie, etc. based on D&D is excruciatingly bad. So bad in fact, I’m not sure I’ll be watching another D&D movie any time soon.

I have read the Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight book back in my college days. It wasn’t Tolkien, but it worked. Since I was playing D&D at the time, it was interesting for me to see what an “ideal” D&D party would look like. I even liked the tale about how the mage got his power but that crippled his body (constitution, baby!).

In short, it was a fun book. Not so with this movie though. The adventure is more or less the same. There a couple of points which bothered me so much, I couldn’t focus on the story.

Let’s start with the production values (source):

Produced by Toonz Animation India, South Asia’s largest and self-proclaimed “most admired” animation studio, Dragons of Autumn Twilight is an absolute mess. This mix of traditional 2D animation for principal characters and backgrounds does not mesh at all with the 3D animation used to create the various Dragons, Draconians, and other evil creatures.

Wow. This probably explains why the movie looks like a mess. I have seen WoW machinima‘s that are ten times better than this movie.

The next point is the script. Although the lines are read by the likes of Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Rosenbaum, and Lucy Lawless, they’ve lost a lot in translation from the book source. Furthermore, the writer has galloped though the book’s 400 pages. Scenes and characters are missing. By the end of it all, I didn’t care about any of the nine characters.

It’s a shame that the D&D universe gets another slap in the face by Hollywood. The Dungeon and Dragons movie had the excuse of a poor budget (or something to this effect). When you’re doing animation, however, it costs the same to draw a bad cave and to draw a good cave! Anyway, if you’re a D&D zealot, you could rent it but you’d better off reading the book again.

Review: Youth without youth

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Youth without youthI saw this movie last night, so I’m still pondering most of the unanswered questions.

Let’s start with the good news first. The craftsmanship of the people involved is amazing, considering the low budget. The camera work was excellent despite the obvious limitations – most shots were static, taking full advantage of the meticulous set designs. The supernatural moments (if you could call them that) were traditionally lit in what I call blue-moon glow which definitely added to the scenes.

Last but not least, the editing was superb – as you might imagine when you see it was done by Walter Murch, definitely not a stranger to Coppola movies. Considering the amazing work he did sowing together the different pieces The English Patient, he doesn’t disappoint even though the plot is convoluted.

Which leads us straight to the bad news: the plot. Youth without youth is based on Mircea Eliade’s novella about an old professor who is hit by lightning. This leaves him not only physically younger but also takes his mind faculty to a level beyond that of a mere human. The story is set in 1940s in Romania, so the Nazis get involved almost immediately. Our hero escapes them with the help of the professor who started the whole “healing process”.

At this point of the movie, all kinds of plot devices break lose. First, he meets the reincarnation (?) of his fiance of some 50 years back. In short order, the girl is hit by lightning (talking about lightning hitting twice!) and discovers her own talent – she is aware of her previous lives. In fact, she’s “possessed” by a 7th century Indian girl who only talks Sanskrit. She’s taken to the cave where that girl lived some 14 centuries before …

Now, I’m not going to spoil all the “fun” by revealing all the plot twists from this point on. Frankly, I tried my best to concentrate but the last part of the movie was such an uneven ride that all the craftsmanship in the world could not redeem it.

This is what Variety had to say about the final act:

By the time this stage is reached, the serial-worthy plot has moved through any number of genres without holding onto any of them. Perhaps Coppola’s affinity for a character obsessed by unrealized projects was too close to allow him to see the piecemeal nature of his script, bogged down by endless chatter. Immortality and the ramifications of eternal life, on both ethical and emotional levels, have been dealt with much more effectively in works varying from “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (referenced toward the end) and Janacek’s superb, emotionally resonant opera “The Makropoulos Case,” a far more powerful analysis of the cruelty of time.

Amen. Although I secretly hope this isn’t the last movie to come from Coppola.

Review: Planet Terror

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Planet TerrorRobert Rodriguez is one of my favorite indie icons, so I was naturally excited to check out his “treatment” of the grindhouse theme. Death Proof has a few excellent scenes but overall was a bit disappointing.

A bit of background: I’ve enjoyed some zombie movies in the past (Night of the Living Dead, Army of Darkness, etc) but I’m not an avid fan of zombies. Survival horror is not exactly my cup of tea.

Back to the movie, the plot premise is simple: “After an experimental bio-weapon is released, turning thousands into zombie-like creatures, it’s up to a rag-tag group of survivors to stop the infected and those behind its release.”

Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) works as a gogo dancer at a club and she’ll be the one to kill the most zombies. Her accomplice (ex-lover, fiance, etc) is El Wray (Freddy Rodríguez), whose mysterious past (lost as part of a faux missing reel) has taught him to use everything from knives to guns with deadly efficiency.

You shouldn’t think it’s just two against the world… I mean the zombies. The zombie tradition always presents us with a “ragtag” group of survivors. All of them are well-developed, even ones that get only a few minutes of screen time.

Similar to El Mariachi (and Desperado), Rodriguez introduces an interesting weapon. When zombies run away with Chery’s leg, she’s fitted with wooden leg, which is soon upgraded to a M16. She mows zombies with bullets and destroys them en masse with granades. Reading it might not be fun but seeing it… is another matter. Even my girlfriend was laughing!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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Indiana Jones 4 is still in production but now it has an official title. In case you’re wondering what it is… you haven’t read the title. OK, official title will be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Although I find the title a bit long, you gotta love a descriptive title like that. Oh yeah, for those who loved Karen Allen in the Raiders, she’s back.

Review: Interview

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I saw Interview over the weekend. It was definitely worth the 84 minutes. Frankly, I was surprised to see a movie trimmed so nicely as most directors will never admit their movie is shorter than nine rolls.

The movie is dedicated to Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was tragically murdered by an Islamic extremist in 2004. It’s also a remake of Theo’s movie (Interview) which was shown on Dutch television. It seems that Theo originally envisioned a remake with Buscemi and Miller, so in a way they carried on without him.

Interview Sienna Miller Steve BuscemiThe movie’s premise is simple - a journalist has been assigned to interview a B-movie actress that’s also popular with the tabloids.

The journalist (Buscemi) didn’t do his homework (i.e. read the file, watch the movies) because he feels the interview and the interviewee are much below his usual game – polititians in Washington.

The B-movie star, Katya (Sienna Miller), comes an hour late and immediately starts complaining about the table at the restaurant. To cut the long story short, they are off to an awful start. End of Act I.

Acts II and III aren’t that straight-forward. There’s a lot of talking, flirting, drinking, smoking, and more talking. As the movie progresses the journalists loses more and more of his “moral highground”. It’s definitely an interesting movie and I recommend seeing it.

Review: Death Proof

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Death Proof posterI’m still not sure how Death Proof is supposed to be “appreciated.”

My rule of thumb is that movies that need 10 things to go right just so you can “appreciate” them are usually movies not worth it. At the same time, my impression of Kill Bill (part I) was pretty negative but then when I saw the second part, I changed my opinon of the whole thing.

If you ask Tarantino, all you need in order to enjoy this movie is a passion for old movies shown in run-down cinemas. Movie that the likes of Roger Corman shot for a weekend on a budget that today won’t cover the light rental for a single day.

Death Proof screenshot

The plot is pretty simple, there are no abrupt turns, unless you count the car chases. Someone summed it up in a sentence: a psycho named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) stalks and kills beautiful women with his car.

I found Tarantino’s famous dialog scenes dragging and the overacting unbearable (obviously it was meant as a reference to the cheeseness in exploitation flicks). So the cheese was a bit much when it comes to the static scenes which probably comprise 80% of the movie.

When he finally hits the car scenes, I wished there was a lot more of them. The stunts, the sounds, the tempo were all so perfect, I walked out of the theater happy. Would I see it again? Not sure… but I’ll sure buy the Death Proof DVD, if I see any of those get-three-for-just-$10 deals.

Review: The Boss of It All

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The Boss of It AllI like Lars von Trier‘s new direction. The movie is a closer to The Idiots than Dogville, and I liked The Idiots a lot.

The premise of the movie is also close to my heart: the IT industry and how a potential acquisition can sour relations. The plot is straight-forward:

The owner of an IT company wishes to sell it. But, for years, he has pretended that the real boss lives in America and communicates with the staff only by e-mail. That way, all the unpopular decisions can be attributed to the absentee manager, while all the popular ones to him directly.

But now, the prospective buyer insists on meeting the big boss in person. In a panic, the owner hires a failed, over-intellectualizing actor to portray him, and the actor proceeds to improvise all his lines, to the consternation of both the buyer and the company staff, who finally get to meet their ghostly boss.

I’ve never seen any of the actors before, with one notable difference – Iben Hjejle. The acting is OK, granted you have Dogme sensibilities. I especially loved the two guys from “Iceland” who were a perfect match of ice and fire. Excellent performance from the lead character as well.

A few observations that really question Lars’s “growth” since the Dogme days. First, the narration attracts attention to the director, while Dogme postulated that the director should remain uncredited. Second, I couldn’t escape the feeling that some of the random compositions – sometime cutting faces in half – were done on purpose, to mock this style of “indie” shooting.

Lars never claimed he would stick to Dogme. In fact, this movie “patented” a new mathematical formula and a process he called Automavision. Here’s what he means by that:

This entails choosing the best possible fixed camera position and then allowing a computer to choose when to tilt, pan or zoom. “For a long time, my films have been handheld,” he explains. “That has to do with the fact that I am a control freak. With Automavision, the technique was that I would frame the picture first and then push a button on the computer. I was not in control – the computer was in control.”

I think THAT explains the erratic camera motions. Anyway, if you have a chance to see the movie, go and check it out, especially if you’re IT!