The Raven (2012)
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If you want to know how to portray women as inferior, The Raven is a very instructive movie.
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Honig im Kopf (2014)
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Honig im Kopf, the most successful German movie of 2014, is a bit of a mess, trying to mix the trademarks of Til Schweiger’s other successes with a “serious” topic like dementia. One of the many problems of this movie is that few of these trademarks really work outside a pure comedy, neither the over-the-top slapstick nor the exaggerated characters nor his daughter’s weak acting nor the misogyny. Sure, Dieter Hallervorden’s acting is a pleasant surprise but the movie is working against him wherever it can. From the toilet jokes to the showcasing of guest actors to the insistence on songs with charts potential. But there is nothing that compares with the editing. The movie is easily one of the worst edited movies I have ever seen, coming close to real trash like Birdemic. How this happened is a total mystery to me. How anyone could have approved that and what the purpose was supposed to be, to have conversations with 1-second-takes, is totally baffling. It is a movie that annoys me the more I think about it.
Read MoreStraight Outta Compton (2015)
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Straight Outta Compton is an effective musical biopic that is rare for centering on a group that made highly controversial music. N.W.A. basically invented (or at least popularized) gangsta rap and the movie does a fine job of showing their journey from the beginning to the end in great detail. I’ll discuss the value of those details in a second. The performances by Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell are great, and so is Paul Giamatti as the ambiguous manager. The music keeps us going through the rather long 147 minutes and the movie does a great job at evoking the racial tensions and police brutality at the time, effectively drawing conclusions for today. It’s a powerful movie that worked for me, but its problems kept nagging at me anyway, which makes it difficult to evaluate as a whole. It's also hard for me to say how well the movie works without nostalgia, which played a big part for me, which just goes to show how subjective we view movies.
Read MoreDid I Like This? (Niggaz4Life)
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Because N.W.A. is as popular again as ever before thanks to Straight Outta Compton, I thought it’s a good time to go back to my own feelings about their music. I was somewhat surprised to see I had written about their first album already (which I had forgotten, which happens after 250+ posts), so today I look at the far more problematic 2nd (or 3rd, depending on what you consider 100 Miles and Runnin’ to be) album Niggaz4Life (or technically Efil4zaggin), released in 1991. It is also their last album and, as more or less shown in the movie, was not as much of a team effort as their debut.
Read MoreIrréversible (2002)
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Irréversible is a movie that hits you over the head like a, well, I guess I have to say it, like a fire extinguisher. I read all about this movie when it came out 13 years ago and always was too afraid to watch it, but now I finally did (thanks for the push, Lara) and I don’t regret it for a second. It is strange for a movie that has such a strong impact on me and made me think about so many things for days, to not give it a higher rating, but it is a good movie with some, let’s not call them flaws, but issues. The structure is so much more than a gimmick and puts a new perspective on a wide range of concepts, the camerawork is daring and challenging, but awesome, the use of (seemingly) long takes is essential to the effect it has on the viewer, the music is extreme and beautiful, the acting is phenomenal. The movie is haunting, shocking, confusing, thought-provoking, troubling, unbearable and addictive at the same time and above all very intense. It might be the most intense movie I’ve ever seen (pushing Requiem for a Dream of its throne). It is hard to recommend it because it is so obviously not for everyone, but if you are ready for it, it will be strangely rewarding.
Read MoreThe Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
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I feel almost bad writing about The Adventures of Pluto Nash, because the movie is so stupid and annoying, getting back at it is a real drag. It is not funny, it is not exciting and that’s about all the adjectives you would want from this kind of movie. Everyone looks bored, nothing makes the slightest sense (seriously), the effects look incredibly terrible for a $100 million movie (that made $7 million at the box office) and you will see all the actors involved with different eyes because whenever you see them again in the future, you will be reminded of this movie, asking “Why?” again and again. I don’t think Randy Quaid is a great actor, but his performance here is beyond belief. It's really no surprise I picked this as the worst movie of the last three months. Just look at the stupid poster.
Read More88 Minutes (2007)
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(spoilers and some NSFW images)
88 Minutes is a terrible movie, even more terrible for using an interesting concept and not only ruining it, but not really using it at all. If a movie tries to attempt being real-time, it should at least tell the audience that and not fill the movie with scenes of car drives. I mean, screw all of that, the movie is not real-time, it’s just a very stupid, very boring and very cheap thriller that makes no sense whatsoever and baffles you in all of its (accordingly more than 88) minutes. The acting is horrible, even Al Pacino sleepwalks through it as the protagonist. The directing is as amateurish as possible, the script is laughable, so the movie fails on every level. What works is that it makes you laugh unintentionally, like when Al Pacino pays a taxi driver to give him his taxi, but lets the driver sit in the back all the time or when during a dialogue scene the poster of a local improv troupe is featured prominently. As a bad movie, it’s somewhat recommendable because it’s really a different kind of bad and it wastes its actors (poor Deborah Kara Unger, having one of the most pointless roles I have ever seen) spectacularly.
Read MorePoster of a Girl - 1973 Edition: [1973 Week]
/![Poster of a Girl - 1973 Edition: [1973 Week]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54206d12e4b0e2c159748fd6/1422615769351-Z3TBNUIHL12V8YGS726V/image-asset.jpeg)
It’s time for another poster post since looking at posters from 1973 is incredibly intriguing. And you’ll see some amazing posters here. Man, things were really different back then, sometimes for better, but mostly for worse. Keep in mind that many of the more outrageous posters are of movies that are obvious B-movie trash, but then again there are some posters that look silly and have some known names on them, on movies I have never heard of. As always, I scanned the IMP page for 1973 and picked a lot of posters to look at. I’ll put them in categories again, like in 1980, because I just couldn’t leave out so many of them and the themes are very recurring. There’ll be a gallery for categories with many posters so you can see for yourself, but I’ll highlight some favorites. This is not the week of short articles!
Read MoreSoylent Green (1973) [1973 Week]
/![Soylent Green (1973) [1973 Week]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54206d12e4b0e2c159748fd6/1422549660603-Y9GTZ5HN4AXAJXIBOMKX/image-asset.jpeg)
Soylent Green is one of those sci-fi-classics where people rarely talk about the actual movie and much more about its famous final line of dialogue. The movie is really fascinating because it is such a dark, extremely dystopian future that is relentless in its hopelessness. It tries to alarm people at the time, to avoid this future, but then again, the way people act here, you couldn’t believe that anyone is able to change or do anything good. I really liked this dark atmosphere, the special effects and some of the ideas about the future. The movie is set in 2022, so there is some of that fun of how much the movie is wrong about the future. And how much it is right. It is not a perfect movie at all, the plot doesn’t really move forward much and is obviously just there to reach the shocking conclusion. The misogyny is almost unbearable (more on that below) and Charlton Heston does not play a very appealing main character. But there is Edward G. Robinson’s amazing final performance and many fascinating little details that keep you entertained.
Read MoreYou Belong on the Radio - 1973 Edition [1973 Week]
/![You Belong on the Radio - 1973 Edition [1973 Week]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54206d12e4b0e2c159748fd6/1422473579010-0U55XSDMDTBHJ3JHPW4J/image-asset.jpeg)
I noticed that looking at older songs is somewhat more interesting than current songs. The problem with current songs is that it is hard to find anything new to say, since most of them talk about the same things in the same way. Which is something I also notice when I look at songs from a particular year, like 1973, but that helps getting an idea for the feel of that time. Anyway, this time I was really struck how similar the themes found in the songs are and how well they fit into that period (and also fit to everything else I am looking at for this theme week). Let’s go!
Read MoreComics Are for Everyone: 1988 Edition [1988 Week]
/![Comics Are for Everyone: 1988 Edition [1988 Week]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54206d12e4b0e2c159748fd6/1417818401908-OJBQWX0O7MP9G4184ENH/image-asset.jpeg)
Because of the amazing comics that have been released in 1988, I decided to have another comics section in this theme week. Grant Morrison and Alan Moore are big enough names for this, I guess, but we shouldn’t forget Jamie Delano. I’ll just focus on the issues published in that year, since that’s enough already. Let’s go!
Read MoreYou Belong on the Radio: 1988 Edition [1988 Week]
/![You Belong on the Radio: 1988 Edition [1988 Week]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54206d12e4b0e2c159748fd6/1417640026738-9OOG9LB3PBBOTN2LKWFR/image-asset.jpeg)
It works just as in the other theme weeks, I look at the most popular songs from 1988 and look at the ones that stand out for some reason. Here we go!
Read MoreGone Girl (2014)
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(spoilers ahead, obviously)
Is there anything I can still write about Gone Girl that hasn’t been analyzed, discussed, praised and trashed already? This is certainly one of the most talked about movies in a while and I’m not sure I can really add anything to the dissection of its alleged misogyny, Ben Affleck’s penis, its attitude about marriage, its product placement or what it has in common with Eyes Wide Shut. I think the movie deserves all the buzz as I really, really enjoyed every aspect of it. It cemented my love for David Fincher because it certainly is another astonishingly directed movie that always knows what it’s doing. It’s a great, thought-provoking, surprising movie and I’m not asking for more. Still, though, I want to tackle some of the issues featured in the movie, because one of the reasons it is so good, is that it forces you to think about them.
Read MoreThis 80s Movie: Prom Night (1980)
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(spoilers ahead)
Prom Night is a terribly formulaic and terrible slasher movie. It sets up everything it needs for a by-the-numbers slasher concept and follows it through without even the slightest hint of surprise. It starts out with a wrongdoing in the past, makes a time jump of six years (in which all the characters age by about 15 years), just so that a killer can take revenge on them for what they did as kids. It’s amateurishly filmed and acted, the dialogue is boring and even the murders are uninventive. Actually, the murders astonished me the most, since there is no attempt made to graphically show them at all, although movies like this are all about showing grisly murders. A lot of them happen off-screen and it takes the movie over an hour to even get there. Considering this is one of the first examples of slasher movies, it should have been clear to anyone seeing it in 1980 that there wouldn’t be another gem like Halloween anytime soon.
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Total Eclipse (1995)
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Total Eclipse is not a pleasant movie. As many reviewers before me have pointed out years ago, the two main characters are extremely unsympathetic and watching them fight and make their lives miserable is no joy. They are played believably by David Thewlis and Leonardo DiCaprio, but that doesn’t make it easier to watch. There is no one to identify with, which might work in other movies, but here it’s just, well, unpleasant. The movie does give an interesting portrayal of its time and how poets lived and worked, but it’s too long and too repetitive in showing us suffering.
Read MoreDid I Like This? (AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted)
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No gangsta rap analysis could be complete without taking a look former N.W.A.’s Ice Cube (and eventually N.W.A.). As far as I remember, his first album I knew was also his first album, so today we look at the provocatively titled AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, which was released in 1990.
Read MoreThe Conjuring (2013)
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Whenever I watch a movie, I always think one thing at the end: Can I write about it here? When I had finished The Conjuring, the answer was a clear “No”. It’s a good horror film, less special than I had expected after hearing so much about it. It is scary at times and relentless at trying to scare you (and more effective than the incredibly similar Insidious), but there is not much that hasn’t been seen before. The camera work is creative (or inspired), using many techniques to surprise the viewer from long takes to Vertigo shots. There just aren’t many surprises in the script as the plot goes mostly where you’d expect it to be. That were my thoughts at the end and that was it. Then I read some reviews and stumbled upon Andrew O’Hehir’s review on Salon.com which calls the movie the “most effective right-wing Christian films of recent years” and parts of it “reprehensible and inexcusable bullshit.” What’s going on here?
Read MoreFack ju Göhte (2013)
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(spoilers ahead)
Fack ju Göhte is the most successful film in Germany in 2013. Does that mean anything? Probably not, as success is rarely in conjunction with quality when it comes to movies (or anything). The movie is something like a school comedy, which might be a reason why it is so beloved by students since they enjoy laughing about school. But the plot is… you can’t even call it absurd because it so obviously is just an excuse for the movie to get a bank robber into a school posing as a teacher – that’s the “gimmick” of the movie and the plot behind it (that his bait money is buried under the school) is not believable for a second. Does the movie work? It’s difficult for me to say. My expectations were very low and the movie was better than I had thought. But it wasn’t great. It has its moments but the style of comedy, a sort of constant noisy, over-the-top, aggressive humor, is hard to bear at first, but you get used to it. The characters are mostly clichés, but they are allowed to have some depth at times and even some growth, more or less. Some of the humor works too. The movie strangely grows on you over time, if you don’t think about it too much. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it didn’t hurt to watch it.
Read MoreThe Wicker Man (2006)
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(spoilers ahead)
The Wicker Man is one of those notorious movies where it’s hard not to stumble upon YouTube clips before you’ve actually seen it. It stars Nicolas Cage and probably marks the movie that started his downward spiral during which he became known for making crappy movies and overacting wildly in them. The Wicker Man somehow qualifies for both as he acts sleepily for most of the movie before going completely over the top in the end. Is the movie crappy? That is so hard to say, at least for me. I know it is heralded as one of the most unintentionally funny movies ever and I can see that. There are definitely enough scenes that can make you laugh because they are so weird. But the director is Neil LaBute who is normally a very deliberate writer and director of thought-provoking movies that never make it easy for the viewer to make easy judgments. I have read his plays in school and really liked some of his movies (The Shape of Things, Nurse Betty). So what happened here? Cage said in interviews that they intended to make an absurd comedy but the movie does not make that clear enough. LaBute is also known for challenging gender roles and The Wicker Man is full of that. But what is the movie trying to say?
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