Reviews

In my opinion this latest van Warmerdam movie is a vast improvement over the one that came before namely "Borgman" which I didn't understand. It could be me but I just didn't get it. This new one however is a lot more coherent and focused, I would say.

The movie held my attention throughout its running time and I was genuinely fascinated, entertained and interested. It's an effective film in the sense that it really does create e.g. suspense and tension. Technically it's well done as well; it looks great and it's well edited and so on.

I said I didn't understand/get "Borgman". I would be lying if I said I did get this one. If there's anything to get, that is. Maybe there's nothing to get? Maybe it's just a story for the sake of one? Is there a message/point? I'm not really sure. I don't know why Schneider didn't kill Francisca. He was pretty much a cold blooded killer up until then. So why the change? Where's the character development? Did the fact he unintentionally killed Gina change something? Why? Why did it change something? I don't know. I'm pretty sure he didn't choose not to kill Francisca because she was naked. So there has to be some other reason. But I don't know (yet) what that is.

Naomi Watts plays Kitty who is this character who marries this guy for the wrong reasons. They quickly learn that they aren't necessarily compatible in every sense. Kitty likes to play games. Her husband doesn't (at least not the type of games Kitty likes to play). So she has an affair and we get a sex scene.

So you get all excited and you catch a glimpse of Naomi Watts riding this guy cowgirl style. And you can kind of see that the director is very concerned with not showing her bosom and you kind of think why have a sex scene in the first place if you're not going to focus on this aspect of the story in any significant detail? It would have been cooler if we would have seen sex scenes more like in that Cronenberg movie "A dangerous method" where we see what exactly gets Keira Knightley's character off. A missed opportunity, I say.

But yeah, the story goes on and on about how her husband can't deal with the fact she had an affair and then the guy she had an affair with doesn't want to marry her and she stays with her husband who starts treating her like dirt as an act of revenge and/or sadism and then as time goes by they sort of get to know each other more and start liking each other more but it's too late as the husband dies and she is of course bereft and then later she meets the guy she had an affair with and gives him the cold shoulder.

I didn't really like it as a dramatic, romantic fantasy. You've got people dying of cholera in it, for Pete's sake. But it doesn't necessarily see itself as such, I think. This movie is not just supposed to be fun, you see? You also have e.g. a scene where a nun says profound things about relationships and we, the audience, are invited to think about that for a bit. It also somewhat paints a picture of society in the 1920s and so on.

And that's also where I think the movie isn't a complete success. It tries to put all these things together into one movie and it doesn't all come together as an entirely coherent whole. Watching this movie wasn't a truly poignant experience which I think they did intend for it to be.

As is often the case, the technical aspects like the cinematography and the production design are not what filmmakers goof up. It's the script, the direction, the handling of the tone, the decisions that are made when it comes to what the movie is supposed to do and convey where they drop the ball. This movie, isn't a complete failure in that sense. But it did make me scratch my head sometimes.

So the premise is great. It's a great idea for a movie. A great setting in which you can have a story take place which is... Well, what exactly? Thrilling? Thought provoking? Perhaps a story that makes a statement? I suppose you could go into various directions with it.

So what direction did this movie take it in then? Well, there's one death scene which is very reminiscent of a so-called "fatality" in Mortal Kombat where a vampire falls into a machine. I think the audience is meant to react in a similar way to it where they cringe and then perhaps laugh. So it isn't anything serious. It's just meant to be entertaining.

At the same time in that same scene a man who shot his wife and children because he didn't want them to die at the hands of the vampire horde loses part of his arm when it gets crushed in the machine and he's sitting there screaming in complete agony. A friend then decides to end his suffering by cutting his head off which requires two or three blows with an axe. It's tragic and bleak and not meant to be entertaining in any way.

I think that it would have been a more poignant movie if it for instance just told a dark story and didn't "spice it up" with scenes that are seemingly meant to please so-called "gorehounds". It seems to me that they tried to make two different types of horror movies at once resulting in a movie which feels slightly incongruous as a whole. I'm confused as to what the film exactly is trying to do and say at the end of the day.

The ending is great. It made a powerful impact. It's like it's the ending of a serious horror movie and it works very well. But in this movie there also seems to be a Pepsi commercial. Is there really a place for that in a serious film? Just seems kind of out of place?

Tess is a great film. It's an excellently told story that actually has something to say and show.

It apparently was longer originally and the version I saw (168 minutes long) had some parts cut out. I would have loved to have seen the complete version. There is one awkward cut from Tess not wanting to go to the D'urbervilles to her walking towards their estate; there's nothing shown that makes her change her mind. I've read somewhere that the thing that makes her change her mind is guilt over partly causing the death of her family's horse. This is one example of something that was in the original version, probably.

But as it is now, it's still a wonderful achievement. It's a serious, sophisticated film that presents a grim view of the world and of various relationships. It's a story of a woman who loses the will to live. Her approaching death is welcomed by her. This is one thing that differs from the book according to one source that claims she says she is "almost glad" in the book that she is going to die. But in the film, if you ask me, she had accepted her death the moment she decided to kill Alec.

I feel that if it wasn't cut it might just have been even better but it's a movie that had an impact on me and which stayed in my mind a while after it was over and that's the mark of a great movie.

This movie was shot with a very good camera. You can tell by watching the lingering shots of trees. It's got good low light sensitivity as you can tell by certain night time shots.

The revenant has a slick surface. But what's underneath it in the end? It's a story about a man who sets out to enact his revenge on a "bad guy". There's a "bad guy" in this movie who does bad things and this movie's main character wants revenge which he gets in the end. But what does this story show us? What can we see in it? What can we learn from it?

We can see a lot of nasty, uncomfortable stuff. Like a rapist getting his penis cut off. That shows him, right? If he didn't want that, he shouldn't have raped that woman. Just desserts! It's that kind of mentality that this film has and it's rather stupid.

There are some cliché lines like "Revenge won't bring your murdered son back" as well as the most problematic one namely "Revenge should be dished out by God". That last one is just irresponsible in this day and age where in the real world people actually go on killing sprees because they think "God must dish out revenge". The movie just wants to sound more sophisticated and deep than it actually is by having those lines in its script but it just makes it sound more stupid and empty. The movie has nothing to say.

We can't learn anything from this flick. Other than that they make good cameras nowadays and there's no shortage of daft screenplays. No amount of impressive camera work will save a movie if the script is no good. And this movie's script is terrible.

I liked this movie but I did think the story was somewhat weak and not told in a truly great way.

Its ending isn't to my liking, really. I mean Tom Berenger's character should have been rejected as far as I'm concerned. That would have been more interesting. Now, the guy had it both ways. He got to have his cake and eat it too. He got to have sex with Mimi Roger's character and he got to keep his cozy family with the kid and Lorraine Bracco's sympathetic character. This sucks to me.

All he really got was a slap (punch?) in the face. His wife cried and got angry but then later he says "I do love you" and she takes him back. It's kind of sad. What does that mean, anyway? When he says "I do love you"? Does it mean "It's become clear that when I meet another woman I like I might just betray you and jump into bed with her...but I do love you"? I thought it was a weak line and it makes Lorraine Bracco's character come across as weak too when she decides to take him back. He should have ended up alone. Divorced. A dramatic ending is what it should have been. Not this sweet, lovely, reassuring "Even after infidelity all can still be just as before" ending. It's not powerful, if you ask me.

I thought it could have been more erotic. It would have made for a more memorable movie. There's a moment where the villain approaches Mimi Roger's character in the ladies room. She's full bosomed and dressed classy. He puts his hand between her breasts, grabs her dress and pulls her towards her. This certainly kept me from nodding off. It was exciting. If the story would have been rewritten to accommodate more of that kind of thing it would have been awesome. Now, overall, it's a tad too restrained for a movie about seduction, in my opinion. Mimi and Tom have conversations and they look at each other...but the real magnetism isn't felt. Or at least it wasn't by me. There should have been a proper sex scene. Show us the passion!

The movie does work but it's like you're looking from a distance to an extent. Part of the power of cinema is that you can be put inside the story and see it from an angle that you can't really in real life. This could have been used to a greater extent, I feel. It all could have been ramped up a bit more. Made to be more powerful than it is now.

My attention was held throughout its running time and it's due to proper directing (well framed, clearly told, no-nonsense approach, no excessive scenes), stellar performances by the entire cast in my opinion and a story that's simply good.

One of the highlights for me was Seymour Hoffman's character's sermon on the topic of gossip and it's effects. It's great. Wonderfully accompanied by shots of feathers floating through the streets. The director could have also left this to the imagination of the viewer which some might say would have been better but I really like this decision.

I did think the motives of Streep's character could have been made more clear. She mentions seeing the boy pulling his hand away but obviously she's messed up in one way or the other and not seeing why become (more) clear I did kind of miss from this film.

The movie quite nicely shows off some of the things that are possible with contemporary technology. It's a shame therefore that the script is so poor.

The relationship between Finn and Rey is silly to me. It's not believable and it's just a joke to see Finn at one point ask her if she has a boyfriend. That moment is a good example of how weakly written and ludicrous the film is sometimes.

Another example is Kylo Ren's hissy fit where he smashes stuff with his lightsaber to get things out of his system. You can't take him seriously at all, really. He is no Darth Vader indeed.

The scene in which Han Solo dies is laughable, amateurish and childishly written.

It's like the character arc (if you can even call it that) of Finn was deliberately written so badly. When he at one point says "Because it's the right thing to do!" it's almost like the writers are laughing at cinema/storytelling itself.

The Stormtroopers have helmet designs that are inspired by Donald Duck.

It's a subpar effort which isn't what the Star wars franchise deserved. I can't imagine anyone being truly immersed in this movie.

The next two movies will be equally dismal so I won't go to the theatres to see them. I will close this review with the definition of the word dismal.

Something that is characterized by ineptness or lack of skill, competence, effectiveness, imagination, or interest; pitiful.

Spectre is a fairly bland movie. It's not a real Bond movie in my opinion as it doesn't have the energy nor the originality needed.

It starts off reasonably interesting with some nicely done shots of Bond on the rooftops as he walks with assurance but as the movie progresses the movie just kind of loses its momentum. It loses what power it started off with and it's like it gets tired of itself.

It's a bad movie. It's so far off from what a good movie is that I'm wondering just what the heck these filmmakers are thinking. Or how they end up making a dud like this. Where is the inspiration? Where is the energy? How can they justify putting a movie as dull as this in the theatres?

It's their job to entertain, to make something interesting, to offer something that's memorable and they aren't doing that. They've got all the money, all the high end equipment, all these talented actors willing to work with them and they end up wasting this beautiful opportunity. How does that happen? I'd like to know.

It astounds me that so many critics praise it as much as they do. Are their minds on a holiday? While the action is impressively shot the film in the end is pretty much a bore.

The filmmakers never wanted to go deep with it so they should have left the "drama" alone altogether. It doesn't have a license for all the "emotional" moments as the film doesn't have a core. With which I mean that it's two dimensional.

What you see on the screen doesn't have to do with anything other than to create action scene after action scene. So they just should have done exactly that and they didn't. They had to add "dramatic" moments for the sake of it.

This isn't an example of good filmmaking. It's an example of a half-baked affair made by misguided filmmakers which is ultimately forgettable.

There's not really much to say about this one as there's only so much to see in it.

It isn't really the most interesting movie as you just get an idea of what it's like for these vampires to remain alive. It sounds more interesting than it is. There's a few things that happen but it doesn't really come to any kind of real climax or anything. It's sort of like a "slice of life" vampire movie.

I can't really think of anything that the movie shows that is particularly thought provoking. So I found this to be amusing yet unremarkable.

Araf begins with a shot of a giant pot on a train of what looks like sand tip over at a sluggish pace. At one point it becomes clear that it only seemed sand on the surface. In fact it is burning hot, orange glowing, molten metal that pours out of the pot.

This pre title shot is a great idea for a beginning. One that is promising. It's like it tells you something about what you are about to see. But what I saw in the movie was only so interesting. The pot metaphor deserved a better movie.

You get a peek into the lives of these characters but we don't see anything that is particularly surprising. For instance who doesn't know that a lot of people are longing for things out of their reach? Or that there is domestic violence? Or that there are unhappy marriages? What's the point of showing all these things?

The miscarriage is a false note to me. It doesn't fit with the rest of the film because of the way the scene is filmed namely too shocking and uncomfortable. And the marriage in jail seems too much of a "fairytale" ending to me. I think it should have ended less brightly.

But although it is far from a complete success as far as the script is concerned and I question the point of showing a lot of what the film shows, I do feel that it's a movie which has its heart in the right place and which a lot of the time does what it sets out to do rather well.

Once again Nolan basically presents a bunch of sobbing characters to us as good dramatic writing. Who does he think he's kidding? Well, maybe an adolescent audience that likes to praise him using words like "God" and "intelligent" and maybe even "superior".

There's one moment where the grandfather of a character I'll refer to as Smurph sticks it to this guy where he says that Smurph who is very INTELLIGENT has made her teachers look like fools and so on. It's obviously designed to appeal to a certain smugness.

That aside some action scenes are well shot and designed. The script isn't worthy of them as Interstellar is a film which seems to be made by someone who struggles writing a proper screenplay; Nolan doesn't seem to know what makes any movie any good in the first place.

Interstellar doesn't inspire the way good movies do as it isn't an inspired work. It's a product more than a movie.

In interviews Lynch has said that he tried to imagine what it was like in the mind of a murderer. He wondered how someone can keep on living after having committed this crime. He made a movie about it which ended up being Lost highway.

Sound like fun? Not really. The film is a trip through Hell and it's disturbing, frightening, eerie, unsettling, bleak and depressing as you might expect.

What's the point of making a movie like this? It's an examination of the psyche. A presentation of Lynch's speculation and imagination. A serious affair. But to what end? In my opinion we're better off going to the cinema to get inspired, thrilled and entertained.

That's not to say that Lost highway is bad. Far from it. It's a well made film technically and artistically. It's just that it's a depressing affair which if you ask me is rather pointless in the end.

When shown to psychologists it could spark a discussion that's interesting to them though. But at the same time, it's not like Lynch has shown anything new. He has also stated that someone came to him during or after the production and said what the correct medical term was for the psychological state of the main character of the film. So once again, what's the point?

This movie could have been a fun, crazy, humorous, lighthearted, silly movie and during moments it is that. It's for instance got a reference to The matrix and when you see witches riding their brooms through the forest it reminds me an awful lot of the famous scene in Return of the Jedi where the storm troopers are racing through the forest in a similar way. It's got exciting chase scenes of which one has a really cool moment where Hansel runs over a tree trunk in a really cool stunt. It's all silly and fun and it stays away from being too serious.

But it also has a scene where a witch forces a boy to shoot his mother in the stomach with a shotgun in front of his little sister; it's not fun. And that's what I feel the problem is with this movie; when it's dark, it's too dark and when it's serious, it's too serious. In other scenes the violence gets too grisly and nasty where characters are punched with brass knuckles and they get shot in the face... It's like it tries to be two different types of movies at once.

The production design is no less than great. It's shot well and the cast performs just fine. Its director though should have made better decisions in terms of what direction he wanted to take it all. He should have had a clearer vision as now the film is incongruous resulting in a movie which is strange in a bad way.

Which is too bad as I would have enjoyed the properly worked out lighthearted version of this very much indeed. I might even go so far as to say that that might have had the potential to be a classic.

Of another Dutch film which I reviewed called De poel, I said that it was very much done in the style of American remakes of Japanese horror films. Lucia de B. seems more or less to be done in the style of English detectives.

The movie aims to show the injustice and to make you feel the emotions that Lucia went through but the movie is done in such a way that I ended up looking from a distance at a stylish movie. Sure it has colors which are sombre when she's in jail and colors which are vivid when she's freed in the end but that's really not enough. OK, there's (amongst a few other shots) a rotating shot which fades to black after she's vomited in the toilet but that too is done in such a stylish fashion... It's like a shot from a David Lynch movie. It's not what works for this story in my opinion.

The way it portrays police officers and some of the people who worked with Lucia in the hospital is really, really awful. These characters are like villains the way you see them in the movies.

I also think it needed a director who was angrier (or one who was more able to express or capture their anger on the screen) in order to make it more poignant as I feel it's still too clinical now.

Dutch "horror film" De poel seems to be an imitation of for instance recent American remakes of Japanese horror films and it doesn't do a good job of it. Ineptly written, the film falls apart at a certain point becoming hard to watch in the sense that I wanted to fast forward and get to the end of it.

The film lacks any real artistic value. There is no good story here with themes and depth and therefore the film doesn't hold your attention.

The film basically has no personality of its own; it's like the script was written in an office by people who wanted to make a "Hollywood" movie which results in these Dutch characters in this Dutch movie speaking in ways that Dutch people don't speak. We don't talk like characters in a Hollywood movie (I am Dutch myself). I cringed listening to this fake dialogue. One character seemed to be an exception and he was talking like a lot of Dutch kids talk nowadays where they too copy things from American culture. I wouldn't be surprised if the word "fokking" is now officially a Dutch word.

Anyway, I could go on but you get the idea. De poel is a failure. I do give it two stars instead of one though as there were a few successful shots. One for instance was a wide dolly shot where one of the kids leaves his tent at night and walks to the water. That was an OK shot.

Edit: I was reviewing Hansel and Gretel when I saw that I had given this two stars due to some of the shots being OK. But I have to admit that even those shots don't save this film from being a complete and utter failure. It sounds harsh but that's just the way it is. So one star it is then.

The rover starts just fine. Apart from some dialogue which is Tarantino-esque in a car where three people drive away from a crime they just committed. One of them gets upset with another one and actually goes "Say that again one more time" which is of course very reminiscent of a well known scene in Pulp fiction. But the whole way all these three characters talk and act in this scene is very much Tarantino-ish.

Apart from that Tarantino-ish moment the way the opening of this film is done is basically just very good. It's gripping, intriguing and well shot.

The car of the main character (Eric) gets stolen by these three men and he goes and follows them on the road with another car. Ultimately, they all get out of their vehicles and stand on the road facing each other. The main character is asked what he's doing and he says he just wants his car back.

That moment when they are all standing on the road really feels like part of the climax of a way shorter film (with maybe a twenty minute running time?) it could have been which would have worked. In the feature film it is now, Eric gets knocked out at this point and another character gets introduced and blah blah blah... The film stretches itself to the length of a feature and becomes very tedious indeed.

Some examples of the tediousness found then. At one point a character sits in a hotel room and drinks a whole bunch of water from a plastic bottle. That's right; he drinks a whole bunch of water from a plastic bottle. An utterly pointless moment after which he picks up a gun which is an act which progresses the plot. But the moment before when he drinks the water...has nothing to do with a single thing and serves no purpose whatsoever. Why are we watching this character drink water from a plastic bottle? Why? Do we not have better things to do?

Another example. One character is asked how much she wants paid for a service she offers and she says the following namely that she's doing fine...without money. The way it is cut and the way she says she is fine without money is all done in a way which is supposed to make you go "Hey yeah... Maybe we can find a better way to do things...not making use...of money..." as if you're having an epiphany. It's just bad filmmaking to make this point this way in a movie by having a character say these words. You might as well just go into the streets with a megaphone and make your point. It's more effective. If one of the goals was to make an anti-capitalism film then surely they could have come up with a better script than this?

Dramatically the movie is very thin. By which I mean that when it comes down to it it's just a story of a guy who has become disheartened by the fact that many people are depraved or immoral. And it's a story about a guy who is angry with his brother for leaving him for dead at the scene of a crime. The disheartened guy starts to build up something of a relationship with the guy who's angry with his brother but none of this is brought to a fulfilling dramatic conclusion as the script wasn't worked out properly and the film that eventually was shot is half baked and boring (apart from the opening scene) and the bit at the end with the dog doesn't save the film either.

Whilst watching Nymphomaniac I found myself often intrigued but when it was over I wondered what I got out of watching it ultimately. It all didn't really go anywhere if you ask me.

Why is it a worthwhile experience to watch this film in Lars von Trier's opinion? Why do we need to see this film in which we among other things see mankind more or less at its worst? What is the point of this film which disgusts at times? It also depressed me as it seemed to have quite a grim, defeatist, misanthropic outlook which I found a waste of time to witness. I think the film lacks focus as well as maturity.

What disgusted me for instance was the moment towards the end during which the girl relieves herself on top of the female protagonist. What is the point of this, Lars? We already knew the girl was bad news.

The fact that there was nudity and sex in the film didn't disgust me in and of itself. I don't have a problem with nudity and sex in films but it has to be there for a good reason and it's like the whole idea behind the film isn't clear; what Lars intended to do with this film is simply beyond me.

A one star rating on here stands for "awful" and I have no choice but to give it that as I truly do think it is an awful film.

Darren Aronofsky's "Noah" is kind of puzzling to me. How does the director of Black swan and Requiem for a dream end up making a film like this?

Why does God brutally kill Na'el (she gets her foot stuck in a bear trap and then gets trampled to death)? Like one character says to Noah, she wasn't "evil" which Noah seems to non-verbally acknowledge. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Then later Noah refuses to kill two babies. So Noah doesn't seem to care about Na'el at the end of the day but these babies he does (care about). He actually goes against God's will and refuses to do what God asks even though he was OK with God killing all people except Noah, his wife and a few others. Later of course Noah feels he needs to die as well as should his wife and the other survivors as people are basically all bad, according to him. It would have been depressing had it not been so utterly stupid.

Anyway, it is explained that God basically couldn't figure out for himself if people should be around on Earth so he put Noah in this situation with the babies to base his decision on how Noah feels about killing these babies and because Noah loses faith in God at this point and decides not to kill these babies God sends a pigeon with a branch in his mouth to fly through the sky which I think Noah doesn't even see, if I remember correctly. But it means that God is now fine with people being around and all is well again. Hooray! Apart from the pigeon we also see rainbows at the end as if God is really excited that things have finally gotten back to normal! Yay! Let the good times roll. We feel the love at the end of movie and we jump out of our seats and walk out of the cinema with renewed hope for the future and faith in mankind...

Watching this movie for me was a saddening experience. This ancient tale of Noah isn't glorious. It's retarded. It also angered me a bit as what messages does this movie send out at the end of the day? That e.g. God has it in him to kill you if you disappoint him even though he's the one who created you in the first place and that regardless of the fact that he's a murdering hypocrite you should worship him? What kind of poison is that?

Edit: I realized that I got one part mixed up. The part where Noah feels everyone should die happens before he spares the babies. Not that it matters though but I thought I'd mention it.

The good: From Hell has a great production design. The sets look great. The cinematographer did a good job working with all this darkness. The whole mood that is created with this frequent use of shadows is very distinct. The costumes are fabulous. The acting is fine.

The bad: There isn't any real point to the film that I can see other than to tell this disturbing, gloomy tale which has no point. If it is meant as entertainment it fails as it just made me down and uncomfortable. If the movie was intended as a serious piece then it fails too as it tells us nothing nor does it show us anything worth seeing. It just shows us a lot of ugliness and gloom. There really isn't an interesting story with any depth here. It's like the filmmakers couldn't make up their minds regarding what kind of movie they wanted to make and ended up with this odd film which has the tone of a serious piece yet is hollow.

Technically, Borgman is very well made. It's very well shot, the acting is great and the film for a long time really induced discomfort. It had me going "Where is this going? What is going on? Why is this happening? What does this mean?". But at a certain point the film just fizzles out.

It builds and builds but instead of there being a climax there's just...nothing really. Just a strange, depressing ending. I didn't like how it ended as the film promises so much yet doesn't deliver. Not in my opinion anyway.

A film needs to have a proper ending which has an impact because of what went before. Where things add up to something. It's like a song where after the last note you go "Wow, that was a good song.". The ending of Borgman just left me depressed and thinking there wasn't any real point to the film.

There's so much so well executed in this film. Alex van Warmerdam really knows how to direct, how to create a mood, how to shoot something and yet there's something lacking here as I haven't got the slightest clue as to what to make of it all. And that's a shame as, as I said there's a lot in this picture that's good.

It's like the script was 75% done when they started shooting. It's like it tells you it's got something interesting to say and subsequently keeps its mouth shut.

5/10