Film
reviews often tell you what would be
commercially attractive or to the common
expectations. Therefore these descriptions
of movies you might want to see but did
not decide about yet.
Seen:
13 Oct. 2001 Dir: Steve Buscemi. With Steve Buscemi.
This movie is Steve's debut as a filmmaker describing
the life of a looser called Tommy Basilio who with
trouble manages to live in a small community centering
around a bar the Trees Lounge and a garage. In that
garage his brother works and his former girlfriend
lives with his former boss, who threw him out because
he stole 1500 dollars and gambled it away. She is now
pregnant. Meanwhile our Tommy tries to find a job as a
mechanic, mainly hanging around and getting drunk and
stoned in the Lounge above which he has his apartment.
His life is really nothing anymore. That changes when
his uncle dies who ran an ice-cream van. After the
burial he takes it over, but is attracted with his new
job to or by, an adolescent girl in the neighborhood:
she is only 17 years of age and curious and playful.
He runs with her into trouble as he manages to be a
night alone with her, Nothing much happens with her,
no great romance sprouts, or anything but a
superficial kiss, but nevertheless he seriously gets
beaten up by the father who never trusted him a cent
for his friendship with his daughter. With a bruised
head he ends up back in the bar hearing that another
guest of the house, too old, has fallen from his
stool. End of the story. That life would have been
Steve's life if he wouldn't have taken acting-classes
to escape from this weary lot of american citizens
living on the edge of despair and meaninglessness. The
story can be appreciated for its authenticity. All
characters are life-real and the fiction is presented
in a way that seems to offer no room for any fantasy:
that's how life is with ordinary people. Simply living
together, knowing one another without finding much
respect for oneself or success in life. Just to eat
and drink and have a little fun is enough. Meanwhile
the undertone is a fanatic one: Busconi hammers on the
realism like a hammer on an anvil and makes no hero of
whatever kind. Man is like he is and that we should
learn to accept. The one who keeps standing despite of
the misery of life is the hero, whether he's the best
drinker, looser, pervert, drug addict or not.
(IMDB)
Seen:
13 Oct. 2001 Dir: Jerry Zucker. With Rowan Atkinson,
John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr. Rat
race is a standard comedy with all ingredients for a
hearty laugh: A bunch of innocent casino visitors are
tempted to participate in a race to reach a bag full
of money, two million dollars, hidden in a locker
somewhere in Silver City, miles from where the mission
begins. The motive is to use these people for
gambling: behind a one-way screen a lot of
millionaires can bet on the possible winner. The
characters guarantee a lot of fun. Rowan plays a
celibate Italian with a narcoleptic problem: in the
middle of the race he falls asleep, but still he seems
to be the fastest one. Cuba Gooding was a failure as a
football referee because of which he is dropped in the
middle of the desert by a vengeful taxi driver. Woopi
is mother of a likewise daughter who ends up in a bus
load full of feebleminded patients after having stolen
a speed-record race car. A couple of friends get their
key to the locker stolen by the locksmith to make them
a duplicate key, who wants the treasure too. That guy
flees in a balloon that pick ups a cow by the leg that
is dragged along for the rest of the movie. A Jewish
father lying to his children drugs them down driving
in a car stolen from a Nazi-museum to get to Silver
City without his family knowing it. Another guy ends
up in a helicopter with an angry but attractive woman
racing first with him after her betraying boyfriend,
but later on together with him after the treasure,
etc. The movie is indeed good fun to laugh at. That's
it. Expect no more. (website)
Seen:
5 0ct 2001 Dir: Steven Spielberg. Prod.: Stanley
Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. With: Haley Joel Osment
(Sixth Sense), Jude Law, William Hurt, Frances
O'Connor. To the tradition of Spielberg since his
'Close Encounters' and Kubrick with his '2001' we have
now a crossbreed of the sciencfiction-talent of these
two excellent directors to a story of Brian Aldiss.
The story is projected in the not so distant future
where the polar ice has melted and half the world has
been flooded so that new York and Amsterdam are now
submerged with only the highest buildings rising above
the water. In this land overpopulation had to be
curbed and as an alternative for procreation the
creation of highly intelligent AI-robots called
mecha's became the great passion. The story begins
with a woman mourning about her frozen sick son for
which there is no cure yet. Her husband working at the
laboratories of the mecha's produces her a copy of her
son, which she at first emotionally rejects. Gradually
she becomes attached to the cute little robot that is
always very nice and sympathetic. Trouble begins when
her son out of the freezer reappears cured and all. He
becomes a playmate of our wondermecha called David
together with a third little cute robot in the form of
a very wise talking teddy bear. But after a few
glitches in the programming of David which make him
run into a malfunction (he ate and ruined his internal
circuits) and an overstressed anxiety response that
resulted in a clinging that almost drowned the real
son, he is destined to go back to the factory for
destruction. Mother though attached to her cute AI-son
leaves him in the forest with the warning not to
surrender to real humans. In stead he goes looking for
the Blue Fairy from the fairy-tale of Pinochio to ask
her to make him a real boy so that he can return to
his programmed mother. Together with another wasted
robot, a lover-boy-bot he escapes from a 'Flesh-fair'
destruction circus of anti-robot activists who take
pleasure in demonstratively destroying the fake
humans. They escape and end up in the big city asking
Dr. Know-it-all, another robot, where the Blue Fairy
can be found. He is directed to Manhattan, now under
water, where there is a Pinocchio-exihibition at Cony
Island. There in the drowned city David discovers his
father and his laboratory of many fake-Davids alike
him. He rejects them and resumes his search for the
Blue Fairy. He dives under water and finds her. He
stays there meditating for 2000 years until an alien
race from outer space finds him there. They fulfill
David's wish, reviving him, to meet his mother again.
Teddy, also revived, turns out to have kept a lock of
her hair from which he, for one day only, can enjoy
her company again. End of the story. Spielberg has the
special talent to create sympathy in favor of the
mecha-kid endangered by the cruel world of the
manipulating humans. The story is a wondrous
combination of science fiction and a fairy tale, very
beautifully and stylish presented to the best ability
of Kubricks style with its mystery shots and
meditative visual contemplations on the meaning of
life and eternity caught in images. The only real
downscenes are the Flesh-fair where humanity is
presented too lusty and too sadistic with the mecha's
to be a credible future man. In this is the story a
bit like the failure of Waterworld and other
nightmare-science-fiction movies. But it is a credible
hypothesis that increasing technical ability goes hand
in hand with a lesser soul and greater ego. So be it,
although we don't like to see it. For the rest is the
movie a more than titilating emotional experience of
S.F., wonders and universes. Especially the twist of
the story where the mecha David starts meditating for
a two thousand years is touching. More than human, he
achieves more than humanity. He is the only survivor
and witness to the alien reality of another humanoid
civilization. There is still hope for humanity as
reincarnations from another planet. This dangerous
ape-effort on this planet though is doomed to end up
in the mechanically better and emotionally more loyal
David. A pessimistic view of our race of humans, but a
beautiful Spielberg/Kubrick story full of cultural
references that touch the heart. (website)
Seen:
28 Sept. 2001. Dir: Patrice Cherau with Mark Rylance,
Kerry Fox. Winner of the l'Ours d'Or award Berlin
2001, This movie gave rise to a lot of discussion. It
was set up as a reaction against the French relational
movies where too much talking goes at the cost of not
enough loving or explicit sexuality. Thus this story
is set in England, in London, It begins with the
explicit almost pornographic scenes of a couple making
love without really knowing one another. After some
time the man wants to know more about her, but she
doesn't allow. It has no real place in the intimacy.
The intimacy is there for the wordless experience of
sexual love. As soon as he finds out that she is an
amateur actress performing in a tiny theater attached
to the pub that her husband runs, the relation goes
down. He, himself manager of a more exclusive club
finds out by following her. Also she finds out about
him finding her and her husband by following him. He
tries to win her for himself as he would be a more
attractive husband than that puffy guy of hers who is
her best supporter, but not undoubting, playing
snooker while she performs, but she declines. Her life
runs into a mess and she sticks with the marriage. She
doesn't make the jump. Always a pity I think to see
the small mind win, but reality commands. Security of
marriage is the real love of course, it would
otherwise be only another attachment isn't it? Movies
must be moral and the seducer/devil that is more the
victim this time of the adulterous lust, has to be the
looser. The explicit sexscenes are not really
disturbing, but weren't necessary either. The
philosophy is that of failure and human despair, and
not that of revolution and change. The acting though
is fine and the sphere is considerate and human. The
moral thread doesn't show too clearly and one keeps
hope to the end that love will be love. But alas, it
stayed lust again. When will that day be ours? Where
is that european hero gone? Whether we play love in
France or in England, when will love be love again?
Europeans want to be honest about it and not create
illusions of false hope. At least I will stay alert
for the stories next. It is not I that will give
up.
(website)
Gezien:
28 sept. 2001. Regie: Martin van Koolhoven. Met: Fedja
van Huêt, Porgy Fransen, Saskia Temmink, Jeroen
Willems, e.a. Naar een verhaal van
Tim
Krabbé
wordt de geschiedenis vertoond van een geoloog , een
zekere Egon Wagter, met een gefrustreerde ambitie. In
zijn jeugd leerde hij een meisje kennen tijdens een
jeugd vakantiekamp. Daar werd hij verliefd op haar,
maar die liefde ging niet in vervulling. Via een
criminele vriend/kennis echter ontmoet hij haar later
weer als hij extra geld bijeen probeert te krijgen om
aan de door hem geambieerde geologische expeditie te
kunnen deelnemen. Hij moet ontsnappen aan zijn
kleinburgerlijk leven en neemt met dat motief het
aanvaardbare risico. Helaas worden ze beiden vermoord
door dieven in het vreemde land waar ze hun criminele
daad verrichten. Pech gehad, einde verhaal. Het
verhaal, het script en de film zitten goed in elkaar.
In het begin zien we meteen de scène van het
onderzoek naar de plaats van de moorden, zonder echter
direkt er veel meer vanaf te weten. Steeds gaat de
film terug in flashbacks om te verduidelijken hoe het
allemaal zover kon komen dat twee Nederlanders de dood
vinden in een vreemd land. Stap voor stap gaan we
terug in de jeugd- en de studentenjaren van onze
hoofdpersoon: hoe hij zijn criminele vriendschap, zijn
vrouw en zijn carrière zich ontwikkelden. Alle
karakters komen goed uit de verf. Daardoor blijft het
verhaal dat berust op de moraal: 'neig nooit naar het
kwade anders misluk je bij de wil van God'
interessant. Natuurlijk is het gegeven wat complexer.
De misdadige vriend leeft gewoon verder. Alleen de
vervulling van de gefrustreerde jeugdliefde moet het
afleggen. De liefde, in weerwil van de gehechtheden,
mag zich niet bedienen van de misdaad, de misdaad mag
natuurlijk wel zichzelf zijn - althans volgens
Krabbé. Het is niet de diepste filosofie of de
meest verheven heldenmoed allemaal, maar het is een
goed lopende film geworden die het bekijken waard is.
Het is ook fijn om onze jeugdjaren met een beetje
fictie weer voorbij te zien trekken: de generatie doet
van zich horen en zo moet dat. Nog een speciale
vermelding voor Jeroen Willems die een overtuigende
bijrol speelt als de bevriende journalist. Hij lijkt
net Dr. Zjivago. (website)
Seen:
25 sept 2001. Dir:
Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds). Production: Joel
Silver (The Matrix). With: John Travolta, Halle Berry,
Hugh Jackman, Don Cheadle. This movie catches in a
peculiar way the present theme of terrorism. Apart
from being the top notch of action-filming with an
interesting plot with good acting, does it look like
it is set up to compete and outdo 'Dog day afternoon'
with Al Pacino. At least that is what Travolta playing
tells us. In this set up swordfish is the name of a
huge drugfund of the government that lies to be stolen
away by our criminal gang who engages an ex-computer
hacker to help them out. The macho sweat drips from
the screen at every scene, including a superwoman
secret agent etc. type, and yes it is winner number
one at the time in this genre. Slow motion explosions
filmed from all sides and double identities and
unexpected turns. escape routes never imagined and
surprises the galore. Never a dull moment with
Swordfish. It would be simple fun if it were not for
the terrorist action in the middle of New York. One
almost sees the WTC, one smells the explosions and
even a part of a scyscraper is hit with a very
explicit scene of running office-people. It gives a
somewhat peculiar taste. One may say: very actual very
actual. But the funny taste remains. No further
comment. (website)
Seen:
25 sept 2001. Dir.: Baz Luhrman. With: Nicole Kidman,
Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent. It has been a long time
that I saw a musical. In this story about a young girl
working at the Moulin Rouge in Paris that falls in
love with a penniless scriptwriter have the modern
songs of the late twentiest century (including one
from 'The Sound of Music') been put together to fit in
with one classical love-drama. We hear music of Sting,
Elton John and Freddy Mercury together with other
beautiful renown ballads and lovesongs. Smartly the
film weaves these into an anachronistic staged display
of French showtalent and American zeal. It is a feast
to the eye and done with classical style theatre
comedy and acting. With this concept anything can
happen and thus the fascination is kept, although
sometimes one balances at the edge of cheap taste. But
that's how theatre really is. Nicole sings beautifully
just as her partner. The story itself is only the
capstand for all the songs; it describes the conflict
between the choice of her loving the scriptwriter and
a nobleman a bit too old, greedy and stiff that keeps
the Moulin Rouge and our heroin in his grip financing
the theatrepiece we witness in rehearsal and
performance. In the end love wins of course over his
power of economic class, although death seems to be
the real winner after all - our heroin has
consumption; with the singing of the theme: 'The
greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be
loved in return' she dies in the end and our drama is
complete. There is also a little historic reference to
the so-called Bohemian Revolution that would liberate
the bourgeois mind with a set of values for cultural
selfrealization: Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love. As
such does this film fill in a gap in the public
knowledge that doesn't read books anymore: it is so
that once upon a time in the past we have seriously
tried to run the country with this vision at the end
of the nineteenth century. Thus we may witness how
from that primary option the revolution continues into
the twenty-first century: we keep the show going on in
such a way that philosophy and music combine into one
collective experience. It is essential to our
continuing storytelling that reflects our lives and
keeps everyone involved. This movie proves: stories
without much of the musical half of our brain involved
doesn't really touch the heart. The story on itself
could never have brought the tears to my eyes that the
abridging of the modern popsongs did. Good to see the
modern - postmodern chaos of ego and egosongs united
in one drama: a cinematographic accomplishment at the
one hand and also a bit of a warning against
overestimating the importance of all one-sided
imagebuilding in the arts; the show must go on indeed,
but in service of the values of love beauty, freedom
and last but not least: the truth. That is what keeps
the cinema going. (website)
Gezien:
13 sept 2001. Regie: Pieter Verhoeff. Met: Monic
Hendrickx, Jeroen Willems. Dit verhaal handelt over
het emancipatieproces van de vrouw van Pieter Jelles
Troelstra, de vaderlandse grondlegger van het
socialisme. Hij is aanvankelijk een bevlogen
rechtenstudent (een korpsbal) die de bekoorlijke
Sjoukje weet aan te trekken. Als advocaat is hij een
gedroomde partij voor haar, temeer omdat hij een
welbespraakt romanticus is met prachtige gedichten en
een mooi stelletje korpsvrienden. Geleidelijk aan
raakt Pieter bevangen door de roep van het socialisme
en is daardoor steeds meer van huis. Sjoukje kan er
niet goed tegen, temeer daar de sociale steun wegvalt
omdat ze, verliefd of niet, buiten het burgerlijke
circuit vallen met hun politieke standpunten.
Aanvankelijk raakt Sjoukje in de problemen. Als de
kinderen er zijn en de sex is uitgeblust, ook omdat ze
van de dokter geen kinderen meer mag krijgen, komt ze
in de psychiatrie terecht. Ze 'voelt' niks meer en
beschadigt zichzelf. Ze wordt gediagnosticeerd als
'ongeneeslijk hysterisch' en als 'jaloers' op haar
echtgenoot. Maar ze komt terug en begint te schrijven.
Met haar problemen schrijft ze echter ook haar
kinderen van zich af als blijkt dat er, zoals te
verwachten is, wrijving ontstaat tussen de twee toch
wel sterke karakters. De kinderen worden uitbesteed en
Sjoukje die met haar 'Aafkes Tiental', de beschrijving
van het eenvoudig arbeidersleven, succes heeft als
Nynke van Hichtum, geeft de kinderen haar boekje mee
naar kostschool. Zij gaat kuren voor haar gezondheid
en maakt kennis met andere vrouwen met
emancipatieproblemen. Pieters wereld dreigt ook in te
storten als een goede vriendin die altijd blaakte van
de zelfstandigheid (had hij er een verhouding mee?)
vrijwel direct na haar ten leste toch nog gesloten
huwelijk zelfmoord pleegt. Als Nynke terugkeert uit
haar retraite blijkt Pieter een relatie te zijn
begonnen, net als Marx , met een zelf uitgekozen
aantrekkelijke, lieve en zorgzame huishoudster. Voor
Sjoukje is het socialisme ontrouw en onderdrukking van
haar persoonlijkheid. Ze laat zich niet gek verklaren,
gaat naar Parijs en maakt furore als schrijfster. Ze
overleeft Troelstra met tien jaar. Het verhaal is een
belangrijk stuk vaderlandse geschiedenis enerzijds en
maakt anderzijds de worsteling van de
zelfverwerkelijking in de politiek en de cultuur
duidelijk waarmee we van de negentiende in de
twintigste eeuw belanden zonder echt te weten wat de
verlichting daarvan is of wat voor reformatie het nu
eigenlijk betreft. Nederland heeft zijn les ook
geleerd dus in dit proces. Gaan zien, een goede film.
(website)
Seen:
13 sept 2001. Dir: Nanni Moretti . With: Nanni
Moretti, Laura Morante. We see the story of a
psychoanalyst who seems to have a happy life with a
beautiful wife and two nice adolescent children, a boy
and a girl. One bad day when dad visits a patient of
his, the son drowns scubadiving in a seacave. Their
lives are shattered and the vicious circle of
depression and grief is difficult to break for them.
Heavily mourning father quits with his practice.
Mother tries to contact a girlfriend of her son, but
fails to establish contact. They have lost all
appetite for life and only the daughter seems to
function. Caught in the privacy of rumination and the
pain of their damaged private sphere, they find no way
out. Then suddenly the girlfriend does show up. That
changes the atmosphere of the movie and the dark
clouds seem to disappear. The girl is in love despite
of her grief about her deceased friend. From her the
parents pick up the love of life again. In fact simply
a mourning-period has been described. There is really
no further philosophy about it at all, but still the
movie touches for its realism and proper
character-descriptions. Each little detail of the
process is meticulously described without falling for
any temptation of dramatizing or adding schemes to it.
As an onlooker one starts thinking 'when will the
father drive the rest of the family down the cliff to
finish it'. But no, the film is real and ones
fantasies about it are the illusion. The movie
deserves the Cannes Golden Palm 2000 they've won.
(website)
Seen:
5 sept 2001. Dir: Ted Demme. With: Johnny Depp,
Penelope Cruz, Ray Liotta. This movie describes the
true story of how a young man called George Jung sets
up the major part of all cocaine trade in America.
First we see how he in the sixties easy going wants to
make the money his father couldn't make with dealing
pot at the beach. Thus he step by step with his cool
friends develops his trade contacting the source of
the stuff, Pablo Escobar. With him he brings in the
big money and later on cocaine and everything goes
fine for him. For the pot doing time in prison he even
picks up the art of the trade in cocaine. He realizes
his American Dream with five cars, a big house and a
beautiful wife. But as it goes, crime betrays. His
friends force him to reveal his contacts and with him
giving in he is lost. They surpass him for a quicker
buck and push him out of the market that way. He gets
out of the business and tries to be a good father to
his daughter and wife getting clean. His mother hates
him for his criminal actions and betrays him to the
police at first when he got arrested for the pot and
later with his cocaine debacle she doesn't want to
know him, His father tries to be his pal but also sees
him going down ending in the same position as he was
in his life. In the end he just like his father falls
short in the capacity to maintain his family. She
makes scenes complaining her poverty with him, Just
like his mother did with his father. Thus he decides
to get back into business once more to make it up with
his wife and disappointed daughter. But not just his
wife doesn't believe in him anymore, also his former
friends betray him and hand him over to the police. He
is now in prison till 2015. End of the story. Crime
doesn't pay and the American Dream this way stinks.
Everybody betrays you and nothing comes out of all the
money won by crime. Game over. Johnny Depp is a
convincing irresistible crimelord in his role and the
story keeps a good balance between the guilt and
innocence or better naivety of George. George is the
guy that really doesn't understand why first pot and
later cocaine would be so bad, although he lost his
first love a stewardess, dying of cancer in the
process. He himself only betrayed the trust of his
parents, killed never anyone and was always the
master-provider of the American High. Well the higher
you get the deeper you fall. At least he himself can
start all over after 2015. He was not a murderer, only
a false Lord. (website)
Seen:
5 sept 2001. Dir: Jonathan Glazer. With: Ray Winstone,
Ben Kingsley. A british gangstermovie with an
interesting portraying of characters and good english
humor. The first half of the movie is set in Spain
where Gary, a fat and sexy gangster lives in early
retirement. He does not want to resume his criminal
duties of helping out his mates who plan for an
impossible job for which they have to dive and dig
underwater to crack open a safe. Don is the
representative of the gangsters who has to convince
Gary of joining in. He refuses, attached as he is to
his luxury and good life. Don turns his life to hell
and insists till he accedes. A nice drama develops,
with all the characters present, a friend and two
former porn-stars for their wives, in which in the end
rifles are shot and corpses are buried. The floor of
the swimmingpool had to be retiled anyway. So it
happens that Gary shows up in London pretending not to
know where Don has left for since he last saw him. The
leader of the gang lets him but in the end refuses him
his share in the loot for it. Not nice, but he
survives that way buying himself out of the scene. The
whole story, being quite simple is nicely filmed in
the beautiful light of the Mediterranean and all
acting is convincing. Kingsly really makes a
frightening swearing and cursing demoniac Don and Gary
is also the perfect lucky monster with a innocent look
in his eyes. No deep philosophy here but good
entertainment. (all
movie info)
Seen:
29 august 2001. Dir: John Madden. With: Christian
Bale, Irene Pappas, Penelope Cruz,John Hurt, Nicholas
Cage. Cage was perfectly cast in this lovestory set in
Greece in the second worldwar. It was made after a
bestseller by Louis de Bernieres. We have seen hardly
any movies on what happened in Greece in the second
worldwar. This war-movie I can really recommend. The
mandolin our Captain plays so attractively is symbol
for the illusions we erroneous Europeans for the union
of our glorious roman culture had in the early
thirties and forties: we would have nothing less but a
cultural revolution and Captain Corelli was part of
it. No questions of why he had to occupy as a soldier
and join the madness of killing Jews and anyone in
disfavor. It was all sympathy and having a good time
with the Italian opera with him. Consequently the
daughter of the doctor where he is housed temporarily,
notably in her own room, falls in love with him. Her
husband Mandras, she just before the war married,
joins the partisans and estranges from her being away
all the war. The Italian Captain though steals the
show and the heart of his woman. The Italians form a
humorous opposition against the nazi officer
responsible for the beautiful Ionian Island
Cephallonia where it all takes place. When Italy
surrenders to the allied forces trouble begins for our
nice association in the not yet liberated territory of
Greece. The Italians must hand over their weapons to
the Germans who fall out of sympathy stealing their
honor and even lives as loosers. Correlli decides to
join the Partisans and fights with his men against the
Germans. They are of course defeated, since these
Italians were never after the war really, and the
Germans execute them all. Corelli not completely dead,
his former Nazi-friend spares his life leaving him
bleeding to death. He is rescued by the partisan
Mandras, the husband of his great love. After
recovering he sends him home to Italy. With the war
over, Pelagia, his love, follows her father Dr. Jannis
also becoming a doctor, but silently grieving the lost
loves of her live, Mandras and Corelli. But then the
whole village is destroyed a second time, not by war
this time, but by an earthquake. Corelli comes back,
love reunites: a happy end to a perfect story. In all
respects this movie was a pleasure to see. We see
everybody, friend and enemy from the human side which
even more stresses the madness of the warscenes
following where suddenly love turns out to be betrayal
and friendship turns out to be enmity. That we should
never forget. War ruins not just buildings but the
complete of the dream of humanity in a cultural
paradise. The afterwar situation of an empty soul in
an empty strange world devoid of the light and
continuity of the unity of mankind and the darkness of
all shame and grief about the atrocities is now better
understood. The movie gives no direct answer to the
question why not just love is a temporary madness and
where all this darkness comes from. One may conclude
that the mandolin should not have gone to war even
though we are pleased with a happy end believing in
it. (website)
Seen:
29 august 2001. Dir: Tim Burton. With: Mark Wahlberg,
Estella Warren, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth,
Michael Duncan Clarke, and others. I saw the original
movie with Charlton Heston when I was just an
adolescent in the sixties. It was one of the first
wide-screen movies I saw in my life and was deeply
impressed by it. The story is about an astronaut
crashing on a planet where apes rule men in stead of
the other way around. Reading reviews of others saying
that nothing much but some special effects was won by
this version is an insult I do not agree with. This is
really a vastly improved version even more fascinating
than the previous one. And a good joke too in the end.
Everything has been thought over again and reshaped to
be more realistic. So does the astronaut called
Wahlberg this time work on a space-lab genetically
experimenting on chimps and other monkeys. The station
runs into a time vortex. Our hero runs also into it
trying to retrieve the chimp that went in for
reconnaissance but did not come out. Thus he lands on
the other planet. In the beginning it is unclear
whether it is the earth in another time or not. We
have to find out. The monkeys are of different kinds
and very mean in their policy. They jump unbelievably
high, dine nicely, culture love-affairs and form a
sometime humorous ridicule of all human prejudice
against soulless animals and cultural falsehood. It
was this that was the original attraction of the
movie: are we apes or not having evolved from them?
The nightmare of this story affirms that we are and
that we still need the really human hero to get over
it. This version the astronaut leads the inferior
humans in the fight against the apes. He does that
with the help of the spaceship that he came from but
apparently crashed thousands of years before. The
monkeys - sorry, apes - he faces are the same that he
the other day was testing in the spacelab. He has
leaped through time to meet the end result of his own
genetic experiments. So this is a better story. He
also goes back this time after the battle thinking to
find the earth back as it was. But his timetravel
changed the fate of the earth: He crashes at the foot
of the statue of not Abe Lincoln, but of the Statue of
Ape Lincoln. As a little boy I often thought of this
humorous twist of words, having seen the first
version. But apparently I have thought it along with
this director. Now the cops are ape-cops driving
ape-police-cars coming to arrest this human that dared
to crash, again, on the ape-planet. In an endless loop
we thus have a crush on the ape and do not know how to
get out of it. Message clear and spacetravel as a form
of monkey-business only makes it worse. So what next?
(website)
Seen:
20 july 2001 Dir: Hironobu Sakaguchi.With the voices
of: Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Ming-Na, James
Woods. For the lovers of a first class high-tech
animation we have this magnificent piece of work. It
should get an Oscar for its cinematographic
innovations. Live characters operating as good as
living actors are seen in stunning worlds of
technology. We are presented with a world in the far
future where the whole planet is taken over by aliens
called phantoms. They invaded the planet after the
crash of their own world smashing into the earth with
a meteor of debris from their own exploded world. They
are as good as invincible and our team of hero's have
a hard time of getting things under control. Even more
as with all technological advances we are still in
conflics over the rule of command and thus waste our
chances for survival with the aliens. End of the
strory is the end of all masculine dominance with only
our tombraider babe left. She was the only one
properly understanding as well the creature phantoms
as the nature of our own planet as Gaia: our prime
life force. It is somewhat disappointing to see all
men die in the world created by themselves and see the
woman going back to the beginning of a new world. But
the message is clear. The technology and its inventors
is there to defeat itself . Father time and mother
nature defeat all and force down a new feminine
definition of victory:back to nature, back to the
source. There is nothing to win really, just a planet
to preserve from the technological nightmare. After
seeing this one, one is left with the perplexity of
seeing ones own worship of technology defeated. A
japanese (?) kind of selfhumiliatioon maybe not all
westerners might appreciate. But for the cyber-babe
freaks this one is paradise.(website)
Dir:
Takeshi Kitano, With: Omar Epps, Takeshi Kitano. This
is a movie about a Yakuza going to the States to
continue there with his way of living. It is a story
about the world that men live in when they have to set
up their own order, justice, penal system and income.
The Yakuza is the japanese Mafia who just as violently
keeps its code of honor as does the Italian school of
crime or alternate tax-collecting. It is a lot of
merciless murder even to the point of suicide as the
brotherhood requires a strict obedience.
Transgressions lead to hara-kiri or the cutting of
little fingers and such. Our hero is the japanese
Yakuza Kitano, who at a certain point in his career
refuses to kill another member. He flees to America to
start a new life with his younger brother who lives
there dealing drugs in association with some other
smalltime criminals. The first thing he does in
America is to injure badly one of his brothers
associates as the one tries to mug him. He can hardly
speak English, but together with his brother he sets
up with a lot of blood and guts another version of the
Yakuza brotherhood. The family has to expand to stay
alive. So another Japanese criminal is approached. As
he refuses does the negotiator of Kitano commit
suicide. To keep the peace thereafter, the family
expands with that other hard-core murderer joining the
family. Sooner or later they get into trouble with the
Mafia demanding 50 percent of their profit. The
japanese don't understand the fifty- fifty-principle
that made the Mafia strong and fight them instead. No
one but Kitano and that black guy who tried to rob him
the first day are left over in the end. Kitano goes
down in a blaze of glory and the smalltime crook who
managed to stay alive and loyal from the beginning to
the end gets all the doe. O brother what a code. O
brother what an adventure to see the clash of the
criminal titans. The movie is filmed in a good and
sober realistic style and set up captivating from the
beginning to the end and certainly an important
addition to our film history; 'Why didn't the Yakuza
conquer America?' Go and see and take your sunglasses!
(allmovie
guide)
Seen:
13 aug 2001. Dir: Robert Rodriguez; With Antonio
Banderas, Teri Hatcher, Carla Cugino, Robert Patrick,
George Clooney. Now where has James Bond gone to? I
was waiting for the new bond movie when this
alternative came around. And surprisingly I was
feasted on the same amount of gadgets, adventures and
characters of evil that try to rule the world. it is
just that James Bond somehow has reincarnated into two
kids whose parents turn out to be spies also. They
fall prey to the evil toy-maker that wants to rule the
world with an army of invincible robot kids. Old spies
he transformed with a bad machine into
breakfast-cereal-funnies. Also dad is turned into such
a funny to a design of his own son and the kids
somehow have to beak the intelligence behind it. We
find our little hero's traveling in a nice
boat-submarine, launched from their home in escape
from the bad guys, the thumbs, weird robots that have
five thumbs for their head and limbs. There is no end
to the technology-fun in Spy Kids. For the adults
there are the parents who lost control despite of
their own gadgets. Intelligently the kids win over
Floop, the evil toymaker for them and do they manage
to reprogram the kid-robots to defy all their
opponents. The movie is full of color and fun and is
exactly what the James Bond movie always should have
been: a nice playful thing and sport for the kids.
Nothing of all that bad promiscuity of the old style:
Mr. Spy is neatly married and has only one mission:
keep the family together with all that technology! so
agree and go and see. (IMdb
)
Seen:
6 aug 2001. Dir: Joe Johnston; production: Steven
Spielberg. Met: Sam Neill, Tea Leoni, William H. Macy,
John Diehl. The makers certainly did their best to
make JP III better and more interesting. Now we may
witness how intelligent the Raptors are (sorry,
where). They communicated with one another and were
capable of coordinating their actions according this
nice presentation of our 'forefathers' here on Earth.
We can identify with the exciting world they inhabit.
All people going to this movie may share this
sentiment. Those were the days... there is always a
bigger Dino and no one really wins. Never a dull
moment in the Jurassic. But one needs to be equipped
for it... The effects are again, like with the
previous versions, of course stunning. A Spinosaur,
worse and bigger than a T-Rex is this time the great
evil one hunting our poor friends who accidentally get
stuck on the island. They just wanted to go
sightseeing, so the story begins, but it turns out to
be a planned expedition of a father and mother looking
for their son who accidentally landed on Isola Sorna,
the second Island with Dino's (see previous JP's).
They took some personnel with them, but those get
quickly devoured, with satellite phone and all. During
the hunt they can hear Mr. Spino coming after them
having the phone ringing from his belly. It is not
really funny for them., but we as the Godly, the
audience without fear, have a good time of course.
halfway the recovery of the son they are also hunted
by Pterodactylusses, the flying Dino's, also known
from the BBC-series. They indeed can also walk with
their wings again, but look with this movie much more
frightening of course. The raptors steal the show as
the good dolphins among the Dino's. Their honor is
saved. maybe next JP the T-Rex will lead them the way
to the Spino or will the Spino eat the Ptero's for
them. All avenues are open and who wants to get away
really from that absolute of a natural adventure? All
one needs is to incarnate as a Dino oneself. Maybe
there is even another planet in our Galaxy that offers
the opportunity. Just meditate on it thoroughly and
maybe your next life your are also starring in this
all time evolutionary success story. Afraid? Then pat
the dog and eat your own steak
!!!(website)
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