DVD review: Julia's Eyes

Blind girls and unseen tormentors.

Another interesting scary movie from Spain. There’s not a lot that I have to say about it.

On a production and direction level is all very well done, Spain is still a guarantee of quality when you talk about scary movies.

Guillermo del Toro produced this movie, another guarantee of quality. It’s not Hollywood style, and level, of production, but this for many could actually be a bonus point.

For the story I have some reservations. It certainly works during the movie, a lot of ominous situations are nicely set up without having to resort to that dreadful cliché of the protagonist blindly, pun not intended, walking into obvious danger. Stuff happens, thing move along nicely and we are fed a lot of info about the evil forces at works. To sum it up, it’s very nice to follow.

The problems starts when you get to the end, after the big final revelation, and watching back it’s all so incredibly contrived, it must be the most picky and bizarre evil force ever to grace my screen…

Conclusion: A very competent thriller. It will not leave a very lasting impression afterward but certainly works on every level. Recommended viewing.

DVD review: 13 assassins

A group of samurai set out to kill a sadistic lord.

This is a fairly peculiar movie. The first part is all preparations and drama, the second part is entirely occupied by an extended battle scene.

The movie is very Japanese so it can be off putting to people not used to eastern cinema.

The first part is a throwback to those classics black and white samurai flicks that maybe you glimpsed late at night. It’s fairly interesting material although it doesn’t engage a lot a modern viewer, most probably alien to the web of traditions that directed those people lives.

This is a Japan set movie from Japan by a Japanese author, Takashi Miike, so don’t expect any explanatory aside, or too much comic asides by the way. These samurais are very serious people and they don’t smile a lot.

The second bit is an incredibly lengthy battle sequence, I wasn’t joking when I said it is practically the whole second half of the movie. It’s all very well set, crafted and choreographed.

Probably I’m a true believer but I had no problem with such a lengthy battle, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It’s strange but the very length of the battle lends gravitas to it. It means that it is not a secondary event, like those random shoot outs in action movies. Instead it becomes a life changing event, a true moment of life and death.

Miike, regarding the action sequences, is of the “blood and guts” school so expect an incredible amount of bloods with severed body parts flying around. It’s so bloody that I’ll advise against seeing it if you are in any way easily impressed.

Conclusion: A nice old school samurai epic, the first part can be boring but the battle sequence alone is worth the price of admission. Only for katana heads anyway, certainly not recommended to the general public.

DVD review: The American

A professional killer hides out in a tiny Italian Village.

The critics all loved it; it sits on top of many top ten movies of the year lists. I think you can already guess where this is going the end…

I rarely watched a more boring movie in my life. I’m not starting from the position where if there is not an explosion every 10 minutes I fall asleep. I actually enjoy more cerebral fares, but still I actually need something to be happening and somebody to relate to.

Everybody lauded the “restrained” acting by George Clooney. Now I got where they got the ideas, I understand the subtle pleasures of all the tiny signs. The revealing gestures, where the gaze goes and all that related stuff but still it all should lead to something, to somewhere. And moreover the really great restrained performances are not the impenetrable ones, are those where you can actually glimpse behind the face, those where the eyes actually tell a story.

The overall impression is of a long extended vacation. A very American view of Italian life. Yes they inserted some killing shenanigans pretending to be more “realistic” than the normal Hollywood fare even if in the end they just invented a different kind of fake “professional killer” job.

Conclusion: A pretentious movie by a pretentious director, to avoid at all costs.

DVD review: The resident

A girl moves to a new flat. Sinister things start to happen.

After a long wait I’m back and the next movie on the list is “The resident”. Never saw so much misguided effort.

It’s very hard to not spoil the big concept. Suffice to say that it’s the kind of thing that sounds very scary if it would happen in real life but doesn’t translate so well filmically.

It’s not like they didn’t try. The cinematography is suitably moody thank to Guillermo Navarro, a long time collaborator of the other Guillermo, Del Toro of Hellboy fame. The movie itself is professionally done with a lot of talented actors. Hilary Swank is the damsel in distress, Jeffrey Dean Morgan the strange neighbor, there is even a cameo from Christopher Lee himself.

Yet they don’t manage to make it work. We couldn’t help but feel kinda sorry for the bad guy, probably the least threatening bad guy in recent horror history.

With this I don’t want to say that it is terrible. We waded through the running time with no effort and the concept is still interesting enough that our attention was kept awake.

Conclusion: This will probably end up in those late night reruns. Good to keep insomnia at bay at least.

DVD review: The Adjustment Bureau

An upstart politician runs afoul of the forces that control destiny to save his love life.

A fair representative of the recent wave of “high concept” movie, “The Adjustment Bureau” got a splendid jumping point of a concept and some crazy visuals to accompany it.

It all starts with a Phillip Dick short story but as it often happens with those it is more of an inspiration than a straight adaptation. It’s that paranoia sensibility that translated so well in movies.

The love story bit is the main original addition by writer director George Nolfi. It’s certainly a good idea, it gives us a reason to care about the whole thing and position this movie in that awesome category, the Metaphysical Romantic movies, also known as Meta – Rom.

Matt Damon is perfect as the everyday man with the weight of the world on its shoulders, many argued that he was born to play average Joe in extraordinary circumstances. Emily Blunt as the love interest is as good as usual. She always manages to communicate some kind of intensity, even though the cheesiest lines.

The main strength, the high concept, sadly becomes the main weakness. The filmmakers clearly feared that they would lose their audience trough if the movie becomes too bizarre and so they played their hand incredibly tight.

A concept like this want to be expanded, played with, at least a little bit. Think of the final act of “Groundhog day”, that is the high mark on how an high concept movie should develop.

Not only they didn’t dare, they also filmed a very contrived finale that basically solves the entire conundrum with a literal Deus Ex Machina.

It looked so promising coming in.

Conclusion: An interesting little movie that doesn’t deliver on what was promised.

DVD review: Ip Man 2

Ip Man moves to Hong Kong where he fights rival martial arts masters and corrupt officials.

Ip Man 2 builds on the foundations laid out by the first iteration delivering a better, smarter product on almost any fronts.

The story is still spot on and also, very refreshing. The quiet, unassuming, Ip Man is light years away from the conflicted heroes of Hard Boiled cinema or the slapstick protagonists of Jackie Chan fame. It’s strange how martial arts movies still have to get Ip Man as a character.

Although they swiftly produced, not one, but two copycat movies about Ip Man in less than two years. This prompted Donnie Yen, our titular Ip Man, to declare that Ip Man as a subject is over saturated therefore shelving any prospect for Ip Man 3. Please think about that Donnie! We need some more Ip Man!

Pleads to Donnie yen aside, let’s get back to the movie.

The narrative is more coherent, the story may be very tiny, it can be summarized as “Ip Man is looking for a job”, but it works well. The various characters just work, with a stand up in Sammo Hung as a rival martial arts master.

Speaking of Hung, who also choreographed the fights, the martial art in this movie is just spectacular. The mid movie fight between Hung and Yen is the material of legends, is the kind of fight that can convert a non believer into martial arts cinema.

The ending fight, although still nice, is comparatively a letdown. Maybe it resonated with the Chinese but for us westerners martial arts vs boxing isn’t that interesting.

Conclusion: A masterpiece, so good in his genre that it transcends it.

DVD review: Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood, now in a teenager version.

The story you know it roughly. What they changed is, at least on a surface level, not that bad.

There is something of Ten Little Indians now, people keep dying in Red Riding Hood village and the problem is guessing who the bad werewolf is.

A suitable amount of stuff happens, some blood get spilled, Gary Oldman himself makes an apparition as a Van Helsing style character, of course in this case is a Werewolf Hunter and not a Vampire Hunter but factually is the same.

The visuals are actually not too bad. I commend the style of the famous red hood. Although the CGI of the wolves is a terrible miss the rest of the setting is nicely done and shoot with a keen eye on the light.

Also every moment Gary Oldman is on the screen the movie switches gear because he is that awesome.

Amanda Seyfried is the titular protagonist. She doesn’t stretch a lot but this is the kind of role that she was born to play. She looks the part and she played similar characters so many times that she is now effortless in this kind of role.

Sadly we live in the post twilight era; they even got the director of the original Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke. So the usual undertone of “Werewolves are supposed to be very sexy” is overbearing. A very big chunk of the movie is spent with stolen glances, sexual innuendos, attractive guys with their chest bare etc.

Maybe if you are a Twilight fan you’ll love this stuff. Personally I have nothing against Twilight but I can’t bear supernatural teen romance, is so off putting.

Conclusion: The core of the movie is terrible and cliché but there is enough meat on the side to satisfy the most ardent twilight hater. Also there is Gary Oldman himself, what else do you need?

DVD review: Season of the Witch

A couple of knights have to transport a witch.

A stunningly unoriginal story, all the characters are stereotypes and cliché, the setting is so familiar that at first sight you’ll think you have already seen this movie while the effects are so classical that probably some of those where rejected from an old episode of Xena Warrior Princess.

It’s baffling, but certainly good for the writer, that the original script, made in 2000 by Bragi F. Schut according to Wikipedia, was won by MGM after a bidding war and that it was made only now, one year after the very similar, Sean Bean starring, Black Death, only because of the financial woes of that studio.

Yet another of those “Movies that Nic Cage is doing because his accountant stole a lot of money” it stars the aforementioned Nic Cage and Ron Perlman, of Hellboy and a thousand B movies fame. Maybe it’s up to their personal charm but this movie that notionally shouldn’t work somehow clicks and becomes even engaging.

The much maligned Nic Cage is a great actor but as other movie demonstrated he can’t elevate terrible properties all by himself. Here luckily with the help of Ron Perlman he constitutes a terrific couple. Their easy chemistry and their jovial banter keep afloat a movie all by itself.

Don’t expect any surprise or any detounement, just a somewhat old western style medieval fantasy. Exactly like those old John Wayne movies it’s all clear cut, black and white, and old cowboys, templars here, ride along trying to right a very wrong world.

Conclusion: A surprisingly enjoyable fantasy, still not very recommended if you can’t bear some chainmail and sword fighting.

DVD review: The Ward

In an all female Psychiatric ward something is killing the inmates.

After a ten years hiatus John Carpenter returns to filmmaking. His career got a turn for the worse in the 90s when he seemed unable to make movies that connected to modern audiences; it was like he was stuck into that seminal era during the late 70s and early 80s that made him so famous.

Part of the problems that plagued his late movies are present also in this one, albeit in a reduced form.

As all Carpenter movies this is something of a B movie. Not a bad thing per se but as many experimented making a modern B movie is no mean feat. It’s nice to be rediscovered 20 years later but not really worth it when you are looking for financing.

As a whole the movie works. The plot is that classical crazy asylum tale where so much is hidden behind the surface. To me it was all a little bit obvious but maybe I watched too many examples of a genre that doesn’t have that many possible permutations.

The actual shoot and effect work is a little bit underwhelming. The monster looks and feels very cheap, like one of those b movie monsters from the 70s actually. The various “thrilling scenes” are nicely done but again with a very retro feeling.

It’s a smart move to retread to what you know best but overall this effort feels undercooked and not very inspired.

Conclusion: A Carpenter movie for Carpenter fans, he even put his name on the title.

DVD review: Rango

Rango, a pet chameleon, ends up in a western style town.

This movie, according to the people who made it, is an attempt to do a western style animated feature, just a little bit adult oriented. The end result is an odd affair which earned rave reviews and an Oscar.

First, as it all too often happens with those reviews, they are mainly made by professional, or at least people deeply invested into moviedom. The problem with that is that so called “movie’s movies” tend to aggregate much better reviews than simpler affairs.

Rango certainly is a movie for movie fans. It is littered with movie citations and the whole structure liberally rips off the Dollar trilogy of Eastwood fame mixing it up with non sequitur, animal puns and LSD inspired spiritual trips.

Is this better than classical animated fare or at least more profound? Not really but is at least as good as that.

In the end what they made is a much quirkier than usual product, with a distinct independent cinema atmosphere.

The animations are made by ILM, Industrial Light and Magic, their first fully animated feature, with the direction in the competent hands of Gore Verbinski. It’s all very competent stuff, but honestly they still need a little bit to get to the level of the giants of animation.

Conclusion: An interesting experiment, recommended to adult fans of animation. The kids I fear want get most of the stuff.

DVD review: Drive Angry

To stop a satanic cult a guy literally comes back from the dead.

One of the infamous wave of b movies that Nic Cage had to do to pay his tax problems “Drive Angry”, like most of his brethrens, is not really that bad and can’t really be accused of being dishonest. It does what it says on the tin, a lot of drive angry and a lot of other verbs angry, mainly shooting angry.

Nic Cage role, the aptly named John Milton, is a character as thin as cardboard, not even Cage manages to sell him wholeheartedly. There is the classic all American Blonde Babe, played by Amber Heard, who of course is very handy with guns and fast muscle cars. Then we have the shady and slimy cult leader.

It’s not really an original movie but of course that’s the point. B Movies were never that original, and of course they weren’t that good either. That’s a reason most of that stuff is relegated to the back shelves.

So as a B movie how does it fare? Quite well actually. There are a couple of scenes that are really insane and the rhythm is good, is not a boring experience.

The main problem is that they got the insanity level right only on a few occasions. The rest of the time it can be entertaining but it doesn’t deliver on the level of over the top action that the title promised. It’s like one of those comedies where the jokes aren’t enough, nice but in the end not satisfying.

Conclusion: If the title sparks your interest have a look but don’t expect too much.

DVD review: Rare export

The true story behind Santa Claus.

An ingenious dark comedy this movie got one of those wonderful and completely original premises that are so rare nowadays. Sadly it doesn’t develop it properly. The main idea is there and is all kind of amazing but a lone idea doesn’t add to a whole movie. You need more stuff to add to it.

The movie also suffers a bit from its independent nature. The shoots, the actors, the overall feeling is that of a somewhat amateur production. It’s not really that bad I need to add, just unimpressive.

A lot of time is devoted to a subplot about a kid trying to find his place in an undoubtedly very harsh world. It’s even done fairly well but honestly we would have preferred more Santa and less psychological introspection.

One last note about the movie, without spoiling the aforementioned premise this is a dark comedy so expect mature themes, a lot of blood and a very unusual take on Santa Claus.

Conclusion: Recommended to those who love their oddities but for the general public this is really to underdeveloped.

DVD review: Defendor

A mentally ill man decides to become a real life superhero.

After Kick Ass popularized the concept of “What would happen in real life if somebody put on a spandex costume and started fighting crime” we start with the usual wave of copycat movies.

Defendor didn’t learn Kick Ass lessons properly. Maybe they can be excused considering that Kick Ass didn’t perform as expected at the box office, although it still turned a good profit, but where Kick Ass was all kind of wonderful and funny this is a somewhat depressing experience.

Yes we all know that dressing up as a superhero and fighting crime in our society would be a form of madness but that’s not the point. Superheroes stories are escapist fantasies where the wrongs can be righted and evil can actually be punched in the face.

Kick Ass managed to have his cake and eat it too with the creation of Hit Girl. So they had Kick Ass as the sad loser superhero and Hit Girl as the “Kick Ass” one, if you can pardon the bad pun.

Here we only get to loser part of the equation, played by an extremely well cast Woody Harrelson who looks and sounds the part, but he is not really a story that we would like to follow.

Who’s the target audience of this? Superheroes fans will be annoyed, non superheroes fans will be disinterested, maybe former superheroes fans that recovered from their vices and want to laugh at their former interest? It’s a mystery.

Kat Denning is entertaining as usual but terribly miscast as a young prostitute / crack whore.

There are some laughs every now and then but really too few and too little. It clearly aims to be a black comedy but it doesn’t do enough.

Conclusion: Forgettable in every sense.

DVD review: The tourist

An average tourist is drawn into a web of intrigue by a beautiful woman.

While the main plot of the movie roughly works, being a remake of a French original this shouldn’t be a surprise, the rest is all a real big misfire.

The main problem incredibly lies into the main protagonists. Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie two of the most charming actors in the world somehow when working together create the anti chemistry. It’s amazing how the movie stops when they try something romantic, how Depp, normally so deft, is reduced to a bumbling buffoon and how wooden Angelina is. I really don’t understand it.

Even alone they don’t fare much better. Depp is so wonderful when he plays the abnormal, the strange, and the peculiar but evidently he is not capable to play the normal, the average. Moreover his natural good looks hadn’t been toned down not even a little bit. I understand that the main selling point is he and Mrs. Jolie making out but the story simply doesn’t work if the average guy came straight out of a fashion shoot.

Jolie doesn’t fare better. The makeup and costume department is evidently directed by some madman. Her hair and attire is incredibly over the top and, most importantly, she looks terrible in it. It’s so bad that it’s worth having a look just to appreciate it.

On the acting side also she, like Depp, evidently has a lot of trouble in conveying normal human emotions. All the social interactions are so stiff, her eyes absent.

Maybe part of the fault lies in the director hands. The long named Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck decided to set the movie in one of the more cinematic places in the world, Venice, and completely fails to use it. The lights are all terrible and the shoots uninspiring.

Conclusion: A real stinker, even if you are a fan of the main duo you really don’t want to see it because it’s the first really bad movie that they made in ages.

DVD review: Hereafter

Three loosely interconnected stories about the hereafter.

It was bound to happen; the bad Clint Eastwood movie interrupts a streak that lasted at least 10 years, maybe more if you can appreciate “Blood Work”.

Strangely this is something that a lot of critics are apparently waiting for, many hailed the excellent “Invictus” as that paradoxical bad Eastwood movie. I honestly don’t understand why.

But how bad is bad here? Not too much in the end, certainly watchable.

The main problem lies in the plot, the first bad plotted movie chosen by Eastwood in ages. Many stories never get anywhere, Matt Damon is a medium who can feel the “dead people” (It’s hard to be more cliché than this), it climaxes at a book convention and I could go on. It’s very weak material.

Eastwood himself is in journeyman mode. The composition of his shoots, normally pitch perfect, is still functional but nothing more.

At least he retains his gift in obtaining good performances from practically everybody. At this stage in his career I think that if he decided to get me to star in one of his movie I’ll end with an Oscar nomination. He is that good.

In the end he still gets the job done. As many masters before him he honed his craft to a point that a bad Eastwood movie is still a fairly decent movie by any other filmmaker standard. He milks the inane plot for what is worth. He bring atmosphere, at least one sequence in the beginning is amazing, he deliver on the rhythm and in the end he left us strangely satisfied.

Still he doesn’t manage to get over the very difficult subject matter. Maybe out there a movie exist that talks about death and what comes after without being morbid, preachy and depressive but is not this one.

Conclusion: A mediocre effort from one of the true masters. Still worth watching.

DVD review: Merantau

Indonesians martial arts.

Notionally this movie has a plot but it is even more bare bone than the infamous Jackie Chan early stuff, which was patched together just to move from one set piece to the next.

From what I could gather Merantau should be a tradition where the youngsters from this Indonesian ethnic group spend a period wandering around to gather experience, knowledge and eventually money.

So we have this young guy doing his Merantau, he goes from his backward idyllic village to the big corrupt city where he run afoul of the local bad guy. Luckily for him, and for us spectators, he is a master of Silat, the Indonesian martial art. A lot of fighting ensues.

The acting is wooden, the plot bare bone and tedious, the cinematography of the city uninspiring. But the fights are good, very good.

There is no cable work here. They do it all there, for real, Ong Bak style. It’s all very hardcore and fairly brutal.

It’s also refreshing for martial arts movie connoisseurs watching a new martial art. Silat is cinematic and distinct enough from the usual fare.

If you are not a martial arts fan this is not the right movie to start with. The action is good but not that good; it will not blow your mind. There is some interesting stuff in there but all the people involved need that little bit of experience to make the next step and craft the perfect action fest (which they did in “the raid” coming in a couple of days).

Conclusion: Interesting for martial arts fan but, apart from the action, a very boring experience.

DVD review: Perfect Sense

A mysterious epidemic gradually makes humanity lose his senses.

This movie is interesting because it moves against the flow.

Epidemics, with their zombies ridden addenda, are seen as a way to show humanity disgregation. It’s one of the appeal of the genre, nothing as heartwarming as random madness on the streets.

This quirky little movie instead decides to go in the opposite direction. What if we tried to continue to exist as a society? What would happen?

Maybe it goes a little too far with the voiceovers but it’s a real interesting and unexplored concept.

Eva Green and Ewan McGregor are a couple trough which misadventures we experience the global epidemic. Their lives are a little bit too contrived, and here maybe there’s the real flaw of the movie, but the two actor sell it all so effortlessly and with such conviction that it’s really hard not to participate.

Maybe there’s space for a romantic version of the usual epidemic horror genre, let’s hope so.

Conclusion: recommended viewing, even if you don’t like it this movie will fuel enough post vision discussions to last for a week.

DVD review: Ironclad

King John Lackland lays siege to a castle.

This should have been so much fun. A siege movie based on a real historical event, but then they took so many liberties with the original that they should have simply set it on Camelot and be done with it.

Historical inaccuracies aside for a moment I can admit that this movie deliver on the rated violence. Heads are chopped and blood is spilled aplenty. It’s just not very interesting.

There is an art in cinematic violence, an art that writer director Jonathan English still has to master.

The plot also has problems. Historical inaccuracies aside, in the movie they are practically fighting for democracy in a period when the word doesn’t really makes sense, it’s all so very Die Hard. The villain is so bad that we are only waiting for him to start twirling is mustache, the heroes so noble, the fair maiden so fair.

Its missing subtlety, it’s missing all the subtle nuances that makes characters come alive without obtaining the epicness and majesty that made 300 and Conan so unforgettable.

And it’s still really a shame because they got some really good actors here.

James Purefoy got charisma in spades, Paul Giamatti idem but even them can’t manage to enliven a lifeless script.

Conclusion: Genre fans will still enjoy it but if you don’t like your sword with your chain mail this is not the movie to start with.

DVD review: due date

A rigid settled guy is forced to travel with an inept buffoon.

The model here is obviously “Planes, trains and automobiles”, a 1987 comedy by John Hughes and while the model is certainly significant and relatively unexplored in recent years it is also a difficult sell.

Todd Phillips who wrote and directed should in theory have a relatively easy time. Cringe inducing comedies are difficult to pull off but he made the most successful of them all, “The hangover”, so in shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

Alas the more times pass to more it looks like “The hangover “was just a random fib in the career of a not very talented writer. This is not the “difficult second album” syndrome. All of Phillips recent output ranged from “not very good” trough “moderately terrible” all the way to “unwatchable”.

Due Date sits halfway between the last two.

First of all is not fun. The laugh free comedy is a recent American invention and this is one of the best examples. Instead of laughs we get the aforementioned cringe inducing moments. Terrible stuff happens to our protagonist, mostly because of the insane action of Ethan Tremblay played by a Zach Galifianakis so out there that they should probably send a mission to space to retrieve him.

Nothing against having actors playing the same guy over and over again. Maybe my problem is that, apart from “the hangover”, I don’t like this guy, at all. If he toned down himself a little bit it would be fine but as it is you can’t help but sympathize with whatever authority figure is obliged to confront him.

Robert Downey Jr. plays against type as the guy who needs to have his eyes opened and enjoy life a little bit more. I love Downey Jr. be this is the rare role when he didn’t convince me. Maybe is the character that is so unsympathetic, so unrelatable, but really I couldn’t travel more than 10 minutes with a guy like that one.

Conclusion: An unfunny comedy where terrible stuff happens to horrible people. Thumb down.

DVD review: K20

1947, in an alternate timeline where World War II never happened a young circus acrobat fights the legendary thief K 20, the man with 20 faces.

A fun romp from Japan this movie, adapted from a novel at least according to Wikipedia, is at first impact somewhat complicated and unfriendly. The tone is the literal opposite of naturalistic, K20 behaves like a Japanese version of “The shadow”, and everything is very theatrical, but if you stick with it you’ll discover a worthwhile movie.

The plot, apparently very disjointed, in the end ties everything nicely trough a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Even if many of the actors are somewhat wooden, at least from our western point of view, the unpretentious tone, with many physical jokes and a lot of action, enliven the atmosphere. As I said above it’s like watching a pantomime at the theatre, when you get used to it all the problems disappears.

The action is top notch. A seamless blend of parkour style jumping with CGI eastern steampunk backdrop, a liberal dose of kung fu and tons of superhero style gadgets.

Conclusion: This is certainly not a movie for everyone but if you are a part of the fandom you should check it out.