Trollhunter
I actually wasn’t that impressed with ‘Trollhunter’. I think the premise of the movie itself is so bizarre that the comedic elements become too much. It would have been much more effective if done “seriously”.
In my opinion, that is.
My watchlist - worst of 2011
In 2011 I saw seven movies that got a disappointing score of 1 (out of 5). To recieve such a score means that the movie in question is almost provokingly crappy and gets me in a bad mood. It could also be just as disappointing.
Of these seven movies, five (a whooping 70 percent) were from 2004 - 2009, the other two were from 1990 and 1992.
So, the spontaneous question arises: Can you deduct - from this result - that newer movies in general are at a larger risk of being crap than older ones?
The two most mainstream of the pack, ‘Funny Games U.S.’ and ‘Ghost Rider’ were both made in 2007. Both have to be considered promising according to my preferences; ‘Funny Games U.S.’ is a remake of the german masterpiece (given a score of 5/5 - I’ll get back to that one in another post) and directed by the same director, while ‘Ghost rider’ is a Marvel superhero movie played by favorite actor Nicolas Cage. Normally, both movies should get a higher score. But the carbon copy of ‘Funny Games’ (it could have sufficed to add an english soundtrack to get the same effect) was far too provoking, and whatever was wrong with ‘Ghost Rider’ (probably everything), I cannot remember.
Only one of the movies, ‘Murder-Set-Pieces’, made the mistake of trying to be shocking while at the same time lacking all kinds of content. I would’ve guessed there were more of this kind on the list, because I feel a strong hate towards crap like that (while at the same time loving movies that truly shock). Perhaps Richard Kern’s ‘The Evil Cameraman’ could fit in here too, because even though that one also sucked, it was a truly ambitious try (that failed miserably, but even so), whilst ‘Murder-Set-Pieces’ didn’t show any cinematic ambition whatsoever.
All the more surprising, then, to find ‘Primer’ and ‘Dust Devil- amon the great failures of 2011, since both movies seemed very promising and by all accounts should get a high rating. ‘Dust Devil’, supposedly some sort of horror movie, was totally incoherent with awful actors and just about anything one an find in a terrible movie and ‘Primer’, meant as an “intelligent” movie, mostly had coherence issues - which still is far from acceptable when having nerds and techies as a supposed audience.
Last one out is the documentary ‘2012: Science or superstition’, available in it’s entirety above, which managed to start off as a movie about the pending apocalypse (less than a year to go) but derailed miserably to end up as a loose collection of interviews with single-minded conspirationists that no one would listen to voluntarily. Understand my disappointment!
So, finally, the list. Here they are, the worst movies i watched in 2011. Stay away from these:
2012: Science or superstition – Documentary on the coming apocalypse that derails to become a sub-standard mess of conspiration theories.
Dust Devil - Richard Stanley (‘Hardware’) comes out as a deranged moviemaker in this confused mess about… Well, what?
Funny Games U.S. - Michael Haneke translates his masterpiece to english for no reason whatsoever.
Ghost Rider - “Moahahaha!!! Few movies so well deserve this score as this one. Nothing is good here.” -Myself on another site
Murder-Set-Pieces - Nazi photographer rapes and kills while the audience yawns and turns the movie off.
Primer - Nerds build a machine and then there is intrigue.
The Evil Cameraman - Like ‘Murder-Set-Pieces’, but with higher ambition and a lower budget. And shorter, thank God!
What? The question? Yes, no, I don’t know. It’s probably just a coincidence that around 70 percent of the movies were that new, but on the other hand it is hard to find gems in the current flow of newly produced movies. Perhaps it’s a little too easy to make movies nowadays?
Star Wars, Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Really? 3D?
Yeah, but the podrace could look really good in 3D.
But is it necessary?
No. None of the movies need the 3D-treatment. It’s possible George Lucas could need a good thrashing, but 3D… No.
I was going to write a short commentary about the fact that the bluray-version of this movie made me raise it’s score one or two points, but I had barely started when the news about the upcoming 3D version struck me like a blow from a wookie. Like, hey!
I’ve fallen for/accepted George Lucas’ greed since right before ‘Return of the Jedi’ premiered in theatres during the 80’s and to this day I regret selling that AT-ST walker (box and all) for, like, $25. It was/is worth a lot more than that and I deserve some recognition for all the money I’ve put in George’s pocket over the years. Buying the ‘complete saga’ bluray box set kinda was the topping of my Star Wars cake. I mean, since I own them on DVD as well…
Whatever. I’ve previously regarded the first episode to be far too childish to fit with the rest of the movies. But this time I’m seeing the movies in an alternative order (episode 4, 5, 1, 2, 3 and 6) and then it’s prety obvious that the other movies are pretty childish as well. With robots acting (and reacting) like humans, the silly gags and the rather immature way most of the characters act (and again: react). Alternatively, it’s a very naïve way to describe the world - and that too could be classified as childish.
So today I take a step back and offially recognise the consequent focus on a target audience. Actually, if I hadn’r grown up with these movies, they would’ve made me cringe upon watching them. They’re terribly illogical, improbable and sometimes outright stupid. Not much should stand in the way of a terrible score. The first three movies contain lots of background data that - in light of the three prequels - is completely faulty. And it has been made so by the man who made the first three movies, since he decided to change the background history when doing the prequels.
Normally, one would make an effort to stand by what we already know of the background history and allow for creativ freedom where there is no known data. But that does not apply to George Lucas. Instead of doing that, he made up a completely new background story, making people like Obi-Wan Kenobi sound like a senile old man when claiming that Yoda had taught him in his youth, when it really was Qui-Gon Jinn. And so on.
I still enjoy ‘The Phantom Menace’, though. It’s a bit too talkative and I get the feeling that there’s too much information being presented over to little time. Other than that, it’s quite alright. The guy who programmed Jar Jar Binks (or whoever is responsible) could have made him a better actor. Right now, he’s just embarrasing - especially when trying to be funny. But, as I said, it’s an enjoyable movie anyway. And that’s a major improvement compared to what I thought of it back then.
Score: 6/10
New score system
I’m probably going to introduce a ten point scale when rating movies. I feel that the five point scale is too blunt.
Just so you know…
Spider-Man 3
Ok. I hadn’t seen this since it played in theatres and I was sooo disappointed back then. The first movie that Raimi & Co. created was - and still is - a masterpiece in the Marvel superhero movie genre. The second was a bit of a letdown, although very entertaining, action packed and filled with the everyday problems that make the Spider-man/Peter Parker stories so good.
And with the promise of introducing Venom to the mix, I was highly anticipating the third installment of the series.
Unfortunately, the plans of making six or seven Spider-man movies was scrapped for some reason, and the threat of that seems to have made Raimi & Co. so nervous that they crammed the content of at least two movies into this one:
1. Peter and Maty Jane are about to get married, provided he can work up the confidence to ask her. At the same time, he’s so filled up with the popularity of Spider-man that his ego starts standing in the way of their relationship.
2. Flint Marko, a small time crook, excapes from prison, turns into a super villain. It turns out he was the one who (mistakenly) killed uncle Ben, so his confrontation with Spidey turns a bit emotional and ugly.
3. Harry Osborn wants to avenge his father, who he thinks was killed by Peter. Their relationship is obviously tested by this.
4. A mysterious black substance arrives from outer space, turns out to be alive and Spidey had to fight it (this storyline is of course far more complicated than this, and involves the creation of Venom).
All this in around 140 minutes is far too much content stuffed into far too little time. And the movie suffers badly from this. To add to the damage, this is probably the worst conclusion to a finished trilogy ever made. True, no one knew that this would be the final episode, but anyway…
However, it’s still an actionpacked adventure that stays true to the fact that it’s the story of Peter Parker that is important. Well worth watching.
I’ll probably have to get my hands on the bluray version.
Score: 3/5 (6/10)
The Dead
I just saw this one yesterday and was blown away. A quick search on Google tells me people either love it of hate it. And while it does lack in a lot of places, like acting and storyline (there’s an episode with a baby that redefines “lack of logic”), my overall impression is that this is - together with the likes of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘28 days later’ - one of few redefining movies in the zombie genre.
For one thing, it’s set in Africa, with the wilderness providing little shelter, isolating the protagonists from the outside world. Or rather; they are on the (unprotected) outside, looking for a way in. It’s an exotic milieu that is in itself strange and frightening (at least to a viewer in the northern part of Europe). One could argue that the white protagonist killing black zombies in Africa gives the movie a racist undertone (some critics do just that), but that would be utterly unfair.
The whole point is that the main character is all alone in a relatively unknown place, having no one to take care of and no real chance of ever connecting with his family (on the other side of the world) again. He is all alone in a world suffering an apocalypse. It just happens to be that this setting works really good to communicate this.
It also serves to remind you that the zombie apocalypse will not only take place in north american or european cities.
But the thing that really did it for me was the lack of social commentary, the lack of explanations and the lack of anything other than the silent acceptance that this is the end. People are fighting to survive, but still: The apocalypse just happened, so what’s the rush?
My personal feeling is that the zombie genre has already - over and over again - provided us with the same old social commentaries. Almost to the point of these becoming the genre. And maybe that is what has been the problem with zombie films of late - the zombies have become the backdrop to a 90-minute social commentary that has already been made. Even comedies like ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Zombieland’ use this approach - as does ‘The Walking Dead’, of course. And even though I like these movies, they offer little news to the genre.
‘The Dead’ resets that. Moves the undead back to the front. When the end comes, “why” is a redundant question. As is social commentary.
George A. Romero uses zombies to tell the world about itself. ‘The Dead’ uses zombies to tell us about the end of the world. That might just be a first, even though the genre itself is apocalyptic.
Score: 4/5
Being Human, season 1
Just finished the last episode of the first season of the drama comedy TV series ‘Being Human’. I had previously seen the two final episodes when they aired on TV, and thinking these were representative of the series as a whole, I decided to see the whole thing from the beginning. Boy, was I wrong…
As mentioned, it’s a drama comedy with supernatural elements (it’s about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing an apartment in Bristol), but it’s hardly dramatic, not very funny and the supernatural elements aren’t that super either. With the exception of episode 5, where everything works perfectly. Actually, it kind of bothers me that the two episodes I had already seen turned out to be the only two worth watching.
Not that the characters aren’t likable or anything. They’re just really boring or irritating individuals. And none of the actors are very convincing as the supernatural creatures they’re supposed to be.
Overall, it could have been much better than it is. The main premise of these three characters trying to lead normal lives is great. It has apparent potential. Still it fails to get my attention.
But…
Maybe it gets better in season 2?
Score: 3/5
The King’s Speech
Time to finally see what the fuss is all about…
Pushin’ up Daisies
‘Pushin’ up Daisies’ is the second movie in the history of the world to recieve economic support from me via Kickstarter. It is first and foremost a drama comedy about two brothers trying to reunite after a tragic family event. On the other hand, it’s also a meta movie - a movie about a guy making a ‘behind’ movie for a movie. And - thirdly - it’s a zombie movie. Which also happens to be the reason I went in and supported the project. With that in mind, the zombie fan should be warned, the zombie elements stay in the background for most of the movie. It’s a well made movie, albeit amateurish. That’s a difficult balancing act, maybe even harder when staying close to the mainstream. The acting gets more visible, as does the dialogue and… Well, most of it. Everything needs to flow naturally. This is a problem for our filmmakers, but not as much as the actual premise. Darren wants to record a documentary about his brother. But when the zombie apocalypse takes place he’s having a hard time following the ordinary life of a flower arranger without being distracted by zombies. Darren does his best, using various camera angles and other creative solutions (like covering the zombies with sheets) to save his movie. It unfortunately gets a little silly. But it’s not a bad movie, it you keep in mind it’s an amateur effort. And that it’s a nice and amusing little thing. Score: 3/5
