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Reviews
Dexter (2006)
I watch this although I hate TV-series
I hate watching TV-series. I hate having to allocate a weekly time that I have to remember. But Dexter makes the cut! Wow, this series really has great characters, not just Dexter himself, but also his annoying sister, the crime techs, the police men etc. The slow pace allows time to feel the characters. You instantly get caught identifying their characteristics, peculiarities and complexes.
The story is great, just amazingly great. Not the typical TV-series syndrome, when you feel the the authors just try to catch you to have to watch the next episode or to fill out the time. There is an original story every episode. It actually seems like the authors have so many great ideas, that they have to cut it down and only keep the best parts, only what is necessary.
The humor is morbid. There is plenty of excitement, awkward situations and urgent issues to solve.
The low key of the story and the personalities keeps it to seem probable. Not too fantastic, not too much unlikely events or stunts to pull off, not too strange characters etc.
Oh, and it is not too gory. Not long sequences where you see someone being cut into pieces. No SAW likeness at all.
Die weiße Massai (2005)
Very good movie even with its flaws
The movie is based on the book "The white Masai", and on the true life of Corinne Hofmann, the author of the book.
She becomes attracted to a Masai man while on a trip to Kenya, and eventually moves in with him and marries him. This movie is about love, cultural differences and hard facts of life. It is very romantic but also heart stopping in the struggles for cultural understanding.
The movie does not strictly follow the story of the book, but makes a good job of squeezing the essentials into a 2 hour movie. The tensions, the hardships etc, are well caught much thanks to good acting performances.
I really miss a lot of information in the movie. E.g. how was her relation with other people in the village, especially with "Mama" in the same hut. Also there is often a lack of explaining what other people in the tribe thought of her actions. Some cultural differences are quite insufficiently covered, e.g. how her way to talk to other men contributed to the jealousy of her husband. Many of the hardships in the book are also left out in the movie.
What is truly great about the movie and the story, is that her failures are not hidden. Its not a movie about that the native life in Africa is "so hard" for a sane westerner to live. The sacrifices made from both sides are vast, from their cultural positions and values, but still they are not sufficient to bridge the gap in so many issues.
It is a really good movie. I recommend it to anyone. Ignore the other whining comments here. The movie does a good job, if not perfect, fitting the story into a 2 hour movie. The cultural differences are there to see and think about, even if some things were left out.
The Contender (2005)
Mixed feelings
I feel happy but still confused about this show. It has everything I could dream of from a good show. GOOD boxers, Stallone and Sugar Ray, tactics and psyching.
But I can't stand the dramatizing music, slow motions and empty bombastic phrases. And I hate the filming of the matches - lots of audience filming on family and friends, lots of slow motion and the from below angle never gives you a possibility to understand how the fight goes. And I feel uncertain all the time if these fights are really just the boxers doing their best, or following a script to dramatize the match - the matches are swinging forth and back a bit much.
But I just can't help loving the show. I hope that I'm not tricked, but that this show is actually the real thing.
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Good parts but the pieces don't quite fit together
In this drama, Clint Eastwoods character reluctantly becomes the trainer of a lonely woman (Hilary Swank), who is actually too old to become a boxer.
The acting is superb, the characters very interesting, the career and the training of the main character as a boxer is a fantastic and moving story to follow. The production, the music, the pictures are all flawless. This movie is worth watching indeed.
But the movie is uneven and the pieces don't quite fit together. The separate parts are very very good, but they make no sense in the same movie.
Why o why o why did they have to put on a narrator voice, especially as it is Morgan Freeman who tells the story, and we have already heard this exact narrator tone from him in "The Shawshank Redemption". It adds possibly nothing to the story.
I have nothing against the sadness of the ending. But this whole long last part adds so little to the story, it is sad for the sadness sake sometimes. There were so much more to get here, and it could be much much more connected to the story in general. As now, the end almost feels like a separate movie.
There are more unsatisfactory left out pieces. Many touching stories and people are thrown into the story, but too little is known, too little explored and too unconnected to the main story or some theme of the movie, for their story to capture you as they could have.
But overall the movie is good and worth watching.
Boudica (2003)
Unwatchable because of unbearable yucky sexual elements
The acting was good, the picturing of that time was OK.
But! Sick movie producers alert!
After 30 minutes there is this horrible scene where young Nero has a sexual relation with his mother, and they show everything. I don't care if they want to show Neros sick mind, I don't need pedophile flirting in movies. You can tell such things in a movie without tongue kissing and breast sucking thrown into the face of the watcher.
I turned the movie off and I suspect I'm not the first doing so.
Don't see this movie.
Watch something else.
Zatôichi (2003)
Fantastic creative sword drama with lots of humor
Zatoichi is a blind old sword master. He happens to find himself in a village with oppression of common people. He never hesitates to get himself involved, hence facing quite a few conflicts and fights.
The movie is never sentimental. The movie is at all stages relieving. The humor and the main characters' distance to himself makes this movie a pure joy to watch. Also the artistic music parts of the movie makes you happy. But the movie never looses it's excitement, and the sword fights are master pieces in fighting skills and originality.
Personally I am fed up with "Crouching Tiger", "Hero" etc look a likes, where everyone and everything is so dead serious and the fighters become even magical in their powers. In this movie you know that you're still in this world at all times. People are just people and not semi-gods, and clearly limited to the constraints of this world.
The Japanese culture and traditions are contradictionary well expressed by the steps away from them, by how people react to these cultural breaks. The movie is full of life wisdom, and joy of life.
This is simply an exciting and very creative master piece. 9/10