The story seems interesting enough, but it really ruined it for me how the male protagonist has very sociopathic, rape-y, evil predatory vibe to him. Maybe he is supposed to be like that, and he turns out to be the villain of the story in the end? I don't know. Might watch another episode just in hope that I will be given some hint why the character acts the way he does. So far, I'm very unconvinced.
Reviews
12 Reviews
Raya and the Last Dragon
(2021)
Pretty animation, otherweise a total flop
2 February 2022
The animation is pretty, but the story is just horrible. The characters were particularly bad and utterly unrelatable. Quite a disappointment, especially since the last few years have provided us with an unusually high amount of quality animated movies from Disney. Shame really, as the idea seems nice. I would avoid this one, unless you (and / or your kids) are happy just watching pretty animation with no real story.
Planet of the Humans
(2019)
Finally!
27 May 2020
I am a reseracher of environmental political and ideological history. In this profession, year after year, I feel more and more uneasy about the current understanding of "environmentalism" - and how we conceptualize it - as I realize more and more how the language of money and growth has taken over the language of the environment. This has saddened me immensely, almost to the point where I have felt a reluctance to continue my research.
This documentary speaks of the very same things I have encountered. It made me shout out: "FINALLY!" as I watched it. Finally someone brings up these issues that many researchers and experts have pondered for years, and brings them up in a very easy-to-comprehend way!
The film does go a bit too far at pointing the finger at environmentalist groups, as they most likely simply try to adapt to a desperate situation, and perhaps they could've benefited from more expert analysis for credibility. That being said, this is a really important film for our time, and I'm glad it was clearly made by people who clearly have a genuine concern for the environment, as I also do. Do not believe the claims that it is on the side of climate denialists. There is no climate denialism presented in the film, only genuine concern over the "green business" and what it is doing to the environmental movement.
As a concerned citizen and as a professional, academically trained environmental policy expert, I highly recommend this film for anyone who is even remotely interested in environmental issues.
This documentary speaks of the very same things I have encountered. It made me shout out: "FINALLY!" as I watched it. Finally someone brings up these issues that many researchers and experts have pondered for years, and brings them up in a very easy-to-comprehend way!
The film does go a bit too far at pointing the finger at environmentalist groups, as they most likely simply try to adapt to a desperate situation, and perhaps they could've benefited from more expert analysis for credibility. That being said, this is a really important film for our time, and I'm glad it was clearly made by people who clearly have a genuine concern for the environment, as I also do. Do not believe the claims that it is on the side of climate denialists. There is no climate denialism presented in the film, only genuine concern over the "green business" and what it is doing to the environmental movement.
As a concerned citizen and as a professional, academically trained environmental policy expert, I highly recommend this film for anyone who is even remotely interested in environmental issues.
Avenue 5
(2020–2022)
Absolute masterpiece!
2 February 2020
I have seen propably hundreds of shows in my life, but really enjoyed just 3-4 of them.
Already based on 2 episodes, I can tell you that this is one of the few shows I have ever really enjoyed.
First of all: it is not moronically stupid. That's right! We all know that the whole point of showbusiness is to present moronically stupid stupidity to stupid people while clever people are reading books, spending time with their loved ones, etc. This time, you cannot propably even understand the brilliantness of this show if you only enjoy explosions. For once, I have a reason to escape the horrible presence of my loved ones!
More than anything, Avenue 5 is a story about really bad management, and as such, it is just as awful and just as hilarious as seeing this kind of stupidity occur in, say, regular workplaces. Except, of course, when you are in a spaceship, the antes are much higher: people start dying, and indeed have died, in quite hilarious ways.
Unfortunately, like all good shows, this is very likely to get cancelled after season 1. God, I wish it wouldn't, but we all know the drill with clever and original series.
Double entries over and over again
16 December 2017
Wondering where all the negative reviews are coming from?
They are about 100-200 reviews copy-pastes here over and over again, making it about 1000 negative reviews in total.
Take the dublicates out, and there is pretty much an equal number of positive, mixed, and negative user reviews.
Movie itself was the best Star Wars movie since 1983. It has its flaws, but unlike Force Awakens, it was at least an original story.
This movie SUCKED, and now I will tell you why.
16 December 2017
I'm a huge-ass starwars fanboy, and I will now list everything wrong with this movie.
ONE: This was not an exact copy of the original SW saga. I mean, we all loved Force Awakens BECAUSE it was pretty much the script of New Hope copy-pasted but with the character names changed and cooler special effects added. That's the only reason we loved the movie, and of course we expected this new movie to be the EXACT copy of Empire Strikes Back, just like FA was a copy of New Hope. Unfortunately, Disney tried creating something original instead! I mean what year do you think this is, 1977?!? Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - has done an original script in Hollywood in approximately 15 years for a very good reason, and you can see that reason reading all the reviews written for this movie: nobody - and I really mean NOBODY - wants to see original stuff, it makes my brain go hurtyhurt!
TWO: Like many have pointed out here, Luke Skywalker is no longer young for some reason. I mean, we all came to see this guy who looks like he has had an ever-lasting hangover for the past 50 years, assuming he would be the same fun-loving adventure-seeking little brat we all got to know and love back in the day. Yet somehow, SOMEHOW, they DARED to make Luke have had personal history, disappointments and even some tragic personal developement over the past decades. HOW DARE THEY?!
THREE: We are not told information about useless things that we do not need to know. Sure, when the original Star Wars trilogy came out, we weren't handed much information about any of the characters either. We didn't even know Emperor Palpatine's name until we started reading some extra background stuff. But back then it was okay because movies were about the ORIGINAL STORY, and not so much about what was the exact background and family origin of each character. But nowdays, as we all know, not only are movies supposed to be extremely non-original, they also are not supposed to contain a "story", but rather information. When a character appears, it doesn't so much matter what (s)he does in the movie, or where (s)he takes the story, it is more important to know the background and his/hers whereabouts in the past, and his/hers parents as well. And even though I hate to spoil it, we really don't get to know who Snoke's parents are AT ALL! Unless we are revealed in Episode 9 that Snoke's father was really Boba Fett, I really have to say that this all kinda sucked hard.
All in all, I would agree with all the other reviewers, that the script of this movie was indeed not copy-pasted from the original saga, and thus this was a very very bad movie indeed. Stay clear of this if possible.
ONE: This was not an exact copy of the original SW saga. I mean, we all loved Force Awakens BECAUSE it was pretty much the script of New Hope copy-pasted but with the character names changed and cooler special effects added. That's the only reason we loved the movie, and of course we expected this new movie to be the EXACT copy of Empire Strikes Back, just like FA was a copy of New Hope. Unfortunately, Disney tried creating something original instead! I mean what year do you think this is, 1977?!? Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - has done an original script in Hollywood in approximately 15 years for a very good reason, and you can see that reason reading all the reviews written for this movie: nobody - and I really mean NOBODY - wants to see original stuff, it makes my brain go hurtyhurt!
TWO: Like many have pointed out here, Luke Skywalker is no longer young for some reason. I mean, we all came to see this guy who looks like he has had an ever-lasting hangover for the past 50 years, assuming he would be the same fun-loving adventure-seeking little brat we all got to know and love back in the day. Yet somehow, SOMEHOW, they DARED to make Luke have had personal history, disappointments and even some tragic personal developement over the past decades. HOW DARE THEY?!
THREE: We are not told information about useless things that we do not need to know. Sure, when the original Star Wars trilogy came out, we weren't handed much information about any of the characters either. We didn't even know Emperor Palpatine's name until we started reading some extra background stuff. But back then it was okay because movies were about the ORIGINAL STORY, and not so much about what was the exact background and family origin of each character. But nowdays, as we all know, not only are movies supposed to be extremely non-original, they also are not supposed to contain a "story", but rather information. When a character appears, it doesn't so much matter what (s)he does in the movie, or where (s)he takes the story, it is more important to know the background and his/hers whereabouts in the past, and his/hers parents as well. And even though I hate to spoil it, we really don't get to know who Snoke's parents are AT ALL! Unless we are revealed in Episode 9 that Snoke's father was really Boba Fett, I really have to say that this all kinda sucked hard.
All in all, I would agree with all the other reviewers, that the script of this movie was indeed not copy-pasted from the original saga, and thus this was a very very bad movie indeed. Stay clear of this if possible.
The Man from Earth
(2007)
One of the best movies ever made.
18 February 2016
I live in Finland, and the Man from Earth has never been officially released in my country. Lucky for me, I was able to comprehend the movie even with English subtitles. I didn't expect much, but ended up having one of the greatest movie experiences of my entire life.
David Lee Smith plays a man who claims to be quite a bit older than you might expect. So much in fact that he has lived on Earth for a whopping 10 000 years. The main focus of the movie is: how do we relate to unexpected and surprising information that conflicts with our present understanding of the world and humanity? How tight are we locked inside that box of ours? Without giving away the story, I'd like to point out that only one of the guests was able to bypass his personal egoistic evaluations and asses the situation in itself: not blindly believing what was told, but not dismissing the information either before carefully evaluating the situation.
An open mind with an open heart. A great example for other to follow during these times when the internet has polarized everyone's opinions. This, accompanied with wonderful acting, captive drama, and sympathetic characters, is what makes this movie great. In the end you don't even care whether its true or not what has been told: the main focus is the drama, the reactions, and the philosophical and epistemological question of how much do we really even know of what is possible and what is not.
Best movie of the century so far. 10/10.
David Lee Smith plays a man who claims to be quite a bit older than you might expect. So much in fact that he has lived on Earth for a whopping 10 000 years. The main focus of the movie is: how do we relate to unexpected and surprising information that conflicts with our present understanding of the world and humanity? How tight are we locked inside that box of ours? Without giving away the story, I'd like to point out that only one of the guests was able to bypass his personal egoistic evaluations and asses the situation in itself: not blindly believing what was told, but not dismissing the information either before carefully evaluating the situation.
An open mind with an open heart. A great example for other to follow during these times when the internet has polarized everyone's opinions. This, accompanied with wonderful acting, captive drama, and sympathetic characters, is what makes this movie great. In the end you don't even care whether its true or not what has been told: the main focus is the drama, the reactions, and the philosophical and epistemological question of how much do we really even know of what is possible and what is not.
Best movie of the century so far. 10/10.
Religulous
(2008)
Important subject, bad film, wrong person making it.
28 April 2015
In my country (Finland), only 48 % of people identify themselves either as christians or atheists.
The problem with Mahler's view is that he sees the world divided into two categories, the intelligent atheists and the unintelligent believers.
This propably works in the US, where, if I am correct, the division between Christianity and science is more clear than in Europe, where most christians are somewhat moderate when it comes to questioning science etc.
So it doesn't really work for an European viewer, who is used to people respecting each other's views rather than bashing them.
But the real problem is, unlike many other more intelligent atheists who've written about the subject of religion, Mahler doesn't get the "big picture" of religion at all. He concentrates on nitpicking issues that are not that big a deal, at least not here in Europe. Sure, some of the beliefs are odd (hey, the oddness of these beliefs is already discussed in high school, so nothing new there). But what is worse than the utter lack of originality in the way he approaches the subject, Mahler misses out on all his chances to really get to know the motivation behind religious thinking - which should be an interesting subject for a documentarist regardless of his own religious beliefs! For example, in the beginning of the movie, he interviews a person who used to do drugs, used have a lot of women and a lot of money, but who then was "saved". And Mahler is like, "what was his problem in the first place?" - or something along those lines. He is not one bit interested WHY the person didn't want to go on living with lots of women and cash.
I was interested in THAT! I want to know more about THAT, not about Mahler's own views which, frankly, are not very original - we've heard them all before. If you have nothing new to contribute, why contribute anything at all? Listen mr. Mahler, if you don't get why people find this sort of materialist women-drugs-money -lifestyle somewhat empty and shallow, and if you don't even want to know more about their motivation, then you will not get what religion is all about. And if that is the case, perhaps you should step down and allow someone else figure out what is good and what is bad about religion. Someone who sees through the lies and the stupidity of religious thinking, but who is also geniuinely interested in figuring out what motivates people into that sort of behavior. Mahler was not such a person.
Important subject, bad film, wrong person making it. 2/10.
The problem with Mahler's view is that he sees the world divided into two categories, the intelligent atheists and the unintelligent believers.
This propably works in the US, where, if I am correct, the division between Christianity and science is more clear than in Europe, where most christians are somewhat moderate when it comes to questioning science etc.
So it doesn't really work for an European viewer, who is used to people respecting each other's views rather than bashing them.
But the real problem is, unlike many other more intelligent atheists who've written about the subject of religion, Mahler doesn't get the "big picture" of religion at all. He concentrates on nitpicking issues that are not that big a deal, at least not here in Europe. Sure, some of the beliefs are odd (hey, the oddness of these beliefs is already discussed in high school, so nothing new there). But what is worse than the utter lack of originality in the way he approaches the subject, Mahler misses out on all his chances to really get to know the motivation behind religious thinking - which should be an interesting subject for a documentarist regardless of his own religious beliefs! For example, in the beginning of the movie, he interviews a person who used to do drugs, used have a lot of women and a lot of money, but who then was "saved". And Mahler is like, "what was his problem in the first place?" - or something along those lines. He is not one bit interested WHY the person didn't want to go on living with lots of women and cash.
I was interested in THAT! I want to know more about THAT, not about Mahler's own views which, frankly, are not very original - we've heard them all before. If you have nothing new to contribute, why contribute anything at all? Listen mr. Mahler, if you don't get why people find this sort of materialist women-drugs-money -lifestyle somewhat empty and shallow, and if you don't even want to know more about their motivation, then you will not get what religion is all about. And if that is the case, perhaps you should step down and allow someone else figure out what is good and what is bad about religion. Someone who sees through the lies and the stupidity of religious thinking, but who is also geniuinely interested in figuring out what motivates people into that sort of behavior. Mahler was not such a person.
Important subject, bad film, wrong person making it. 2/10.
Interstellar
(2014)
Soap
9 November 2014
Warning: Spoilers
(((SPOILERS!!!)))
So you like it when actors cry on screen? Then man oh man, have I got the movie of the century for you!
As for me, I have nothing against a good tear every now and then. But when people cry in almost all scenes, it all starts to seem a bit pretentious. In fact, I felt like Interstellar was pressuring me to feel for the characters. When that happens, I get kinda disconnected with the movie.
But it wasn't just the over-the-top display of emotions that I disliked. From the very beginning I had this strange feeling that something was wrong. And then, midway through the movie, it hit me. I had a huge revelation, something I had never noticed before: Christopher Nolan, one of the most gifted movie directors of our time, is amazingly bad at directing drama! Then I started to think about movies like Inception and Dark Knight - movies which I really enjoyed - and suddenly I realized that they don't have good drama direction either! Of course those movies aren't that much about drama, nor should they be, so this flaw has been easy to miss. But bad drama is really a major screw-up in a movie that oh so desperately wants to open up your tear channels.
In fact, while the space sequences contain a lot of good stuff, the entire drama part seems to be taken from the Big Book of Hollywood clichés. Have you read that book, mr. Nolan? I think I saw it in Murph's bookshelf...
What do I mean? Well, they live in a cliché farm, communicating only through cliché phrases, as if they were characters in a 19th-century book. It just didn't seem real to me. Furthermore, many of the nonverbal visual images were over-the-top sentimental and clichéd as well. And I'm not talking only about McConaughey's face while he was forcing them tears out (YET AGAIN!!!).
Take the ending, for example. How much do we get to see of the new home planet? Well, the American flag is there, waving proudly in the wind, and... then it ends. Oh, a patriotic message instead of a universal one like the theme of the movie would have suggested? Call me crazy, but I really would've wanted to see something else at the climax point. Something like, I dunno, how about... THE FRIGGIN' NEW HOME PLANET?!?
Furthermore, there is something seriously wrong with the rhythm and pace of the movie. No, I don't mean it was too slow. I'm talking about the pacing of individual scenes. Things like this: when they enter the wormhole, we get to see this visually stunning trip from our galaxy to another one. Well, we kinda get to see it. To be exact, we see approximately 2 seconds of this awesome wormhole jump, then 10 seconds of Matthew McConaughey's face. Then 2 seconds of jump, then 10 seconds of face. IT SHOULD BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND, MR NOLAN! 10 seconds of jump, then 2 seconds of face. Or how 'bout this idea: don't show McConaughey's face at all! We've seen it already, we know how he looks like! I mean, why create this stunning visual moment, if ye ain't gonna show it to the audience properly?! And don't tell me its because Kubrick did a similar thing in his weird space-jump-scene in "2001", because that was supposed to be like a montage thing, to add some extra weirdness to the scene, so that one had a real purpose!
Furthermore, when you get to be the first human being who enters the 5th dimension, you don't start mumbling how love guides you through that weird twisted world you found. Perhaps AFTERWARDS Cooper could've mumbled something like "maybe it was love all along that guided me". That might've worked. But not while you are experiencing something new and magnificent, something you can't quite understand. The experience should be so overwhelming that you can hardly speak! There is simply no room for preaching about love in that situation! (Especially since you are only preaching to a friggin' computer!)
Furthermore, after mumbling a ton of clichés about love, how did Cooper suddenly come to the conclusion that the whole "3D-world-inside-the-5D-world" was created by humans of the future? Did love tell him that too? There was no reason for him to think that. He was like, "hey, this idea suddenly popped up to my head, so it HAS to be true!" And remember, it is the same guy who gave his daughter a huge speech about not drawing irrational conclusions until all available data was observed and analyzed! Talk about incoherent characters!
***
But enough about the bad drama. Now, the movie had good elements too:
-I liked the space visuals.
-I liked it how Nolan tried to make all the space stuff coherent with modern science. In fact, the whole "hey-let's-jump-through-a-black-hole-into-another-dimension" -scenario actually seemed more believable than all the drama!
-I liked how the theoretical parts were not dumbed down for the masses, it really allowed the movie to play creatively with the concepts of time and space. And Nolan is really good at that stuff!
In fact, Interstellar would've easily made an intelligent space adventure genre movie! But I suppose Nolan had more ambitious artistic goals. And I get it! We all strive to find the limits of our talent, and... well, I think Nolan just found his.
Oh, and to those comparing Nolan to Stanley Kubrick: Nolan is a good movie director, but he still lacks Kubrick's coherence greatly. And Interstellar is no "2001", even without the flaws. Heck, "2001" had major flaws as well, but it also had a grand vision that perfectly connected the plot, the themes, and the visuals into one big ball of artistic greatness.
Nolan still has a long way to go.
So you like it when actors cry on screen? Then man oh man, have I got the movie of the century for you!
As for me, I have nothing against a good tear every now and then. But when people cry in almost all scenes, it all starts to seem a bit pretentious. In fact, I felt like Interstellar was pressuring me to feel for the characters. When that happens, I get kinda disconnected with the movie.
But it wasn't just the over-the-top display of emotions that I disliked. From the very beginning I had this strange feeling that something was wrong. And then, midway through the movie, it hit me. I had a huge revelation, something I had never noticed before: Christopher Nolan, one of the most gifted movie directors of our time, is amazingly bad at directing drama! Then I started to think about movies like Inception and Dark Knight - movies which I really enjoyed - and suddenly I realized that they don't have good drama direction either! Of course those movies aren't that much about drama, nor should they be, so this flaw has been easy to miss. But bad drama is really a major screw-up in a movie that oh so desperately wants to open up your tear channels.
In fact, while the space sequences contain a lot of good stuff, the entire drama part seems to be taken from the Big Book of Hollywood clichés. Have you read that book, mr. Nolan? I think I saw it in Murph's bookshelf...
What do I mean? Well, they live in a cliché farm, communicating only through cliché phrases, as if they were characters in a 19th-century book. It just didn't seem real to me. Furthermore, many of the nonverbal visual images were over-the-top sentimental and clichéd as well. And I'm not talking only about McConaughey's face while he was forcing them tears out (YET AGAIN!!!).
Take the ending, for example. How much do we get to see of the new home planet? Well, the American flag is there, waving proudly in the wind, and... then it ends. Oh, a patriotic message instead of a universal one like the theme of the movie would have suggested? Call me crazy, but I really would've wanted to see something else at the climax point. Something like, I dunno, how about... THE FRIGGIN' NEW HOME PLANET?!?
Furthermore, there is something seriously wrong with the rhythm and pace of the movie. No, I don't mean it was too slow. I'm talking about the pacing of individual scenes. Things like this: when they enter the wormhole, we get to see this visually stunning trip from our galaxy to another one. Well, we kinda get to see it. To be exact, we see approximately 2 seconds of this awesome wormhole jump, then 10 seconds of Matthew McConaughey's face. Then 2 seconds of jump, then 10 seconds of face. IT SHOULD BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND, MR NOLAN! 10 seconds of jump, then 2 seconds of face. Or how 'bout this idea: don't show McConaughey's face at all! We've seen it already, we know how he looks like! I mean, why create this stunning visual moment, if ye ain't gonna show it to the audience properly?! And don't tell me its because Kubrick did a similar thing in his weird space-jump-scene in "2001", because that was supposed to be like a montage thing, to add some extra weirdness to the scene, so that one had a real purpose!
Furthermore, when you get to be the first human being who enters the 5th dimension, you don't start mumbling how love guides you through that weird twisted world you found. Perhaps AFTERWARDS Cooper could've mumbled something like "maybe it was love all along that guided me". That might've worked. But not while you are experiencing something new and magnificent, something you can't quite understand. The experience should be so overwhelming that you can hardly speak! There is simply no room for preaching about love in that situation! (Especially since you are only preaching to a friggin' computer!)
Furthermore, after mumbling a ton of clichés about love, how did Cooper suddenly come to the conclusion that the whole "3D-world-inside-the-5D-world" was created by humans of the future? Did love tell him that too? There was no reason for him to think that. He was like, "hey, this idea suddenly popped up to my head, so it HAS to be true!" And remember, it is the same guy who gave his daughter a huge speech about not drawing irrational conclusions until all available data was observed and analyzed! Talk about incoherent characters!
***
But enough about the bad drama. Now, the movie had good elements too:
-I liked the space visuals.
-I liked it how Nolan tried to make all the space stuff coherent with modern science. In fact, the whole "hey-let's-jump-through-a-black-hole-into-another-dimension" -scenario actually seemed more believable than all the drama!
-I liked how the theoretical parts were not dumbed down for the masses, it really allowed the movie to play creatively with the concepts of time and space. And Nolan is really good at that stuff!
In fact, Interstellar would've easily made an intelligent space adventure genre movie! But I suppose Nolan had more ambitious artistic goals. And I get it! We all strive to find the limits of our talent, and... well, I think Nolan just found his.
Oh, and to those comparing Nolan to Stanley Kubrick: Nolan is a good movie director, but he still lacks Kubrick's coherence greatly. And Interstellar is no "2001", even without the flaws. Heck, "2001" had major flaws as well, but it also had a grand vision that perfectly connected the plot, the themes, and the visuals into one big ball of artistic greatness.
Nolan still has a long way to go.
K-PAX
(2001)
Perhaps the most underrated movie I have ever seen
5 November 2014
It never ceases to amaze me how people's minds work.
First, you have a brilliant actor - Kevin Spacey - pulling off perhaps the best acting performance of his career as Prot. He claims to be an alien, gets locked in mental institute (understandably), and knows all sorts of things he shouldn't know about astrophysics.
So is he an alien or isn't he? The psychiatrist, played by Bridges, tries to find out, but the question is ultimately left for the viewer to decide. That is what I love about the movie: it doesn't preach. It doesn't demand us to believe in Prot. But at the same time, the movie does raise some questions. Do we really know how the universe works? What if - that is the question this movie wants to - and manages to - raise.
Then you have the ending, which isn't Hollywood-like, it only slightly touches the usual clichés about family and stuff, yet it is hart-warming and beautiful in its own silly way. I won't go deep into it so I won't spoil it for anyone, but please watch closely throughout the movie, and be prepared to use your brains a bit at the end.
The movie also plays a lot with audiovisual stuff. Beams of light are shown throughout the movie accompanied with beautiful piano music, perhaps because Prot allegedly arrived on our planet with a beam of light. This play with light makes the movie a subtly beautiful experience.
Altogether, this is an incredible work of art.
So you have all this - and what do the critics say? Most of them simply call it cr*p, and if they bother to explain why they think this way, they mumble something about this movie belonging neither to the scifi genre nor to the psychological drama genre (like the critic of the Guardian magazine). Well, get this to your heads: A GOOD STORY DOESN'T HAVE TO HAVE A CLEARLY DETERMINED GENRE.
I repeat, in case the professional critics didn't quite understand what I said.
A GOOD STORY DOESN'T HAVE TO HAVE A...
...Ahh, what's the use. The critics ain't gonna understand it, no matter how much I yell. Luckily, there are always people who are open to a good story. This review is dedicated to those people.
First, you have a brilliant actor - Kevin Spacey - pulling off perhaps the best acting performance of his career as Prot. He claims to be an alien, gets locked in mental institute (understandably), and knows all sorts of things he shouldn't know about astrophysics.
So is he an alien or isn't he? The psychiatrist, played by Bridges, tries to find out, but the question is ultimately left for the viewer to decide. That is what I love about the movie: it doesn't preach. It doesn't demand us to believe in Prot. But at the same time, the movie does raise some questions. Do we really know how the universe works? What if - that is the question this movie wants to - and manages to - raise.
Then you have the ending, which isn't Hollywood-like, it only slightly touches the usual clichés about family and stuff, yet it is hart-warming and beautiful in its own silly way. I won't go deep into it so I won't spoil it for anyone, but please watch closely throughout the movie, and be prepared to use your brains a bit at the end.
The movie also plays a lot with audiovisual stuff. Beams of light are shown throughout the movie accompanied with beautiful piano music, perhaps because Prot allegedly arrived on our planet with a beam of light. This play with light makes the movie a subtly beautiful experience.
Altogether, this is an incredible work of art.
So you have all this - and what do the critics say? Most of them simply call it cr*p, and if they bother to explain why they think this way, they mumble something about this movie belonging neither to the scifi genre nor to the psychological drama genre (like the critic of the Guardian magazine). Well, get this to your heads: A GOOD STORY DOESN'T HAVE TO HAVE A CLEARLY DETERMINED GENRE.
I repeat, in case the professional critics didn't quite understand what I said.
A GOOD STORY DOESN'T HAVE TO HAVE A...
...Ahh, what's the use. The critics ain't gonna understand it, no matter how much I yell. Luckily, there are always people who are open to a good story. This review is dedicated to those people.
Our Idiot Brother
(2011)
Life behind social customs
12 July 2014
Although it is one of the best comedies I've seen for a while, I'll have to admit that the movie didn't make me laugh at first. In fact, for the first 15-30 minutes I found it disturbing and hard to follow: we were introduced to the characters perhaps a bit too hastily, without really knowing who they were and why we had to know about them. But after about 30 minutes, the story gets going, and we get a set of wonderful contradictions as the comic engine that keeps the laughter running: three sisters who have their little real-life dramas running around them, with all the roles and little-white-lies that we are all familiar with - and then a brother who is not only honest, he seems to be completely unaware of the possibility of lying! There are only few ha-ha -moments in this picture, but they are wonderfully breathtakingly strong moments. How much can a single laughter make you understand about our social customs, and how illusory they are! And how much appeal can simplicity behind these customs have! The laughter in this movie somehow reminded me of Chaplin.
Frankly speaking, it is hard for me to realize why this movie hasn't got a better score with the IMDb.com review system. Everything about this movie works brilliantly - except maybe for the first few scenes. The characters are complex and they grow along with the story.
Besides being great entertainment, the movie also ponders around some philosophical issues (altough it doesn't dig in very deep - hence "only" 9 stars out of 10). What is happiness and how we achieve it? Why can successful people find life so meaningless, and people who are "without health insurance" can find it full of wonder and excitement, genuinely capable of loving others without asking anything much in return? (Except maybe a night of games with the family ;)) I personally know real-life people who are strikingly similar to this happy-go-lucky character, that is why this movie felt so hart-warmingly genuine. While these people might seem naive at times, they are nevertheless honest and most importantly happy people, who also seem to spread happiness around them. How do these people make it in the so-called "real world" without losing their pure perspective on reality? The movie could have had a more profound view on these questions, I'll admit that much. But then again - would the comic tension of the movie have suffered? Perhaps. Either way, I was happy with this movie, and I recommend it to everyone who has a heart and wants to use it.
Frankly speaking, it is hard for me to realize why this movie hasn't got a better score with the IMDb.com review system. Everything about this movie works brilliantly - except maybe for the first few scenes. The characters are complex and they grow along with the story.
Besides being great entertainment, the movie also ponders around some philosophical issues (altough it doesn't dig in very deep - hence "only" 9 stars out of 10). What is happiness and how we achieve it? Why can successful people find life so meaningless, and people who are "without health insurance" can find it full of wonder and excitement, genuinely capable of loving others without asking anything much in return? (Except maybe a night of games with the family ;)) I personally know real-life people who are strikingly similar to this happy-go-lucky character, that is why this movie felt so hart-warmingly genuine. While these people might seem naive at times, they are nevertheless honest and most importantly happy people, who also seem to spread happiness around them. How do these people make it in the so-called "real world" without losing their pure perspective on reality? The movie could have had a more profound view on these questions, I'll admit that much. But then again - would the comic tension of the movie have suffered? Perhaps. Either way, I was happy with this movie, and I recommend it to everyone who has a heart and wants to use it.
Adaptation.
(2002)
Nothing says ha-ha-ha like this movie!
17 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Now... I don't know how to phrase my thoughts on this, because the movie really is on the verge of being somewhat clever with all this irony and what-not, and...
The word "ingenious" is often thrown at the table when clever people start talking about this movie. Well, here is the bottom line of the movie: it basically goes on and on about how you shouldn't do clichés and in the end it does all the clichés it says it wouldn't do, well look at the irony! Isn't that funny ha-ha-ha. I mean, first you say you wouldn't do something and then you go and do just the thing you said you wouldn't do, get it? Get it? Ingenious, eh? Okay, so maybe this routine was funny already when the Simpsons started doing the exact same thing 10 years before the movie was out. So it wasn't particularly, shall we say, original in the truest meaning of the word. But it is the way they did it, right? I mean, in Simpsons you can see it coming. But in this movie, wow, you never knew would turn into.. whatever it turns to, I ain't gonna spoil it for ya.
Now, don't get me wrong, I liked the darned thing. You are getting me wrong, aren't you? You think I didn't get it and now I'm trying to avoid feeling stupid so I'm badmouthing the movie here instead? Well, maybe you're right, I mean we can't all be as clever as the rest of you are, for example it is very difficult for me to be like the people on Merryl Streep's dinner party where they have a good laugh making fun of a stupid hillbilly who, instead of being ironic, tries to find meaning to his life and actually, well, do something he - dare I say it - do something he loves. (Yes, the irony was also directed towards clever people who think they know how clever they are when they are making fun of less clever people who don't get irony quite as well as they do, well wasn't that clever, ha-ha-ha!)
But seriously. Seriously. Making fun of clichés and structures. What is the best adjective to describe this? Ingenious? Brilliant? Original? Nah. The word "hipster" comes to my mind. Hipsters have been doing it for god-knows-how-long. I betcha that most of the people who liked this movie wear thick glasses and listen to indie rock music. There's nothing wrong with it, don't get me wrong! Being just a little bit hipsterish is trendy and whatnot. I tried it just a bit when I was in school, but then I got tired of being all ironic all the time. Wears you out, you know? After a while nothing feels like nothing no more, you know? And oh yes, even though this sort of irony is trendy nowdays - and believe me, it was very trendy already in 2003 when I was in school - still, movies have used it surprisingly little compared to, say, books or television shows. Movies have relied on structures quite heavily, haven't they? Darn all those Donald Kaufmans of the world! So yes, in that sense the movie was bold, yes, at least it was bold.
Now, as for trying to get rid of all the limits of storytelling, like the movie preaches... But in the end isn't that just another limit to your stotytelling? Because if you don't find new limits to replace the old ones - what can you do except be ironic? Irony is the ultimate state of being limitless, I suppose. (Well, showing all sorts of random crap in random order might be even more limitless, and some Europeans have tried even that I guess, but irony is really the closest thing we have of being limitless and still having something to say.) So there is a certain anarchy-factor to irony in that sense. But freedom and anarchy are not really quite the same thing. Now, as for using structures - well, look at Chaplin's City Lights, or Sunset Boulevard, or Dr. Strangelove, or One flew over the cockoo's nest, or Amadeus, or - these movies all use irony to make a point or two within certain strucutres, well that's a bit out-dated now isn't it? But still they are ingenious more or less, at least they have their flashes of great moments and insights. Using irony in a meta-fictional way instead of trying to find those insightful moments with it - I mean, instead of using it like those grumpy old geezers like Chaplin or Milos Forman - ha-ha-ha, well I guess that's kinda funny too. Kinda.
You know what touched me most in the movie? When Merryl Streep gets all sad and whatnot listening to all the ironic jokes around the table, why, she even laughs along with those people before going to the bathroom feelin sad.
This movie wasn't good because of the irony. This movie was good because it dared to say that making a movie like this is not ingenious. It is sad. It tells us a little bit of ourselves. We are a sad generation.
What are we going to do about it?
Laugh about it, I guess. Ha-ha-ha.
The word "ingenious" is often thrown at the table when clever people start talking about this movie. Well, here is the bottom line of the movie: it basically goes on and on about how you shouldn't do clichés and in the end it does all the clichés it says it wouldn't do, well look at the irony! Isn't that funny ha-ha-ha. I mean, first you say you wouldn't do something and then you go and do just the thing you said you wouldn't do, get it? Get it? Ingenious, eh? Okay, so maybe this routine was funny already when the Simpsons started doing the exact same thing 10 years before the movie was out. So it wasn't particularly, shall we say, original in the truest meaning of the word. But it is the way they did it, right? I mean, in Simpsons you can see it coming. But in this movie, wow, you never knew would turn into.. whatever it turns to, I ain't gonna spoil it for ya.
Now, don't get me wrong, I liked the darned thing. You are getting me wrong, aren't you? You think I didn't get it and now I'm trying to avoid feeling stupid so I'm badmouthing the movie here instead? Well, maybe you're right, I mean we can't all be as clever as the rest of you are, for example it is very difficult for me to be like the people on Merryl Streep's dinner party where they have a good laugh making fun of a stupid hillbilly who, instead of being ironic, tries to find meaning to his life and actually, well, do something he - dare I say it - do something he loves. (Yes, the irony was also directed towards clever people who think they know how clever they are when they are making fun of less clever people who don't get irony quite as well as they do, well wasn't that clever, ha-ha-ha!)
But seriously. Seriously. Making fun of clichés and structures. What is the best adjective to describe this? Ingenious? Brilliant? Original? Nah. The word "hipster" comes to my mind. Hipsters have been doing it for god-knows-how-long. I betcha that most of the people who liked this movie wear thick glasses and listen to indie rock music. There's nothing wrong with it, don't get me wrong! Being just a little bit hipsterish is trendy and whatnot. I tried it just a bit when I was in school, but then I got tired of being all ironic all the time. Wears you out, you know? After a while nothing feels like nothing no more, you know? And oh yes, even though this sort of irony is trendy nowdays - and believe me, it was very trendy already in 2003 when I was in school - still, movies have used it surprisingly little compared to, say, books or television shows. Movies have relied on structures quite heavily, haven't they? Darn all those Donald Kaufmans of the world! So yes, in that sense the movie was bold, yes, at least it was bold.
Now, as for trying to get rid of all the limits of storytelling, like the movie preaches... But in the end isn't that just another limit to your stotytelling? Because if you don't find new limits to replace the old ones - what can you do except be ironic? Irony is the ultimate state of being limitless, I suppose. (Well, showing all sorts of random crap in random order might be even more limitless, and some Europeans have tried even that I guess, but irony is really the closest thing we have of being limitless and still having something to say.) So there is a certain anarchy-factor to irony in that sense. But freedom and anarchy are not really quite the same thing. Now, as for using structures - well, look at Chaplin's City Lights, or Sunset Boulevard, or Dr. Strangelove, or One flew over the cockoo's nest, or Amadeus, or - these movies all use irony to make a point or two within certain strucutres, well that's a bit out-dated now isn't it? But still they are ingenious more or less, at least they have their flashes of great moments and insights. Using irony in a meta-fictional way instead of trying to find those insightful moments with it - I mean, instead of using it like those grumpy old geezers like Chaplin or Milos Forman - ha-ha-ha, well I guess that's kinda funny too. Kinda.
You know what touched me most in the movie? When Merryl Streep gets all sad and whatnot listening to all the ironic jokes around the table, why, she even laughs along with those people before going to the bathroom feelin sad.
This movie wasn't good because of the irony. This movie was good because it dared to say that making a movie like this is not ingenious. It is sad. It tells us a little bit of ourselves. We are a sad generation.
What are we going to do about it?
Laugh about it, I guess. Ha-ha-ha.
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