pcarlson-2 Reviews

On the Waterfront (1954)

Totally Overrated!

[4/10 · 24 January 2005]

This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen - even "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is better than this. The story is unconvincing. The screenplay seems to have been written by a 10-year-old kid and the acting reflects it. For some unexplainable reason, the main characters - the priest and the girl - always seem to be right there whenever something happens, no matter where, what or time of day. It's also very unconvincing that Eva Marie Saint would give up her schooling - that her father scrimped and saved all his life to make it possible for her - to stay on the docks with a punk kid who was part of the gang that killed her brother.

How this movie won any Academy Awards at all is a puzzle to me.

My rating: 4/10 (only because I'm a nice guy)

Faces (I) (1968)

What a Disappointment!

[5/10 · 29 July 2003]

One word sums it up: boring! The dialog is too pretentious, i.e., people in real life don't talk like this. The scenes are incredibly long and trying; nothing happens. And the acting is shallow. During the entire film I had the impression I was watching actors act rather than identifying with the characters they were supposed to be portraying.

Don't get me wrong. I love independent films - far more than your standard Hollywood productions, but his one was one big waste of time.

Wind with the Gone (1998)

A great disappointment

[4/10 · 23 May 2003]

The idea for this film is so promising - villagers on the outskirts of civilization experience the outside world through films that have been cut ut, respliced, etc. and behave in accordance with the results - yet the result is so mundane, yes boring. I would like to see how a master filmmaker - Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, for example, come immediately to mind - would realize this film.

All in all, boring and a big disappointment. I left half way through it.

Solaris (1972)

Boring

[4/10 · 19 August 2002]

I need say no more...

Heißer Sommer (1968)

Cheap Commercialism is Not Indignant to Capitalism

[1/10 · 26 February 2002]

This is undoubtedly the worst movie I've ever seen. I can't get it through my brain how a director could seriously produce such rubbish. The film has no plot, there is no character development, the choreography is nothing better than third-grade mimicking, the throw-away music is absolutely atrocious and, well, whatever else needs to be considered when judging the quality of a film, is without a doubt terrible here too.

I wonder how the director was able to sleep to night.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

A Classic? You've Got to Be Kidding

[4/10 · 7 January 2002]

This movie is one big disappointment. Although there are a few interesting cinematographic effects such as the metaphoric color change at the beginning from sepia to technicolor, the movie lacks everything I look for in a fine film. It has no discernible plot, the music is atrocious and doesn't fit in with what little emotional content the film has to offer, the actors don't fit into the roles at all, etc.

I gave it a 4.

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

This lousy, boring film is not worthy of Eisenstein

[3/10 · 18 October 2001]

For serious film aficianados is Aleksandr Nevsky one great big disappointment. The story is shallow, the cinematography is boring, the acting is lousy and the sets, costumes and backdrops are cheap. This film lacks all of the brillance of Oktyabr (1927), Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925) and Stachka (1925) and does not even qualify in my opinion to be listed along with these great Eisenstein masterpieces. I gave this film a rating of 3, and I can only say to all the voters who gave it a 10: Take another critical look at this movie and revise your vote. Not all Eisenstein films are of the same quality as Bronenosets Potyomkin.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1985– )

Brilliant rendition of Bach the man in his times

[9/10 · 24 October 2000]

This four-part mini-series details the adult life of the composer Bach. Bach is shown here as a human being - not as some demigod - who actually even removes his wig every now and then to drive home the fact that he's a flesh and blood mortal like you and me. The series traces the stations of his career and concentrates not only on the music but on his family life as well. It also provides a unique insight into the early half of the eighteenth century, bringing things to light that we as post-industrial Bach admirers never really consider when we contemplate the genius of this great musician. For example, we see his deep genuflections when confronted with royalty, the tribulations of riding in a coach or, especially chilling, his eye operation being performed without an anaesthetic while the doctor's assistants holds him in a chair near an open window. The series builds on several anecdotes giving it flow and interest. The camera work is at times brilliant - unique camera angles, movement and unusual positioning round this series out. In summary, we see Bach the man confronted with the turmoils of everyday life in his age, and leave appreciating his genius all the much more.

Powaqqatsi (1988)

Cheap commercial follow-up to Koyaanisqatsi with no artistic merit

[1/10 · 10 January 2000]

I should have trusted my instincts better: No expectations - no disappointments. Instead, however, I expected to experience a similar masterpiece like Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and was brutally disappointed. Powaqqatsi is in my humble opinion nothing but a cheap attempt to cash in on the cult success of its predecessor, and - artistically - it fails miserably. It appears some producer gathered up leftover material from Koyaanisqatsi, hurriedly threw it together, placed everything in slow motion and got some pop entertainer under the pseudonym of Philip Glass to hurriedly throw together some banal background music, which is incessantly repeated. Where Koyaanisqatsi entertains the viewer with clever fast and slow motion changes, Powaqqatsi is one long sequence of mundane images in slow-motion (if you view them on your VCR in fast preview mode, you'll see what I mean). What disappointed me the most, however, was Philip Glass's soundtrack. I couldn't - and still can't - believe that these commercial-sounding New Age type drones, which could easily have been composed in one afternoon by any 14-year-old on a Casio calculator, were from the same composer who so brilliantly composed the emotional and perfectly-synchronized music for Koyaanisqatsi. All in all, a big waste of time! My advice: Forget commercialism! Watch Koyaanisqatsi again instead!

The Lost Words (1994)

Probably the most realistic film I've ever seen

[9/10 · 26 October 1999]

This movie recently ran on ARTE, the German-French cultural channel. Is it real or fiction? You're convinced at first that it's first-hand documentary, even though some things appear bizarre. Then you think, well maybe it's fiction. And then you're back to thinking it's real.

A great flick right through to the end. Even the music, which I thought was rather amateurish at the beginning, is perfectly suited for the movie.

I had absolutely no apprehensions about giving this flick a great big 10!

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