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michoyl
Reviews
Vredens dag (1943)
Beautifully filmed? Yes. Masterpiece? No!
Yes. It's true the film is beautifully shot, with some superb camera-work. I think the opening scene is sheer genius as the camera slowly moves to reveal all the elements of the scene one by one. Brilliant! The lighting is atmospheric, with a beautiful, evocative use of shadows, especially the rippling of leaves which somehow echoes the fire to come... Even the acting is fairly good throughout. But is it enough? Emotionally, it's fairly difficult to come to grips with a story in which the only character with any degree of integrity is the old woman who is burned as a witch early on. Perhaps the mother, too, has a certain degree of consistency about her behaviour, though I wouldn't want to meet her on a dark night! As for the others... a mixed bag of self-interested whingers, ready to do the hypocritical dirty at a moment's notice.
Perhaps none of this should matter, but there's a kind of insistent dreariness to proceedings which gives the viewer just a little too much time to think about whether he/she (or me, in this case) really gives a damn what happens to any of these people. And certainly it gave me enough time to wonder whether some of the dialogue - especially the husband/wife discussion re love - wasn't just a little too modern for what purports to be a period piece.
Yes. It was made during the occupation. Etc. Etc. And? It would have been just as easy to adhere to the internal logic and arrive at the same message... ah...
The message...
What, exactly, was it? I mean, I suppose I assumed it was to decry Man's-Inhumanity-to-Man, the absurdity of burning poor old ladies (or young ones)as witches. But was it? Perhaps I'm wrong, because, at the end, it seems "like mother, like daughter". The mother was a witch and the daughter not only seems to be convinced she has the same powers to kill, but actually manages to use them!!! Apparently.
So are witches meant to be real? And, if they go around killing people who've done nothing more than show them a little kindness (the husband, in his own, misguided way), isn't the world better off without them? Hmmmm. By the end of the film, albeit detesting the son's cowardice, I was thoroughly confused.
Sorry. Not a patch on "Vampyr", which - for my money - really IS a masterpiece!!! This film simply paved the way for some of Bergman's more tedious offerings...
Star Trek (1966)
Not surprised it was cancelled
What is it with the adulation the original series receives (especially when compared to the various superb spin-offs of more recent date)? Okay, some of the early stories were good, but the supply soon ran out and the remainder were repetitive and tediously predictable for the most part. Plus lousy sets and some pretty second-rate acting (apart from Leonard Nimoy).
I remember the first series hitting the small screen in England and how disappointed I felt... from the tacky opening music onwards (sci-fi music that sounded more like a chat-show theme? What was that all about?). Of course, we'd already been treated to several years of Dr Who, the two Andromeda series, Quatermass, plus other excellent offerings, including US productions such as The Twilight Zone. So maybe I was just plain spoilt for choice.
The campiness can be vaguely enjoyable at this distance in time, but, for me, that's as good as it gets. And let's face it, hammy campiness and a handful of decent scripts does not a decent series make.
Fine. De gustibus non disputandum est, or some such thing. If people still rave about it for reasons best known to themselves, so be it. But I would never, even for a moment, swap Picard for Kirk... And as for the so-called social commentary of the original series - about as deep and meaningful as Dr Seuss. Or did I miss something?
Whatever... I can certainly use my TARDIS for doing better things than watching reruns of Shatner mincing his stuff as he saves the crew/ship/planet/universe yet again with little more than a torn t-shirt and a smirking mouthful of half-baked philosophy...
Darkness (2002)
Absolutely superb Lovecraftian story
Having now watched this film several times over, I continue to be impressed by it. Sure, it's got faults, but who cares? It is probably the best evocation of a Lovecraft-style atmosphere I have ever seen, though - so far as I am aware - this film is in no way based on a story by Lovecraft himself. Which is not to say I underestimate the qualities of the recent "Call of Cthulhu" or certain other attempts to capture a Lovecraft tale, such as the - to my mind undervalued - "Dagon" of a few years back or "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Shuttered Room" of the 60s. I pass over "Reanimator" which, though enjoyable enough, I found tacky and lacking in mood.
Why do so many people dismiss this film or find it lame in some way? *Shrugs* I have no idea...
Valiant (2005)
Wot - no Nazis?
A pleasant enough movie and my two younger kids loved it (well... the 4-year-old did, anyway!). And so far as i can see, there's no real reason to criticise it, even if it did feel a bit limp along the way... the animation was certainly nowhere near as bad as some people suggest! On the other hand, am I alone in being a little puzzled re the WWII setting? After all, I've always understood the bad guys were essentially Nazis and generally speaking NAZI=SWASTIKA (albeit inverted with regard to most traditions). So where were the swastikas??? And how come the falcon made me think more of the Red Baron (WWI, folks!) while his cohorts also seemed dressed more in keeping with the 1914-18 bash...
In fact, I'm not even sure I remember any specific reference to "Germans", though I might have missed it. They certainly avoided any clear reference during the title sequence! Could it be that UK "political correctness" now extends to not wishing to offend any of our teutonic brethren by suggesting their recent ancestors might have been up to no good 60+ years ago? A touch of the "don't mention the war" made especially famous years back by Basil Fawlty??? Whatever...
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
One up to the cynics - a pretty neat trick!!!
Wow... a pretty neat trick by a bunch of clever and cynical guys - they seem to be saying that if you don't think much of this movie, you must be on the side of the "enemy"! But the fact is, one of the central themes of this movie is perfectly correct - if you watch enough trash, you'll end up thinking that trash can save the world!!! Well done, lads. In a world that seems increasingly conventional and square, this film must stand as a landmark on the pathway to total squareness... yet gosh! it seems so daring.... It's just kind of sad that the version of democracy we have in the Western world means we're forever digging deeper and deeper into the mire to establish just where the level of democratic lowest-common-denominator lies. Certain other commentators mentioned that they were genuinely shocked by this movie and that perhaps it wouldn't have worked otherwise. Maybe they should go figure just what it was that shocked them and ask a few deeper questions about where we are all headed...