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Reviews
La règle du jeu (1939)
A masterpiece
"The Rules of the Game" is a fantastic achievement in movie-making. And believe it or not, I am not saying it just because it's so high on so many critics lists for "All time best" or because it has an intriguing history behind it. Simply I find it one of the very few films that are at same time great fun to watch(it works very well as a comedy, even though it's much more than that) and deep, insightful and genuinely moving. It's also one of the pioneering films in history, in which every viewer is free to make his own conclusions, the director never manipulates or spoon-feeds his audiences, the characters aren't clearly divided into types and stay mysterious no matter how many times you see it.
I would also have to note, as many before me, that the visual style in which the film is shot is marvelous, innovative and suits the intentions of Jean Renoir perfectly. The camera is gliding around the characters in an seemingly effortless manner, it's never obtrusive, it's always in the right place, showing us everything and everyone, there's no specific focus in the shots, the viewer is totally free to look and take notice at everything in the frame. We, as viewers, are not inside the head of the characters, so to speak, by way of the camera showing as what they see and hinting us strongly what the feel what their intentions are, we are outside of them as some kind of an invisible observer of real life happening before our very eyes. It's unsettling at first for most viewers, used to more conventional direction, and usually you end up being confused and at least slightly disappointed the first time you seen the movie(it happened to me too, I liked it a lot, but I expected more). But I urge to not give up at this point. As many others have noted, it gets much better the second time around, and it's so complex, full of detail, intertwining plot lines, characters, motives, etc, that it has endless potential for re-watching and discovering something new, getting a new understanding of some scenes, etc. "Rules of the Game" has managed to keep the complexities of real life present without being a tedious "ultrarealistic" bore, which is often the case with other movies, trying to achieve similar effect.
Dismissing this movie to be just a social commentary of a time long gone, or just a comedy, etc, is for me totally missing the point. It's about people, real people with their unique motivations and opinions, and how every one of them has his reasons to justify his behavior in his own eyes. There's no good or bad guys, no morality lessons, no preaching of any kind. And that's one of the many reasons which makes it so great. It treats its viewers as an adults, who are capable of drawing their own conclusions from what's masterfully shown before them. But of course, the viewers should be up for the challenge.
X2 (2003)
The best comic book movie I've seen
X-2 is alongside the first batman movie in a class of its own compared to all the others comic book movies out there. It has smart script that doesn't make you groan because of the stupidity of the screenwriters half the time as most of the other superhero movies do. It's really entertaining, lots of humor, magnificent fighting scenes(the opening sequence will forever remain a classic in that department IMO - astonishing combination of creative special effects, fight choreography and totally fitting great classical music), actors who are really good and concentrated on their job(especially Ian McKellen, who is once again awesome as Magnetto) and even some actual message behind all the fights and superpowers, that really works. It also has what is always most important for a good movie and that's a smart director who knows his job. Bryan Singer is showing his talent here, getting good performances from all of his actors despite the CGI scenes being aplenty(but they are really well done, much better than Spiderman 2 for example) and also creating a visual feast and an unique feel to the movie. And I've never even read the comics before, but I really felt close to the characters and easily got engaged in the X-Men universe.
Lastly, but definitely not least important, is the fact that this movie has one of the greatest looking female cast ever assembled in a mainstream movie. Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, and the ultra-gorgeous Rebecca Romijn Stamos(who even has a short, but memorable appearance without the blue paint that goes with her Mystique part) - it doesn't get better than that. And all those lovely ladies can act pretty well too. Not that their parts were difficult, of course, but in comparison with the pathetic failures we so often see by the pretty actresses in the blockbuster movies it's really refreshing to watch a bunch of pretty women who can act decently enough.
I highly recommend this movie to pretty much everyone. It's even better than the excellent first part.
Det sjunde inseglet (1957)
Great, but far from Bergman's best
I find it strange that "The seventh Seal" has always been widely considered to be the best Bergman movie and is so much more famous that all the others he made. Yes, it's very good, especially for its time, but compared with the real masterpieces Bergman made like "Wild Strawberries", "Through a Glass darkly", "Persona", "Winter light" and "Fanny and Alexander", it really pales in comparison. The ideas and the questions asked in this movie are pretty interesting and profound, but I feel that Bergman has done so much better in his later movies on similar subjects. The theme about the God's silence is much, much better developed in the famous "Faith Trilogy", especially "Through a glass darkly" and "Winter light". The theme about how to cope with fear of death is well developed, but couldn't really convince me. Also I feel that the film has too many "comic relief" moments. Many people have praised the cinematography in this movie, quite a few saying that it's one of the best ever. I beg to disagree. It's very, very good, excellent at times, but again Bergman has done so much better in his other movies. Personally I feel that the cinematography in Bergman's movies improved when he changed his director of photography Gunnar Fischer(who worked on this movie and "Wild Strawberries") with Sven Nykvist. Watch "Through a glass darkly" or "Persona" if you want a really stunning cinematography. But even "Wild Strawberries", made shortly after "The Seventh seal" and looking visually quite similar, is better IMO. Here the settings and the lighting looks too theatrical to me for most of the times. Of course, there were quite a few memorable images, especially the start with Death on the beach, the dance with Death at the end, the procession of the fanatics who whipped themselves through the village,etc. But still, something was lacking in many of the scenes. Bergman had to shoot the whole movie in just 35 days, so it's understandable IMO. After being so critical to the movie so far, it's time to mention its strong points. They are typical of Bergman's movies. Very strong acting(especially from Max von Sydov), amazing dark medieval atmosphere, really makes you think about the important questions. The music was very well and effectively used too. It's a great movie, no doubt, and it established Bergman as one of the all-time greats, which is big plus for a huge fan of him like myself. Still, my advice is: don't limit your Bergman experience to just this movie, watch his others, many of them are even better. 9/10
The Others (2001)
Boring, slow and overrated
Why this movie is rated so high on this site will remain one of the misteries of the Universe to me. The only reason I can think of is because of the people's obssession with the twists at the end. But even so, the ending of this movie is not that good either. But even if it was excellent, it still couldn't have been able to make up for the boring hour and twenty minutes before that.
Possible SPOILERS:
I would also have to make the comparison with "The Sixth Sense" which had very similar plot twist and story. But the difference is that "The sixth Sense " was still interesting and engrossing movie even though I knew the ending before i started watching it(a stupid newspaper review spoiled it for me). It had characters who were very well developed, smart dialogue, great acting, superb directing. All those those things were sorely missing in "The others". And for me, "The others" had a lot more plotholes. I figured out most of the famous twist about 15 minutes into the movie, although it took me much longer to guess the other part, and it still surprised me a little bit in some details. But really it's not that good and when you think more about it, doesn't really make sense. END SPOILERS
Leaving the twist aside, it should also be said that for supposedly horror movie this one wasn't scary at all for me. It had all the classic elements(the haunted house, ghosts, the constant fog, the suddenly booming music) but couldn't make it work. The mediocre camera work also didn't help. The only times I got scared a little bit was because of the sudden sound "explosion", which combined with the constant whispering in the dialogue created some scary, but in the most boring and non-creative way, moments. I don't like being scared by such cheap tricks, and it was more of a surprise than a real scare. The acting wasn't that good too. I love Nicole Kidman, she's a great actress which gave some stunning performances in "The hours", "Moulin Rouge" and "Dogville", but here she's far from her best, whispering and shouting all the time, looking too rigid and wooden and didn't gave me the impression of being really scared when she was supposed to be(you can hardly blame her for the last bit though, those "scary" scenes were pretty lame). The children were good, but nothing special. I must say that this film was moving extremely slowly, even though it's only an hour and a half long. Too many repetitive scenes, too much repetitive dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, this movie had one of the worst I have seen of late. One example of that is the fact how many times the characters said to each other "Stop breathing" or "Don't Breathe". Overall, a big disappointment for me. 4/10
Såsom i en spegel (1961)
So perfect in every way...
How do you write a review about a film which is so perfect for you as this one is for me? This is probably the only film that I can't think of having any flaws, even minor ones. And it's so compelling and touching. Really, you should see a movie for so many reasons. Here you can see how a film can have probably one of the best cinematography EVER without using any CGI and computers, just with manipulating the light, and perfect camera work.You can enjoy a compelling story about God and the numerous aspects in relationships between people, which works both on a grand scale and in every specific case between the characters. It's really depressing at times but it always feels so real and convincing. You feel that this story is actually happening before your eyes, at least I did . You will get a flawless acting from all 4 actors in the movie, especially Harriet Andersson. Her part is so extremely difficult but she pulls it off superbly. See it, if you like the old days of moviemaking, when the smart plot, decent acting and innovative camera work and cinematography were still more important than the special effects and the media hype.
10+/10
Ying xiong (2002)
Visually stunning, but overall disappointing
Yes, it's very beautiful, possibly the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen. But does this make it a great movie? NO, because it's really flawed in most of the other departments. The story is really boring, totally unrealistic and simplistic. The whole structure of the movie and the way in which the story is told is a complete ripoff of Kurosawa's "Rashomon". The fight scenes are way too long and so unrealistic they've got boring after 5 minutes. I mean, it's fun at first watching the fighters fly around with no explanation for it, but it gets old way too quickly.
And the message of the story is completely flawed. SPOILERS:
So it's OK to kill millions of people just to establish an empire?And the emperor supposedly does it only to make the people happier. Talk about being naive... END SPOILERS:
In conclusion, the only reason to see that is the amazing cinematography and music. But be prepared for a stupid and even ridiculous plot.
The Shining (1980)
Overrated
I don't get it why so many people think that's a horror masterpiece.It didn't scare me at all with only one or two exception for the whole movie. The biggest problem of the movie is that the plot was simply awful.I've read Stephen King's book(and liked it so much more than that movie BTW)and there a lot of unnecessary changes from it, but even putting that aside,there's so much plot holes it's just ridiculous.Kubrick just removed what he thought was unnecessary from the book,but didn't replace it with anything else so often the movie didn't make sense at all.
*SPOILERS*
It was never explained why Jack started to go insane,why he started seeing ghosts and such.He just went from an normal(just a little weird) man to a complete psycho in one or two days.There was nothing about Jack's problems with alcohol and his previous disappointments as a writer,which are two essential elements of the book's plot.There was no explanations why Jack was seeing those ghosts.And last of all,Haloran came from thousands of miles away knowing full well something very bad was happening,but he entered calmly trough the front door and asked "Is anyone here".Most of the best moments from the book was omitted without being replaced with something that makes sense.
*END SPOILERS*
The acting wasn't very good either,Nicholson was great but the others were quite bad.The camerawork was great for most parts. And it was moving painfully slow,with nothing happening for big periods of the movie.The best feature of the movie was the scary music and sound effects,but they couldn't save it from being a big disappointment for me.