dognotbarking Reviews

The Fall (I) (2013–2016)

All good except

[7/10 · 2 February 2018]

With the recent developments in the world of media production, the audiences are getting used to high quality series, with movie directors and actors making amazing pieces. Still, it is appreciated when you see a nice piece of work like The Fall. I think the pace is optimal, takes its time to develop the story, Gillian Anderson is very elegant in her role, which I think she came to master over the years- I refer to this aura that you can also see in Hannibal. This archetype of first woman. - Not to be understood as Eve. Still she remains a mystery to us. Even Paul Spector knows her more than us. I think it would be better if we knew a little more about this woman. The fact that she remains a total mystery makes it harder to feel her pain also. But still very good. However, the actor playing Paul S. is just not good. I am sorry and I don't want to be like this horrible internet people who says terrible things about people but he is not a good actor. He has simply no presence, no charisma, nothing. This kind of caracter should normally stir up something in you, take up some space. But he is just all that. Most interesting or saddest thing can be happening, the world might be hit by a meteor, you feel like he will have the same look in his eyes. His most expressive moments can only be described as the facial expressions of a guy selling metro tickets to people. I think the best scene was after he was shot, dead eyes, life going out of him, that, he can play well.

Hounds of Love (2016)

What is the point?

[2/10 · 20 May 2017]

I have been desperately looking for decent thrillers and every time it is the same thing. If I don't stop myself, I can find myself coming back here and write the same review over and over again. This time it is about a co-dependent couple who kidnap and kill young girls. There is some story about their - or woman's children - but it is not very clear. Are they gone? Taken by social services? Who cares if we can get away with half ass explanations! The man is a psychotic asshole, a complete loser who is pushed around in 'real life' so he takes great care of exercising his power on his girlfriend and other women. The girlfriend is a self-hating person with dependency issues- probably had an abusive father or something-. The girl they kidnapped comes from an almost broken family- for some reason the mother left the father-to do a her own thing (read independence) but there is no much explanation there either. The girl is a smart one, talking about male-female power relations related novels with her boyfriend. OK this can seem a bit too easy to follow but at least there is a structure there. And unfortunately all the rest is build on this only and nothing more is added to character development and the story. They kidnap the girl, they torture her, the girl finds a way to squeze in some 'unsettling' ideas into the woman's head (he is only using you she tells to her kidnapper about the asshole). On the other hand, the girl's mother is looking for her- despite the unbelievable disinterest and laid back attitude of the police officers (they tell her that it is not Newyork and she is probably gone to Adelaide etc.) Although, there is a girl kidnapped and vanished regularly in this time-I am not sure if this happens in NY-Well there are notes left (maybe all the kidnapped girls are forced to write a note about how they are gone to ADelaide) at least this is the case for our protagonist. It is still a bit stupid though. Anyway. THe real problem is the fact that the movie tries to build something on the co-dependency situation going on between the psycho couple and how the young victim would try to navigate this wound to get her ass out of there. The idea is good but it requires so much knowledge about human psychology and much deeper dialogue that what has been achieved. This instead looks like a student project with lots of easy dialogue-explanatory shots that spoon-feeds everything to the audience. THere is no point to the story. They kidnap the girl the psycho girlfriend gets jealous of the girl (why her?) and she somehow manipulates the psycho girlfriend and right about the psycho boyfriend was about to kill the victim, the psycho girlfriend kills him and the victim is free to go. What happened? Why? Is it the fact that the asshole killed her dog? Codependent couple stories are elegantly handled in so many cases- Kalifornication, Natural Born Killers-Sid&Nancy etc...Pointless violence is explored so successfully in so many examples like The American Crime, Funny Games etc...so please just do some little effort if you are going to try to measure up to these. People got so lazy...

Quarries (2016)

Maybe it is fake films ?

[1/10 · 1 May 2017]

How is this a movie? Given that the cinema industry grows and grows, one would think it should become more competitive, more demanding, filtering more crap like this one. But unfortunately, filming some actors on the screen seem to pass as 'making a movie' these days, maybe because the film making industry thinks that people like to watch mindless horror. Well I don't think they do. I don't think we do. You take this script-if you can call it that- and change everything in it, every person, every location, every detail. THe movie would not change a bit. So how is this a script? There is no explanation, no background about anything. If you were to write the synopsis, you would also be handing out the whole script. I think, for the sake of human IQ levels and for the mere issue of work ethics, the audience should be treated with more respect. I would be ashamed of calling this a movie and calling myself a script writer if I was involved in this. Terrible.

The Choice (I) (2016)

Perfect People Defy Everything

[4/10 · 14 February 2017]

I must admit it is hard to resist the temptation. The scenery, the life with friends overflowing love is so good that it makes you feel like a complete total loser. Not because the people in the movie are very successful for rich or whatever. Because they are living the life that everyone secretly (or openly) desires. A wonderful house on the waterside. boats, dogs, a nice, respected job, a family presence, afternoons and weekends with friends and BBQ with loved ones. On top of all that, a perfect love. Can it get more any picturesque than that? Beneath the surface, there is nothing though. No content. ıt is just like an ad made to make you feel miserable about your own life.

I love when people fall in love without ever, not once, talking about life, politics or music. When the guy that finds it hard to commit - his mother died when he was young-abandonment par excellence- suddenly becomes he most domestic male on the planet. When dogs never die. When the sunset is always incredible and when there is a secret island you can go whenever you want. When people come back from comas.

I wonder how people reconcile these movies with their lives. With the bills, illnesses, heartbreaks, shitty apartments we have to live in, water leaks.

I gave four to this movie because the scenery was really good. The rest is crap and made to exploit our deepest dissappoinments in life. That's all.

The Guest (I) (2014)

Ohhhh.OK.

[2/10 · 31 July 2015]

The title says it may contain spoilers but hey, for this movie, you should not be concerned. There can not be any spoiler in such a cliché, expected, effortless production!I can not believe-like so many others-that this movie has this score! I believe it is getting harder and harder to make a decent thriller/horror movie, and people are forgetting about how good it was to watch a good thriller. So they vote sixes or sevens for this piece of crap. I think I could have acted better. No, anybody could have acted the same way as the leading actor. Apparently, to play a psychopath, it is enough to just stare blankly. Nothing more! And what bullshit story about military experiments? This is so absurd I had the impression they wrote it in a drive in burger place while waiting for their order. So bad, so predictable. Forget about this. Leave the DVD box down, do not go to cinema, do not watch it on TV. Unless of course you want a master piece in absurdity.

Nightcrawler (2014)

Gyllenhaal in His Best

[8/10 · 5 February 2015]

While everyone is making a fuss about their new obsession, Benedict Cumberbatch, and while his less than average movie 'The Imitation Game' is being considered for several Oscars, Nightcrawler silently does ten times a better job. I have seen almost every movie that Gyllenhaal did, and I was thinking, lately, may be he is not that good. I was lowering my expectations because he was not delivering lately. But Nightcrawler proved again, that my first hunch about this actor was right. Without any pretentious manner Gyllenhaal embodies, almost in most humanely way possible, the vicious and 'every men for himself' world of media. There is a cold, detached and almost determinist way about this movie. In this, the movie becomes a perfect replica of what it is trying to represent: a cold and immoral attitude towards the suffering of others. And this is not the whole story. Media and its workings, how standards are being lowered in a self-perpetuating way, the shiny but bullshit titles of business management and human resources, violence and its banality are all possible starting points for discussion based on this movie. This is not a masterpiece, but it is a good one.

The Rebound (2009)

The source of all misery in this world

[2/10 · 7 April 2014]

The only thing that made me laugh about this movie is some of the user's comments here on this site. In fact this is not a movie worth writing a review for but I am gonna consider this as a writing exercise. What a time wasting piece of crap this movie is!People, please, if you see this movie, try to remind yourself this has nothing to do with life, art or any human condition whatsoever. The story is about a newly divorced 40 year old mum, getting back her life while falling in love with a guy who is 15 years younger than her. Well the baseline is good. In the hands of good writers, it can be a masterpiece. These are issues that we all have to deal with. We are living in a sexist, ageist world. This is women's day and this is also nice to see a woman getting back her 'voice'. But not like this!This is doing more harm than good actually. You get a divorce, and you find a job only after a couple of days? A job that pays you enough to have an apartment in New York? The coffee shop that happens to be just across your street happens to have a nice charming guy? Please, I have enough of these images, these cruel, lying people who dare to present this as something real. Oh I know, people will say, 'you have to judge for yourself, you should know that it is not true' Such an immoral thing to say! Totally disregarding human psyche and cognitive functioning! You see this and you construct a reality in your mind as if any of this would be possible! Let me tell you people, it is not!It is just not possible to find a decent paying job in New York in one week. It is not normal to leave your kids with a complete stranger, and no, you can not travel around the world without even earning any money. So if you compare yourself to this bs and feel unsuccessful, please don't. Two other things: we all know that the coming generation are much smarter and understanding than us, but I don't believe that no one is lucky enough to have two kids who are not at all shocked-even a bit-that their dad is so rapidly replaced by some dude and also not disturbed by seeing their mom having sex with a man. Who would have sex with her nanny, in the living room, with kids in the house sleeping? Last thing: after all this crap, as if it was not enough, 5 years later, they reunite! Oh my god it is so frustrating. Of course the woman has a shiny career, the man traveled the world and helped some poor kids in Bangladesh, played with Massai in Africa-still no clue what he is doing, something with the kids I suppose-and 5 years later, he is 30-so she is 45 and there. They are back together. Of course the female character played by czj does not look like she aged even a day. Why would she? She is not human.

Gravity (2013)

A royal celebration of the essentials we take for granted

[9/10 · 16 October 2013]

This is not an adventure movie. Yes, there are some elements of thrill, and survival but they are, in my opinion, only there to convey a bigger story. And the bigger story reminds us of things we take for granted. Gravity, the title of the movie, is absent from the movie right up until the end, and we see how difficult this makes our lives. We don't need big aliens or psychopathic crew members to make our lives miserable in space. The space itself does that very elegantly. The idea that we can conquer the outer space is just too ignorant. The mere absence of gravity show how essential it is to our existence. In fact, there would be no life without it. The space is portrayed as a continuous threat, lacking any kind of comfort, and rightly so. Things that we do without thinking, like walking, standing, keeping our balance, finding our place in space, these become impossible tasks. The lack of oxygen does not help either, of course. When Bullock's character is first saved, she enters the station and reborn with oxygen, literally, as her body assumes fetus position with the cables imitating the umbilical cord. You see this and you say 'yes this is alfonso cuaron making good movies!' The whole movie is so brilliantly shot anyway. Another striking scene was right after she returns to the earth. The spacesuit which is indispensable for her survival in the space immediately becomes a problem once she is on earth. Very well filmed. She is born again, this time in the sea, and crawls back to the shore. She has to try hard to walk again, to readjust herself to earth. It is almost as difficult as the first step humankind had to walk as homo erectus. But she manages, because this is home, and here, there is everything we need to survive. Movie closes with her walking, doing the most mundane looking act, yet you may ask yourself, 'which is more important?Amstrong's first step on the moon, or our first step on earth?' Really, it took a lot of things to make both happen.

Six Feet Under (2001–2005)

Real and heartbreaking

[10/10 · 28 March 2012]

We just finished watching Six Feet Under. I am not going into details, like how was the first season and the second etc....Though I had a huge break between the 2nd and 3rd seasons, right after I restarted to watch it, it grabbed with with its dark humor about life and death. But I think there is so much more to SFU.Each relationship is close to real life as much as it can be. You feel you understand people; as if they were a friend of you, or yourself even.You relate to people even if they are not like you, because they are portrayed so human, so realistic and full of flaws. The end, especially, it is so painful to watch because they fulfill their promise, because everything everywhere ends...We know that, we have to live with that, we have to pretend we will be here forever, but we are not going to be. And this is life. This is good in itself, in a relaxing way. You surrender to this idea, you don't fight with it...The life goes on, time passes, loved ones die, you bury them, and someday someone in your family (if you are lucky) bury you....I thought about all of that while watching Claire's car leaving, in this big, long road, like going through life...And the feeling is just so overwhelming....We need such reminders, memento mori of a modern sort, so that we remind ourselves; every moment counts...SFU is strangely dark but optimistic...Just like life. One of the best pieces concerned with out never ending struggle with our existence, death and loss. Just perfect.

Water for Elephants (2011)

Is this a little ironic or is it just me?

[7/10 · 22 December 2011]

Well, the movie is good. As good as it can get. I think most of us tend to overlook the disturbing aspect of the circuses. Such entertainment is plain cruel and must be banned altogether. In the beginning, I was afraid that they were going to give a romantic portrait of the circus, with animals and people exploited in a humane (!) way. Happily they did not. The female character says both people and animals work until they drop dead, or even worse, they can not even die until their owners let them...This is very true of circuses. Good that we get to see how animals are tortured until they learn to obey, and to do stupid tricks which have nothing to do with their nature. But anyone who sees this film should not forget that it is only a mild portrait of what is going on in reality and unfortunately; nice looking vets with good intentions do not come along to save elephants and tigers so that they can spend the rest of their lives in peace. We should also remind ourselves that those animals in the film are real and actually show animals, like Rosy; so they had to learn to 'behave' at some point in their lives. With beating, torture, electric shocks...This is really ironic a film like this, supposedly judging the mistreatment of animals; makes use of the same animals...We should be aware of this irony. And each time we see an animal jumping over the fire or dancing, we have to remind ourselves that this animal had to learn to do so. Not in the best, polite way, but the exact opposite, without exception.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Like we never saw an Oscar winning film

[1/10 · 11 November 2011]

I am sorry, but I think that this movie is made and being awarded with Oscars only because it glorifies something that should not be glorified. I feel sorry for the soldiers dying in vain while they are still teenagers, and everyone should feel the same way. What this film tries to accomplish is not really clear. It is clearly not a critic about war, because if it is then the message is too weak. Besides, how do you expect the audience to see war from a critical angle if you portray every American soldier as pure absolute angels. If you are against war, do something like Full Metal Jacket, then you can really deserve an Oscar. If this is about one man going slowly crazy, hmmm...it does not work. Sorry. You can not just expect people to identify with a soldier just because you made him play some football with a local kid. So what is left is the possibility that this film is a totally populist production, made because you know very well that it is going to work, this is the weak spot of every American. This is a perfect example of the discourse we all heard thousands of times: American Soldiers are there to protect freedom, they are fighting for us and dying for us. So let us applause them. So they can die in peace. Every Iraqi is a potential threat but again, as we are so awesome, we play with Iraqi kids and risk our own lives not to shoot one Iraqi guy.

Come on guys!!!Who believes that? This is really a propaganda film for the world and the Americans. On top of it, 6 Oscars? It is like we haven't seen any Oscar winning films before. Back in time; Oscars meant something. Now they are-it seems-become the propaganda machine for war industry. What a shame

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

So Bad That I Can not contain any spoilers...

[1/10 · 24 July 2011]

What is this? Is this supposed to be a movie? I liked the first Paranormal Activity. It was a fresh look, with ordinary people you can relate to and a story!!!!Story people story!!!What happens in the second?Yes the family has a pool we have seen it. Yes they have a kitchen and there is a mug on the island in the middle.They kept showing the same scenes over and over again every night. May be it is a way to save more money. And nothing happens!Literally nothing. There was 3 door slamming; 5 cracking noise; 1 flying baby; 1 woman dragged on the ground; 1 barking German shepard. And that is it! Nothing more. No story; there are too many characters you can not relate to them because it is so superficial;no explanation...Just some brief conversation about how those two girls were hunted (1 sentence)and the curse of the first born. At the end; you understand it is around the same time Katie get possessed. So it is like a prolongation of the first one. All non sense really. Do not waste your time on this. The producers have to have a little respect for the audience. Such a shame I wasted my time on this.

Half Nelson (2006)

It could have been better

[7/10 · 20 June 2011]

Half Nelson is a good movie; almost getting there. With "there"; I mean going to the core of the problem; digging into characters, how they interact and change and how unfolding events impact them. Yes some people have this difficulty of fulfilling the responsibilities of adult life; and yes some of these responsibilities are so useless that we all fear that someday we are not going to be able to get out of the bed to go to work.Slipping slowly out of the routine can be easier than we think it is. And yes sometimes a white teacher in an under privilege neighborhood can develop a warm friendship with a teenager despite the odds and they can somehow manage to pull each other from the depths they could sink in. They can help each other to hold on to life; no matter how difficult that seems. At the level of idea; this is just the beginning. The challenge is to portray it in a way that it becomes real and familiar without putting too much words in it. To do this; many different aspects of the film making have to be put together. There should be good acting; there has to be events may be not too big and vital but enough to go deeper in the story, there has to be good narrative. Acting is the most powerful side of this film. No doubt about that. Ryan Gosling gives a good performance; you start with him you finish with him and you do not even realize how slowly he is slipping away. It reminds me of Taxi Driver and the perfect portrayal of a man who is slowly losing grip on his life by De Niro. Ryan Gosling might provide such a performance in the future; if not in this film. However on the other two accounts; the film fails to give a satisfying account. The idea is there; the acting is there but unfortunately; we do not get to explore the depths of the relation between the teacher, nor between the teenager and her brother's friend. There are some things; exchanged looks; momentary sparks, some unfortunate events that take place but the audience do not get to feel what really makes the girl from stopping to hang out with her brother's drug dealing friend. We can all say this is because of her encounter with her teacher and the realization that both of them do not belong in that room; but we have to admit; it just does not put a mark on our hearts and minds. This is like someone giving you a spoon of wonderful ice cream but taking it back just the moment you had the feeling on your tongue...Unaccomplished and unfinished...Though it could have been a perfect example of low budget; everyday life wisdom films...

The Tree of Life (2011)

An Overwhelming feeling

[9/10 · 30 May 2011]

On one hand; the very attempt of addressing such profound issues like life and death; existence, God-if there is one-and our almost sad loneliness in this universe-for the time being-seems futile. On the other hand; it is exactly what art tries to do. And; in that sense; Tree of Life accomplishes a brave attempt.

It is hard to summarize the film in conventional terms; it is hard to say whether it is about an adult man's looking back and his coming to terms with his brother's dead or about each one of us, sitting in this cinema in the dark, desperately trying to get familiar with that kind of feeling.

This is not a film for people who do not like films without dialog, or those who expect to have a conventional narrative, a linear timeline in the films.

It starts with a very personal statement; then it stretches out to the very beginning of our existence. It continues with spectacular images of the universe giving the impression that you are looking to some kind of a miracle-you name it God or science-supported with a perfect music which adds to the divine feeling. You look to the very heart of the characters; but also to the very heart of our universe; our lonely planet as they say;trees and nebula; earth without human beings and wind, seagulls and the water. Trust,love, anger, questioning authority-both in the figure of father and God. Ordinary days and problems, then bigger problems, experiencing death, bearing it and at the end, accepting it. Looking back when you hurt people and when people hurt you, forgiving them. Finding the courage to begin again...

This film is about finding peace right at the heart of our seemingly absurd existence. It is not a story. It is a feeling. And such a great feeling it is...It almost leaves you breathless right in your seat.

The last thing that should be mentioned is that it is a great courage to produce such a film. I haven't seen other films of the director, but this one is clearly not mainstream box office American. So producers-one of them was Brad Pitt-surely respect good cinema. That gives hope.

Some people left during the film and I felt very sorry. Not because they did not like the movie but because they could not stand to several give minutes of their lives to our common story.

Our individual stories; and stories of everyone of us added up together. This is what I felt about this movie.