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wachberg
Reviews
Pasolini (2014)
a very underestimted movie
Beautiful, direct acting and camera. very fitting to the subject at hand. wilem dafoe as the perfect cast. the sexual scenes simple, not sensationalised.
9 out of 10 and only because i crack under peer pressure, otherwise it would be 10.
La enfermedad del domingo (2018)
great. powerful.
What a wonderful reflection on life. what a great piece of film making. i loved it from beginning to end, with only one "criticism", the last two frames.
i probably missed the deeper meaning, but they seemed somehow out of place. which is all the more astonishing since this film is so well crafted and framed and told. so it must be my ignorance.
anyways. easily 10 out of 10.
Bajo la piel de lobo (2017)
a master piece
Among the best films i have seen in a long time. a visually epic setting. a film reduced to the essence of the art. hardly a word spoken. intense characters, which develop without developing, who are full of meaning without speaking.
i enjoy seeing the craft of a film maker at work. how he portrays the two women in their very first shots in different ways. the first enjoying his ruthless sexuality, the second marrying him in a virgin like clothing. how the man is rough but almost gentle with the first, how is almost always grunting or heavy breathing with the second. it is these things which are necessary to make such reduced film making work and here was a master film maker at work.
mesmerising for the entire length.
Horace and Pete (2016)
an amazing piece of art
it is the best piece of original American culture i have come across in a very long time. it is fantastically written and stunningly executed. all in very reduced style; fresh, unexpected, taking dramatic twists.
one episode starts with a twelve minute, stationary camera shot of a woman above sixty and your eyes are glued to the screen. it reminded me of a monologue within Bergman's's 'persona', but for me even exceeds by being rougher and more reduced.
Louis ck created a new streetcar named desire, yet while there is enough tragedy all over the script, humour lurks through from all angles. the material is so dense that you won't be bored watching it twice immediately. actually it helped me to see more of the funny little things Louis so elegantly spreads in between the drama.
i like Louis ck as a comedian, but i now LOVE him as a serious actor and film maker. surprisingly enough this mini serious catapults him among the very best directors|actors in America.
an amazing, amazing piece of art.
Open Road (2013)
totally good movie
simple story. very well acted. dialog i would guess is at least partly improvised, since it comes across very fresh and direct. very well acting in the smaller characters. male main actor totally convincing in his early going as the young gun, then later in his transformation as a ... man.
the camera finds a good blend of hand held realism without being trashy. i enjoyed it very much. i believe this is not as simply done as it looks like.
i understand why some might not like this movie. this is no cinema for everyone. but this is good, solid and modern film making in every bit of the piece. definitely a director who knows very well how to treat actors. i don't think i have seen many pictures where i had the feeling of such well done actor-directing. juliette lewis makes so much out of here scenes, it is unbelievable.
i must say i am usually not a huge fan of camilla belle, since i feel like she depends too much on her (admittedly stunning) looks, but in this picture it fit the role very well that she is always quite distant. yet in the scenes where she could not do it here, cause a scene depended on her opening up, she really closed this very distance and was convincing on all levels.
solid work in all departments. great work in actor directing. 9 out of 1o.
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Lincoln (2012)
great movie, astonishingly "european"
i really liked the film. the grading, the acting, the overall set, the love for detail. i had the slight feeling that Lincoln might have two or three anecdote telling scenes too many, but that is a detail.
i am European and more often than not Americans seem to me to overshoot when it comes to their big national themes. too much heroism, too much pathos and so forth. i found Lincoln did none of these until the very last two shots. i was so impressed by Spielberg not showing the assassination scene and then comes this resurrection in the candle flame. brr. if he had the feeling it needs something "big" to end the film, a silent scene of the funeral would have served way better than this"climax". reminded me of (bad) endings in the forties. it is funny, i think no European film maker would have done that.
but of course doing the film justice requires more than looking at the last two shots. overall i really liked it. especially the concept of putting so much emphasis on the dirty aspects of politics, even when it is for a good cause. the praise of democracy and freedom next to betraying ones' very values. puts a humble note to everything and i for one think it was a good choice to make THIS the theme of the movie and not the liberation from slavery. because for me this WAS the actual theme. you hardly see black folks, you do not really see the tragic reality of slaves. this is - to me - a film about the morals of politics using one of the biggest political characters of all time. wonderful and tasteful choice for the movie, because otherwise the film could easily have drifted into terrible pathos.
Daniel day lewis did something remarkable in my opinion, but only time will tell if i am right: he formed the vivid picture of Lincoln for this and at least the next generation. because it felt like: this IS Lincoln. how more could you praise an actor.
one scene was absolute great film making: when his son followed the two men out of the hospital. we, the audience, expect a bloody mass of a corpse and then it is only ... legs. but that is even more terrifying in a way, yet then it is not, since it is just legs and the people without them actually ... live. this picture of the many legs is indeed in a difficult to describe way more terrifying than a single corpse, no matter how mutilated, since it makes physical injury a mass phenomenon of war and not a more severe, but less likely event. the every day labor of carrying dozens of legs out where they are obviously buried on a routine basis in order to show the shocking and terrifying reality - great, great film making.
overall, as in other films from Spielberg, you see the fight between European taste and American pathos. for the biggest part of the film the first won.
After Earth (2013)
yes, this is a good movie
i must have seen a different movie than most posters here. there is many things i really like about this film and only a few that i dislike. my vote is 8 out of 1o. here is my reasoning.
the visual setup is unusual. the choices of the set designer and art director are very interesting. building the homes and the spaceship more out of plastic and a paper like substance rather than use something super strong. in a way this creates a designer spaceship that is more organic and fragile in substance. the technology literally on top of that, with the hologram-like displays is nice, but never too much IMHO. all in all i find the whole setup quite appealing.
i thought immediately this was a well acted film. i do not see the weaknesses others here on the board could detect. i saw solid, not over the top acting and the boy was alway spot on. totally credible to me in every scene.
will smith himself was intense, but held back enough to give the boy, who is the actual protagonist, enough space to breathe. i found the concept of him, will, being at the same time fearless, but sad over his daughter with his wife handling it much better quite interesting. the surname "rage" is pretty much not a good idea though ...
the concept of the earth rejuvenated after 1ooo years without humans was nice. i found the CG slightly clumsy though. the monkeys, the tiger hyenas and the birds seemed not on top of current animation edge. which brings me to the sole thing i did not like at all. the bird rescue. that was too sentimental and shouldn't have made it into the final script. yet it is the kind of thing that one can find in almost each and every SF movie.
overall i enjoyed it since it was a psychological story rather than science fiction. or as close as science fiction can get to that (the original "solaris" stands out as the exception of the rule). i like the acting, the characters, the story, the visuals and the speediness of the plot.
my guess it is the current low of the director when it comes to reputation plus the fact that will smith made another movie with this son, that makes it rank (well) below "prometheus" for example. all in all: good, solid movie.