Reviews

We should be happy movies such as this one are still made. Maybe expectations were a little high but Taika Waititi going back to his roots gives us a sweet little movie about the 'other' Samoa: a small politically disenfranchised American protectorate with only 50.000 inhabitants. Wikipedia has it that Samoans are typically friendly and warm people and it is obvious Waititi wants to get that across.

It takes some time to get going, occasionally it feels there is something missing, the culture clash between the battered European/American soccer coach and the religious zen mentality of the islanders doesn't totally pan out, but whatever. I came out of the cinema quite relaxed, thinking about the contrast with the bombastic trailers that were programmed before it.

Moral ambiguities are the essence of the Mark Felt character. What motivated this FBI No2 to become informer for the media? Spite because he wasn't chosen for the lead role? Anger at political meddling in his work? Outrage at the cover-up after the Watergate break-in?

This movie focuses on the law enforcement aspect - that is what he cares for. In his heart he's a policeman. The silent 'right is right and wrong is wrong' type. Playing by the rules is what drives him, even refusing to use the FBI network to find is own lost daughter. The White House is something to stay away as far as possible from. But then he realises: there is a bigger picture: the Nixon political machine is one big fraud. The law is at stake. And that's one thing he's not going to put up with. Truth must out. For better or for worse.

Not for action movies lovers, this Liam Neeson vehicle. But if you are interested in psychological and political drama there is much to enjoy here. After a while Felt's persona and dilemmas come to the forefront so much you really get involved with the protagonist's dilemmas. Is it All the president's men turned around? That act is hard to follow. But the makers took much of the good things out of that example. Take the slow, pace of plot development. As is said probably much too slow for those who want blow-by-blow action. But if you want a view on the shocking events that lead to the impeachment of - probably - the US's most paranoid president of the 20th century, go see.

As in the book, the buildup is slow, meticulous in this high-ranking (in 'best UK TV ever' charts ) four-part drama. Familiar faces (from Tinker, Tailor) show up, small puzzle parts are put in place. And, also as with reading the book, viewers need to pay attention as one after another claustrophobic plot-overturning scene develops.

The closeness in which Le Carré's masterpiece is followed I find particularly enjoyable. But then again, his masterful dialogues read a as film script, so why try to improve?

If you read the book first, you get even more respect for Alec Guiness bringing George Smiley to life. A big surprise for me was Michael Lonsdale's Grigoriev character. In no way would you dream that behind this crucial witness in part four, sits the genius Anglo-French actor. In about 5 minutes his Grigoriev paints an emotional spectrum, from arrogant diplomat to crushed victim, with faux camaraderie, a hysterical telephone scene, Shakespearean monologue in between - even outperforming Alec Guiness.

As I said, worth the wait, here too the reward is in the end.

Never seen this but came across it in a book of top films involving trains and watched it in awe. Where it starts out as cheap prison violence fare, we learn this is only the prelude to a small masterpiece. It actually should be viewed three times.

As a nature film, filled with beautifully filmed blank cold landscapes not made for man to live in. Hardly any animals, just endless rails and snow. You are not looking at it, you are totally in it. It is a metaphore for the harsh conditions of life behind bars - barren, no past, no future.

Secondly, it is a film of redemption. Brilliantly scenarioed by Kurosawa, this part comes to life when a third person is found on the train, releasing a chain reaction of emotions - healing even.

Thirdly, as an action movie. Cannon group got more than it probably bargained for. Only a genius filmmakers can keep an audience on the edge of their seat for 2 hour with little more than three character actors and some 500 tons of steel hurling down an icy landscape.

Ranks among the best. No wonder later movies, from Speed totThe Revenant, stile, sorry, used elements from this little gem.

Alex van Warmerdam is known as one of thr country's best directors, an this little gem doesn't disappoint. A film with its own rhythm. Get in tune and enjoy - I was mesmerized from the start. And the ending - wow. Great camera work, and great alienating scene settings.

First, we see a play within in a play. The director changes the plot. The participants are mere unwilling puppets in his hands. People are lied to. Then, things get stranger an stranger. First in the acting troupe, which leads to dramatic moments. But who are these people, observing every move of the protagonist? Something sinister is in the air. Powerful men of faith get involved, scenes that may or may not be happening in a spaceship unroll. And then, in a different setting, another director changes the plot. Again, people are lied to. The ending - not for the more sensible souls indeed, but I loved it.

A psychotic dream? An allegory of the universal struggle against nihilism? A family saga? Al three at once? Some do not get it - "too wacky". Poor souls, lost in an universe where failing laundry-ownerscan't be heroes. But hey, this is 21st century reality. Even Parliament can be stormed. So is it strange that Michelle Yao is a superhero and Jamie Lee Curtis is a villain? That parallel universes and the bagel of doom exist? If you appreciate the Big Lebowski, go. If you are the 'Go Superman-type, don't.

If you have no sense of the absurd, don't go. But if you do, see it. Especially if you are the type like me that watches The Big Lebowski over and over again because you enjoy madness with a message. And so what the message-heavy ending. As The Dude said: aggression will not stand, and if we ever needed reminders of that, it is now. Plus: enjoy references to everything ever made, from In The Mood For Love to Edward Scissorhands and Karate Kid to Ratatouille, beating Tarantien at his own game.

This movie was on TV and I jumped in thinking it was a 1990s thing but then Bruce Willis appeared looking very much like Joe Biden on a news conference. And then. The Chevy Chevelle. The young-Jack-Nicholson looks. The fake screen pursuit scene. So much Sam Spade you'd think a dark voice over cuts in anytime.

I kept on seeing it so much as a retro movie that Devon Sawa taking a out a smartphone even sort of disappointed me. Then I found out it was made in 2022. Is it slow, predictable, clumsy even? Maybe. But is it exploitation? I prefer to think Willis enjoyed acting so much that he just wanted to be in.

The ingredients were there, so to say, as the Soof franchise around the frantic cook and her entourage has been quite successful in the Dutch language area.

Again the production values are quite good, some of the country's better actors particpate and the direcion is by famed Eddy Terstall.

Butfor the script. Somewhere along the line a writer or producer probably thought it was a good idea to have Soof now tackle a more serious subject than love interests and family issues. But viewers expectations are not to be fooled around with. The actors look as bewildererd as the audience when events turn for the worst and a fatal disease threatens the restautant idyll and the film's ratings. Where in a comedy lack of character progression isn't much pf a prooblem, it is now.

The only moment of relief comes during a brief escapade in Paris with love interest Dan Karaty. Alas, soon the husband shows up. "You needed at the hospital for treatment" No escape for poor little Soof, it seems. A friend came out of the the cinema all depressed - and that ain't right.

And now for the what if. What if the darker subject would have been the Covid period? We are ready to laugh about the madness of lockdown parties an toiletpaper shortages. Now that would have been a breakthrough!

Julian Slowik is obviously mad. Trust Ralph Fiennes to make him radiate bone-chilling looks. After a life of obsessive cooking perfection, the master chef's anger with his snobbish clients is on the brink of overflowing. A dark brooding atmosphere, supported by Hans Zimmer-style synthesizer sounds, keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. There will be blood, so much is clear.

The question is, who will be sacrificed on this altar of haute cuisine? Is it the overconfident food writer to be served cold for starters? Will a group of arrogant moneymen stifle on a souffle? Or his insufferable male food groupie fan? Slowik himself may be disintegrating in front of his regulars? And while we're at it, why is a wealthy tycoon denying he has seen Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy's refreshingly streetwise Margot Mills before, who wasn't invited in the first place? The scene is set for a revenge movie if ever there was one.

It is a rare film that scores point with an arthouse as well as a mainstream audience but this is a contender. Great ensemble acting as well as action scenes. Nature shots as well as horror moments.

For those critical of food snobs there is social commentary, for the mystery and thriller audience lots of stuff with knives happens. Well-researched with dishes recreated from an actual high-end restaurant and second units shots by an actual food pro, the colourful direction and meticulous pace add to the strong contrast between the fine dining courses and the madness going on in between. Great stuff for all, particularly those with an eye and an ear for dark comedy and a healthy disgust of snobbism. Watch for Peter Grosz's hugely enjoyable supporting role as the intense sommelier.

A totally non-hollywood film with a light touch and a depper theme: artists integrity. A hardly recognidable Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo are visibly having a good time as are the many hip hop and other music types, often playing parodies of themselves. Maybe a bit slow on take-off, but relaxing athmosphere alle the way and great music to be heard, from Steve Wonder to Frank Sinatra.

As Asimov said it: sci-fi and romance don't match. Sci-fi lovers want action, romance lovers want princesses.

So you lose them both. But wait. What a well-executed unusual concept, starting out with an empty spaceship.

And how brilliantly the plot moves out of the dead end after the lovers meet.

So much care was taken of the scene settings, of little extras, of the balance between action and romance, wow-factor SFX and human emotion. Maybe a director from a vast, silent, empty European contry was a good choice to get the atmosphere that makes this a good watch.

The master of Trainspotting and many another realistic drama (or even comedy) fme sets out to create a modern day Hitchcockian thriller and succeeds. Remember Psycho was made on a cut-rate budget focusing on one location with just a few key players. And so here we go, a slightly weird student tyoe, a feisty doctor and a aquare accountant, twnetysomethings leading relatively careless lives in their roomy flat. We know this can't last and it won't. People will die as we move deeper and deeper into a web of lies and treason. Great thriller to spend an evening with, great cutting, some really creepy moments and a satisfying underlying message. Great electronic soundtrack adding tot the modern feel. Go enjoy.

I also read the book, just like the other reviewer, but I'm not from Finland so no self-loathing here. Sure, the production values are primitive, the pacing is slow, the acting is wobbly and the dark edge of the book is missing. But how sweet and innocent a comedy it is. There being so little innocence these days in movies and reality, it reminds of olden days when it was still o.k. to make innocent road movies. Think La Strada, or It happened one night. And you get a look into the Finnish soul for free.

Much is strange about this movie, but not much stranger than the rumours about Elvis Presley himself. Was he an alien sent to entertain us? Was he taken by the CIA because he knew too much? In this film he is both. Strange plots are a cult movie's basis, so why not make a movie of of that? It's more like a group of people got together an pointe out why would play who, but anyway, open up for the weirdness, hje no-budget creativity, the heartfelt moments and the Elvis music and you'll have a trip that keeps you smiling for quite a while.

"It's not the end!!! He 's been reincarnated!!!" Spielberg's Duel meets Texas chainsaw, with a lot of Sergio Leone in the middle. Audience members dying. Actors denying the movies' reality. If you're not used to David Lynch-style challenges, forget it. If you dare watch, you'll experience a clever game played with your expectations. Don't worry, a lot will be explained in the last minutes. There are many reasons. Co watch if you want to be taught a lesson about Hollywood's 'reasons'. Go watch the vulcanised villain, as somebody here called him, come to life and raise hell. Go watch how the audience pays the price for their sensation seeking. Go watch how the evil goes much further than that tire. Co watch how it rages inside you, put there by the Hollywood machine. Go watch. Watch twice. This should be mandatory stuf at film schools. Great production values. Great acting. A film unlike any other. A film you'll never forget. I love this movie. Twin Peaks on the double.

Male a**holes plague writer an columninst Femke. Cybertrolling, insulting, dominating, bullying, hating. Then Femke takes drastic measures. Actress Katja Herbers is great in this movie. With one look she shows us she is taking fateful decisions, maintaining a state of irony all the time. Seemingly innicent scenes get an ominous turn as she confronts her agressors with her being innocent and revengeful at the same time. Great scene settings, and balanced direction. Director Ivo doesn't need nervous camera movements or nervous cutting, actionmovie style, to create Hitchcockian tension. Will the police find out? Check out the scene with the nude guy in the bath. You are a nice guy"? O.k." Splash!!! No country for old men meets First wives club...

Starting out slowly as a buddy movie with James Franco as The Asshole, after 15 minutes it's disaster time, and by the time Emma Watson comes out of the bedroom wielding an axe, we are in full thriller mode. The genre surfing hasn't ended yet: we go through a zombie phase, CGI monsters appear in the best SF yle and by the time Channing Tatum is being kicked around as a sex slave we are in full Italian schlock mode. How all this can end in the Backstreet Boys performing, is for you to find out. The improvisation sometimes leads to a little stoner discussion slowdown, but soon there will be a big boom, a head chopped off, a werewolf devil trying to do unspeakable deeds, or someone who gets eaten. And then there is the great buildup of the scenario, the inevitable moral reckoning of many an actor, and the delightfully loud music score. There seem to be a few people who do not find all this incredibly funny and well done. Well screw them.

What fun must have been had by all, making this modern actors movie with deliberate fifties and eighties elements. And what fun for us viewers. It's always good news a film takes 2 hours and feels shorter watching it. Ana de Armas - now meeting Daniel Craig as add-kicking bond girl, has a lot on her shoulders, playing the vulnerable nurse around whom hateful family member circle as ever so many vultures and lights up the scenes. More action heroes on holiday here: Chris Evans shows he is a character actor, effectively playing the nasty guy. I enjoyed Toni Collette as the hysteric one and Jamie Lee Curtis as Mrs. cool and collected. And what about Don Johnson as a clueless dad... I've read about all Christie's work and so many elements are elegantly used. The mansion, the racketeers, the twisted family histories, even BBC 80's style the title role lettering... it's all there to enjoy I'm not totally convinced of Daniel Craig's southern US accent - but the more the movie develops, the more he becomes a credible mix of Columbo and Hercule Poirot. Great timeless music score too.

A man in a room. Eerie music. Something is going to happen. Who don't know what. Agitistion. Tensien. And then... BANG! The man who broght us Interstellar, Inception, and now Tenet, still a film student then, in a few minutes takes us to a crazy universe. The genius is in the camera movements, the diting, the lighting, the timing, the buildup, the ending. Everything really. Easy to be found on e.g. the openculture site. Let it open your etes for Nolan's genius.

The technique was there. The subjects were ther. But it took a genius to develop the first sf feature film, inventing new cinema on the way. After 118 years, still an entertaining, funny and imaginative film, with effects still used today. Melies had a background in illusionism and it shows. And what about the story: earthmen landing on a strange planet with strange nature forms, visons of alien planets and angelic beings, and fighting it out with aliens in the most spectacular way, leaving the audience impressed and shocked. Does that sound familiar?

Almost, almost crossing the borders of romantic movie conventions, there are some surprising dramatic moments here. Almost, because (without giving away too much spoilers) some of the braver choices made in the book do not come back in the movie, one at the end can even be seen but were edited out at the last moment. Still, some unexpected serious moments between the Asian bling. Because there is bling, lots of it, but it shown mostly as pointless and depraving. Complaining about this is at the level of accusing David Lynch of showing off Hollywood in the LA drama Mulholland Dr. The rich people are almost all shown as total assholes. The ice cold mother and grandmother. The absent father. The cruel girlfriends. The persverse nephew. And do they atm up to NY's Rachel? No way. No sweet reconcilationd here. The most interesting part is how this semi-inspendent, mostly Malaysian, movie came together at all. So what the uneven pacing, mixed-up filming styles, actors seeming to be in different movies (compare the outrageous Awkwafina and Oliver, compared to bland male lead Henry Golding, and aggressive Constance Wu, at times qualifing for the succession of Daniel Craig as James Bond. Still, a different (non-Hollywood!) romcom, worth a watch. The innocence of all that sometimes reminds the viewer of India's cinema.

The sheer gutzpah of a young film maker to leave The Monster out of amonster movie for over an hour. Captain Robert Shaw in the role of his life. The camera angles and settings. The innocnce of the 'let's go swimming' girl. Littel Michael. The male bonding. Roy Scheider going from stuffed-up bored Nerw York to madly laughing shark hunter. The colours. Watch 45 year later and think: basically three men in a boat. No CGI. No explosions (well, one relatively smal one). No masks, capes, spaceships, no timeline trickery. Made for a budget lower than the catering bill of Titanic. And still: edge of your seat stuff. A two hour cinema masterclass. Spielberg is Hitchcock's heir.

Funny robots come to the aid of a group of sweet simple characters in 80s New York. Anyone who likes Spielberg-style movies ad he made them before big money and CGI kicked in should see this one. Great family movie. Deeper values (greed is bad, love can be found in ugly places) included . Great shots and continuity as only Spielberg can. And it had Jessica Tandy and Hugh Cronyn, Hollywood royalty couple, enjoying themselves visibly and bringing a nostalgic feel. Also Frank McRae excells as the desperate hunk finding new meaning. Nice 40s-style music score. Heartwarming indee. A time capsule too, from the time NY was a very messy place.

Seth and friends come a long way towards making a sound little buddy movie. This must have been one Rogen wanted to make for a long time - probably as much as Barbra Streisand wanted to make her own identity movie, which is referred to in an end title scene. No cheap laughs, and no big effects here, but a double identity that really needs developing, and some finetuned humourous comments on today's society. The Jewish cementery is now under a higheay bridge, the romantic lake now looks out to an ominously rumbling nuclear facility... 21st Century Ben Greenbaum is a man unconnected to family or values, 19th century Herschel teaches him a few lessons. The scenes in the ghetto are slightly awkward, since Sacha Baron Cohen's exploitations, but no cynicism here. Somewhere in the middle developments become a little predicable, and it is a pity that a big plot movement, speeding up the scenario (no spoilers here) happens so late in the film. Some things I didn't get: how can Ben survive for 5 years in New York on no income? How can a 19th centuty man fly to Schlupsk without assistance? But all and good, we had to suspend our disbelief anyway, seeing a guy survive 100 years in pickle brine...