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27.10.06

Late reviews: Ikiru 生きる, Lord of War and The Twilight Samurai たそがれ清兵衛

Damn it's been so long I have forgotton about these films:

Ikiru – 1952
An absolutely beautiful and thoughtful Japanese film by the acclaimed Akira Kurosawa. A man finds out he is dying of cancer and seeks to bring meaning to his life, after working so long as a dull bureaucrat (agggh such a horrid word to spell!) for the city hall. Anyone who loves film should see/have seen this masterpiece. Sadly there are rumours of a remake, but this film should be left alone. However, I have to accept a remake may will more people to watch the original which can only be a good thing. 9/10
The Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei) – 2002
Set in mid-1800s Japan shortly before the Meiji Restoration. It's about a low-ranking samurai widower, Seibei performed by Hiroyuki Sanada MBE, who struggles to look after his two young daughters and his senile mother. He barely has time to wash himself, as he also takes on a second job making small bird cages to sell. One day a woman from Seibei's past returns, Tomoe and she brings a new happiness to his family, but also some troubles. A brilliant and moving drama. 9/10 Sorry I'm bias... I adore Japanese film. Hiroyuki Sanada played Ujio in The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise.
Lord of War –2005
The main character of this film is Ukrainian immigrant to America Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage). We follow his arms selling career and how this affects those close to him. He starts off selling to local gang members and finally ends up dealing worldwide especially to a rather nasty African Warlord. Constantly on his tail desperatly trying to get some solid evidence is Interpol Agent Jack Valentine. Valentine will come to accept a harsh truth.
This film has a brilliant but shocking start sequence. It also stars Ian Holm, Jared Leto as Yuri's brother and Ethan Hawke as Detective Valentine all giving solid performances. 8/10

Madagascar

Madagascar – 2005
A silly, fun but pretty average family movie. The main characters are spoiled New York Central Park zoo animals (lion, zebra, giraffe and a hippo) that due to a series of events end up in the wild for the first time; the wilds of Madagascar. Alex the lion is voiced by Ben Stiller and Marty the zebra by Chris Rock. Soon Alex's wild instincts emerge outside captivity and he starts to see his best pal Marty as potential food. The island's lemur population want's to take advantage of these new big animals to protect them against the carnivorous fossa. But, can they trust this lion beast. Anyway, tis' amusing stuff, but nothing here is really fantastic. 5/10

22.10.06

Jungdok (Addicted)

Jungdok – 2002
This South Korean film is so slow, and feels a bit like a TV soap drama. It's not a bad film by any means. It's about two very different but close brothers: Dai-jin who loves racing cars and Ho-jin, a talented carpenter and cook. Ho-jin is married to Eun-su, and Dai-jin lives with them. Life seems good until both brothers are involved in horrific car crashes in different places at the same time. Both end up in comas. One year later Dai-jin awakens and upon his return to home with Eun-su he starts acting like Ho-jin and gains Ho-jin's skills, who remains in a deep coma. It then becomes clear that he believes he is Ho-jin, much to Eun-su`'s confusion and pain. Could this be possession? Is Ho-jin controlling Dai-jin from his comatose state? With time and quite some effort Eun-su is convinced Ho-jin is inside Dai-jin's body and their deep love can return leading to a very tame sex scene. The end of the film is really quite emotional, if you stay awake, but stuff does not add up entirely and so I cannot say this film is anywhere near great, but it's alright. Maybe one for the video game avoiding sex. 5.5/10

21.10.06

Bruce Almighty

Bruce Almighty – 2003
Ahhh it's pretty funny mostly. Sometimes it's not. Canadian Jim Carrey plays Bruce a local news reporter. After a wretched day where everything goes wrong for him Bruce, taken by rage, has a big rant to God. God responds and decides to take a vacation, leaving his powers with Bruce to allow Bruce to relaise how freekin hard a job it is to be God. At first Bruce has himself a time playing with these divine powers to greatly benefit himself. He gets that promotion he always wanted. However, soon he comes to realise that it ain't all that simple. You can't just please everyone.
It's a fun light-hearted film (well the ending gets perhaps too soppy). Carrey is fantastic at times, but annoying at other times.
Jennifer Aniston plays Bruce's girlfriend Grace. Aniston is, in my opinion, one of the most plain and least talented big American actresses out there. She always acts the same. She adds very little to this film. Morgan Freeman is charming as ever playing God. It's worth a look. 5.5/10

15.10.06

The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly effect – 2004
I love fucked up dark films! This one keeps your interest from the very start and keeps you thinking to the end. It's a very well thought out film with a fair few surprises.
Young Evan Treborn keeps getting blackouts followed by utter confusion. Something always bad happens during these blackouts; it seems he blocks really bad stuff out. His mum is aware of these complete moments of no memory, but there is no explanation available. By the time Evan is at university it has been 7 years since his last blackout. The blackouts have gone. However, one night when he reads over his journals he has kept writing for so long the missing bits of memory suddenly hit him hard. Soon he discovers he is actually travelling back in time and can alter what really happened during these awful stand out moments in his life. Changing one little thing turns out to have immense effects on the significants around him, and he comes back to a different life. It seems if he helps one friend, another suffers instead.
The characters are brilliant. Ashton Kutcher takes the lead surprisingly well. I did not expect this from him. The dude looks great for this role and does it well. Others notables include Amy Smart (Road Trip, Rat Race) as Kayleigh; William Lee Scott as Tommy and Eldon Henson as Lenny. The child parts of these characters are perfectly cast too with some fine acting. I really enjoyed this film. 8.5/10

13.10.06

Basic Instinct 2

Basic Instinct 2 – 2006
This film was soooo boring, with a sketchy and unbelievable plot, and you don't even get to see Stone's pubic region at all. Massive reduction in nudity compared to the original (in fact, it does not need an 18 certificate). The few sex scenes are too short. Basic Instinct was a sexy film which you could happily watch with your partner. Not porn or arty, like 9 Songs... just an erotic film and a thriller with some reasonable acting. It was good. Basic Instinct 2 is rubbish. This time it's set in London and the main male victim is Dr Michael Glass (the tall David Morrissey), a psychiatrist who works on and falls prey to Stone's character, the manipulative Catherine Tramell, suspected of murdering a popular football player.
London is looking good and extremely modern, but very fake. Stone's aggressive sexy acting attempts do not carry the same power she flaunted in the original. Just does not seem right. None of the other actors stand out, with the exception of David Thewlis (Detective Washburn). 2/10

7.10.06

Steamboy (Suchîmubôi)

Steamboy – 2004
This anime (8 years in production) was created by Katsuhiro Ootomo responsible for the brilliant Akira. And if you have seen Akira (9/10) then you will recognise many ideas are recycled into this new film. This film is rich in detail, like Akira. It involves much destruction like Akira – only this time it is London receiving a good pounding rather than Neo-Tokyo. TetssssuuuoooOOOOOOOOOO. Sorry. Like Akira, the story involves powerful weapons; in Steamboy we have great complex machines powered by steam, rather than mass pulsating organic matter. This film is so full of ideas that it seems like too much is crammed into it, like Akira (ya need to read the manga to fully appreciate Akira).
It's set in mid-1850s and the story concerns an extremely powerful invention called a steam ball which can provide immense energy. James Steam is asked to protect the ball by his grandfather, Dr Lloyd, because naturally others will want this device; the bad guys in this film are in fact arms manufacturers and want the ball to further their own greed. James's father Eddie has changed somewhat and joined the bad guys.
Patrick Stewart voices Lloyd with other famous folk like Alfred Molina (Eddie) and X-men's Anna Paquin (James). The English dubbing is pretty damned good for a change. Though I suspect the Japanese still sounds better; especially dramatic shouting, always good.
I can't say the story is amazing, but still the movie is a joy to behold. You will realise soon enough how much effort was squeezed into this film. A great job. 7.5/10

6.10.06

V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta – 2006
This story is set in the future in a fascist Great Britain. V is a Guy Fawkes-wannabe terrorist or freedom fighter who seeks to bring down the totalitarion Government; he is played by Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith and Elrond in other well-known blockbusters). Natalie Portman takes the role of the pretty Evey who is rescued from a nasty situation by V and eventually becomes heavily involved with V's plans which include blowing up important buildings and killing some cops and important blokes. Evey learns much about herself and V's unusual backgrounds. We also have Detective Finch who also seeks the truth behind this mysterious V troublemaker and starts the doubt the world around him blah blah (this Finch character is so freekin dull). He is played by the Irish actor Stephen Rie. John Hurt plays the tyrannical Chancellor Adam to a high standard as to be expected. The wonderful Stephen Fry supports.
The character V is interesting to watch and the combat scenes with him are indeed cool. There is a fun moment when you see up Evey's skirt = delightful. As for the whole story, I was not that impressed. Maybe it's better if you read/care about the original comics. I can't really explain why this film did not grab me. I really have seen so much better. I don't think it was worth Natalie having her head shaven; she looks amazing with long flowing hair. The Wachowski brothers were involved considerably and I know very well how much bollocks spurts from their 'creative' minds. 4/10
Despite it being shit it seems to have quite the following.

1.10.06

Narc

Narc – 2002
A gritty and angry film with some amazing acting. Violent, with a tinge of sadness through the eyes of hard men. This has to be in my top ten. 9/10
More detailed review to follow.

Untergang, Der (Downfall)

Downfall – 2004
A brilliant German film of der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler's final moments. April 1945, Germany faces inevitable defeat. Hitler is not well and still convinced the war can be won, calling on armies of reserves that simply no longer exist in a working state and talking of bringing back the powerful Luftwaffe (pretty much obliterated by April 1945). He orders his closest generals and political aides to fight to the very last man. We see him appear to give up on Germany, calling his own people weak and thinking what could have been; what great plans he thought he had. Those closest to him do not want to live in a world without National Socialism and without him, and so they kill themselves. Some of his officers are fanatically devoted to him like Joseph Goebbels, others betray him like the powerful and initially most loyal Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer and Goring. Some are lost and unsure as to what can be done. Some simply turn to alcohol. The actors who play the various officers resemble the real people (check out the photos on wikipedia) so they clearly went to some effort with the casting in this film.
It's a fascinating movie and possibly the only accurate (as possible) telling of what happened in that bunker.
The film realises the war outside the bunker too with effective scenes of fighting in Berlin, where we see brainwashed German children taking up arms and destroying Russian tanks. We see make-shift hospitals full of the wounded and dying.
You may even feel sorry for the Nazi leader especially the scene where he has his beloved dog killed before he himself commits suicide with Eva Braun. Hitler was a great lover of animals, a vegetarian and hated smoking. This film shows the softer side to Hitler (this angered some critics who took it for an attempt to humanise Hitler), but mostly we see the extreme anger and paranoia. Once Hitler is dead the film continues on a while longer to show how the others close to him deal with the defeat and surrender.
Swiss Bruno Ganz plays Hitler in a quite stunning and fascinating performance. The other key character is Traudl Junge played by the pretty Alexandra Maria Lara. Junge was Hitler's last PA and was quite close to him and she appears in the film at the start and finish and takes some of the writing credit. A must see film. 9/10

Severance

Severance – 2006
A group of workers from a big defence company are sent to Eastern Europe for one of those silly team building weekends. This is a British-made comedy horror involving a bunch of mad and heavily armed killers running around a dense Hungary forest bent on killing our odd bunch of workers. There are certainly some laugh out loud moments, but the first 30 minutes are pretty lame. Sometimes it leaves the comedy arena altogether as the tension and violence mounts, with a sudden and amusingly simple ending. What I very much liked was the American girl (Laura Harris from 24) who makes sure the finally disabled madman is dead by blowing his brains out, or whatever method comes to hand, to make sure he ain't returning. And this is turned into great humour as a good kick to those stupid horror films like Wolf Creek where our main character is so crazed with fear they fail to make sure the big bad guy is actually freekin dead.
The characters are okay and I do recommend it, but don't go out of your way to see this one. It's not brilliant, but it certainly has its worthwhile moments. 5.5/10

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