L'Immortel (22 Bullets)

Just give me a film with Jean Reno and I will be entertained. Any film with him will do. L'Immortel is no exception. It also features Kad Merad (of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis fame), which is a bonus.

The film starts with Jean Reno (character name: Charly), retired mafia-esque bad guy, visiting his mother with his small son in tow. On their way home to Marseille, they sing along to opera arias and the little boy is let out of the car to watch a street performance (featuring a dancing goat) while daddy drives off to find a parking space. It's a good thing the boy was not in the car, as it turns out. As he exits the car, a group of heavily armed (rival?) gangsters stop their vehicle in front of him, unloading their collected gun into him. Charly breaks down, bleeding, his body riddled with 22 bullets (hence, the English title). Miraculously, he survives (hence, the French title). This, of course, requires revenge.

Before Charly goes on his killing spree, however, he loses one close associate, which is what really tips the scale. Shortly after the funeral, Charly walks into a birthday celebration of the murderous group and announces that he will come for them. But instead of killing them all then and there, he promises to come for them one by one, when they least expect it. He is there to kill the birthday boy, only. His plan and announcement to spread the revenge out makes for a better premise for the film. Without it, there might not even be a film.

And then the violence commences. There are shootouts, assassination attempts, betrayal, car and motorcycle chases, hiding family members and the desperate police force trying to solve the initial attack on Charly as well as figuring out what the hell else is going on.

And to not belie the title, Charly survives again and again situations that would have killed off a lesser man.

Works for me.

6/10

Thorne: Sleepyhead

British TV crime dramas focusing on the police side of things usually feature a damaged lead character. The damaged one in this is the Thorne in the title. 

Tom Thorne that is, who carries a secret from a previous case, shared with only one other person on the force. In the disappearance of several women in their 20's who later turn up dead or, in one essential case, alive but suffering from locked-in syndrome. Details from the previous case - a man that killed gay boys, then his three daughters - keep popping up and putting additional strain on Thorne and his working relationship with other law enforcement officers.

Obviously, as there is only one other person who knows what Tom did, he looks like he would be involved in the current case. To what extent he actually is a participant in what is happening is not clear (obviously, it will be clear in the end).

As many other British TV dramas, this is very very good. It appears that the best stuff the Brits produce they actually make for TV rather than the big screen. Seriously, they make shows in the quality of Luther, Broken Mirror, Sherlock on a regular basis, while their more popular movies are overly sentimental and drawn out. My opinion only, obviously.

The cast is fantastic, featuring David Morrisey as Tom Thorne (The Walking Dead's Governor), Aidan Gillen (Game of Throne's Littlefinger) and Eddie Marsan (one of Ray Donovan's brothers) as well as many excellent bit players.

There is another Thorne episode, called Scaredycat, soon to be watched by me.

8/10

The Crazies

I have seen The Crazies before. I have also seen the original version of the film before. The earlier one was made in 1973 and sports all the craziness one would expect from a horror flick made by George A. Romero. The kung fu was probably the most ridiculous bit.

I much prefer the new version, for several reasons. Firstly, there is no kung fu in this. The lead is played by Timothy Olyphant, who is very easy on the eyes. And the new version is set in Iowa. Why they would change the setting from Pennsylvania in the original to Iowa in the remake I do not know.

The disaster is caused by a combination of accident and government involvement. A plane transporting a bio-weapon goes down in a body of water that supplies the county with drinking water. Very unfortunate. Not only does the water now turn the locals into the crazies in the title within a 48 hour incubation period, but the government also tries to contain not only the virus (for lack of a better word) and the information that this ever happened. The latter, of course, means that everyone - healthy or sick - has to be terminated.

The ones walking away are the local sheriff and his pregnant wife, who walk, run and fight they way out of the military controlled (or the lack of it) area. The last thing they see of their former home is a mushroom cloud. But this being the naughties, the will only end up in the next contamination area.

No revelation, to be sure, but good fun for an hour and a half.

6/10

All Good Things

If you need prove that real life is more exciting than fiction, here it is.

This is also the story of Robert Durst. Andrew Jarecki, the documentarian that interviewed Durst for The Jinx, also made this film. Actually, this film is what set everything in motion. Durst was arrogant enough to contact Jarecki and offered to tell his side of the story. As we all know now, this got him in all sorts of trouble. Again.

The film tells a fictionalized account of, mainly but not only, the disappearance of Durst's wife. Here the couple is called David and Katherine Marks and all the other names have been changed, as well. But if you watch The Jinx you can clearly see that this was pretty much all that has been changed.

The film is solid and entertaining, but whereas the incoherent story telling of the latter telling of the events works well enough, here it just feels like it is jerking you in and out of the story. The Galveston events have been thrown in in little chunks, at seemingly random intervals.

Now, I have watched the two versions of events in reversed order and went into viewing All Good Things knowing what happened when and where things headed. This may have helped me with wrapping my head around the narrative. Especially since the murder and subsequent trial in Galveston, TX, were only skimmed over. I feel that this should have gotten more attention, seeing that the trial was what the film was actually anchored in.

The acting, from everyone involved, was very good. I am not usually a fan of Kirsten Dunst, but in here I liked her a lot. Ryan Gosling holds his own in a film that does not rely on his good looks, which is also nice to see (though not as nice as Ryan Gosling at this sexiest *sigh*).

Decent.

6/10

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

One of the most hilarious horror comedies in, like, ever.

Tucker and Dale go into the woods in the Appalachian Mountains to fix up Tucker's newly acquired "vacation home" aka cabin in the woods. At the same time, nearby, a group of college kids are camping.

After a short encounter in a small store, they run into each other again. The college kids go skinny dipping while the two country boys are fishing. One of the kids, Allison slips and falls into the water, hitting her head. Tucker and Dale come to her rescue and as they pull her into their boat, they are immediately mistaken for psycho killers by the rest of Allison's group. Leaving messages like "we got ur friend" carved into a log with an ax are not helping the communication difficulties.

What transpires then are a string of very creative accidental deaths by the college idiots as they try to "rescue" their friend from the psychos in the cabin. They run into pointy branches, fall on their homemade spears, jump headfirst into a wood chipper (and Tuckers asking the bottom half of the kid, "are you okay?"), shoot themselves in the face and so on.

It is awesome.

Also, Tucker and Dale are perfectly cast, played by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine.

9/10

Legion

Archangel Michael has a six pack and he is bad-ass. He knows martial arts and can handle all kinds of weaponry.

Don't believe me? Just watch Legion and you will see.

Archangel Gabriel is also kind of bad-ass and I am pretty sure that he has a six pack underneath all that armor, as well. Alas, we never get to see him shirtless.

But back to Michael, who has fallen (jumped?) from heaven because there is one task God asked of him that he is not comfortable with. You see, unlike the Lord, Michael has not lost faith in humanity and would rather save a baby than kill it. Yes, this here God is a vengeful one.

The setting for most of the film is a diner in the middle of nowhere (from the proximity to LA I would guess in the Nevada desert). The people inside get there first taste of the pending apocalypse when a little old lady comes in ordering steak that is practically raw. Then she tells the waitress that her soon-to-be-born baby (the one Gabriel is sent to kill) will 'burn', insults another customer (for constantly complaining) and bites the husband defending his wife's honor in the neck.

Shortly after, Michael comes, arms everyone and they all defend the diner. Or actually, Charlie, the soon-to-be-mother-of-the-coming-savior. There is some religious talk and lots of gunfire against the swarms of possessed (?) people surrounding the diner. It's like Feast, but without the humor and with a prettier cast.

Then, after the baby is born, there is one epic bar fight between Michael and Gabriel. The latter has the advantage of his armor and the wings, that appear to be sort of like an extra shield and kills his ex-colleague. But instead of dying like 'one of them' he dissolves into ashes and light to return a bit later, having earned his wings back and defeats Gabriel...but does not kill him.

So full of pathos and religious mumbo-jumbo but oh so awesome.

And did I mention Michael's six pack?

7/10

Nokas

The film retells the NOKAS robbery, the biggest ever heist in Norway, in which a group of 11 heavily armed robbers stole a total of 57 million kroner, of which 51 have never been recovered.

The story is almost too weird to have happened in the way depicted. The plan was for the robbers to break down a window into the ground floor of the bank at a time the safe would have already been opened. Failing that, there should be enough hostages inside to force someone to open it. If everything would have gone according to plan they would have been out with the money in under 10 minutes. This alone does not a good heist movie make.

They figured that, as the building had been built in the 1960's, it would not have bullet proof glass and the windows should shatter immediately. This is where they were wrong and it considerably slowed them down. It took a sledgehammer, a battering ram and 113 shots to finally break into the building - giving the employees enough time to get out.

The plan also included a scheme to slow down the local police force from responding. They were already low on numbers as it were, with several officers on Easter holiday. The robbers blocked the police garage with a truck they then set on fire, virtually locking in most of the police working that day. This would have been a brilliant move were it not for the fact that the material they used as fodder for the fire is what got them convicted as it contained DNA from most of the robbers.

The only readily available law enforcement officers were a duo that were already out on an unrelated call. They ended up facing off with the robbers stationed outside the bank. With next to no personnel available, there was nobody there to rope off the area and people strolled by between the bank, the armed robbers and the police - people walking dogs, joggers, women with strollers. Even after shorts were fired (many, many shots), there was still a lot of foot traffic.

Also, the city buses came by right on schedule. There is a scene when all drivers of the buses are alerted of the robbery and gunfire at Church Square. One driver calls in to say that this is his route's starting point and asked what he should do. Dispatch told him to just go there and ask the policemen on site. WTF?

The film ends after the robbers drive off with the loot. What happened after is detailed in insert cards.

This was really quite brilliant.

8/10

Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceaușescu (The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu)

This takes some getting used to.

Contrary to 'normal' approaches to documentaries, this one does not comment. Anything. The film consists of a series of news clips, some without any sound at all, detailing 25 years in the career of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania's last Communist leader.

In the year of revolutions 1989, Romania was the only country of the Warsaw Pact in which the demonstrations against the regime turned bloody. Nicolae Ceaușescu grossly misjudged his people's mood, giving one last rousing speech from his balcony. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife Elena (also, his Deputy Prime Minister) fled the capitol with a helicopter. The police had turned against them, as well, refusing to follow his instructions to shoot demonstrators in the town of  Timișoara. Instead, the picked up the Ceaușescus and put them on trial. Despite Ceaușescu's refusal to accept the court's authority, after all - he insisted - he is their president and only the National Committee can try him.

The footage follows the timeline from the death of his predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, until the death of Ceaușescu himself. Clips of mass gatherings celebrating the leaders of Romania alternate with speeches. What changes most significantly over the course of time is the rhetoric.

Despite the lack of commentary and judgement on the filmmaker's part, the point is put across quite well, leaving the audience to make their own judgement.

Impressive.

7/10

Burning Bright

Things I learned from watching Burning Bright.

(1) Buying a tiger as a private citizen in the US is a piece of cake. It requires barely any paper work.

(2) If you tell you college aged stepdaughter that her mother did not leave a will and conveniently forget to mention the life insurance policy that leaves money to the stepdaughter and stepson, she will take that at face value and never suspect you to do something so ridiculous as lie to her. Never mind that you just cleared out her bank account.

(3) A boy that yells out things like "No red!" and "Eat! Now!"at random makes for a realistic portrait of a child with autism. Holding your flat hand in front of his face will always calm him down.

(4) A young woman with a crowbar will tear a hole into a wall quicker than a tiger can tear down a flimsy cupboard door.

(5) If you plan on killing you stepchildren by setting a tiger free inside your boarded up house, maybe you should think about taking the gun with you when you go to hang out in the local bar.

(6) Making someone have to look for their cell will add additional excitement to any film.

(7) Hiding in a big freezer is a great idea.

(8) When you return home from your night at the bar to hopefully find your would be victims dead, don't just walk inside without first checking where the tiger is.

(9) The fact that you use a reference to a William Blake poem as a title will probably be lost on your target audience.

2/10

Percy Jackson 1+2

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Young, regular teenager Percy Jackson finds himself in the middle of a sticky situation. On the one hand he gets attacked by a monster that used to be his substitute English teacher and on the other hand his best friend turns out to be a Satyr, whose job it is to protect Percy and his mother. He learns that he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon.

The trouble is that Zeus' lightning bolt was stolen and the rumor is that half-blood Percy is accused of being the thief. To keep him safe, he is transported to a camp for half-bloods. But then Hades kidnaps his mother and to safe her and prevent a war of the Gods, Percy and his two sidekicks have to go to the underworld to free Percy's mother, retrieve the lightning bolt and return it to Zeus in time for the summer solstice.

The real thief turns out to be Luke, son of Hermes, who is convinced that the time of the old Gods is over and they should just go ahead and kill each other to clear the way for the next generation. Good prevails, of course, and a new hero for many films to come is born.

Was actually funnier than I expected it to be.

6/10


Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

In this second installment in the Percy Jackson franchise, the perimeter protecting Camp Half-Blood is shattered because the tree controlling/protecting is dying. The flashback tells us that the tree grew in memory of Zeus' daughter Thalia, who died protecting her friends right before reaching the safety of the camp. To save her/it and keep the half-bloods secure, someone needs to go and get the Golden Fleece, that has healing powers.

Über-achiever Clarisse gets the job, but Percy and his posse start their own quest for the Fleece because of some prophecy that says that the offspring of one of the brothers Zeus, Poseidon and Hades will either save or destroy the Gods. The trio has now become a foursome because Poseidon also had another son who is a Zyclops.

The culprit, once again, is Luke. He is still out to destroy the Gods and with the Golden Fleece he hopes to bring back to life Cronos, who had once been destroyed by his three sons. There is a big battle with the re-animated Cronos and after he is once again in pieces, the half-bloods return to the camp and let Clarisse have all the glory.

The Fleece turns out to be so powerful that not only does it heal the tree, it actually brings Thalia back to life. The film ends with a voice over by Percy wondering if the prophecy meant his spawn of the trio of brothers rather than him....part three is set, then.

6/10

The Ward

Kristen is put into a mental facility after she burned down a farm house and can't quite remember doing it or why she did it.

She shares the ward with a handful of other young women who are different kinds of crazy. Collectively they are being haunted by one Alice Hudson, who appears to be a ghost or apparition. Alice kills off the girls one by one while the remaining few try to get away from the hospital.

In the end, Kirsten slays the ghost (with an axe, you know....like you do) only to learn that she was all the inmates all along. She came in as Alice and to deal with a childhood trauma she developed multiple personalities.

The whole thing was kind of meh! and the conclusion is stupid if you want my opinion.

3/10

Ollie Klublershturf vs. the Nazis

Gulliver's Travels

This film had me worried that Jack Black might go the way of Adam Sandler - appearing in films of constantly declining quality. He seems to have found his footing again (recently starring in the promising looking Bernie, which I will report on as soon as I have seen it), but Gulliver's Travels was one of his low points.

It starts off with Gulliver, who works in the mail room of a newspaper in NYC and is in love with the travel writer Darcy, handing in a sample of his 'writing'. Of course, he copied everything out of various guide books and websites. Anyway, he gets immediately sent off to a three week boat trip to Bermuda. And I mean immediately.

The infamous Bermuda Triangle takes you straight to Lilliput, apparently. There, being bigger than anyone else and coming from a (at least technically) more advanced society, he tells tall tales and beats off the villainous armada that repeatedly tries to kidnap the princess to become a lauded hero. He proceeds to behave like a giant tool and recreates time square plastered with billboards of himself (among other ridiculous, non-funny feats).

Of course, the guy the princess is supposed to marry does not buy a word Gulliver says (there is always that one non-believer in a comedy, isn't there). He goes over to the dark side and ends up blowing Gulliver's web of lies. Subsequently he gets shipped off to some mysterious, scary place, where he himself is suddenly the small person.

When Darcy - pissed off at having to do the Bermuda assignment herself now, despite her seasickness - is captured by the evil forces now running Lilliput, Gulliver's only friend comes to get him back and together they save kind and country.

Lame and painfully void of humor, which is doubly shameful as a shitload of money obviously went into this project.

<sad-headshake>

2/10

Submarine

Life is difficult for Oliver Tate.

He needs to get a girlfriend to lose his virginity to, preferably his schoolmate Jordana, while at the same time trying to resurrect his parent's marriage, that appears to be in shambles. His mother's former 'friend' Graham (Paddy Considine with one of the worst mullets in recent history) moved in next door.

Oliver himself moves through life in insecurity and wide-eyed desperation. He gets Jordana, but having a girlfriend brings a lot of complications with it, for one her family including a mother sick with cancer and a dead dog. His covert operations to keep his parent's marriage intact don't seem to do a lot of good either. Eventually, however, some things sort themselves out.

It's weird and dorky and very funny. I love this!

Great soundtrack, too!

8/10

Small Town Murder Songs

In a small Mennonite farming town a murder occurs. Local policeman Walter, whose violent past is no secret to the community, is one of the people working the case. The suspect is his ex-girlfriend's new lover and over the course of the investigation, Walter struggles to keep his newly found composure.

The film is not so much about who killed the girl - with only one suspect and a witness putting him in the same location with the victim the night of the murder - but more about everyone's, especially Walter's, reaction to the tragedy that has befallen this quiet town.

Peter Storemare in the lead role is absolutely wonderful. The film's look borrows from the Coen brothers. The story, however, has all the dark of a Coen mystery without any comic relief. And the soundtrack is absolutely wonderful (never heard of Bruce Peninsula before, but went right onto iTunes to download the album).

I like this a lot.

8/10

All About Evil

Slasher film of the worst kind. And by worst, I obviously mean awesome.

Librarian Debbie runs the movie theater her late father left her. When her evil mother (formerly playing the Wicked Witch in a Wizard of Oz themed matinee) wants her to co-sign a sale contract, Debbie snaps and kills her.

The security camera in the lobby has captured the entire encounter and as she panics and accidentally plays it back to the audience instead of the actual film that was supposed to screen, it becomes an instant hit and Debbie is henceforth celebrated as a heroine filmmaker.

She proceeds to produce a string of horror shorts, assisted by a group of misfits, that play to increasing success in her own theater. Obviously, Debbie - now going by Deborah Tennis - eventually dies a gruesome b-horror-movie death.

Funny/ridiculous film that makes fun of itself and the b-horror genre as it produces rivers of fake blood.

6/10

Tángshān Dàdìzhèn (Aftershock)

The film Tángshān Dàdìzhèn tells the story of one family torn apart by what was the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century.

It starts with the Great Tangshan Earthquake of July 28, 1976. The twins Fang Deng (a girl) and Fang Da (a boy) are trapped underneath a large concrete slab, that is settled in such an unfortunate way that lifting one side to save one of the children will almost certainly kill the other. The mother, Yuan Ni, who has already lost her husband in the disaster, is pressured by the rescue team to make a decision on which child to save. When she refuses and the rescue team is about to move on to help someone else, she asks them to save the boy. She takes her injured son to a military base to get medical help, thinking her daughter dead. Fang Deng wakes up beside her father's body and in the chaos of the aftermath, gets placed in a childrens' home, from which she gets adopted by her foster parents.

The biggest part of the film follows the parallel story of mother and daughter. One refusing to leave the town and repeatedly telling her deceased husband and thought-dead daughter the directions to her new house in Tanshan, the other pretending not to remember anything about the earthquake and her family, when in reality she cannot forget (or forgive) hearing her mother chose her twin brother's life over hers.

What follows are the ups and downs of everyday life lived in different towns and different cicumstances. Over the course of the next 32 years, both twins have children - giving them the same name, Dian Dian. Fang Deng eventually marries a 'foreigner' and moves to Vancouver. She only returns in 2008 when another devastating earthquake hits China and she works on what is called the Tangshan Rescue Team, where she meets her long lost brother again. Mother and daughter get reunited and the film ends with the family visiting the (empty) graves of father and daughter.

A very sad film, dedicated to the survivers of the Great Earthquake. For all the devastation depicted, it carries itself with dignity and never gorges on the blood and bodies of the victims.

The only irritating thing is that the actor playing the Canadian husband is very bad and stands out among a cast delivering stellar performances.

8/10

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Nothing is as heartwarming around Christmas time as a tale involving a small community, a group of children and the real Santa Claus. Santa Claus is, of course, a monster that does not reward the good kids but punishes the bad ones.

When Santa is excavated in some mountain area in Lapland, reindeer (and the excavation team) get killed and children disappear. This courtesy of Santa's Little Helpers, who look slightly scary.

A group of locals first try to extort money from the man who originally paid for the up-digging but once they realize that the man in custody is not actually Santa himself and, well, their kids are gone, they decide to take action. Santa is still frozen inside a huge block of ice and all the radiators his minions have stolen are simply not fast enough to unfreeze him before the men put the plan devised by the one left child into action.

The young boy plays bait and (together with a cargo made up from all the other, recently discovered, children of the town) lures Santa's Little Helpers away from the shed the block of ice is stored in. While they are well away from any danger, Santa gets blown to bits. His Little Helpers get retrained over the next year and are exported to serve as traditional Santa Clauses all over the world.

Christmas is saved!

6/10

The Trip

You will probably get more out of this film if you know the two lead actors. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play themselves on a food tasting trip together for The Observer.

Whereas Coogan has appeared in international productions, Brydon is probably not as widely known, internationally, I think.

I am a fan of the show QI, on which Brydon is a regular, so I was familiar with him before watching this. I very much like his "little man in a box" voice (it does turn up in the film).

Basically, this is about two comedians in their 40s who are critizising each other's work while trying to get through a string of meals and occasionally getting on each other's nerves. It features a lot of impressions (Michael Caine) and made up conversations (the "To bed! We shall leave at daybreak!" bit in the car is quite funny) as well as occasional singing.

Small road trip film that I enjoyed a lot.

6/10 

Forget Me Not

Will, a musician, is on the verge of killing himself when he sees from his window that Eve, who works in the bar where he just played a gig, has trouble with a drunk guy. He abandons his plan for the time being to come for her rescue.

They eventually spend the entire night and most of the following day walking over London and slowly getting to know each other. Will, however, does not want to become too involved and Eve cannot quite figure out what his deal is.

The pace of the story is similar to that of Before Sunrise - two people that by chance spend the night in each other's company, but with a very different ending from the Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy trip through nightly Vienna.

I watched this mostly because I think Tobias Menzies is hot and didn't know what to expect from it.

Turns out this is one of the saddest films I have ever seen.

7/10