Jurassic Park

On paper, this should not be my kind of film. It falls into the adventure category, it was made for the masses, it features dinosaurs and it is from the 1990's (read: dated, but not in a cool 1970's way). Yes, it took me until today to watch it...because I wasn't really interested before. But this is one of those films that everybody has to see at some point, I guess.

And...

It is awesome!

This seriously kept me on the edge of my seat and had me watch with open mouth, especially during the very first dinosaur attack, when the car with the kids inside gets pushed around.

Now, as this is a Steven Spielberg film, it is of course obvious that all the characters we care about will make it out alive. Even that knowledge that not let me become ambivalent about what I was watching. It is just exciting the entire time. I guess that is all one can ask from an adventure blockbuster.

With a big name director come some big name actors. Sam Neill (who was huge at the time), Jeff Goldblum (always a good choice), Laura Dern, the late Richard Attenborough and a chain smoking Samuel L. Jackson.

Why, oh why did I wait so long to watch this?

9/10

A Lonely Place to Die

I didn't read up on what this film was about. So at first glance, it looked like a climbing movie (*snore*). What with the title and all, I expected an accident that would leave one climber alone stuck somewhere on a mountain range.

Luckily, this is not what happens.

A group of mountaineers (five to begin with) are out in the Scottish highlands when they stumble upon a little girl that has been kidnapped and kept inside a box underground. They take the girl with them and while a couple head off to take a precarious but short route to the nearest hamlet, the others go off with the girl. Unfortunately for all, the kidnappers are already hot on their heals and have no qualms about killing them off one by one. And this they do.

The kidnappers apparently have been in the business of abducting young children from out of state and making millions off of their parents. Here they are about to meet with a negotiator speaking for the girl's father, when their bargain chip gets snatched up, so their problems are multiple. Nevertheless, they still try to pull off the money handover (without having anything to trade in for it).

In the end, the girl is save (of course, she is), the last remaining heroine is on her way to the hospital and the one surviving kidnapper is captured himself and gets some hands-on treatment from the girl's father and his henchmen.

Quite exciting with casualties falling left and right.

6/10

The Living Daylights

James Bond, in this incarnation played by Timothy Dalton, has to deal with a defecting KGB officer that is to be brought to save haven (my beautiful Vienna!) before taking him to Britain.

But is is all a ploy by the KGB guy, who in reality is in cahoots with an American arms dealer. He is also buying diamonds and with them paying for drugs. So really, he has quite a few irons in the fire. The only one to see through the original ruse - why, James Bond, of course.

The lady by his side is a lovelorn cellist who assumes Bond is helping her to reunite with her KGB agent (who is willing to sacrifice her in a flash). So we travel to Bratislava, Vienna, Tangiers and Afghanistan, always following the bad guys from the agent to the diamonds to the drugs.

Yes, it is a lot to take in.

My biggest bother is that Bond activates a bomb with a timer to blow up the drugs. The bomb is on a plane that is set to take off, shortly. Why he would the timer set to ten minutes only is beyond me. He is obviously just setting himself up for trouble. But, this is a James Bond film, so...whatever.

As for Timothy Dalton - I liked him more than I thought I would.

6/10

The Lost World

This BBC mini series is based on the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle. A group of would be adventurers sets out to find a plateau in Amazon, where Professor Challenger believes to find dinosaurs.

The first travel to a missionary base, run by Reverend Theo Kerr, where the hire a group of natives to carry their belongings and join them on their trip. The Reverend's niece, Agnes, sets off together with the team of explorers. The natives soon get spooked off. As soon as they disappear, Reverend Kerr joins the group, but for rather sinister reasons. As soon as they reach the plateau he blocks what they believe is their only way back down.

The professor and his team do find dinosaurs. First they encounter the friendly, plant eating ones but soon after they are faced with the more deadly variety. But the dangers of the region do not stop there. They are attacked by a group of ape men and in in the middle of their conundrum they are joined by some natives that live on the plateau.

The explorers then stay with the natives and together they face the daily perils of life among wild creatures until one day, Professor Summerlee manages to mix an explosive together, blasting a way through a blocked off tunnel.

They triumphantly return to England, but at the very last moment, in the middle of an event celebrating their discoveries, they change their minds about exposing the people and creatures living on the plateau to the so-called civilized world. They declare the stories and rumors of the dinosaur encounters a hoax.

I don't know how close this is to the actual text, but it was thoroughly entertaining and well cast.

7/10

A View to a Kill

What starts out on an estate dedicated to breeding horses takes us to Sillicon Valley, that obviously needs to be wiped out. All this courtesy of one Mr. Zorin, formally part of a Soviet (of course it's the Soviets) experiment on children. They were treated with steroid to make them stronger and smarter.

Bond is undercover as a potential buyer of horses. He gets found out, knocked unconscious and pushed into a lake by Zorin's sidekick May Day (yes, May Day). Do you know how in films car doors never open underwater? James Bond does not have that problem at all. The door pops right open.

This is not the only occasion he spends under water in this film, he ends up there much later again - this time with May Day, whom he has previously bedded (obviously) and who is at this point pissed off at Zorin because she thought 'that creep loved me'! Zorin is willing to sacrifice everyone from his posse for his ultimate goal, which has to do with microchips (not that anyone cares). May Day and Bond team up to get out of their shared conundrum with May Day sacrificing herself to get back at Zorin.

There is a zeppelin and a blond woman stumbling through scenery, also one overly long unnecessary car chase with San Francisco law enforcement.

4/10

Octopussy

In case you wondered, 'Octopussy' is a woman. She lives on an island with women on it. Lots and lots of women. And, yes, Bond beds her.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's the story in a nutshell:
Bond has to follow a general stealing jewelry from the Russian government. The trace leads him to an Afghan prince and the title-giving Octopussy. He unscovers some plot that involves...wait for it...nuclear weaponry. And Fabergé eggs. Obviously.

The locations this time around are East Berlin and the much more exotic India. Some of the character's names include Kamal Khan (the Afghan prince), Orlov (the general), Gobinda (bodyguard and henchman), Mischka & Grischka (circus artists), Gogol (Russian writer a Soviet general) and - my favorite - Penelope Smallbone (assistant to Moneypenny). None of the cast names rings a bell for me (other than the usual suspects).

This features an abundance of ridiculous and very obvious one liners, that more often than not miss the mark (I think). It's all very silly, really. Also, if you suffer from Coulrophobia, do not watch this!

Ok, maybe that's just me. I was never much a fan of the franchise, only having seen the occasional film (and remembering Goldfinger rather fondly). I only became a fan when Daniel Craig took over and decided to watch all Bond films - from earliest to latest. It looks like anything that become before the re-vamping with Craig as Bond was not for me (I suspected as much). At this point, I'm in it for the villains, who are not much to speak of in Octopussy.

4/10

Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)

One of the earliest films in the classical sense and it is...science fiction. How about that?

It runs for only 14 minutes and it took people to the moon long before we were even close to considering space travel.

It is humorous, introduces us to weird characters and gave the world the often used, iconic image of the (man in the) moon with a looking glass, checking out what those weird little people on earth are up to.

An absolute must-see.

10/10

For Your Eyes Only

With For Your Eyes Only James Bond returns to earthly grounds - no outerspace or underwater adventures.

But first and before the credits we have to say some goodbyes. First, Bond visits the grave of his late wife and then disposes of his old foe Blofeld (for copyright reasons).

What follows is some old-school secret agent adventures. Almost immediately we start into a fist fight followed by a car chase (perusing the rather slow but cultish 2CV), but not 007 is behind the wheel but the latest Bond girl Melina, dead set on avenging her parents' deaths. So while looking for the culprits, Bond also has to keep Melina safe and keep her from killing people.

And where does a secret agent go the chase bad guys when beaches and exotic lands are not an option. Why, of course, the alps. There he meets Bibi, an infantile ice skating protegé, who offers herself up to him but gets turned down. By the notorious womanizer James Bond. Together Bibi and Bond go and watch the biathlon, primarily the east German champion Erich Kriegler, who of course is in cahoots with the bad guys...and he is armed and on skis. Cue ski chase (not a new theme in the series).

Also after Bond - a young Charles Dance as Claus. While he is after Bond they both jump of a ski jumping ramp. Obviously. Then Bond is off on his skis again, chased on skis and motor bikes. Later he gets attacked in the ice rink by guys in hockey gear. Lucky for him, his pursuit of the bad guys then leads him to warmer areas, namely Corfu (and later Albania).

Oh, the point of all this is to retrieve the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) before it falls into the hands of the Soviets, as the transmitter can order attacks by the Royal Navy's fleet of Polaris submarines' missiles. In the end, Bond makes sure nobody gets his/her hands on it by simply destroying it.

It ends with Bond in Melina's arms. Of course.

5/10

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes

Of the many film versions of the Tarzan story, this is probably the one honoring the original tale thought up by Edgar Rise Burroughs, whose Tarzan was a much more intelligent creature than often portrayed.

The first part of the film is almost entirely without (human) dialogue and depicts young Jean/John/Tarzan as an infant growing up around and with apes, always protected by his caring mother. The film goes through four ages played by boys before settling on young Christopher Lambert. He loses his 'mother' to a party of explorers and in a tumult that follows (explorers, natives, apes) Philippe D'Arnot (Ian Holm) gets injured and left behind. John nurses him back to health and D'Arnot in return teaches him in language and the ways of the world.

They eventually return to John's grandfather's estate in England, who is overjoyed to welcome back a part of his family, having lost his son (John's father) after his ship wrecked, leaving him and his young wife stranded in the jungle, where both eventually died, leaving their infant son to be raised by chimpanzees.

At the estate he meets Jane, a relative staying with his grandfather. He appears to be settling in rather well but falls apart again after his grandfather also dies. When he, now Lord Greystoke, finds his ape 'father' caged in town, he breaks him out, but the ape gets shot during the escape. Losing yet another member of his family, John returns to what he believes to be his real home, becoming Lord of the jungle.

An ok version of the classic material.

5/10

The Croods

This film about a pre-historic family having to flee its home cave is not officially out yet. I saw it today as a (free) preview.

The Crods consist of the - even now - traditional ingredients: the over-protective father, a somewhat modern mother, the rebellious teenage daughter, the scared son, the aggressively biting baby and the 'still alive' mother in law. When an outsider, Guy, come in and warns them of the coming 'End' they have to follow him towards the sun, where 'tomorrow' lies.

The dimwitted father has the biggest issue with this. His standing as head of the family is threatened when the family starts listening to this newcomer and his daughter is totally smitten with him, as well. After they live through many an adventure together and survive (!) mostly thanks to Guy, they end up on a wonderful beach where they - presumably - live happily ever after, with Guy now firmly implanted in the family and a few pets to boot.

Cute.

6/10

The War of the Worlds

Ah, 1950s science fiction films! How I love them! The (retrospectively) cheap-looking special effects, the dashing hero - so often a non-dorky scientist, the bad ass military, the girl that needs saving, the psychedelic 'alien' noises.

In the 1953 film adaption of the H. G. Wells classic you get all of the above.

First, however, a spoken intro set to paintings of planets and stars before the real action starts. About 50 minutes into the film, as we make a jump from the early days of the war to vast devastation, this voice of authority will give as the gist of what happened.

What is thought to be a meteor lands near a small California town, witnessed by many town folks and a group of scientists fishing in the area. Everyone and their grandmother comes out to have a look and they are nearly celebrating, already counting money that can be made out of the event. In sweeps the dashing hero, a handsome, if bespectacled, scientist by the name of Dr. Clayton Forrester. The first person he encounters at the scene is the girl that will soon need saving. She is scientifically interested and well aware who he is. Her bravery in the face of the mounting danger diminishes over the course of the film and she turns into a hysterically shrieking little girl frequently.

Anyway, the meteor is not a meteor but a spaceship that brought enemy forces with it - weird looking machinery and three-eyed aliens that have a mind to kill everything and everyone that stands in their way. This first spaceship is followed by many others across the globe and the title-giving war of the worlds begins.

No bombs, no tanks, not even the A-bomb have any effect on the invaders.There is no chance but to evacuate the destroyed cities as all hope dwindles. In the end, it is not humans that defeat the enemy, but rather the enemy falls out of the sky (literally) and dies because it cannot handle the earthly microorganisms.

Whereas the outline of the film is very close to the original text, it adds in some religious pathos, with a heroic priest and a church as shelter, which do not appear in the book.

5/10

Kon-Tiki

Another film watched at the Gartenbaukino Oscar event. I might have never watched Kon-Tiki if it weren't for winning tickets for the entire event.

This is the story of Thor Heyerdahl and his trusted crew giving themselves to the wind and currents to prove that Polynesia was actually populated first by South Americans (Peruvians, to be precise) rather than the then held popular belief that the original settlers came from Asia.

I understand that this is the most expensive Norwegian film ever made and it really is a feast for the eyes. Beside the obvious beauty of shots of the grand ocean in all kinds of weather we get eye candy.

Lots and lots of eye candy. The adventurers are mostly well-built Scandinavians running around with their shirts off.

Aside from that, the film is actually really good and I'm glad I saw it. It was nominated for best foreign language film. Of course, it never stood a chance, as it was up against Amour, which won every award imaginable this year.

6/10

Life of Pi

If any of the films recently released (and recently nominated for a heap of Academy Awards) deserves the description beautiful, this is the one.

Life of Pi tells the story of young Pi Patel, who leaves Pondicherry, India, together with his family and an entire zoo for Vancouver, Canada. When the freighter sinks in the vastness of the Pacific, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a hyena, an orang utan and Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger.

The situation is as bad as it sounds and the boy immediately has to start his fight for survival - not only surviving the sea, but also the two carnivorous animals on board. The zebra is the first to go. Easy target that it is, the hyena sets upon it almost immediately. Next is the orang utan. The most furious kill, however, is of the hyena itself. Richard Parker finally makes an appearance jumping out from below the tarp cover to end the hyena's reign of terror - and making everyone in the cinema jump out of their seats. The rest of the story is of Pi and Richard Parker having to find some sort of arrangement in order for both of them to survive - the tiger needing the boys help to get food and water, the boy kept alert at all times by the tiger's presence.

The ocean setting is a feast for the eyes, thanks to the magic of the cinematography department and the technicians bringing the tiger to life. I wasn't that taken with the visuals of a film since Hero.

I read a few reviews that complained about the ending (the tiger's departure, the second - less adventurous but more credible - story version) but having read the book, I didn't really have to bother with that. If anyone wants to take issue, they have to take it with the book and/or its writer, Yann Martel. It has been too long since I read it for me to say that this or that detail was different. Overall the story was as I remember from the original text.

I recommend both, book and film.

9/10

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

You know that Gollum figure that Dr. Sheldon Cooper has on his desk at home in The Big Bang Theory? I have that, too. I love Gollum. Unconditionally. Now imagine how happy it made me that he shared a wonderful scene with Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. Yes, very happy.

Actually, the whole film made me happy because it was far more entertaining (and funny too!) than I expected. See, I had my doubts about turning a book of under 400 pages into a trilogy. The advantage (if you want to call it that) of the concept, though, is that you can stay really close to the source material. J.R.R. Tolkien also left a treasure of stories about the history of Middle Earth that you could always use to butter up the films. After all, it is a tale that Bilbo writes down for Frodo and we all know that Bilbo is fond of telling tales.

The actual film throws you right back into the LOTR universe, even starting off like The Fellowship of the Ring, with Bilbo preparing for his 111th birthday, before the tale of the dwarves and Bilbo defeating Smaug the dragon even begins.

It felt so good to be back in Middle Earth and if you loved the LOTR films (like I did) you will appreciate the return of some of the characters you know (Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman and, yes, Gollum). The Orks get their share of screen time, as do many, many Goblins - both groups led by newly introduced monstrocities (ugly, so ugly).

But the film is far from perfect.

I am not a fan of musicals or people just breaking out in song in a film. For example, though I love the song "Que sera, sera" (like we all do, surely), I do not quite see the point of Doris Day belting it out in a Hitchcock film. The folks of Middle Earth like songs, as we learned from the books. I can't quite express my enormous gratitude to Peter Jackson for not using the entire Tom Bombadil song in LOTR and mostly sparing us singing in general (with one exception in the extended version of The Fellowship, if I remember correctly). This time around he was not so kind. There is singing. Not much of it, but still. However, I do have to admit that I did like the sad lament the dwarves sang in Bilbo's house.

The other bit that irked me (and this one really, really irked me) was this: the dwarves all looked like we expect them to look, the way they look in LOTR, the way Gimli looks....sort of gnomish, with large noses and extensive hair/beard combos. All but one. The leader of the dwarves, Thorin, does not. He looks like one of the humans, shrunk to dwarf size, with trimmed beard and awesome hair. Even though it may be nice to have one dwarf that is easy on the eyes, it feels like a cheat. So, the heroic one looks kinda nice but his pack looks weird. I'm not sure I like the message that sends.

Alright then, here comes my big confession (and I never thought I would say/write this): I liked the 3D effects. You may know that I am not a fan of 3D and so far have never seen a 3D film that warranted the use of it. Sure, it's nice when you see stones hurled at you while Alice falls down the rabbit hole, but mostly it's just static structures in sharper outline and we pay more on our tickets for that. But this was something else, because Middle Earth has such impressive landscapes and architecture, even in 2D, that it gains a lot from the extra dimension. I especially liked the way it made the mines look.

Lord of the Rings this is not, but it is definitely worth seeing.

8/10

The Expendables 2

The sequel to Expendables features everybody (except for Steven Seagal, luckily), this time even Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. The latter is in it just to be in it. Pure courtesy. His character is of no significance to the story.

As for the story, Stallone and his gang (oh, Lundgren, you are awesome) are blackmailed into retrieving....oh, never mind. Nobody watches this for the plot, which is as insignificant as Chuck Norris.

It's fighting, shooting, bad jokes ("I'll be back.", "Yippie-ka-yay.", something about Rambo) and bad acting. An homage to good old no-nonsense 1980s action films.

Here's a picture of Dolph Lundgren. You're welcome.

(cannot be measured in stars)

Moonrise Kingdom

Hilarious!

The latest offering from director Wes Anderson is a film set in a pathfinder summer camp in the 1960s. The camp division is run by the hapless Scout Master Randy Ward (Edward Norton) who "loses" one of his Khaki Scouts (and eventually all of his scouts). The only police officer on the island the film is set is one Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), who - together with the at this point remaining scouts - sets out to find the missing Sam Shakusky.

The eventually learn that Sam is on the run with his beloved Suzy Bishop, daughter of the local couple of lawyers (played brilliantly by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). The journey they take is as awkward as both young kids. And really everything and everyone else in this film. They are first hunted and later aided by the other Khaki Scouts and run off to the HQ camp to get married.

I love the narrator (if you will) played by Bob Balaban. He is placed in different sceneries, sometimes on the very edge of the picture, dressed in a red coat and a greenwool hat, which makes him very much look like a garden gnome. The rest of the cast is wonderful, as well. Short appearences included are by Harvey Keitel (Harvey Fucking Keitel!) as the commander of the scouts, Jason Schwartzmann (normal sight in any Wes Anderson film) and the ever brilliant Tilda Swinton as "Social Services" (her name, apparently).

Aside from The Darjeeling Ltd. possibly my favorite Wes Anderson film.

8/10

From Russia with Love

The second James Bond film revolves around a cryptograph, quite a handy device with the cold war going on and such. The evil SPECTRE empire devises a plan to steal on such thing from the Soviets and then sell it back to them. In a film full of agent and double agents the big, bad, mysterious mastermind is only referred to as "Number 1". Yet we are treated to a shot of the (iconic!) white cat!

The bond girl, Tatiana Romanova, is recruited by SPECTRE's number 3 Rosa Klebb as a means to fool the Brits. Poor Tatiana (Tania to her friends) is led to believe she is doing it for Mother Russia, thinking Klebb to be working for SMERSH (whaterever that may be). Incidentally, Klebb is played by one Lotte Lenya, who was born in my hometown of Vienna.

The adventure begins in Istanbul and takes Bond and Tania (with an unfortunate contact from Turkey) via train, truck (already without their Turkish friend) and powerboat all the way to Venice. Hot on their heels is one SPECTRE minion, a well built blond agent.

Now, what is it with people laying out the entirety of their plans to someone they intend to kill? It is one of those story devises I always found rather puzzling and, ultimately, annoying. Here it is used through the blond guy, who thinks himself about to do away with 007. Oh, well.

In the end, British coolness prevails - girl, cryptograph and all.

6/10

Coraline

Coraline Jones is annoyed with her parents and their lack of attention. The both just hover over their computers writing about gardening rather than do some. So when one night she discovers a door into another world where her parents appear to be just what one would wish for, she has no quarrels about going back the next night.

Everything is different there - her mother cooks (imagine!), her father plays the piano and tends to a wonderous garden and her annoying neighbor boy can't talk. Fun!

Of course, something about all this is not right. For starters, everyone has buttons instead of eyes. Soon enough. Caroline realizes that they want her eyes as well and replace them with buttons.

Eventually, Caroline gets lost between her two worlds and must find her real parents again and escape. Interestingly weird.

Fun fact: when the false mother turns into her real self she looks just like Terri Hatcher, who voices the mothers.

4/10