Friday, July 31, 2015

F*ck You, Goethe, 2013 - ★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Guess today was my German movie day.

This is probably the biggest German comedy since Dreamship Surprise which I enjoyed quite a bit.

It's about a bank robber who gets out of jail and wants to pick up the money his female friend buried at a school yard 13 months ago ... at a place that now is a gym. He accidentally becomes a substitute teacher and starts teaching the worst class there is ... and he starts to like it.

It's a very German movie, it has the german school systems, german assholes, people who need help from the german state (Hartz 4) and even Nazis. So if you aren't in the German culture you are probably not going to like it.

The jokes are good and the message the movie wants to give us, to learn and become good is of course good. But it also has some bad messages, like how the way you look is important, that you can be an asshole all you want, if you habe a sixpack everyone will love you and stuff like that. So I am not 100% happy with this.

But all in all it is a funny movie and totally watchable. The hype about it is a bit too much though.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

M, 1931 - ★★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

This was a highly anticipated movie for me, I wanted to watch this for years. Today I finally got to it.

It's a crime movie from 1931 Germany. Since it's still well known made me curious and assured me it wouldn't be that bad a movie. After watching it I was blown away.

It's about a city that is haunted by a serial killer who targets little girls. Police and gangsters all try to catch him but can they? That is the question.

This is really a masterpiece. Shot in 1931 but using techniques that are still used to this day, as far as I know inventing them or being the first to use them. For example voice over was invented by Fritz Lang and his crew. They also take great use of editing, probably the best editing in a movie of that time I've ever seen. There is one outstanding scene in which gangsterbosses are meeting up at the same time the police forces are having a discussion. So we get cuts from one meetup to the next and back, almost as if they were on the same table. This is used perfectly to tighten up the movie, any other director would probably just have 2 discussions at different times in the movie, but this is so much better.

Also even though this is a sad movie with a horrible subject (child murders), they still have funny comedy parts in it.

In some scenes Lang actually produced silent footagd instead of sound as in most parts which feels kind of off at first but still gets you into an eerie mood.

Also something that still isn't used that much is the fact that from the beginning on we know who the killer is. We see his shadow very early and hear him talking to a girl, then we see him from the back wearing a trenchcode and shortly after we see him in full, doing faces into the mirror.
The actor of course is Peter Lorre who does a great job. To be honest he is a creepy looking dude to begin with and his voice isn't what I would call nice to hear. But that makes him so much more fitting to the role. Also his final monologue, telling why he does this all is very good, great acting.

Another great shot I want to mention is when the group of beggers found the killer we have a long scene of them following him silently, sometimes filled with jokes but as he gets more aware what is happening the scene gets more and more serious and even a little scary. I really loved that scene.

Also we get a camera zooming in through a window.

I'm going to tackle a spoiler subject now, if you haven't seen the movie and you liked this review go watch it and come back for the last segment ;) I give it 5 out of 5 stars and a like. This is a masterpiece.

SPOILERS AHEAD
This movie tackles many important subjects, still present to this day. First the people all being anxious because everybody could be the killer. But what I want to talk about is the ending. Peter Lorre is caught by the gangsters and they are giving him a "fair" trial, if he loses it, he is sentenced to death. And then he gives a speach. He isn't killing out of fun. He is mentally ill and voices in his head tell him to kill the girls. So he wants to be spared.
The gangsters who are also the judges say he has to be killed anyway, that he could flee from mental institutions.
So the questions asked are "death sentence yes or no?" and "what about the mentally ill?". Two questions that are asked to this day. I won't give my opinion because it doesn't matter in a movie review, but it's worth giving these questions a thought. The movie ends with the police arriving, saving him and he gets a trial. In a last shot we see a grieving mother saying "This won't bring back our daughters." The end.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Wet Hot American Summer, 2001

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Sunday July 26, 2015.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Ant-Man, 2015 - ★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Perfect in a double bill with A Bug's Life.

The newest movie in the MCU is about Ant-Man aka Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), who gets his powers from a suit designed by Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). He has to fight Darren Cross aka Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll) to save the world.

First off thanks to CGI for starting this movie with a 40 year old Michael Douglas. I really think that special effect blew me away the most.

Also I loved the ant-perspective we get. Very early into the movie we have a scene of Ant-Man in a giant bathtub and it looked awesome.
Also the fight scenes of little Ant-Man vs giant people were fun to watch.

I have some problems with the story though. To be honest I was a little bored at the beginning. There is a whole storyline between Hank Pym and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) that got resolved half way through the movie and just felt unnecessary to me. Would have beennhappy without that. The rest of the story was good, but still just an origin story, so nothing special. That's not a bad thing, I enjoyed the storyline.

There weren't as many jokes in this as I expected, but enough to keep me happy.

All in all a cool new character to add to the MCU Roster and a fun origin story. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Friday, July 24, 2015

John Wick, 2014 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Friday July 24, 2015.

The Grasshopper and the Ants, 1934

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Watched on Friday July 24, 2015.

A Bug's Life, 1998 - ★★★★

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An enjoyable animated movie by the Pixar studio.

An ant named Flik (Dave Foley) ruins what all the ants have collected for the grashoppers led by Hopper (Kevin Spacey), who threatens to kill them all. So he now has to find a way to stop the grasshoppers. Soon he meets a group of circus bugs who help him.

So this movie was lots of fun. It was the first hard movie for Pixar, with all the hard things in it, many different locations and so many characters. And they did a great job.

The characters were great, especially the circus bugs, featuring everyones favorite, Heimlich (Joe Ranft). And they were all voiced greatly. Special mention to Hayden Panettiere for her first voice acting role as Dot (she was around 9 years old at that time).

I also loved the locations. When Flick went into the Bug City it looked awesome, and they made it just like I would have imagined a bug city.

All in all a great movie, I enjoyed it quite a bit, 4 out of 5 stars.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 2013 - ★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

So I guess this happens after JD from Scrubs decides to work at a magazine?

This movie is about Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) who works at "Life", a popular magazine that just got taken over and turned into "Life online". For the last printed version, he is tasked to find a special picture that was lost, so he has to find it and this search takes him around the world.
Oh, also he daydreams a lot.

This movie left me with mixed feelings. Visually it was stunning, so many beautiful shots, from the beginning. I even liked the intro with him just walking around to work.
Also the idea that first all shots are very steady and as his life goes more crazy the camera starts moving more and more is great.
I also enjoyed parts of the storyline, his travels were so much fun, not only to look at but also just funny.
I liked the choice of music they made, it fit the movie.

But it was very predictable. I knew exactly where the picture is as soon as they started searching for it. Also I guess the mother is pretty much the Deus ex Machima.
I was annoyed by the boss character, but that's just me, I hate incompetent boss characters, which are pretty much comedy stereotypes.
What annoyed me the most was the zoning out, or lack of that after the 30 minute mark. Usually once something crazy happened he was daydreaming and then all of the sudden he got into a plane to Greenland, just like that. For the next half hour I was anxiously awaiting him to wake up and it was all just a long daydream. I was sure he would be waking up at the end of the movie, finding the picture. It took me a little out of the movie.

So all in all, it was a fun movie with a lot happening, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, because of the list of things i mentioned. So I'm rating this movie with 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Drive, 2011 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Disclaimer: I saw a version that had at all cut 1 minute from it (bloody scenes) because Germany sucks.

Drive is about some Driver played by Ryan Gosling whose job is to drive a lot. He is a movie stunt-driver, a driver for heists and he tries to get into professional racing. He also works in a garage with Shannon (Bryan Cranston). And then he falls in love with Irene (Carey Mulligan).

Sorry, I am bad at describing plots, so I'll stop this right here and go on about the movie.
It starts with an intense heist scene, or to be honest, with the car chase. It is well done, Ryan Gosling behaved intelligently and I felt safe because of him while still feeling anxious because the chase is exciting.

I've seen two other movies with Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson and Crazy, Stupid, Love. In both he plays very different characters, and in this one, he is even further from both those roles. He doesn't talk much, he is quiet most of the time. But that makes the character.

All the characters were played well and with actors like Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman in supporting roles you can't go wrong.

The soundtrack of this movie is great, it very much fits the vibe of the whole movie and I kind of want to listen to it again, which also is good.

As I mentioned before I saw a cut version of this movie, all the gory scenes were cut out, but even without them the violence was already good and as soon as I see the uncut version I will write a new review to tell about my feelings about that.

Last but not least I noticed that mirrors are used in good ways in this movie, it's like a theme, throughout the movie mirrors are used in shots, most notably of course when we see Ryan in a car from behind but his eyes through the rear-view mirror. I'm not sure if mirror scenes maybe have a deeper meaning, maybe I'll know more after a second watch.

All in all I really enjoyed this movie much. Great acting, great story, great characters. All a good movie needs. I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars and a like.

Monday, July 20, 2015

American Hustle, 2013

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Monday July 20, 2015.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Ankle Biters, 2003 - ½

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3 feet tall! Two inch fangs!! Nuff said.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

For the Birds, 2000

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Watched on Thursday July 16, 2015.

Geri's Game, 1997

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Watched on Thursday July 16, 2015.

Knick knack, 1989

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Watched on Thursday July 16, 2015.

Tin Toy, 1988

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This is clearly the DEVIL BABY FROM HELL. But for 1988 this is impressive. Also, is this the birthplace of Toy Story?

Red's Dream, 1987

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Watched on Thursday July 16, 2015.

Luxo Jr., 1986

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Watched on Thursday July 16, 2015.

The Adventures of André and Wally B., 1984

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Watched on Thursday July 16, 2015.

Slashers, 2001 - ★★★½

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I was in the mood for some obscure, cheap horror movie and I got this.

In this japanese game show called "Slashers", people are locked into a game show stage with 3 killers, whose only goal is to kill the contestants. If they survive they get lots of money. If they kill the killers, they get more money. If they all survive they have to split the pot, if only one survives, he/she gets all the money. This time, for the first time, there are 6 American contestants.

The acting is pretty good, especially for such a cheap movie. The characters are fun and a little stereotypical, but I think that's planned.
Because after being a fun movie with enough gore and a pretty interesting idea, it's also a satire of game shows and of the horror genre. It's not quite as in your face as, for example, Funny Games, where one character literally asks why you are watching it. This movie at least hides it and talks to a fake audience that watches that show in real life.

It also makes fun of horror tropes, like how the music works to show when the killer comes but it sometimes plays, even when there is nobody there.

So this movie is funny on a meta level, but it's also funny on a normal level through the characters. The 3 killers are so funny. They all have special personalities and wear masks. One girl changes her top 4 or 5 times because one killer always cuts it open. Because the Killers don't just kill everyone, they are there to make the show interesting.

I could go on forever about the story, I really enjoyed it but I'm going to stop that right here to go over some technical stuff.

The gore is really well made for a low budget movie of 2001, of course most of the time you can tell how it's done but it looked great.

Another thing that i really liked was that it was seemingly done in one shot. Of course there were like, thousands of cuts, but they were all hidden. Not as good as in Birdman, but they tried. Most of the time the lights go out (because it's all in a big room that is lighted). This is of course done because the whole "game show" is filmed with one camera, and the camera guy is also a character who sometimes is funny, too.

All in all even though I watched it in a bad German dub I had a fun time watching it and if you are a horror fan you should give it a try. No masterpiece by far but well worth your time. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

RoboCop, 1987 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Wednesday July 15, 2015.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Creep, 2015 - ★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

This movie started globally on Netflix today. Since it is a horror I had to watch it of course.

I wrote a review in the last week about We are what we are where I mentioned that it is one of the reasons I still watch horror movies, especially cheap new ones by unknown people.
This movie, cheap and new and by unknown people, is a found footage movie. And it is the reason I will go on to watch found footage movies.

It's about Aaron who finds a craigslist ad to film Josef for a day. Josef is dying of a tumor in his brain and his wife is pregnant, so he wants to have a video diary of one day for his unborn son. So Aaron follows him for a day and even though Josef has a weird sense of humor they get along well.
But then, things change.

First of all, IMDb tells me this is a comedy, horror. There is no comedy in this movie, I would disagree with that part for sure.

This movie is on a very small budget (I guess), there are only 2 actors in it: Patrick Brice plays Aaron and is also author and director, while Mark Duplass is Josef and also author and producer. They are the only two people we see in this whole movie and they carry it, they do a great job, especially Mark Duplass. From the first time we see him something seems off. There is always this mixture between very creepy and very friendly, he is hard to understand.

Slight spoilers ahead: for around the first hour not much happens, it's just Aaron spending a day with Josef. But from the very beginning this movie is creepy and it just gets worse and worse. Of course, you can maybe predict the ending, but it's not about that, this is about the characters.

Since this is a found footage movie, the actors are the camera team. Still, I want to point a few shots that i really liked. The first one is seen in the poster, when I saw that shot I had to write it down, this was a great idea, it looked good and helped the creepy feeling.
The second shot I wanna point out is later, the camera is fixated and there is a very cool shot, shot from the bedroom. It is very creepy and was done before, but I loved it anyway.
Also one scene that was a great idea and really helped the mood was when Josef tells Aaron a secret and tells him to turn off the camera. So for tat scene that goes a few minutes we see nothing, just hear Josef talking. It was great and really creepy.

All in all I really enjoyed this movie and it's better than most of the stuff we see these days. If you love horror, watch this. 4 out of 5 stars.

Rocky, 1976

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Watched on Tuesday July 14, 2015.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Now You See Me, 2013 - ★★★½

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When I saw this movies trailer years ago right before Iron Man 3 I knew I wanted to watch it. Today I finally got to it.

Now you see me is about 4 Magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher) who have to work together to do 3 big stage shows. In the first show they rob a bank, so after that they are followed by a FBI-Agent (Mark Ruffalo). Also starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Mélanie Laurent.

This was a star studded cast and they all did great jobs.
The story was fun to watch, especially since I am a big fan of magic and movies about magic. Since I saw an Honest Liar not too long ago I of course saw some similarities between Morgan Freemans character and James Randi, which made it a bit harder for me to hate on the character, while others maybe had an easier time with this.
I had a feeling that there are no likeable characters in this movie, except for maybe the French Interpol lady.

I enjoyed the magic tricks and was into it from the first trick with the card (I participated and he was right). Some of the tricks were a little over the top, but I think more or less doable.

It is a fun movie but you can't think to much or you'll find problems really fast. If you watch the cinemasins video on this you'll see what I mean.

All in all a fun time and if there will be a sequel to this I will probably also watch it. The whole idea was something original and I really enjoyed this.
I'm giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars and a like, if you like magic, watch it, if you like big hollywood movies, watch it. Just don't think too much about it.

Friday, July 10, 2015

The Iron Giant, 1999 - ★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I think I saw this as a child, but I didn't remember much about it?

It's the story about a giant robot made out of iron (you could say of an Iron Giant) (Vin Diesel) who comes to earth and forgot his task. A little boy called Hogarth (Eli Marienthal) finds him and takes it upon himself to teach him and to keep him safe.

The voice acting is good. The characters are lots of fun even though there is an "evil" government agent who I wish got a slap across the face.

I really loved the story. I really cared for the characters and at one poi t i got goosebumps and wanted to cry. A movie that moves me on such an emotional level doesn't happen all the time.

The animation was good even though, as in Batman, the Dark Knight Rises Part 1, I needed a little time to get into it. Once I was in I really enjoyed it. Especially all the movements of the Iron Giant, for example when he fixes his mouth early on.

Also it had a good lesson about dangers of war and about bombs.

I'm just wondering if this movie is maybe a little too much for children since at one ppint they think they are all going to die. But maybe I'm just a pussy, I dunno.

A positive point is that it's under 90 minutes, so really short, the time flies by.

All in all I really enjoyed it and I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

Half Nelson, 2006

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Friday July 10, 2015.

We Are What We Are, 2013 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I always hear people say that horror nowadays sucks, it's always jump scares or comedy or torture porn or just really bad. Well I can tell you this movie from 2013 is in none of those categories.

Here is usually the place where I give a summery but this time I will just qupte IMDb because the synopsis is perfect.
The Parkers, a reclusive family who follow ancient customs, find their secret existence threatened as a torrential downpour moves into their area, forcing daughters Iris and Rose to assume responsibilities beyond those of a typical family.

This is a remake of the 2010 movie from Mexico with the same name that I haven't seen yet.

This movie looks gorgeous and they used some interesting camera angles.

The acting in this movie is superb. Bill Sage did an awesome job at depicting father Framk Parker. As did Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers as his daughters. Everyone else did a great job too, but I had to mention those in specific because of the characters they play.

As I said before, this isn't a jumpscare movie. This movie is scary because of the ambience, because of the story and because of the acting.
Also this is not torture porn, but there is some gore in places where it fit. Once you find out more about the family you will see this kind of movie needs some gore to work. It is not holding on gory scenes though, they aren't the main point of this movie, they are there to enhance it.

Of course this movie isn't perfect, there are some logic jumps made by Doc Barrow (Michael Parks) that are there just to bring the story to an end, but I can overlook that.

I really really enjoyed this movie. This is the reason for me to not give up on modern horror, thiy is the reason I am looking for low budget horror movies, for new time directors.
Also this is an example why I don't trust IMDb when it comes to ratings, it's standing on a 5.8 out of 10 stars, so between 2.5 and 3 stars on letterboxd. I'm giving it 4.5 stars out of 5 and a big like.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Dreamship Surprise - Period 1, 2004 - ★★★★½

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Watched on Wednesday July 8, 2015.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Manitou's Shoe, 2001 - ★★★★

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So once again I watched a German comedy.The origin story of this movie is great. Michael Bully Herbig, director, producer, writer and actor for two characters in this movie had a television sketch show, Bullyparade, where he had many reoccurring sketches. So he asked the audience to vote which sketch should be done as a movie and they voted for the parodies of Wild West movies, mostly the Winnetou movies based off the books by Karl May.

The story is that Abahachi (Herbig) and his blood brother Ranger (Christian Tramitz) have to pay an Indian Chief, so they have to find three friends of Abahachi who have parts of a map to a treasure. But they are followed by Santa Maria (Sky du Mont) and his gang of outlaws, who also want that treasure.

As I said before Herbig plays two characters, Abahachi and his gay brother Winnetouch. In the extended version he also plays his grandfather grey star. Doing this while also directing is great, also many scenes have both his characters in the same scene.
And he still does an overwhelming job acting. All the acting is very good, they all are good at delivering the comedy.

I'm not sure if the comedy is maybe "too german", I got all the jokes and thought they were funny but I'm not sure if non German people have problems with some of the jokes. But many jokes are surely universal.

It's also a parody of Winnetou and wild west movies in general, and I haven't seen many of those and still enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It will probably get even better once I've seen some of those movies.

This is the most successful German movie ever and that's for a reason. If you like wild west movies or silly comedies in general, you will enjoy this movie for sure (even more if you are German of course). I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars and a like.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Crazy, Stupid, Love., 2011 - ★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I haven't seen many romantic comedies but I feel like this is one of the best.

It's about Cal Weaver (Steve Carell), whose wife of 25 years, Emily (Julianne Moore),wants the divorce. So he regulary visits a bar where he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling) who teaches him how to be a womanizer.

This is a very similar take on the plot. There are many subplots, that ultimatively all end up together. There is the 17 year old babysitter Jessica, who is into Cal. Then there is Cals son Robbie who is into Jessica. Also, womanizer Jacob finds true love in Hannah (Emma Stone). And there are probably still some storylines that I missed.

The acting is great on all parts, even the kids are good. Emma Stone is probably my favorite actress right now, so that's a plus for the movie. Also I love Steve Carell, so another bonus point just for star power. Ryan Gosling is a great actor too, so is Demi Moore. Also Kevin Bacon is in this. So lots of star power.

I like the way it is shot, one scene was very impressive to me: when Cal picks up women at the bar, we get something like a montage, but it all happens in one continuous shot, the camera moves through the whole bar and on every table sits Steve Carell in a different outfit, it looked great.

Also mild spoilers I guess, this movie has a happy ending, an ending that doesn't feel forced. One weak point in romantic movies and especially romantic comedies is that they often resolve too quickly and suddenly someone ends up with a woman he has no business with or who shouldn't want him after all we learned throughout the movie. That's not happening here, the ending is pretty logical.

Also, since we are talking about mild spoilers, there is a twist after 3/4 of the movie that I probably should have guessed but I didn't see it coming and I loved it.

My biggest problem was the story of Robbie, who, as I said earlier, is into his older babysitter. And almost everything he sais or does is cringey as hell, I had to pause just to calm down after almost all his lines. But maybe that's just me and most people like this. Almost every rom com seems to have at least one character that behaves so cringey that I wanna turn of the TV. But whatever.

All in all an enjoyable movie that made me laugh out loud multiple times. That's why I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars and a like.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Questions to the Letterboxd community

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I love the letterboxd community, there are so many unique people here and even in my short time on letterboxd I met many people.
But I want to learn a bit more about the community, so I put together this list with questions about YOU.
The questions are mostly about how you use letterboxd or why you use it. Also some broader questions about watching movies. All in all questions that I think fit the community pretty well.
Also I tried to be funny by putting a movie title to every question, please don't hurt me ;)

You can answer the questions as a comment or just make a list yourself with the tag "attlc" (answers to the letterboxd community). If you post your lists in the comments I can link them here.

To see the questions you have to click the "read notes" button, the questions are the annotations to the movies.

  1. The 40 Year Old Virgin

    How old are you?

  2. Now On Letterboxd

    How long have you been a user of letterboxd? Why did you start?

  3. The Social Network

    Do you use any other social networks to talk about movies? Also, do you use/know about the letterboxd subreddit?

  4. Lost in Translation

    What is your native tongue? Do you write your reviews in your native tongue?

  5. Life Itself

    Do you work in a business related to watching movies? Or do you do that in your spare time?

  6. The Fault in Our Stars

    Are you rating the movie objectively or subjectively? So, if a movie was so bad it's good, is it closer to 1 star or to 5?

  7. Before and After

    When do you read reviews? Before you watch a movie to decide if you wanna watch it? Or after, do see what other people thought of it? Maybe both?

  8. The People Under the Stairs

    Are you on letterboxd because of the community (the people under the stairs, get it?) or because it's a platform to write reviews for? Or both? Or maybe just to log what you've seen?

  9. Kill List

    Why do you make lists? For yourself or for everyone? Also, do you prefer lists about movies or these lists about the community (like this one).

  10. Oscar

    What do you think of the Academy Awards?

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An Honest Liar, 2014 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I went into this completely blind, I never heard of the Amazing Randi before. I only knew this is about magic, or, to be more specific, about magic debunking.

James the Amazing Randi is now 86 years old. He started off as an escape artist and magician, but devoted the latter part of his career to debunking "psychics" and other liars. This documentary is about him and this later career.
The style of the documentary is talking heads, he has interviews from many people (for example Penn and Teller and Adam Savage) who talk about Randi and of course Randi and the people he affected. These interviews are underpinned by old tv footage of shows he was on or that had psychic guests. Every now and then we get title cards about the major evehts that we look at.
In some points the title cards are weird and don't help at all, one titlecard in particular either didn't make sense or I just missed something on the way.

The music used fit well, even though it was standard documentary music, nothing new there.

I liked that, even though at first it seemed like this is a one sided documentary with only Randi fans/friends speaking, in the end we even get some statements by Randis "arch nemesis", Uri Gellar.

Most of all I love Randis attitude, his mindset. He thinks that you shouldn't trick people, shouldn't play with them, shouldn't be a charlatan. If you were a magician, but didn't say you were and called yourselfna psychic for example, he would come after you. He did this to help people, to raise awareness. And I really enjoy his mindset.

Also we get to see some cool magic tricks.

There are by the way almost no tricks explained, he mostly proves that it's just a trick by copying it. On the one hand I would have loved to see some of the stuff explained, on the other hand I understand that a magician never reveals his tricks.

I really liked this documentary, it had me watching the whole time, was very interesting (probably because I'm a sucker for magic anyway) and even moved me at some points.
I'm giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars and a like

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Up, 2009 - ★★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I think this is the best Pixar film i've seen so far.

This movie starts with the most emotionally moving opening I have ever seen. It starts with Carl Fredericksen, a young boy who meets Ellie, a young girl with the same dream as his: to travel the world.
Then, without any dialogue, we see the story of them, how they marry, try to get a kid, plan to travel and at the end how Ellie dies before they could fulfill their dream.
Then the actual movie starts, which is about Carl, now a grumpy old man who tries to fulfill this dream on his own. More or less voluntary he gets help by Russel, a young boyscout whose parents are divorced and never have time for him. They try to achieve this goal by putting thousands of balloons on Carl's house and fly away.

First of all this movie looks gorgeous. When the house first flies through the air every scene looks like a painting. It's really one of the best looking animated movies I have ever seen.

Also the score is just great, I really enjoyed the music. It really deserved the oscar for best music.

What I didn't expect were all those feelings. This movie made me sad many times, just the first 15 minutes are so sad and really got to me even though they are just animated figures. I really felt with and for Carl when Ellie died. And there are many more scenes like this.
On the other hand there are lots of hilarious scenes that made me laugh. The mixture of happy, sad and funny made this movie work great.

Since this is a kids movie I also like that it gives kids maybe a different view on old people since they see that even grumpy old people were happy little children one day.
With kids movie I of course meant a movie aimed at kids but, to be honest, everyone can watch and enjoy it. This is beyond doubt a movie for kids, grown ups and elderly. You can watch this movie with the whole family and enjoy it.

I for one really enjoyed this movie and have nothing bad to say about it. Wish I watched it way earlier. I rate it with 5 out of 5 stars and a big like.

PS: there is a fight between old people which was probably my favorite funny scene of the movie.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2014 - ★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Tuesday June 30, 2015.