Change Your Image
pauldiemer
Reviews
Populärmusik från Vittula (2004)
Disappointing
And highly so. I haven't read the book, nonetheless the whole setting seemed very promising. But after a few moments of funny and/or enthralling and well-filmed moments and motives, the whole thing just fell apart. Focus on the music and character development was lost almost completely, drowned in bodily fluids (spilled a little bit too freely for my taste). There are some scenes worth watching, but most of the humorous motives are dragged to a slow death, and the serious ones aren't handled very well enough to give identification or deep insight to the characters.
As an illustration for the book, the movie may work, especially for those born in North Sweden or Suomi, but not as a stand-alone comedy or drama, because it tries to be both the coming-of-age-with-a-little-help-from-the-Beatles-drama and the life-in-North-Sweden-is-hard-but-hilarious-comedy and ends up being a very weak mixture of them.
Quadrophenia (1979)
If you love The Who...
...you will not be able to miss this one. Right, there´s not many songs of them, but THEY are in it. A bit of them. You still can see and hear Pete Townshend behind this all, and this little bit is more then enough. Middle-class-actors, screenplay could be better, has scenes which are too long - what´s the matter? It´s Who. It´s a Who-story, a Who-scenery and even some Who-music. Listen to "The real me", and you´ll think this movie to be highly underrated.
Omnibus: Cream Farewell Concert (1969)
Great music, terrible editing
This concert must have been fantastic. Creams hard-blues rocking live sound is an experience every music fan should get, and there's a whole lot of really magnificent solos, including a hurricane-style Ginger Baker solo for about ten minutes. If you are a Blues or Rock lover, listen and tremble. Watching is a different thing. The editing of the concert footage is very poor for anyone who wants to see more than Jack Bruces bass guitar or Ginger Bakers open mouth. The movie makers obviously tried to capture the live experience by adding visual effects and using a lot of close-ups. It doesn't work. You want to see Eric Claptons hands running over his guitar? Get another movie, there's about ten seconds of this in here. Even Claptons solos are "invisible". The interviews are surely interesting, but I don't think it a good idea to insert them in the middle of songs - especially not the Ginger Baker interview; after it you are for the moment fed up with drum solos and can't really enjoy his great work. What's more, there really is footage from another concert in the movie; Bakers dress and Claptons guitar change for some shots. Therefore, this movie makes the record-book as first documentary to contain continuity errors.
But: Watch it nonetheless. With a big sound system and you ears open.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Tediously slow and overall pointless
I had heard a lot about this film before I actually saw it, and the idea of a man unwittingly being present at the biggest moments of four decades seemed funny and entertaining enough. But I was heavily disappointed.
What Forrest Gump lacks most is a stringent storytelling. The movie just doesn´t get off the ground. It isn´t the fault of the actors in general and certainly not of Tom Hanks, who gives a brilliant storyteller and doesn´t make pure slapstick out of the dimwitted Forrest - the actors are doing fine jobs. It´s the fault of the filmmakers. Lots of shots and even whole motives are plainly useless, not even in adding atmosphere, a lot of plot turns vanish into nothingness. The touching moments are soaked in corny music and lose their emotional potential, the technically great TV montages get less entertaining every time because they are wasted in bad punchlines. The whole dialogue is highly predictable. The reenactment of the Hippie movement is quite sound, and details like the Watergate joke are good laughs, but the scenes in between are painfully slow, at the end even simply boring. About a thousand times you are led to believe that there is a deeper moral than "enjoy your life with the things you can do really good" (this being introduced at the very beginning), but it isn´t.
I don´t know what, except for the few gags that really function, could earn this movie the triumph that it had and still has. Watch "Hair" for the Sixties and "Harold and Maude" for the moral, you will be better off.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Good action. But...
...what is really weird about this movie is that it´s just American. In the end, you read everything about every US-soldier killed in action in Somalia. Oh, yes, and there were a few dead Somalis, but they don´t matter? Perhaps I can´t understand it because I´m not American. But I don´t know why any film can show a war as a battle between heroes and villains. Surely, theses Somalis didn´t want to die. And surely, most of them didn´t want to fight in a war they could not win. Furthermore, who was the real agressor in this war? The action in this film is alright, the actors are, it´s just alright. But the whole story is wrong. Even in times the US are fighting, movies should not be as one-faceted pro-American as this one is. Quite sad that these American patriot-movies are very succesful in Europe.
Quadrophenia (1979)
If you love The Who...
...you will not be able to miss this one. Right, there´s not many songs of them, but THEY are in it. A bit of them. You still can see and hear Pete Townshend behind this all, and this little bit is more then enough. Middle-class-actors, screenplay could be better, has scenes which are too long - what´s the matter? It´s Who. It´s a Who-story, a Who-scenery and even some Who-music. Listen to "The real me", and you´ll think this movie to be highly underrated.
Ronin (1998)
Seems I have to go to France soon...
...just to visit Nice, Arles and Paris. Everything in this movie looks as if it could really be happening, now, just now in France. The special atmosphere of Ronin is created by the total lack of any attempt to have an atmosphere. And so, it looks more realistic than anything else, even the action does. Of course, the movie is a little long, but it makes the time count. And the "solution" of the suitcase content is very good: You could say, they all died in vain, just because you don´t know.
Robert de Niro: Here, he´s cool. Jean Reno: Quite as good as he was in "Leon". The cars: 80 of them were ruined by making this movie - OK, that´s enough.
Finally: One of my Top Ten.
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Who cares about plot holes?
If you don´t, this is surely a funny movie with a lot of atmosphere, darkness and battles. It´s played quite fine, and there are very few anachronisms.
Finally: Swords are better weapons than guns - if you know how to handle them. These guys know.
Desperado (1995)
I simply love it!
It´s one of my top five movies, because it has everything a good movie consists of: Action, shootings, a love story that´s quite OK (I mean, that isn´t the most important thing in the film. And beside, a woman who can shoot a man with a handcannon isn´t too bad, is it?) and, last but not least, music. Good music. In this case, very good music.
Furthermore, I like Quentin Tarantino very much (watch From Dusk Till Dawn to find out why!), I like Antonio Banderas since I watched the 13. Warrior and I love my guitar. And I like good weapons: The guitarcase-rocketlauncher is really great.
Finally: Even my pacifistic girl-friend liked it!
The Who : The Kids Are Alright (1979)
Long Live Rock!
I love The Who. So, what can I do not to love this movie? Nothing. And there you have it. Every Who-fan should have seen it. Who wants not to put i into his Top Ten? I ain´t the one. In my video collection, it is the one I have watched the most times, because it shows The Who better than any other footage like the 30 Years-film. I love the music, I love the movie, I love the band. And you will, after this one.