tomcat-350-27521 Reviews

April 9th (2015)

A good movie for Danes and foreign war history buffs

[7/10 · 26 March 2016]

The term "War movie" is almost synonymous with Second World War movies. Every nation has a story, down to the smallest individuals, and when there aren't stories, the big story gives great background for fiction. As a result we are doused with WW2 movies. There are good ones, bad ones, boring ones, outright ridiculous ones, and we've seen them all. It is next to impossible to make a really good WW2 movie anymore. Everything that can be told about this war has been told; maybe it can be told again with soldiers of different nationality, different locations, different weapons; but it's really, really difficult to say something that hasn't been told already.

This is why this little movie is marvelous. It actually tells a new story. It's not the meatgrinders of Stalingrad, Omaha Beach, not the death camps, not Dresden burning, not heroes against evil Nazis. It's about the silent, peaceful Denmark which has been overrun in a mere six hours and this was all of the war for them. But how did it happen?

Are a few dozen lives comparable to thousands or millions lost on other battlefronts? What is six hours of "war" to six years? It is easy to dismiss it as nothing, but that's what this movie about. Regardless the short time and negligible losses, it was still war, with young people killing and dying for their country and king. When their comrade fell, it was the same what a Russian, German, British or American soldier felt in a much bigger battle. It is not to be overlooked.

This movie shows us some images from Denmark's family album. Look, this happened to them in 1940. When someone shows you his family album and tells about someone who died in the war, you don't say "Oh, just one of you? Stop whining, our family lost three, so your loss is insignificant." The movie doesn't claim fame. It doesn't say Denmark's disaster was a very big one, or that it's comparable to other events of WW2. It just tells: this happened to us. This is our story. And yes, a kid selling milk actually died on the road that day.

Thank you for this movie, Denmark. We missed your story. Maybe the characters could've been a bit more lively. But again, they are soldiers - what to add to them?

My Way (2011)

A poorly done and disrespectful movie

[3/10 · 27 February 2016]

I am a military history journalist and I first heard about this movie when I researched an article about soldiers who fought in multiple armies during WW2. (There were a couple of them.) The true story of Kim was very exciting so I wondered how they made it into a movie. Badly! Another stupid romantic flick which turns an interesting piece of history upside down and retains nothing of the original.

The real Kim's name was Yang Kyun-jong. He was no Olympic runner, just a regular 19 year old Korean guy who got drafted into the Japanese army. Not because the Japs were so cruel but that was the custom of the time. Sure, serving in the Imperial Japanese Army wasn't a walk in the park. He was taken prisoner by Soviet forces in the Battle of Khalkin-Gol in 1938 and lived in a Siberian POW camp for years, just like in the movie. There he volunteered into the Soviet army. He fell into German captivity during - most likely - the Battle of Kharkov in 1943. After having joined the SS Eastern Legion - and not the Wehrmacht, as in the movie - with several more Russian POWs he was transferred to Normandy just before D-Day. He survived the invasion and surrendered to the Americans. He was released from a POW camp in Britain in 1946, moved to America and actually never talked about his story, not even to his family. He died in 1992. His exodus was only uncovered in 2002 when a South Korean journalist found photos in an US war archive about SS soldiers of Korean nationality being registered as POWs in Normandy.

Now for the movie. It's simply one of the most annoying war movies I've ever seen. The true story was seemingly not exciting enough for the filmmakers so they turned it into a cheesy romantic flick. The main hero has three traits: he loves to run, he can take an incredible amount of beating (and takes every opportunity to have his stupid face bashed) and for some reason he tries to save everyone from damnation. Probably God likes it and this is why he's always saved in the very last moment before being shot, stabbed, burnt or something similar.

The character itself is outright unrealistic. Nobody stayed an innocent angel in Soviet work camps. I met a lot of old people who spent years there. A misfit like Kim would've been fed to the crows in a week. Also, nobody risked their lives for others in the Gulag camps. People simply tried to keep a low profile and shut up. They were barely living. Yet Kim (and all others) somehow manage to keep themselves well-fed and healthy.

The battle scenes are simply ridiculous. Yes, they look nice with many swishy-swoshy special effects, a lot of fake blood and clichés diligently copied in every war movie since Saving Private Ryan. But come on... The battle of Khalkin-Gol was not fought in strictly tight formations. (No battles were.) The Soviets indeed used T-26 tanks like in the movie, but they weren't idiots to send them against the Japanese in a parade formation with no infantry. Fortunately the Japs in this movie are even bigger idiots and march in even tighter formations, with only rifles and swords. Their luck is that the Russians still try to top their idiocy and all their tankers stand in the turret under all circumstances, with the hatch open. Oh bull!

Then comes a very long dragging part about the Soviet POW camp with very predictable "twists", and suddenly our hero is a Russian soldier, finding himself the _exact copy_ of the opening scene of Enemy at the Gates! For some reason the Germans, after devastating an entire Russian city, have built a hedgehog position in the middle of it, decorating a building with neat parade flags just in case the Russians can't find them. Now say, why on earth would a German unit entrench itself in a Russian city in 1941? Particularly when facing only ragtag Soviet infantry with barely enough rifles while they have tanks and heavy weapons? Oh bull again!

But our heroes survive again without a scratch, and that's heroic indeed not only because the battering they receive but also the ever-repeating heroic music which gets quite annoying by the time. Probably they can't hear it over the battle noise - good for them. Yes, yes, we also know John Williams, but we don't care how some Korean band can mimic his style. Please stop. Or die. Whatever.

Would you believe that soon comes an exact copy of the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan? Well, actually the only merit to this movie is that it shows how it wasn't exactly a birthday party for the Germans either. Otherwise the entire scene is just as ridiculous as earlier ones. Vastly overdone CGI don't compensate for the lack of realism (just how many bullets can our hero dodge?) and neither for historic inaccuracy. (Paratroopers jumping during the Omaha Beach landing, really? Hasn't it happened a day before? And why do they land just about a hundred meters from the battle after it was already won? Why would they use paras for that?)

Spoiler warning! Here comes the worst. So our heroes somehow survive the entire ordeal (good thing the battleship Iowa is only pounding the beach with very small grenades and the bombs falling from the B-17s are also really undersized) and run away... until our Korean hero finally somehow gets mortally wounded. What happens next? He gives the dog tag to the Japanese guy and tells him to become him so he Americans won't kill him. SERIOUSLY?! So the filmmakers allege that Yang Kyung-jong, who actually survived D-Day, was an impostor and in fact a Japanese colonel (and war criminal)? My, I hope his family never watched this. This feels like they spat on his grave.

Liza the Fox-Fairy (2015)

Boring, dull and overrated

[4/10 · 12 November 2015]

All in all, a movie can be enjoyed or not. There are definitely good ones, definitely bad ones, and there's middle ground. Liza the Fox-Fairy is middle ground. I'd say it's exactly on the boundary, but it's a little bit on the bad side. I found it very boring and dull, despite its technical perks.

The idea of an alternative Hungary in the 1970s presents an interesting idea itself, but it's not taking the movie all the way. The characters are decent, and so are the artists portraying them. Gábor Reviczky as the police chief is however just as dull as the movie itself. The plot has a lot to offer, but fails to deliver. There are very good elements and moments in this movie, but it never becomes a whole. It also fails to deliver the usual playfulness of Hungarian movies, the feeling of "a little bit yellow, a little bit sour, but still ours". It's a movie from East Europe not for East Europeans, but too East European for the rest of the word.

I seriously don't understand the hype about this one. I could not enjoy it. There is no deeper meaning, nothing under a thin (or not so thin) layer of cultural snobbism. Tension is nonexistent, there is no reason to wait for the next scene. It all goes nowhere.

At the end of the day, I am sorry for every minute I spent with this movie. It is exactly like a Mekk Burger with a plastic clown. Also, the outcome is very obvious when the Sergeant enters the plot. (Who is actually an Ensign in the Hungarian original - the English subtitle is very poor.)

Fury (2014)

Banalities, clichés and ripoffs

[4/10 · 10 March 2015]

You can guess how boring I found this movie if I started typing this on my laptop halfway to it. I never had high hopes though. Another WW2 movie with exactly the same synopsis as always. A bunch of soldiers, dirty and desperate, in the darkest hours of history (as if WW2 was the only thing ever happened in Europe) and a dangerous mission. Oh well.

Dear Hollywood, please stop. There is NOTHING more you can tell about WW2. Yes, we admire how your SFX guys can rig explosions. Yes, your stuntmen still excel at throwing themselves in the air with a lifelike illusion of losing their limbs. And yes, good thing you can still come up with even more gross scenes more than fifteen years after Saving Private Ryan. Hey, yes, let's show a ripped off face on the tank's dashboard. Also, a half-rotten body, being treaded into the mud might also turn some stomaches. And add overdone visual effects to every gunshot so a battle looks like a lost scene from Star Wars. Literally, add the same laser bolts.

Is it a good war movie yet? Oh it's still boring. So let's just rip off some signature scenes from other, more successful war movies. Let's see what we have. German POWs being executed, straight from Private Ryan. Enemy soldiers burning, let's have a soldier telling others not to shoot them to let them burn. Or better repeat the same line three times in case the viewer still didn't get the point. Dead bodies being bulldozed into a mass grave, hey, that worked in Platoon, why not steal it? Soldiers find an abandoned piano in a newly occupied town, and it's boobytrapped. Yes, straight from The English Patient, but who remembers that? Maybe we can even throw in some tense dialogs around a table, as seen in Inglorious Basterds. No shooting at the end tho. Tank battle between Shermans and a Tiger, and who would've expected the hero having to shoot the German vehicle from the rear to disable it. Someone watched Kelly's Heroes, right?

Fury is definitely not a movie to watch if your age is over 25 or your IQ is beyond 80. You might still enjoy it if you haven't seen any war movies in the recent decades. Otherwise don't waste your time and money. We all know war is hell. We've seen it a couple of times. And please stop pretending that Germans were idiots and any rookie easily mowed down squads of SS on his first day. It was the other way around.

I just wonder why Hollywood is so obsessed with WW2 more than seventy years after it ended. Why is it mandatory to make another "war is hell, look at the poor sobs in the mud" flick? The very generation that actually fought that war did never took it this seriously. Besides of "serious" films there were a lot of WW2- themed comedies in the 1960s, both in the West and the East. Even the Russians made fun of it. There are no such movies nowadays. Does the current generation actually crave for their grandfathers' worst memories? Is it some bad conscience for being the first generation not having to go to a real war?

Tight Quarters (1983)

A very dull and boring movie - what's the hype?

[3/10 · 8 January 2015]

There was a "genre" of Hungarian films in the 1980s sarcastically referred to as "movies for everyone, without anyone watching them" (in Hungarian: "közönségfilm, közönség nélkül"). These were dull, "artistic", boring movies which attempted to grasp big questions of life, but utterly failing. Snobs always cheered these movies as being "avantgarde", but a matter of fact they are just as novel as coffee with salt. Miklós Jancsó, Béla Tarr and most hyped Hungarian directors all fall in this category. Seriously nobody in Hungary can wrap their minds around the hype around these people. There were many such movies produced in those years, resulting in most people avoiding Hungarian movies in general. As a counterbalance, they started adding as many nudity as possible. (Porn was banned in those times, this was the only way to see pictures of naked women.) The term "art film" still counts somewhat a slur in Hungary today. This one is exactly that kind of movie.

For today's viewers, even young Hungarians, it might hold a touch of retro, an insight to Communist Hungary and miserable life in those times. That's in fact cattle manure. Hungary was never like this. Why is it that every movie about life in Budapest just has to be shot in the run-down slums of the 8th district? Why the characters should always be desperate, broken existences with acute alcoholism and smelly armpits? But that wouldn't be a problem if the movie would actually tell some STORY. But there is absolutely NOTHING. You just wait and wait, for one and a half hour, for something to happen. Nothing does though. Yup, the film starts OK, the main characters are introduced, and there is a conflict. That's about the first three minutes. And then? Nothing then. No tension, no excitement, no nothing. Just a bunch of authentically depicted, but meaningless characters, no development, no plot twists, only an inevitable ending. Plus some sad nostalgic songs and a lot of alcohol.

As someone who grew up in Communist Hungary I can assure you, not everybody lived like this. Yes, there were such people, but why on earth would we look at their lives? They are still around, the 8th district is still the same heap of ruins, and we don't go there to look at them. Except police officers.

If you want to see a worthy movie about the very same milieu and credible acting, watch "Wreck Movie", which was made about decade later. In fact it features some of the same actors and actually the same location - no kidding, the very same house, and the pub frequently mentioned in this movie, named 'Stork' (Gólya), which is just two doors down the street. Nowadays it's a famed hipster pub, with the same name.

This movie is only for true art snobs who despise entertaining value and are willing to consume pictures that actually carry no meaning at all, just to have something to discuss in the cafe the next day. I'd have given it one star only if Károly Eperjes' acting talent hadn't saved the day.

Django Unchained (2012)

What's the fuzz about this boring piece?

[3/10 · 2 November 2014]

Don't get me wrong: I am a fan of Tarantino's works. But this one is just as much of a shame as 'Munich' for Spielberg or 'Inland Empire' for David Lynch. It has all the signature elements of the great director, but it ridiculously falls apart. Seriously, what's this crap?

I admit that I couldn't even watch it to the end. I stopped watching it halfway because there was absolutely no story unfolding. Nothing worthy to watch at least. Indeed, a strange character who's half a Karl May-figure and half a typical Tarantino-ish mass murderer appears, then frees a shady looking shade to be his partner in murders, and then they try to rescue a maid. Almost two hours into the story they still haven't even started. We have a ridiculous amount of fake blood squirting, badly overdone violent scenes and a lot of nowadays non- PC expression. Where does it lead? I don't even care. It couldn't catch my attention. What has Tarantino became?

Dead Man's Letters (1986)

Very Soviet and very shocking

[8/10 · 4 August 2014]

To fully understand this movie you should understand the mindset and milieu of the Eastern Bloc - preferably the Soviet Union - of the 1980s, in the height of the Cold War. This movie is radically different from Western post-apocalyptic movies like 'The Day After' or 'Threads' which deal with the very materialistic side of a nuclear holocaust, like the effects of bombs and life after the war. This Soviet movie is not a spectacle and its aim is far from simply entertaining or scaring. It ponders on the philosophic and moral side of a nuclear war, a suicide of mankind and whether it's inevitable or not.

There is barely any storyline. The main character is an unnamed scientist who lives in a makeshift shelter under a museum, among saved relics from all eras of history and some of his surviving colleagues. Being all scientists they are trying to grapple the whole point of what happened. There are no names, except for the wife and son of this scientist: Anna and Eric. Eric is presumably dead as he was outside when the bombs exploded. Nevertheless the scientist keeps writing letters to him, in a form of a diary, which is more to save his last thoughts of the world than actually meant to be delivered someday.

The pace of this film is just as slow and time would be in such a situation. Soviet art movies were not bound by economic constraints so it did not matter to their makers whether the tickets will sell well or not. Modern moviegoers would find the entire thing profoundly boring, and even the most dedicated movie hipster would look at the clock time to time. Being this slow is part of the image the movie builds. Just like the characters, the viewer is also immersed in an endless waiting, never to know whether something is going to change or happen. You actually have to watch it to the very end to see. Don't expect rich experiences. In such a dull and dead world it's a rare gift to see anything happen.

Interestingly, the makers took great care to emphasize that this is not happening in the Soviet Union. Or more exactly, it could happen, but this particular place is not a Soviet city. There is not a single object in the background with Cyrillic letters on it, but there are a lot of things with English labels, some are even consumer goods rare behind the Iron Curtain at that time. German beer cans float in the water - canned beer was a curiosity that time - and a bottle of Jagermeister is seen on a desk. Canned foods are also foreign, with English labels. Even the soldiers carry weapons that look like a crossbreed of American M-16 and M-1 rifles. It's a small detail, but back then every able-bodied Soviet men were familiar with Soviet military equipment, having spent years as a conscript, and this clue is giving away that the scene takes place in a foreign country. Even the military vehicles were selected to keep this illusion. The helicopter is a Ka-26 which was never used by the military (in the Soviet Union at least), the large truck is a MAZ missile trailer, but there was also a civilian version of it. The then- futuristic hovercraft that appears for no apparent reason was an experimental vehicle at the time, but such vehicles were already operating as ferries on the English Channel, and were praised as a great technical advancement of the time.

I'd generally recommend this movie for those who are desperate enough to take a plunge into a strange, lost civilization's vision of the violent end of the world. Not a date movie, except if your date is a hardcore movie culture fanatic or grew up in the Soviet Union.

White Tiger (2012)

This is NOT a war movie, but a symbolic parabola

[10/10 · 19 May 2013]

If you expect a good war movie, with some video game-like scenes, it's not for you. Albeit the movie is very accurate in depicting contemporary armies, weapons and such - what else would you expect from a Russian movie? - it has nothing to do with history. Rather it looks like a mystic thriller until you get to the end.

The entire story of the White Tiger is not the central point of the movie, despite it looks like so. Whatever is the White Tiger, whoever drives it, or whatever happened to our hero before he was found is not the point of this movie. They are both symbols, and they are both misguides. While the viewer is lost in trying to cope with their meanings, puzzled whether Naydenov is a phoenix, rebirth from fire, or the White Tiger is supposed to be some godly chariot... while it is not.

This, dear viewers, is a quite delicate piece of film. There is a reason for changing the pace from an action movie to a Tarkovsky-like scene with the peace treaty and the dinner, and then the almost boring shot with the march of the POWs. And it is all revealed in the very last scene, with the person sitting at the fireplace and resembling Hitler, or is he Hitler himself? This scene itself is the answer to the mystery of the White Tiger.

Here we zoom out from the entire story. The Second World War is just a plot device. We are being delivered a teaching. And it is: Whatever happens in history is viewed through many people's glasses. All will distort it, and this results in obviously false stories of a ghost tank being able to obliterate entire divisions, or an undead tankman who is trying to fight it. And when such stories can be created, there is always space for more. Such story is the eternal guilt of the German people for what happened. Yes, dear viewers, this film is a very brave criticism on people who falsified our history: the White Tiger is nothing else but forgery itself. It symbolizes the stories born in the storms of history which last for decades, centuries even. This is what Naydenov's final words mean.

Indeed, it is a Russian war movie which super-gently assumes that Germans are not to be held guilty of the war, because most of history is actually made up. And I'll let you figure why the Jews are mentioned in the very last scene. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!

It Happened in Europe (1947)

A terrible piece of postwar communist propaganda

[1/10 · 1 May 2013]

Besides of doused with Communist propaganda - part of the foreplay which led to a terrible dictatorship in a few years, yet still playing nice and democratic - this is also a terribly bad movie. Those who think I might be wrong because it was voted among the best Hungarian movies, think again. Of course it was - in the Communist times. If you view it that way, then it's indeed a good movie, it fulfills all the requirements of Stalin's and Rakosi's approval. But anyway...

There is no established storyline in this piece of awfulness. The kids run away from an orphanage. For some reason the orphanage contains a theme park with a panopticum of Nazi leaders, in which Hitler is melting during a bombing raid. After a set of forced symbolics, our heroes are on the road - leading nowhere. They meet an old musician who teaches them about how great the French Revolution was, and we also see a former Nazi putting away his uniform and taking up a new role in a new society. And so, what else? The entire story leads nowhere, it's shallow and illogical.

Technically the movie is also a disaster. There are basic editing mistakes, eg. there is a scene which was inserted reversed (see the boat under the bridge actually going backwards), the camera sometimes goes out of focus, equipment gets visible, animals stare at the crew (ie. a dog in the foreground). It's a school example of how the Communists recruited all-thumbs amateurs to replace the great experts of Hungarian movie industry who all fled abroad or died during the war. In its time this movie was heralded as the "greatest movie of all times", its makers were celebrated countrywide, and this lie is kept alive even today, with all the hype around this crap. It's OK to watch if you wish to see something North Korea would produce these days, in a contemporary fashion. But as a movie - forget about it.

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (2005 Video)

Indeed a very funny film

[10/10 · 30 June 2012]

I got this movie on DVD while visiting a computer art festival in Helsinki 2005. I knew nothing about it, and never even heard of these guys, but I saw them giving autographs and my Finnish friends told they are sort of like movie stars for the computer geeks. So, being a geek myself, I gave a shot and bought this DVD - autographed, just in case. Indeed, I was right with giving that chance! This is one of the best, freshest and loveliest sci-fi parodies I've ever seen! And the best reason for me being a movie hipster - you know, I was a fan of Timo Vuorensola before Iron Sky. My two cent as a 3D artist: visuals are very well done, this is the best anyone could achieve with customer level PCs and commercially available 3D animation applications in 2005. These guys really have something to be proud of for a lifetime!

Prometheus (I) (2012)

Not worth watching!

[1/10 · 10 June 2012]

This is a terrible disappointment. What happened to Ridley Scott? The same what happened to George Lucas, David Lynch and many great Hollywood directors.

There are simply no words describing the boredom and sketchiness of this flick. Characters are shallow or totally empty, they actually have no characters. Most of them just stare at computer screens in a shock, or at alien artifacts with the same face. If we asked an amateur middle school acting class to perform something "Alienic", probably this would be the result. What we see on the silver screen defy the laws of physics, logic, and whatever comes. Heck, it even defies the Alien universe! For example, what the heck was the deal with the guy who turned into an invincible zombie? There was never anything like that, and we get no explanation. Or how come they have fancy 3D hologram user interfaces for their computers, yet the story predates the Nostromo's demise, where we only see randomly flashing lights and keyboards? The storyline is a catastrophe. A lot of events happen which are not explained and do not fit into the previous episodes' concepts. The characters often act against common sense, especially the two scientists who lose their way in the alien ship. Just how stupid should you be to start taunting an obviously hostile alien life form in an alien planet which you have just explored? Also, Mr. Weyland's mask seems like from an 1980 kids' movie. Why didn't they simply hire an old actor to play this role? A guy in a rubber mask in 2012 is simply ridiculous, at least they should have added some CGI.

Some people love this movie for being so "spectacular". Sure it is: another CGI porn. Anyone with some taste or common sense must avoid this movie, as it is awful, and not even worth downloading, let alone paying for it.

Generation Kill (2008)

Straight and realistic

[10/10 · 1 June 2012]

I don't really have my two cents to add to what others already said: it's simply a masterpiece. So it is this simple: get a bunch of Marines (or any kind of soldier, for that matter), reconstruct what they actually did in Iraq, and there's the perfect war movie. Sounds simple, however a reconstruction is worth nothing if it's not painstakingly accurate, from the slightest detail on uniforms to road signs and background characters. Generation Kill truly achieves this. A word of advice: non-native speakers will have serious problems with understanding dialogs, especially if they are not into military jargon and slang. Don't even think about watching it without subtitles.

Spadla z oblakov (1978–1983)

A lovely little kids' story of its age

[9/10 · 2 May 2012]

We Hungarian kids simply loved this one. We never cared the poor FX like Majka's head "sparkling" by a simple Christmas sparkler fixed to the back of her neck, and so. Czechoslovakian kids' series ruled our world, only matched by some Hungarian cartoons like "Cat City" or "Vuk". I definitely will show this to my kids someday, and explain why it's still great even if it doesn't have any CGI - simply because it's all believable, and kids can just think along the story. No dragons, no Pokémons and no intergalactic warrior-demigods - just a little girl and some friends.

It's just sad how most of the actors in this series ended up when they grew up. Zuzana Pravnanská, the little girl portraying Majka has been married twice, but her husband beat and raped her, and finally she got addicted to alcohol. This is all anyone knows of her fate. It's said she had three children, but nobody knows where she is now, or what is she doing. Fact is that she made her last film in 1984, and that's been already quite a while.