Asimovo Reviews

Foundation: The Mathematician's Ghost (2021) Season 1, Episode 3

A SciFi for serious adults

[7/10 · 2 October 2021]

This sci-fi is not made for teenagers, star wars, or star trek fanboy's, it's for serious sci-fi adults with an adult approach to Aimov's foundation works.

Slow buildup, I love it, story driven good solid adult sci-fi, finally!

Foundation (2021– )

Great SciFi, don't be discouraged by the negative reviews

[4/10 · 27 September 2021]

I have read Foundation by Isaac Asimov several times, as well as the Robot series. I am a huge fan of Asimov's work and when I heard last year that Foundation was going to be made into a movie, I decided to re-read the entire series.

I do believe that you should judge a TV adaptation based on the format, in other words, I will not judge this series by the letter of the book, is every detail correct? Is the storyline the same as the book? Those questions are not my main focus. With that, I would only illustrate that I do not understand the difference between books and television or film. That is why this series is also "based" on Asimov's Foundation and not a one-to-one film adaptation.

So I don't think it's a problem that the series would deviate from the book, just like the trilogy adaptation of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The gender switch doesn't concern my either, in the book series almost all important roles are played by men. In short, for me as a film freak, the following criteria that are important for film and TV series are: a good story, good acting, cinematography, sound design, and film score as well as camera work. And in the case of a book adaptation, I would like to see the common thread of the story return.

Does the above apply? Yes!

Adding all these factors up, I can only conclude that Foundation has been an excellently well-crafted SciFi TV series so far. It cannot be compared with Star Wars or Star Trek. In my opinion, it goes much deeper in terms of content. The common thread of Asimov's Foundation is indeed followed, but there are also things incorporated in this series that I have my doubts about.

I, therefore, think it is still too early for a final verdict, but based on what I have seen so far I give the series a 10/10.

• very entertaining *check*
• extremely beautiful cinematography *check*
• the film score is top-notch *check*
• the acting is of high quality *check*
• the main theme of the book is followed *check*

Looking forward to see episode three.

Altered Carbon (2018–2020)

Pretentious failed Blade Runner imitation

[2/10 · 2 February 2018]

As a huge SciFi lover myself I can surely appreciate any effort in making a new SciFi television series. My props to Netflix in doing so, this series had the budget, the storyline and enough other ingredients for making a decent SciFi serie full stop. To bad it failed to deliver.

Where to begin? The storyline is way to complicated and in an unnecessary fashion. The dialogues are so badly written and filled with cliches. It's really hard to comprehend and at some point it really started to irritate. Then the protagonist, the various of characters are so shallow and the way everything has been edited makes it hard to get some kind of connection with the different characters.

In a nutshell this series has been a huge letdown for me. To much CGI, to little depth of character development.

2/10

Loveless (2017)

One dimensional characters in a one dimensional story.

[3/10 · 11 October 2017]

First of all I like to state that I'm a huge Andrey Zvyagintsev fan. Since his debut with Vozvrashchenie in 2003, on which he rightfully won the Golden Lion on the Venice Film Festival and with it's his followup movies The Banishment (2007), Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014) nothing seems to be able to harm Zvyagintsev's brilliance in movie-making. Until now. Loveless is truly an overrated movie which is way to long, the story itself could have easily been told in 90 minutes instead of more then two hours. Sometimes long movies contribute with characters to develop, but in this movie the characters remains shallow, the boy that disappears has no depth in his character role what so ever so it's very hard to feel the "pain" of his disappearance. And also because the main two actors, husband and wives, show lack of depth in character it's pretty hard to get some kind of connection with the actors. But then you also have this tedious and most terrible aspect of this movie: quality of acting, or rather, a lack of acting quality. The only thing you see from the this wife character is anger, frustrations, as well when looking at her husband. You only see anger and frustration and fear, fear of how colloquies would react on work when he would state that he has been divorced. Literally everything in this scenario points out towards the same direction: the parents are all egocentric, self-indulgent angry people who have only interest in themselves or in the maybe consequences when divorce is imminent.

The victim is without a doubt the child.

It's so one sided and lacks so much nuances that the characters are becoming, for me at least, a characterization of the evil self destructing ego. A stereotype you might state of the egocentric side of humans. But life itself is anything but one dimensional and because of the one dimensional characters in this movie makes this movie hard to watch, let alone a movie to take seriously. A pity, because I'm a real fan of Andrey Zvyagintsev, I've got all of his movies but I'm not eager to add this one to my movie collection.

Venus in Fur (2013)

Age does matter

[4/10 · 7 June 2014]

I was looking forward to see La Vénus à la fourrure (2013) yet another production from the old Polanski, at a respectable age of 81 he's one of my favorite directors. Once again we can see Polanski's wife, actress Emmanuelle Seigner, performing in her third movie for Polanski. She appeared before in Frantic (1988) and Bitter Moon (1992).

In La Vénus à la fourrure she plays the part of Vanda who tries to convince play director Thomas (Mathieu Amalric) that she's the right girl for playing the leading part of the Greek goddess Venus. She appears late for the audition, this is also the introduction of the movie, one long shot of an early rainy morning in an abandoned street somewhere in Paris that ends at the doors of the theater. It's a beautiful taken shot and the last we'll see of Paris because the whole story evolves within the theater itself.

The shot ends, the doors of the theater opens, and Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner) enters, all wet due of the rain. she finds herself to be alone with the play director Thomas (Mathieu Amalric) who's having problems finding the right women for the part of playing Venus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure Aphrodite/ At first Thomas is not in the mood to give Vanda the opportunity to show him that's she's the right person for the job. But with, what appears to be the beginning of submission, all of her sex appeal she persuades Thomas to give her a try. Thomas decides to play the character that will have conversations with the Greek goddess Venus payed by Vanda to see if she's is up for the part.

What follows is a mixture of brilliance and utterly failures at the same time. The camera-work, as for editing work and the cinematography in general are flawless, it's also clear that the leading hand of the director Polanski hash't lost it's talent a bit. The screenplay is well written and in some ways close to a masterpiece. The painfully missing link tough, that tears down the quality of the movie all together, is the directors judgement when selecting the characters for this picture. La Vénus à la fourrure is all about dominance and submission and on top of that you might aspect that whomever would play the role of Venus the Greek goddess of love and beauty would be able to fulfill these ingredients. Now, I don't want to be prejudice here, Emmanuelle Seigner is a good actress and she's capable to be sexy but not as sexy one might expect from a Greek goddess who has no issues to appears in the form of a young, sexy looking, female that will turn each male fantasy upside down. It's a Greek goddess for crying out loud. Any reasonable play director would choose at least an actress age young to a maximum age of thirty. Emmanuelle Seigner as Vanda is forty-eight, and that shows. Again, i've nothing against aged actresses or actors, but you don't choose an actor age fifty plus to play the role of Oliver in Charles Dicken's famous novel either. In Bitter Moon (1992) Emmanuelle Seigner also play's the role as a sexy female to seduce the, even young, actor Hugh Grant. And besides good acting this does acquire, in a physical sense, a young appealing sexy body, even when looking "sexy" is in the eye of the beholder.

Beside this, there is almost nothing wrong with the screenplay, but it does tend to become pretentious, especially when hearing Vanda her dialog where she's aware of her beauty:

Vanda: Any other director I know would have already jumped on me. Thomas: I'm not "any other director". Vanda: Bullshit. If he thought he could, he would have already done. Thomas: Not true. Vanda: Not even if I allowed him?

Even tough, once again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I find it hard to connect with Vanda's confidence about her being sexy and her looks at age forty-eight.

It's a pity, because I love movies with long dialogs and being set in a single room or space. I can recommend Tape (2001) with Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard and Uma Thurman or even from Polanski himself, Cul-de-sac (1966)

But as said before, this movie has both aspects of being wonderful but the screenplay is to often pretentious and Vanda doesn't convince me to be young and sexy in physical context to be the Greek goddess of love, beauty,and pleasure. She would had when she would have been twenty years younger.

4/10

True Detective (2014– )

Twin Peaks revisited, but fails to impress

[1/10 · 19 January 2014]

True Detective written by Nic Pizzolatto comes with an interesting cast. Academy Nominated actor Matthew McConaughey and two times Academy nominated Woody Harrelson. Nothing could go wrong, so I thought. But almost everything went wrong. The opening has so much borrowed from David Lynch's Twin Peaks and is so much trying to impress with presenting these 'odd' talking characters, and cinematography which is good I admit, that this opening episode, so far that is, tries desperately to impress the viewer as a none conformist approach from the director. As if the series tries to be some kind of European Art House production. It's fails doing so, simply because it tries to hard to look as if everything has a meaning, a hidden dark storyline or some interesting dialogues while in practice the main characters remain shallow and quite frankly very boring. The main problem, one that affecting American productions, is that there is such a wide gap between the main characters and the other actors, good looking detectives with shiny white teeth and intelligent versus the almost weird color graded scenery of the impressive looking landscapes with it's surreal acting extra's. This is all done in an attempt to impress the viewer but fails for reasons mentioned above.

True Detective tries to be unique, but leans to much on clichés. I can only hope the TV- series will develop in a good way, but episode one didn't empress me at all.

3/10

Der Tunnel (1999 TV Movie)

Sincere, honest, pure emotion.

[8/10 · 31 March 2005]

I just saw this documentary on on Dutch television and I was stunned. So honest way of shooting a documentary, shows pure human emotion. I didn't saw such a documentary for years.

This movie documentary represents the pure meaning what freedom is all about.

With the financial help of NBC the American Television station, 4 students where able to "finish" their plan to dig a tunnel from West to East Berlin, during the period this city has been separated by a wall, to give freedom to their friends and families of the other side; the east.

Together with the financial support of NBC they finished the job, but are fighting against many unexpected problems.

Touching the Void (2003)

Stunning

[8/10 · 20 July 2004]

Stunning view of what people are able to survive even when you think it's impossible

Brilliant shots!

The movie documentary is in fact most of all a psychology thriller about the human mind. It's all about making choices when there is basically none to chose from. I remembered I was sitting on the edge of my chair and could loose my attention in this documentary for a second! What a masterpiece! It's not the brilliant camerawork, and the story itself that has affected me, but the most unbelievable situation where those two friends are involved in. The choices they have to make, being together doesn't mean you're not alone. That's what I most of all remembered after seeing this documentary. The two friends have to make choices. And all options seems to lead to one end; death.

That's why it's not a common documentary, but a story about making choices, surviving, and most of all about winning from your own mind.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Not a documentory but skillfully edited

[8/10 · 2 July 2004]

In my country, The Netherlands, Bush is not very popular and you can call that an understatement.

Let me start that almost every detail in this movie was not new for me. The so-called facts, and with that the whole package of moral issues, Michael More delivers to the audiences are at least a bit doubtful. However, the movie itself is extremely well put together. You might see it as an anti American propaganda movie but I think it's not fair to put it in such a perspective.

The most comments I have red so far are extremely enthusiastic or mend to talk this piece of documentary under the dirt with a big cross on it labeled with the word: Traitor!

I red comments saying Moore shows only the bad things American soldiers do once they're based in Iraq. But `what if' he does so? Is one soldier making mistakes not one to many? And is that not a general fact that should be the rule for each country on this planet? In war people make mistakes, sure, but on what ground is a war based in the first place? Would America had been to war if oil was not in stake? And if that's not a question I'm able to ask, and if the only reason to go to war was to liberate Iraq from this dictator why is the United States army not based in Tibet, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and many more states like in Africa government by dictators or are being threatened by neighbors?

If it's truly a war against Terror, where are the neutral morals and above all, the highly rated Democratic standards, in this conflict between Israelis vs. the Palestinians? Surely, everyone with some knowledge of what's going on the world should ask these questions where human lives are at stake. Is that not one of the principles of Democracy in the first place?

Despite the one way look around of all these questions trough the eyes of Moore, the questions on themselves are to important to let go just to please some `critics'.

Being critic is what Moore is, and despite people like it or not, there is enough endless amount of pro Bush commercials due the next election that this documentary is at least welcome for those which don't consider a speech of Bush as the only right spoken one!

I'm sorry to say this, but in my mind Bush is at least a criminal, at least he's considerate to be one in my country by more then 80% among the people. (According to last investigation). Even more, The United States government is considerate more dangerous all together then the Muslim fundamentalist. And this documentary just had proven why people think that way.

Only that should at least make people think `why?' and that's just what Michael Moore does, nothing more or less…

Good educational documentary for those who has the guts to open their eyes!

Troy (2004)

If 1% was based on reality then Greece would have dominated the world as we know it.

[3/10 · 21 May 2004]

With some expectations I went to see this movie. I thought it would be like Gladiator but maybe just not as good... Anyway I was stunned. Every scene was a well-made stolen copy of movies like Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, Ben Hur, but the big difference; Troy just doesn't match on any level with these pictures. The acting, despite of some good performances by Brian Cox (playing Agamemnon), and Brendan Gleeson (playing Menelaus), is awful.

Brad Pit is a mouse compared to the acting quality done by Russell Crowe for Gladiator. Pit, just doesn't seem to take real acting roles to seriously like he for once did in 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam. His main role in Troy was mainly to look just great as the ultimate sexy Hollywood symbol.

The music in this film is like listening to Dead Can Dance with the button fast forward on.

The special effects are not that bad, but then again, with Lord of the Rings in your mind we could say this movie has created a whole family of mice.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

You'll have more then 3 hours shortage of air!

[7/10 · 17 December 2003]

Amazing special effects. Allthough the story misses some detaills compared to J.R.R. Tolkiens book Lord of the Rings, you'll not be disappointed! More then 3 hours of high end spectakel, breathtaking effects and Peter Jackson even put more storyline into the film characters!

Start the movie, and experiences the richdom of CGI!

Alexandra's Project (2003)

Awfull low budget, Brilliant movie!

[7/10 · 16 October 2003]

Extremly suprising. With the age of digital shooting more movies are been made with a hight quality rating! Alexandra's Project is based on a solid written plot. On top on that good acting and by the hand of a very talented producer Rolf de Heer. His work, Dance Me to My Song (1998), Old Man Who Read Love Stories, The (2001), Tracker, The (2002), and recently Alexandra's Project (2003) all earned a plus 6 by the IMDB's visitors. And now I understand why.

Awfull low budget, Brilliant movie!

Identity (2003)

Too less "identities"

[4/10 · 29 September 2003]

Few actors acting nicely in this movie, but most of them don't. The plot is so so, and the viewer is watching with some tension the movie until the last scene where everything will be showed. But the outcome of that is not enough to carry the movie to a point where I can say "wow", in fact the plot outcome makes this movie a good American Teen Age movie but no more then that.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The new Lawrence of Arabia of this age!

[7/10 · 16 December 2002]

I thought i had seen it all, till I saw this movie! For a small magazine i had to write a short plot outline of the movie, but there is just not much to say about it then it's a great movie! If you like epic movies, this is without any doubt Lawrence of Arabia of this age but even more powerful!

No Man's Land (I) (2001)

Without any doubt the best screenplay (Cannes 2001)

[8/10 · 23 January 2002]

What a great movie! So realistic, so well produced! Winner Special Jury Prize : Best Screenplay and well deserved!! I can recommend this movie for everybody! Michiel

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Absolute best film of 2001

[8/10 · 21 December 2001]

Seen it 3 times! What a great epos! This is everything beyond my imagination. I did expect something big, but not as big like this! Just wow!

Absolutely best film of 2001!