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Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984)
Gunda? Feech!
A Star Wars spin-off for children. Well, Star Wars is for children as well. All right I know, Star Wars is very much enjoyable for adults. This movie isn't.
Everything is about the Ewoks here, those fuzzy little furballs from The Return of the Jedi. They are as cute as ever, even though the way their faces aren't moving is a bit creepy. On the positive side these Ewoks are the same ones we saw in The Return of the Jedi. They talk the same way they did there, by operating with such words as 'gunda' (good) or 'feech' (what seems to be an Ewokian cuss-word).
Of course there are also humans in the movie, 2 children, who are lost and are looking for their parents in the vast forests of the moon of Endor. The storyline covers the journey of a little girl and her brother to the hideout of a giant, who apparently holds their parents hostage, with the local Ewoks helping the children throughout their quest. No more, no less.
As I said, this movie is definitely for children. For adults it might be tedious to watch because of the lack of dialogues (everything is told by a narrator, for obvious reasons), and the overall silliness of the movie. And I mean tedious even to adults who are otherwise Star Wars fans/addicts. But for children it can be enjoyable. It's important to note that George Lucas wrote the story, so it's actually the creation of the father of the Star Wars universe and it's got a bit darker, grimmer sequel named The Battle for Endor.
Bathory (2008)
A disappointment
I'm not going to write a traditional review about Bathory, I'll just name a few pros and contras.
Pros: - Erzsébet Báthory isn't shown as a blood bathing demoness, rather as a protestant mistress of high nobility trying to survive in the 16-17th century, in the Kingdom of Hungary and someone who is loved by the peasants throughout her lands.
- The names are correct and the locations as well, even though they are mentioned by their Slovakian names, and not their original Hungarian names.
- Clothes, dresses and makeups are fairly authentic contrary to the ones seen in the other movie about Erzsébet Báthory: The Countess.
- Anna Friel the actress who portrays Erzsébet Báthory is charming and talented, a bit more grace would have helped though.
Cons: - The movie did quite a good job portraying locations and names, but tried too much by showing battle scenes (which are quite pathetic) that do not belong to the story. It's true that Erzsébet Báthory had fought a lot against the Turks (not personally of course), but these scenes don't have anything to do with the plot. They could have made 1 grand battle scene with lots of men and with a better design. Sometimes less is more.
- English language is good, sure the film can get to a larger audience this way but authenticity should have required Hungarian. I mean we are talking about a Slovakian-Czech production here, Hungary is not on the other end of the world and there are more than half-million Hungarians living in Slovakia. Funny thing is, Hungarian language can be heard throughout the movie – usually when cussing or shouting – but it's pretty pointless, just like the use of Slovak. Just to remain at historical facts: nobility spoke either in Hungarian, German or Latin, peasants and servants spoke Slovakian in the upper parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. Staying at the dialogues: they were awfully simple, the scriptwriter must have been either very young or had some difficulties with English.
- Relating to the previous point the filmmakers completely left out Hungary of the creation of the movie, and – therefore - the movie seemingly suffers from historical inaccuracy. I may sound a bit bitter here, but you don't go on making a movie about Africa for example without actually going to Africa and without the advices of real Africans. Oh well, maybe next time.
- There are scenes which are simply laughable: the best one was when Hungarian soldiers are attacking and raping Turkish women (!). Yep, you heard it right: Turks are invading the Kingdom of Hungary and they bring along their women into a war zone right.
The movie is watchable but I was expecting a lot-lot more, since Erzsébet Báthory lived in the territory of modern day Slovakia (back then it was the Kingdom of Hungary). A major disappointment for me.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
An underrated, excellent sequel
Beneath the Planet of the Apes is an underrated movie that comes close to the original (of course it can't reach the great climax of the original) and this is the only one of the ape movies that actually makes sense (it's a direct sequel to the Planet of the Apes) with an imaginative storyline. It's also important to state that this movie is basically worthless without seeing the first one, so anyone giving it a try should watch that before this one.
At the beginning of the movie we get a very interesting start – the exact ending of the original Planet of the Apes. Personally I always liked these kinds of beginnings because it's usually a good start to see that the director catches up and follows the story from the very end of the first movie. We can celebrate the presence of Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Nova (Linda Harrison), the protagonists of the first movie who gave their names to the sequel, so we can actually expect something good here as well. However we can quickly say goodbye to Taylor, who we won't be seeing for a long time (till the end to be precise), but Nova keeps on being one of the main characters throughout the story. The new hero is Brent (James Franciscus) who is almost the exact copy of Taylor (physically, the way of arrival, etc. – except Taylor's nihilism). The viewer is spared from learning everything about the twisted society of the apes (only getting the regular clichés, like: 'he can speak!'), except news like the gorillas are now in power and their leader Ursus is the one whose opinion counts the most. The orangutan Dr. Zaius still hates humans so he supports the general's plans of searching and killing the – supposedly human - inhabitants in the Forbidden Zone. The chimpanzees are still positive – and appear to be the most intelligent and peace-loving – characters, although we can mostly assume this from the roles of Zira and Cornelius. After a familiar escape – with the help of Zira - Brent and Nova manage to get to the Forbidden Zone where Brent realizes that they are indeed on Earth, a bit faster than Taylor did in the original. They explore the section of the underground system of New York and encounter highly intelligent mutants, who possess quite powerful psionic powers (which they fail to use for some reason against the gorillas during the raid). They capture Brent and Nova and finally Taylor appears – he is a prisoner of the mutants as well. Soon after the gorillas invade the underground city and the leader of the mutants arms the 'tool of God': an atomic bomb. In the final showdown the heroes fall and the bomb goes off.
The absolutely depressing ending makes this movie a very unusual one by Hollywood standards and closes off the whole story perfectly. The locations are awesome, the contrast of the vast deserts and the ape inhabited forests is present here as well. The underground city of the mutants with the cathedral is amazing, reminded me of the original Fallout PC game (the two has not much to do with each other, it's just clear that the creators of the game took many elements from here – post nuclear/apocalyptic setting, an atomic bomb under the cathedral, etc.). The main characters are great, all the corresponding actors and actresses do a very good job: the heroic Brent, the again nihilistic Taylor, the beautiful Nova, the wise human-hater Dr. Zaius, Ursus the gorilla war-chief, the good-natured Zira and Cornelius and of course the cold-hearted, emotionless mutants.
If you liked Planet of the Apes, I'm suggesting you to avoid all the unnecessary sequels/prequels – except this one, cause this is one movie worth watching and completes a good story in order to become an even better one.
Stalker (1979)
A huge disappointment, as a book it could be great
This movie is a typical example of the over-hyped, trendy movies of what (almost) on one dares to write negatively about out of fear of contempt. I'm not doing this because of defiance or because I like to go against the flow - but because sadly this really isn't a good movie.
I'm well aware that this movie was made in 1979, so you can't expect mind-blowing special effects, CGI images that would have turned this movie into a visually stunning masterpiece. What I usually say is: don't attempt to shoot a sci-fi with a low budget.
If we put aside the story (which is great), the characters, the symbolic meaning - then there's absolutely nothing to appreciate in this movie. The actors aren't given much opportunity to show their talents, mostly they stare blankly into the camera if they aren't talking to each other. The backgrounds consist of grassy fields with debris, ruined town sections, narrow interiors mostly set in bunkers and sewers, all that could be quoted as "great and retro looking" by viewers from Western Europe, but actually if you come to Eastern Europe, you notice that you can find these locations (literally) everywhere.
Also the authenticity of the movie suffers, because we never get to see why the Zone is so dangerous (as the Stalker claims it to be) or how it makes people disappear. All we see are rust-eaten tanks and some bodies long since dead. Neither we are allowed to see what happens to the nuts they keep throwing around to check whether the area is safe or not, if they throw one into a "wrong" place.
I liked how the burnt out Writer is allowed through all the traps because of his nihilism, the Professor whose goal is to blow up the Room in order to prevent it to fulfill the wishes of evil people, the Stalker whose sole purpose in life is to guide those who are willing to the Room through the Zone and of course how they all become enlightened towards the end about the purpose of their lives.
It would have made a brilliant book and instead we got a plain looking, boring movie with almost no reason to watch it - you need more than just audio in a film. Otherwise the camera work and the soundtrack - that can be heard quite seldomly - are pretty good. So many movies are being remade nowadays, I believe that this is the one that definitely deserves a remake and a bit of a genre makeover (into horror/sci-fi) and a bit more clarified ending. Let's hope someday, someone is going to discover it as it happened to Solaris.
Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin (2008)
Not authentic, rapes were far more cruel
I had already submitted a review of this movie earlier, but as it may have seemed misleading for some people I thought I should rephrase it.
First of all I'd like to congratulate to Glock22 for his review (The Germans are pathetic, 25 February 2011), who summarized the problematic parts within the movie very well. This movie comes 2nd on the self blame list of Germans: the 1st one is Stalingrad in case you are wondering. The main problem with the movie is that it's actually a quasi love story - instead of a war drama - between a German woman and a Russian major. It's something that was quite unlikely to have happened if not impossible at all. So instead of the facts it shows us an example that probably never happened (I know the movie is based on a diary but it sill doesn't make it authentic). At the beginning, the movie focuses on the rape itself, because that's what happened when the Soviet Army occupied a town or settlement – a gang rape, that lasted for several days until they left the area. Then of course a new wave of soldiers came and the whole process started all over again. There were also lootings and murders, which aren't really emphasized in the movie. The movie fails to mention that several thousands of women died during the rapes in horrendous ways (their back broken, beaten or tortured death), and also children were involved amongst the victims – sometimes not above the age of 9. It wasn't a rare example when the mother and the daughter were raped at the same time by these "soldiers".
To me, the scenes where German women are joking about how many soldiers had raped them seemed very unnatural, morbid and improper. I can't really imagine anyone could be making fun about this. The scene where they celebrate and dance together with the Soviet soldiers provoked similar feelings. The reason why I found these unnatural is maybe because in Hungary - where the same things happened as in Germany and Austria - the women who were raped often committed suicide after they had been raped, because of shame, self blame and moral issues. In those years for a woman to sleep with a man who wasn't her husband, meant terrible shame (not to mention that rape could hardly be called "sleeping"). Sadly, in Hungary there are people also who still call the Soviets "liberators" and never think of the hundreds of thousands of women who were raped, humiliated and sometimes killed.
What the movie shows well is when the Soviet officers show no concern when they hear about the rape cases. Usually they said it helped the soldiers to "cool off", to let out the steam. Now that's true. Question is: who is going to give compensation to these people (and to those who have been taken to Siberia to work in labour camps – if a woman was really unlucky she was robbed, raped and then taken to a labour camp where she died)? Seemingly everyone has forgotten about them.
If you are looking for true facts, historically accurate emotions and situations from the invaded Germany from the end of WW II, then avoid this movie. Instead go and read a book about it from a Hungarian author, Alaine Polcz – who had also "experienced" the liberation: A Wartime Memoir (Asszony a Fronton – in Hungarian). There's another movie that deals with the topic and is much more authentic (therefore much more disturbing): Joy Division (2006).
Only if you do not care about true historical facts and would like to see an unlikely story taking place in Berlin at the end of WW II, should you watch this movie.
Friday the 13th (1980)
The first part in the series, but still terrible
The movie is pretty much a stupid fiction, only its following parts made it famous. It doesn't have any sense at all, regarding to the stupid storyline. The other parts made the movie even more stupid, because you won't get the chance to know who Jason really was, and why cannot be killed. There is only 1 good thing in this movie: it's dark gloom and atmosphere.