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HanslH
Reviews
Centurion (2010)
visually nice but too much of an ingredient movie
I should say this review contains spoilers although i really feel there is not much to spoil :P It's a genre I have a weakness for (historical drama) so I thought I could enjoy it despite the slightly sub standard reviews and rating. But alas, no. It really boiled down to a mix of all too familiar ingredients. The Hollywood-newfound grittiness of Romans in the cold climate(gladiator), the chase, the jumping from a high cliff to escape, the black sheep in our midst. And in the end it get worse: the girl that the hero is getting (you see this coming from miles away what makes it more unbearable) and then the awkward and absurd getting attacked by your own rulers, victim of the system ploy. The last implemented as a means to surprise the audience and have them leave with the feeling they have been watching an unpredictable and meaningful movie. Duh!
The Incredible Human Journey (2009)
Very digestible, a bit too..
My reference for BBC TV-docu is Simon Schama's a history of Britain that is so packed with information that you need to view it trice to fill all the holes left by former small lapses of concentration. The same can happen here but I'm afraid the lapses of concentration constitute dozing off from lack of input. For example 15 minutes I am looking at someone taking a walk in the heated rough to some sandpit were the oldest human remains were once found. Since the terrain may have altered 100% since then the net info is hardly above 0. I love the involvement of the in the footsteps effect from Michael Wood but this does nothing for me. The next 10 minutes I see a lady spending a night in the wild and seeing how scared she is. And what is the target age for this exactly? I hope the BBC prime interest for docu making is not going to be to please as many people as possible. Entertainment and infotainment are all around. I hope they keep making programs that offer a lot of information too. My minority vote perhaps.
The Mist (2007)
Terrific popcorn movie
I read some reviews of this movie from 'serious' reviewers. The tendency was towards shallowness of plot and lack of credibility or explanation. I can't believe this. Decades on end I see Hollywood movies that are about having the right ingredients to earn money and suddenly they pick on this. But I saw why .. the director had a reputation from 'the green mile' and 'shawshank' so disappointment was around the corner. Consuming this movie for what it is, a unpretentious popcorn movie in which exaggerated human behavior under stress / shallow psychology is used as an extra entertainment factor I totally enjoyed myself. The only let-down for me was the sad ending which suggests some kind of pretentiousness after all, like it's some kind of tragedy/drama or something. I love the way tension is built up in this movie as much as I hate all the scream-like pseudo comical horror-movies from the past years.