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carl_andersen
Reviews
Rumba (2008)
First half: great; second half: disappointing
Here we have the story of a heartwarming unconventional couple with the great plan in head to dance the Rumba. But the plan will be complicated after a car crash. Wow! What will sound like a boring drama is in fact a really absurd, charming and wild comedy which looks like Jaques Tati and Leon Schuster did a film together. Strange, strange, strange - and very likable, wild and surreal. But only the first half. The second half looks like somebody (the producers?) said: hey, folks, 40 minutes are not enough - let's stretch the stuff to feature length. And here the problems starts. Serious problems. Because the movie left the charming couple situation and goes to - at least to nowhere. This is a shame. Don't go to cinema, wait for the DVD-Release, watch the first half, have some great and charming entertainment - and spare the second half. Sometimes people should did short films and not more!
The Last Broadcast (1998)
oops
The film opens with a filmmaker who have to sit through a bunch of more or less destroyed videotapes of the last night of the makers of a TV-show with absurd themes like "we will follow a serial killer through the night". Of course that will be their last night. But who is the murderer? Made (most of the running time) clearly on videotape - this is without any doubt the inspiration for the much more hyped "Blairwith Proshit", ahem, "Blairwitch Project", but is far, very, very far more clever made. The first 60 minutes are a genius made (and intentionally "bad" filmed) psycho thriller, the rest is the "snuff movie" you really never want to see. One of the few really surprises in the cinema of the 90ies. And in a psycholicical way really creepy.
Live Feed (2006)
much, much better then hostel
A bunch of realistic drawn different characters will end, like the title tell, as live feed for some perverts having fun to see a live send snuff movie in a special club. No, this is not an entertaining Sunday afternoon movie, of course not. But: You will like the characters from the beginning (even which you don't like) and what you will see is an endless massacre from nearly the beginning to the end. Is this a perverted movie? I don't think so. It is more a movie about perverts (this characters we clearly should not like, and it works) they like to manipulate and destroy people. Beside this intellectual side of view: The acting is very good, the characters (even the worst) believable, the soundtrack amazing and the timing exciting. Not your usual stuff, maybe, but as I told in the summary: much, much better then the over-hyped "Hostel".
Naked Fear (2007)
very good thriller with very good casting
Nearly every review of a movie contains a so called spoiler, because otherwise it will be very hard to write about a movie beside the fact you have seen a movie. But anyway: this movie spoils itself in the very first minutes and show a hunter killing a deer, oops, a naked woman. Exactly this is the message of the movie: hunting humans like animals. Nasty premise. After this we follow a really nice girl on her way to become a prostitute to become at least the victim of the deranged hunter from the beginning. What will sound like a terrible exploitation movie is in fact a very clever handled mixture of drama and thriller, sometimes creepy, sometimes entertaining in the way of a self-parody. To make a personal commentary: the only reason for me as a film critic person since 30 years to write here for no money is the fact I want to push movies I like. End of Spoilers - have an entertaining and haunting evening with this not "important", but (in all departments from acting, writing to directing) very well executed chiller.
Eaten Alive (1976)
Psycho for, with and by psychos
There is a hotel. And there is also an psycho. And there is an alligator. Or is it a crocodile? This is not so clear - at least, because the psychotic hero of the story always mumbles strange lines about his pet. He also mumbles other stuff all the time, like "not good, not bad" and other things. If he don't mumble different stuff, he tries hard to listen to country and western music, but he mostly fails, because there is always a lot of chaos in his hotel. Of course, there are a lot of victims for his toolbox. This is one of the most interesting horror/terror movies I ever watched - and a really hysterical one. In fact it is one of the most hysterical films I ever saw. Neville Brand as the ultra neurotic hotel owner is a real winner, and to be honest, the rest of the cast too. I nearly forgot: this is the second feature by the director of the famous "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" - and believe it or not: it is really one step more funny, frightening and over the top.
Slaughterhouse of the Rising Sun (2005)
Very charming genre bastard
An excellent re-work of Seventies film clichés - or really a Seventies film, how the prologue will suggest? It's pure fun to point out during watching this very charming genre bastard, which contains several elements of 70ies road movies, hippie movies, horror movies, drug movies and a little bit Russ Meyer touch. And also a bit of David Lynch-like atmosphere. Okay: Lynch is not very typical for the 70ies, but anyway. The acting is great (especially the director himself as crippled hippie leader), also the dialogues and the cinematography. And there is also a lot of strange humour and irony in this generally strange, funny and likable independent movie.