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Reviews
The Lost Moment (1947)
uninspired, poorly executed
What is it with this film? If you love cinema, you have to love every movie of the 40s?
The acting? poor, very poor. Neither Cummings, nor Hayward are ANY good. And the great Agnes Moorehead, apart from her voice, what acting is there? You hardly ever see her, and never really see her eyes at all.
The score? rather conventional, uninspired, haunted-house-kind-of-thing.
The story and dialogue? I found the story rather boring and there was never anything that really caught my interest. All very predictable and - again - conventional.
The cinematography/production design? is the best thing about this movie. Pretty nice and atmospheric, well done.
So thanks to Hal Mohr and Alexander Golitzen this movie is not a total waste of time.
Der Ball (1982)
creepy
Like all Ulrich Seidl films it's not exactly easy to watch this one. But I found this early effort extremely uncomfortable to watch. It rather had me longing for the weird and sometimes disgusting characters of his other films, where the people at least were alive. In Der Ball the absence of any form of revolt or individuality among the youngsters and the officials alike made me shiver inside: This ball/prom is very important for us all. I can dance with many girls. I can talk to people. That's about everything what everybody says over and over again for nearly 50 minutes. The few other voices which sometimes appear (about the pressure of the group vs. the individual) drown among this overwhelming mainstream drivel.
Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956)
much overrated
I wonder how many people watch this movie, thinking: what's all the fuss about? and give in to the overwhelming praise it receives. But reading again and again about the "masterpiece" and most realistic movie ever made I have to cry out: realistic? no! I mean I get the point. We're out to make the anti-Hollywood-pow-escape-movie. That's fine with me. And it succeeds in some way sometimes. Only it's kind of hypocritical, isn't it? Doesn't the suspense of the movie come from the viewer expectation: Does he make it and how (though we know from the title, that he does)? And NOT showing the violence of killing the German soldier, in which way is this "great"? You could even argue, Bresson just isn't capable of showing this kind of action. And how exactly would he have done it? Killing a male soldier with his hands without a sound - how exactly does this work. Taking under consideration that our protagonist doesn't strike me as the superior close combat type. And it didn't really convince me, that he could build this rope without anybody noticing. First: how to hide it and second: how come absolutely nobody notices the disappearance of all the material needed to make those ropes. But than again: German soldiers were stupid, inefficient and absolutely not to be taken seriously, as we've learned from so many Hollywood war movies of the 50s-80s. I used to rather like this movie - the Le Trou-thing about it - but when I watched it again last night and there was this shot of Devigny going to kill the soldier with his hands raised as if he was Dracula or the Wolfman out to get his next victim, I finally got lost. If you want to watch something that's treating realism in a way I'd say give some of those a try: Le trou; Police, Adjective; Tôkyô monogatari; Day of Wrath; McCabe and Mrs. Miller; A Woman Under the Influence; The Wind Will Carry Us; Louise-Michel.
Zibahkhana (2007)
uninspired bore
I love low-budget movies and those ground-breaking films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Day of the Woman or Cannibal Holocaust are among the best the genre has to offer.
What about Hell's Ground?
Apart from the DVD-cover which is pretty nice, the film is a tough bore. The plot is a dull rip-off of TCM with some ingredients of Blair Witch Project, and the dialogues are as bad as they can possibly get - the acting is very, very bad, I mean: really bad - the costumes are just ridiculous - the soundtrack is awful - and the special effects and visuals are just boring.
I really tried, but I couldn't find anything to like
La comtesse noire (1973)
Jesus Franco and Joe D'Amato (long live Edward D. Wood, Jr.)
Always looking out for something new, interesting or weird, I came upon watching some movies by Joe D'Amato (11 Days 11 Nights series). These were so very bad, boring and uninventive that at least I could cry out: I've finally found the world's worst director. Not many weeks passed by when I watched Les avaleuses. Wow! First I tried my super-magic-button: play with sound but 1.4 times faster (something I never ever do except for Joe D'Amato). It didn't help. The dialogue was so very thin, I couldn't bear it. So I fast-forwarded half of the rest of the movie, sometimes stopping, listening, fast-forwarding again. I've watched at least 6000 movies by now, and I can not remember ever experiencing something like this, all together: extremely 1. bad actors; 2. senseless, stupid script; 3. awful soundtrack; 4. bad direction and 5. absolutely nothing to say. Not more than 1 year ago I thought the worst movie was O.C. and Stiggs, but after having watched D'Amato and Franco I kind of like the Altman-film a bit. At least there's a drop of fun with Dennis Hopper in it.
So the good news is: Jesus Franco you did it: Les avaleuses is the worst film ever...
Def by Temptation (1990)
Great waste of time
Well, I really tried! But it didn't help. This movie is so bad it hurts. Dull screenplay, amateurish acting and very bad visuals. And though Ernest R. Dickerson might be the only artist/technician on this project, it didn't amount to nothing but the look of a home-video. And then the soundtrack: O boy, this is even worse than the famous Glen-or-Glenda soundtrack! The sound-quality is very low (home video again) and the music is just horrible and without any connection to the plot whatsoever. I really like low-budget movies, as far as there is any vision you can explore or at least: something. There's nothing here, I can assure you.
The Hitcher (2007)
Weak screenplay, stunning photography
The screenplay is rather flawed, with a storyline that's not convincing and rather weird behaviour of the couple Grace and Jim (you don't fall asleep when you've just being attacked, you try to run away as fast as you can, etc.). But the cinematography is impressive, with sometimes rather magical moments - and so is the soundtrack. Sean Bean is very convincing as the maniac killer with an unexplained desire to die. On the DVD you can see 20 minutes of "deletes scenes" which are rather an alternate movie with some more impressive photography and intense moments between Grace and John Ryder. All in all a fine little dirty horror-thriller.
Yellow Sky (1948)
Great film with stunning photography
Wellman's Yellow Sky might be one of the finest westerns of the 40s, with stunning photography, convincing dialogue and a thrilling soundtrack: there's hardly any music, instead the sounds of nature are recorded as if it was an orchestra. The only reason this is not one of the great masterpieces of world cinema (but "only" a very good film), is - in my opinion - the casting of Gregory Peck. He's not acting bad, but he's just not convincing as the bad guy turning good (as Humphrey Bogart e.g. very convincingly represented the bad guy with a golden heart). Peck just lacks the nastiness, the menace to make him believable as the leader of outlaws.